Leo spring

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In ancient historical research, a late antique or early Byzantine historical work that has not been preserved is called the Leo spring .

The Leo spring was verified by the Byzantinist Edwin Patzig at the end of the 19th century. In the so-called Epitome of the Middle Byzantine historian Johannes Zonaras , several passages could be identified that could not be assigned to any other traditional source. Patzig proved that Zonaras relied on several sources, including the so-called Anonymus post Dionem , for the period after 229, when the historical work of Cassius Dio ended . Patzig called a source string because of its similarities with the work of Leon Grammatikos (early 11th century) as the Leo source and identified John of Antioch (6th or 7th century) as the author , whose work has only survived in fragments.

Patzig's thesis was taken up again in the following period; in the opinion of Michael DiMaios, John of Antioch conveyed Zonara's material from the work of Ammianus Marcellinus in Greek translation. However, the theses of Patzig and DiMaios have been challenged in recent years. Several fragments ascribed to John of Antioch have come down to us in the so-called Excerpta Salmasiana , whose attribution to John has been questioned. But since the correspondence between John and the Leo source almost exclusively goes back to these fragments, an author other than John had to be the author of the Leo source.

Bruno Bleckmann took up Patzig's argument and modified it. Bleckmann does not deny the existence of the Leo spring, but assigned it to a different author. In his opinion it can be deduced on the basis of several indications that the material of the Leo source came from the (only fragmentarily preserved) histories of Petros Patrikios , on which the Anonymous post Dionem is also dependent (it is possible that Petros and Anonymous are also identical to one another); In recent research, this interpretation has largely prevailed. Leon Grammatikos or his template (because Leon only processed existing material, see Logothetenchronik ) the material of the Leo source was accessible via an epitome from the 7th century. Petros, in turn, used a source for the 4th century that has similarities with the work of Ammianus Marcellinus, but cannot be identical with him (see also " Lies of Metrodoros "). This work, in turn, was probably written by a pagan (according to Bleckmann, Latin-speaking) author who probably took a pro-senatorial standpoint. In fact, there is much to suggest that such a basic source, from which Ammianus and other authors (including the author of the Epitome de Caesaribus ) drew, existed.

Bleckmann identified the Roman politician and historian Virius Nicomachus Flavianus as the author of this basic source , who wrote a lost historical work with the title Annales . Since only the name of the work is known, this assignment is controversial in research. Bleckmann has recently also been of the opinion that, since Leon Grammatikos is now partly regarded as a fictional author, it is better to speak of the Symeon source (after the partly suspected author of the Logothetenchronik ).

literature

  • Bruno Bleckmann : The Imperial Crisis of III. Century in late antique and Byzantine historiography. Investigations on the post-Dionic sources of the Chronicle of Johannes Zonaras (= sources and research on the ancient world 11). tuduv-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-88073-441-0 (also: Cologne, Univ., Diss., 1991).
  • Bruno Bleckmann: Comments on the Annales of Nicomachus Flavianus. In: Historia 44, 1995, pp. 83-99.
  • Edwin Patzig: About some sources of the Zonara. In: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 5, 1896, pp. 24–53.
  • Edwin Patzig: About some sources of Zonaras II. In: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 6, 1897, pp. 322–356.

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Patzig (1896) and Patzig (1897).
  2. ↑ See Michael DiMaio: The Antiochene Connection: Zonaras, Ammianus Marcellinus, and John of Antioch on the Reigns of the Emperors Constantius II and Julian. In: Byzantion . 50, 1980, ISSN  0378-2506 , pp. 158-185.
  3. ↑ However, Umberto Roberto questioned this again in his new edition of the Fragments of John, but see the discussion (PDF; 94 kB) by Bruno Bleckmann in the Göttingen Forum for Classical Studies . For a summary of this aspect, see: Thomas M. Banchich, Eugene N. Lane (translator): The History of Zonaras. From Alexander Severus to the Death of Theodosius the Great. Routledge, London et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-415-29909-1 , pp. 8f.
  4. ↑ See Bleckmann (1992), passim; Bleckmann (1995).
  5. ↑ Cf. briefly summarizing the overview in Udo Hartmann : Das Palmyrenische Teilreich (= Oriens et occidens 2). Steiner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-515-07800-2 , p. 36ff.
  6. ^ For a summary, see Bleckmann (1995), p. 94ff.
  7. ↑ Timothy D. Barnes and several other Anglo-American researchers spoke out against Bleckmann's approach, and he received encouragement from, among others, François Paschoud , an expert on late antique historiography. Bleckmann himself, however, has limited the fact that the name can only be understood as a label for this source (which most likely existed), see Bruno Bleckmann: The Battle of Mursa and the Contemporary Interpretation of a Civil War in Late Antiquity. In: Hartwin Brandt (ed.): Interpretation of reality. Crises, realities, interpretations (3rd - 6th century AD) (= Historia . Individual writings 134). Steiner, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-515-07519-4 , pp. 47-102, here p. 91, note 174.
  8. ↑ Cf. Bruno Bleckmann: Fragments of pagan historiography on the work of Julians . In: Andreas Goltz, Hartmut Leppin (Hrsg.): Beyond the borders. Contributions to late antique and early medieval historiography . Berlin 2009, pp. 61–77, here p. 73, note 54.