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Agathias and Cedrenus on Julian1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
In a recent article, Sir Maurice Bowra accepted the view of E. A. Thompson that the Emperor Julian did receive a Delphic oracle before setting off for the East—the lines quoted by Theodoret (HE III, 21, p. 200, Parmentier, and again in the Graec. Affect. Curatio, PG 83, 1069), and repeated by the eleventh-century Byzantine chronicler Cedrenus (1, p. 538, Bonn). When Cedrenus introduces the oracle he cites Agathias, the sixth-century historian: Ίουλιαòς δὲ μαντείαις καὶ θυσίαις καὶ ἐπῳδαῖς δαιμόνων καὶ ἀπάταις φραξάμενος, ὡς φησὶν Άγαθίας, κατὰ Περσῶν ἐστράτευσεν, ὅτε καὶ χρησμὸν ἔλαβεν ἔχοντα οὕτως…. Bowra therefore assumed that Cedrenus took his oracle from Agathias, ‘who may well have got his information from Theodoret’ (o.c., p. 428). And he also speaks of ‘the occasion mentioned, in different ways’ by Theodoret, Agathias, and Cedrenus, as though the fact of Cedrenus's having the oracle added something to the value of the story.
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- Copyright © Averil M. Cameron 1963. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Footnotes
1
I am grateful to Mr. R. Browning and Professor A. D. Momigliano for reading through a draft of this article.
References
2 Εἴπατε τῷ βασιλῆι, Hermes 87 (1959), 426–35.
3 CQ XL (1946), 35–6.
4 cf., however, Parke, and Wormell, , The Delphic Oracle2 (1956), II, 233.Google Scholar
5 cf. Suolahti, J., ‘On the Persian sources used by the Byzantine historian Agathias’, Studia Orientalia 13 (1947)Google Scholar, for a preliminary discussion.
6 cf. Büttner-Wobst, Th., Philologus LI (1892), 561 f.Google Scholar; also Baynes, N., JRS XXVII (1937), 22 f.Google Scholar = Byzantine Studies (1955), 271 f., with further references.
7 ZDMG XXVIII (1874), 263 f.
8 Exemplified, e.g. by Theodoret, who calls Julian ἀλάστωρ III, 19, 3; θεομισής III, 8, I; cf. III, 15, I; III, 16, 6. For further instances cf. Socrates, HE III, 21Google Scholar, Greg. Naz. Or. V, 155; IV, 139. Geo. Mon. p. 544 f., de Boor, is a good example of a collocation of such epithets. Julian's standard appellation in later chronicles is ὁ παραβατής (e.g. in Cedr. p. 536, 23; ps. Leo Grammaticus, p. 92 Bonn); ps. Mos. Chor. II, 70, even transcribes this into Armenian: Julian became a symbol of Anti-Christ; the versions of his reign and death to which the accounts of Theodoret and Cedrenus belong are clearly within this tradition.
9 Religious arguments are for example decisive for Agathias when the question is of deciding alliances—III, II, p. 165, 18; IV, 2, p. 208, 17; IV, 2, p. 210, 20; in battle God decides the issue—II, 22, p. 188, 10; III, 19, p. 182, 5; III, 9, p. 158, 4; II, 10, p. 84, 20. Agathias is preoccupied with the problem of divine justice—v, 5, p. 286; IV, 22, p. 255, 5. He speaks of orthodoxy as though accepting it himself—1, 2, p. 17, 8; v, 6, p. 289, 6.
10 cf., e.g. Proc. BP I, 18, 15; I, 25, 31; II, II, 14; BV II, 14, 7; II, 26, 17; that this is purely stylistic is shown by BV I, 20, 25, and especially BP I, 25, 10. In Agathias, cf. III, 24, p. 194, 6; III, 5, p. 146, 23. It is hoped to discuss in a future article the care needed in drawing conclusions about the religious beliefs of the writer from such affectations of style, with special reference to the works of Procopius and Ammianus Marcellinus.
11 cf. Momigliano, A. D., in The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, ed. Momigliano, A. D. (1963), 79–99Google Scholar, for a lucid exposition of the distinction between the new and specifically Christian forms of history and the classical tradition represented in the sixth century by Procopius (and Agathias), which remained untouched by the new developments.
12 cf. IV, 30, p. 273. Agathias does not say specifically that Sergius was Syrian, but we may guess that he was from the signs of Syrian bias (see below) and from the fact of Agathias's having preserved a correct Seleucid date for the beginning of the Sassanid Empire (IV, 24, p. 259, 3). Nöldecke, (Gesch. der Pers. und Arab., 1879, 400)Google Scholar simply described Agathias's Sassanid king list as ‘nach einem syrischen Gewährsmann’ without further comment.
13 Probably the hostile account of Sapor I (IV, 24, p. 259), and the account of Peroz (IV, 27, p. 266, with which compare ps. Josh. Styl., p. 8, Wright); certainly on Valash (cf. Nöldecke, Gesch., etc., 134, n. 2; ibid., n. 5; Christensen, A., L'Iran sous les Sassanides 2 1944, 296, n. 4).Google Scholar
14 IV, 30, pp. 273–4; II, 27, p. 125.
15 Trans. Nöldecke, Gesch. der Pers. und Arab., 59 f. Our knowledge of the contents of the Persian Royal Annals and of the Khvadhaynamagh (Persian Shahnameh = ‘Book of Kings’) for which they were a source has to be founded on Arabic and Persian chroniclers of the ninth century onwards.
16 o.c. (n. 7), 291 f.
17 The story of Julian does not appear in Firdausi, Eutychius or Quotaiba, who represent the pure Persian tradition, but only in the Arab writers, cf. Nöldecke, Gesch., etc., 50. n. 4.
