Maximus of Saragossa

Maximus of Saragossa was Bishop of Saragossa from approx. 592 to 619/20 (the year of death cannot be determined exactly) and the author of a now-lost historical work about the Goths in Hispania . He is one of the last Latin historians of late antiquity .

Maximus was not without influence as a bishop. He held the 2nd Council of Saragossa in 592 and took part in the Synods of Barcelona (599), Toledo (610) and Egara (614). He also worked as a cultural promoter.

Maximus is mentioned in a prominent place in the work De viris illustribus by Isidore of Seville . Accordingly, the bishop wrote many works in verse and prose, including a short story ( historiola ) about the Goths in Hispania. According to this passage, Maximus was no longer interested in the prehistory of the Goths, but above all in the time of the Hispanic Visigoth Empire .

In research it has often been considered that the concise Chronicle of Saragossa ( Consularia caesaraugustana , preserved only in a copy from the 16th century) was written by Maximus, but Isidore's summary speaks against it. Other attempts to identify traces of the historiola in contemporary works are at least speculative, such as the assumption that Isidore's Gotengeschichte ( Historia Gothorum ) is a shortened edition of the historiola .

Editions / translations

Entry in Clavis Historicorum Antiquitatis Posterioris (CHAP) .

Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen ( eds / translators) : The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300-620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2020, p. 246 f.

literature

Richard W. Burgess, Michael Kulikowski: Mosaics of Time. The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD. Volume 1. Brepols, Turnhout 2013, ISBN 978-2-503-53140-3 , p. 196 f.

Remarks

^ Isidor, De viris illustribus 33 (in the edition by Carmen Codoñer Merino: El "De viris illustribus" de Isidoro de Sevilla. Estudio y edición crítica. Salamanca 1964).
↑ Which can also mean a chronicle, see Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen (Hrsg./Übers.): The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300–620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge 2020, p. 246.
↑ See Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen (Hrsg./Übers.): The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300–620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge 2020, p. 247.
↑ Richard W. Burgess, Michael Kulikowski, among others, advocate this: Mosaics of Time. The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD. Volume 1. Turnhout 2013, p. 197.

personal data
SURNAME	Maximus of Saragossa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Bishop of Saragossa
DATE OF BIRTH	6th century
DATE OF DEATH	619 or 620

[1] Isidor, De viris illustribus 33 (in the edition by Carmen Codoñer Merino: El "De viris illustribus" de Isidoro de Sevilla. Estudio y edición crítica. Salamanca 1964).

[2] Which can also mean a chronicle, see Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen (Hrsg./Übers.): The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300–620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge 2020, p. 246.

[3] See Lieve Van Hoof, Peter Van Nuffelen (Hrsg./Übers.): The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300–620). Edition, Translation and Commentary. Cambridge 2020, p. 247.

[4] Richard W. Burgess, Michael Kulikowski, among others, advocate this: Mosaics of Time. The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD. Volume 1. Turnhout 2013, p. 197.