Abstract

Among the many codices carried by Cassiodorus when he returned to Italy from Constantinople in the early 550s was a copy of the chronicle of Marcellinus, an Illyrian who had lived for many years in Constantinople before writing his chronicle in A.D. 518/519. The chronicle covered events from 379 to the death of Anastasius and was later continued by Marcellinus to 534.1 That the chronicle is preserved at all is due partly to the fact that Cassiodorus recommended it in his reading guide for monks, the Institutiones, where it is included under the heading ‘Christian Historians’. If you want to know which chroniclers to read, says Cassiodorus, then begin with Jerome's translation of Eusebius and his own continuation of Eusebius to 378. Of all the continuators of Jerome Cassiodorus recommends Marcellinus and Prosper, but in mentioning Marcellinus he digresses slightly to include some valuable and unique information which he had picked up while in Constantinople on Marcellinus' public career.