Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/519

 APPENDIX 497 most part known (cp. above, vol. ii. Appendix 1, p. 539) ; but from this point forwaxd its character changes, the author writes from personal knowledge, and the chronicle assumes, for the reigns of Phocas and Heraclius, the dignitj' of an important contemporary source, even containing some original documents (see above, p. 90, n. 127 ; 92, n. 129 ; 93, n. 132). From the prominence of the Patriarch Sergius, it has been conjectured that the author belonged, like George of Pisidia (see below), to the Patriarch's circle. The chronology is based on the era which assigned the creation of the world to March 21, 5507, and is the first case we have of the use of this so-called Roman or Byzantine era. [Best edition by Dindorf in the Bonn series. For an analysis of the chronology, see H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus, ii. 1, 138 sqq.] The poems of George Pisides (a native of Pisidia) are another valuable con- temporary source for the Persian wars of Heraclius, to whom he was a sort of poet laureate. It is indeed sometimes difficult to extract the historical fact from his poetical circumlocutions. The three works which concern a historian are written in smooth and correct Iambic trimeters, which, though they ignore the canon of the Cretic ending rediscovered by Porson, are subject to a new law, that the last word of the verse shall be barytone. They thus represent a transition to the later " political" verses, which are governed only by laws of accent. (1^ On the (first) expedition of Heraclius against the Persians, in three cantos (Akroaseis). (2) On the attack of the Avars on Constantinople and its miraculous deliverance (a.d. 626). (3) The Hcracliad, in two cantos, on the final victory of Heraclius, composed on the news of the death of Ohosroes (a.d. 628). These works were utilised by Theophanes. George is the author of many other poems, epigrams, &c. [See Migne, Patr. Gr., xcii. , after Querci's older edition ; L. Sternbach, in Wiener Studien, 13 (1891), 1 sqq. and 14 (1892), 51 sqq. The three historical poems are printed in the Bonn series by Bekker, 1836.] For the account of the siege of Constantinople in a.d. 626 (probably by Theo- dore, private secretary of the Patriarch 8) see above, p. 87, n. 116. It is entitled ■nepl Twv a6eotiv 'APdpojy re Kal Tlfpffcov Kara rffs 6eo(pvaKTOv Tr6ews fxaviw^ovs Kivij- (Tiois Koi rrj (piXavQpanTia rod 6eov 5ia ttjs 6eor6KOv /mtr' alffxw-qs a.-KOXooprio'eoiS. The events of each day of the siege, from Tuesday, July 29, to Thursday, August 7, are related with considerable detail, wrapped up in rhetorical verbiage and con- trasting with the straightforward narrative of the Chronicon Paschale, with which it is in general agreement. The account, however, of the catastrophe of the Slavs and their boats in the Golden Horn differs from that of the Chronicon Paschale.^ In connexion with this siege, it should be added that the famous aKaQiaros vixvos — which might be rendered " Standing Hj'mn " ; the singers were to stand while they sang it — is supposed by tradition to have been composed by the Patriarch Sergius in commemoration of the miraculous deliverance of the city. It would be remarkable if Sergius, who fell into disrepute through his Monothelete doctrines, really composed a hymn which won, and has enjoyed to the present day, un- paralleled ])opularity among the orthodox. A recent Greek writer (J. Butyras) has pointed out that expressions in the hymn coincide remarkably with the decisions of the Synod of a.d. 680 against Monotheletism, and concludes that the hymn celebrates the Saracen siege of Constantinople under Constantine IV. — a siege with which some traditions connect it. (Compare K. Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litt., p. 672.) The hymn was, without due grounds, ascribed to Geoi-ge of Pisidia by Querci. The text will be found in Migne, Patrol. Gr. 92, p. 1335 sqq. ; in the Anthol. Graeca of Christ and Paranikas, p. 140 sqq., and elsewhere. 6 The same Theodore is the author of a relation of the discovery of a coffer containing the Virgin's miraculous robe in her Church at Blachernae, during the Avar siege of a.d. 619. The text is printed by Loparev (who wrongly refers it to the Russian siege of a.d. 860; he is corrected by Vasilievski, Viz. Vrem. iii., p. 83 sqq.) in Viz. Vrem. ii., p. 592 sqq- " The metaphor of Scylla and Charybdis, in c. 9, recalls lines of the Bellum Avaricum of George of Pisidia (11. 204 sqq.), as Mai noticed ; but it may be a pure coincidence. VOL. V. 32