18 Most collected by Büttner-Wobst, o.c. (n. 6).
19 See Bidez, , Philostorgius (GCS, XXI, Leipzig, 1913), CLI f.Google Scholar on the connection of Theophanes AM 5856, Jerome a. Abr. 2380, and the so-called Liber Calipharum (CSCO, Script. Syr. ser. III, t. IV, 104), from which can be restored the fragments of an Arian history written in the fourth century and used by Philostorgius. This accounts for the Artemii Passio 70 (Bidez. ibid., 104), and for Zonaras XIII, 14 (cf. Bidez, ibid., CII f. rebutting the theory of Patzig, E., Byz. Zeit. VI (1897), 322 f.Google Scholar that the common source of Zonaras and Cedrenus used Philostorgius, but showing the connection between that source and Philostorgius). The relevant section of the Liber Calipharum goes up to the seventh century: it is hardly impossible, however, that its Greek source had passed into Syria a century earlier. I am not arguing that Agathias is in any way to be connected with this nexus of writers; the Liber Calipharum indeed mixes Christian bias in favour of the orthodox emperor Jovian with its account of the peace to such an extent that it is forced to white wash the unpopular affair so far as was possible. But we can see from this chain of chronicles as well as from the other clues that an emphasis on Nisibis with a high proportion of bias was just what one would expect in sixth-century Syria.
20 cf., e.g. Carmina Nisibena of St. Ephraem (ed. Bickell, 1866), a contemporary of Julian and Jovian present in Nisibis at the time of Sapor's sieges (though the hymns stop before the ceding of the town); add also the songs of the Antiochenes ap. Suidas s.v. Ἰοβιανός.
21 On the attribution of Suidas's notice to Eunapius cf. Boor, de, Hermes 20 (1885), 330Google Scholar; E. Patzig would attribute it to the ‘Salmasian John of Antioch’ (Progr. Leipzig, 1892, Johannes Antiochenus und Johannes Malalas); Byz. Zeit. II (1893), 593; ibid., VI (1897), 327), and supposes that John of Antioch used Ammianus (Byz. Zeit. VI, 328; ibid., VII (1898), 585; ibid., XIII (1904), 13), most recently followed by Maenchen-Helfen, O. J., AJPh. 76 (1955), 386Google Scholar, n. 16. But the ultimate source of much of this may be Eunapius—cf. Chalmers, W. R., CQ 1960, 152 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In any case it is clear to what family Suidas's notice belongs.
22 J. Suolahti, o.c. (n. 5), 11 f. presses the words 
(p. 263, 14) to mean that Agathias derived what he says of Julian and Jovian from ‘Roman sources’. In view of the extreme selectivity of the notice, and the comparative rarity among the many accounts of Julian and Jovian of bias against the peace, I am disinclined to regard Agathias's words as anything more than a sign that he was aware of the multitude of versions of the Julian story, certainly no indication that he followed one of them.
23 On Cedrenus's use of this chronicle cf. Praechter, K., Sitz. der bayer. Akad. d. Wiss., Philos.- philol.-hist. Classe, 1897, Bd. II, H. 1, 1–107.Google Scholar
24 For which cf. Patzig, , Byz. Zeit. VI, 322 f.Google Scholar, Praechter, o.c. (n. 23).
25 Bibliography in Moravcsik, G., Byzantinoturcica I 2 (1958), 501Google Scholar, s.v. Ps. Symeon.
26 For fundamental discussions of this thorny problem see Patzig, E., Byz. Zeit. III (1894), 470 f.Google Scholar; also Serruys, D., Byz. Zeit. XVI (1907), 1 f.Google Scholar cf. Moravcsik, o.c. (n. 25), 515 f., s.v. Symeon. The lost Epitome is represented primarily by Symeon Magister, ps. Leo Grammaticus and Theodosius Melitenus. For the use of it by Cod. Par. gr. 1712 cf. Praechter, o.c. (n. 23).
27 This chronicle cannot be regarded as the same as that preserved in Cod. Par. gr. 1711 under the name of Leo Grammaticus and is therefore to be distinguished as ps. Leo.
28 To the Theophanes version belongs also George Monachus genuinus p. 544, 90, de Boor, and Muralt's George Monachus; for though the MS used by Muralt (Cod. Mosquensis olim ecu et hodie 406) is interpolated from the Epitome, p. 448 (the oracle) represents George genuinus.
29 De Boor at Theophanes, p. 52, 19 f., cites the Excerpta Barocciana, i.e. the unedited fragments of Theodore Lector's Historia Tripartita, surviving in Cod. Baroc. 142.
30 He lacks the words ἐπῳδαῖς … καί also. cf. Praechter, o.c. (n. 23), 56. So also Theodosius Melitenus, ed. Tafel (1859), 68, 4–7, ps. Polydeuces (Pollux), ed. Hardt (1792), 382.
31 For ἀπάτη and its cognates in the context of Christian polemic cf. Theodoret III, 7, I; IV, 24, 3; and esp. v, 22, I. Cedrenus, p. 539, 2, makes Julian call the pagan gods ἀπατεῶνας (cf. Philostorg. VII, 15; Artemii Passio 69), and compare Zonar. XIII, 13, 10, οἱ μὲν οὖν οὕτως ἀπατηθῆναι φασι τὸν Ἰουλιανόν. Magnus of Carrhae, ap. Malalas, p. 328 f., uses ἀπατηθείς twice of Julian within the space of a few lines, though in rather a different sense. For φραξάμενος in a metaphorical sense cf. Clem. Alex., Strom, III, p. 47, 15, Stählin, and 11, p. 483, 27. In Theodoret, IV, 12, 2; v, 5, 2; v, 21, 13.