Journal of Early Christian Studies

The historians and chroniclers of late antiquity have never been my interest or even, I must confess, in the sphere of my acquaintance. I felt in consequence a certain dismay on receiving a book that, as its author remarks (ix), was the "by-product" of his research on the sixth-century chronicle of Count Marcellinus (who? I thought), and wondered what on earth I might find to say about it that would be of interest and not (perhaps the more serious consideration) at the same time show me up a fool. While the latter may still prove to be true, there is no doubt that here is ample food for reflection and, even, interest to those of us not versed in the intricacies fifth- and sixth-century chronology and historiography.

Croke divides his nineteen reprinted articles into four categories: chronicles (numbers I-IV); the chroniclers Marcellinus, Jordanes, and Cassiodorus (V-VI); historiographical problems (VII-XI); and Balkan encounters (XII-XIX). Two pages of addenda and an eight-page index follow. The articles are reprinted from a number of periodicals and collections, those of most interest to readers of this [End Page 229] journal being probably Byzantion; Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies; Journal of Roman Studies; and Journal of Theological Studies. In the "Preface" to this volume (ix-xi) Croke pays tribute to his scholarly ancestry, singling out in particular his debt to Th. Mommsen's edition of late Roman chronicles, together with his attention to detail and Constantinopolitan perspective, and to A. Momigliano for the latter's lucidity and respect for the intellectual culture of his subjects.

That the ancients did have brains, and that they are to be respected for them by the modern student of antiquity, are messages that come through loud and refreshingly clear in these essays. Whether he is dealing with the invention and nature of the world chronicle as a genre (I and III), or the "Manufacture of a Turning Point: 476 A.D." by Constantinopolitan recorders (V), exploring the strange stories of a child emperor turned bishop ("Basiliscus the Boy Emperor," X) or a Gothic highwayman turned successful general in Justinian's empire ("Mundo the Gepid," XVIII), picking through the liturgical commemorations of earthquakes in Constantinople (VIII and IX), or plumbing—literally—the waterworks of a ruined Roman fortress city on the Persian frontier (XI, "Procopius and Dara"), Croke's regard for his sources and attention to detail reward the reader with unexpected discoveries. A single line in Marcellinus reveals a devasting Hun incursion into Thrace in 421/422 (XII). A retired official of Gothic origins, whom earlier moderns had held in contempt as a barbarian of "very little brain" for his (admittedly) grubby Latin, emerges as writer of intelligence, clearly held convictions, and generally trustworthy as an historical source ("Cassiodorus and the Getica of Jordanes," VI). Discussion over "The Context and Date of Priscus Fragment 8" (XIV) leads to the surprising (for this reader at least) picture, late in the reign of Theodosius II, of "an exhausted and bankrupt Roman state," bloodied by Attila's invasions of 447 and at wit's end in the face of his continuing demands.

The last brings me to the first of the two most valuable insights I received from this book. Like many I think, I had been used to seeing the Völkerwanderungen of the fourth and following centuries as primarily a catastrophe afflicting the Roman West, but leaving Constantinople and the East relatively unscathed. The reality as Croke and his sources present it was quite different, indeed. Pressure on "New Rome" appears instead to have been unremitting, leading not only to the enlargement of the famous walls under Theodosius II but, toward the fifth century's end, the attempt to seal off the Thracian approaches to the capital ("The Date of the 'Anastasian Long Wall,'" XVII). Goths, Huns, and even Slavs (see "Justinian's Bulgar Celebration," XIX) appear in one wave after another to roll up and over the northern...