Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/531

 APPENDIX 509 The chronicle which served as common source to both Zonaras and the Synop- sis was also used by a contemporary of Zonaras, Constantine Manarses, who treated the history of the world from its creation to the death of Nicephorus III. (1081) in " political " verses. (Other sources : Dionysius of Halicarnassus, John Lydus, John of Antioch, Pseudo-Symeon.) This versified chronicle was very popular, it was translated into Slavonic, and was one of the chief sources of a chronicle written in colloquial Greek (see K. Prachter, Byz. Zeitsch. 4, p. 272 sqq., 1895). Published in the Bonn series along with the worthless chronicle of Joel (thirteenth century ; sources : George the Monk, the Logothete's Continua- tion, Scylitzes). See Hirsch, op. cit. Another chronographer contemporary with Zonaras was Michael Glykas. Of his life little is kno%vn except that he was a " secretary," and that for some reason he was imprisoned and " blinded," though not with fatal consequences to his eyesight. His chronicle (from the creation), of which Part iv. reaches from Constantine the Great to the death of Alexius I. (1118), differs considerably in general conception from other chronicles, and is marked, as Krumbacher has well pointed out, by three original features : digressions on (1) natural history and (2) theology, whereby the thread of the chronicle is often lost, and (3) the didac- tic form of the work, which is addressed to his son. The sources of the latter part are Zonaras, Scylitzes, Psellus, Manasses, Vitalgnatii. (Cp. Hirsch, op. cit.) On his life, chronicle and other works, see Krumbacher's monograph, Michael Glykas, 1895. [Edition, Bonn, 1836.] Latij; Sources. The paucity of other sources renders the Libeb Pontificalis of considerable importance for the imperial history of the seventh and eighth centuries in Italy. M. Duchesne, in the Introduction to his great edition of the work, has shown with admirable acuteness and learning how it grew into its present form. The primi- tive Liber Pontificalis was compiled at Rome under the pontificates of Hormisdas, John I., Felix IV., and Boniface II., after a.d. 514, and came down to the death of Felix IV. in a.d. 530. "For the period between 496 and 530 the author may be regarded as a personal witness of the things he narrates." The work was continued a few years later by a writer who witnessed the siege of Rome in A.D. .537-8, and who was hostile to Silverius. He recorded the Lives of Boniface II., .John II. and Agapetus, and wrote the first part of the Life of Silverius (a.d. .536-7). The latter part of this Life is written in quite a different spirit by one who sympathized with Silverius ; and it was perhaps this second continuator who brought out a second edition of the whole work (Duchesne, p. ccxxxi.). The Lives of Vigilius and his three successors were probably added in the time of Pelagius II. (a.d. .579-901. As for the next seven Popes, M. Duchesne thinks that, if their biographies were not added one by one, they were composed in two groiips : (1) Pelagius II. and Gregory I. ; (2) the five successors of Gregory. From Honorius (a.d. 625-38) forward the Lives have been added one by one, and sometimes more than one are by the same hand. Very rarely are historical documents laid under contribution ; the speech of Pope Martin before the Lateran Council in a.d. 649 forms an exception, being used in the Lives of Theo- dore and Martin. In the eighth century the important Lives of Gregory II., Gregory III., Zacharias, &c., were written successively during their lives. The biographer of Gregory II. seems to have consulted a lost (Constantinopolitan) chronicle which was also used by Theophanes and Nicephorus. (Cp. Duchesne, Lib. Pont. i. p. 411.) The Biography of Hadrian falls into two parts ; the first, written in 774, contains the history of his first two years ; the second, covering the remaining twenty-two years of his pontificate, is of a totally different nature, being made up of entries derived from vestry-registers, &c. M. Duchesne has shown that most of these biographers to whose successive co-operation the Liber Pontificalis is due belonged to the Vestiarium of the Lateran ; and when they