Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai

A full text and English translation has been published as: Constantinople in the early eighth century: the Parastaseis syntomai chronikai, ed. & tr. Averil Cameron & Judith Herrin (Leiden, 1984).
 

The title of this work may be translated as brief historical notes, or expositions on Constantinople. It was written in the early eighth century, although the text is preserved in only one 11th-century manuscript (Cod. Par. gr. 1336). (For that reason, the title may not be original.) Whatever we call the parastaseis syntomoi chronikai, it belongs to a corpus of works devoted to the monuments of Constantinople, the most notorious of which is the rich and varied text known as Patria Konstaninopoleos. This latter work survives in numerous versions, containing innumerable later accretions and interpolations, such that "the normal conception of a unitary work or discrete 'text' can only be appied within limits. We should think rather of a growing body of material in which much overlap and variation is possible, and in which fidelity to the original text is far from being the prime concern." The parastaseis syntomoi chronikai, in contrast, demonstrates no accretions (besides, perhaps, its title), and as such "it is a rare source of knowledge of the late antique and early medieval city ... [which] offers intriguing insights into the cultural world of an age from which very little other literary evidence has survived." (Quotations from Cameron & Herrin, p. 1)
 

A brief excerpt, modified slightly from Cameron's and Herrin's translation.

1. Note that [the church of] Saint Mokioss was originally built by Constantine the Great (324-37), when a large number of pagans lived in that area. And there was a temple of Zeus there, on the site of which <and with whose stones> he built the church. It collapsed in the reign of Constantius (337-61), in his third consulship (342). In the days of Theodosius the Great (379-95) the Arians were expelled from the holy churches and coming to the church of Saint Mokios they desired it and asked the emperor for permission to dwell there, which indeed came to pass. So the Arians immediately rebuilt this same church and the church was used by them for divine services for seven years. It collapsed, so we are told, in the seventh year as they were celebrating the liturgy; and in it many Arians were killed. But in the days of the Emperor Justinian (527 65) the same church was rebuilt and stands in our own day. Markellos the Lector falsely states that the church collapsed in the second year of Conon the Isaurian (i.e. Leo III, 717-41, hence the year 718).

  2. Saint Agathonikos was built in the first place by Anastasius (491-518) and a second time by Justinian the Great (527-65). Seven patriarchs held office in this same church over fifty years, and emperors wear crowns there. For what reason it was altered ... is not known. Our predecessors handed this down to us, however: that there was also a large palace near this church, and that being in a ruined state it was converted by Tiberius (II, 578-82) into the
present palace.

  3. The sea walls were repaired under Tiberius Apsimar (698 705); before him they had been completely neglected. The western walls, those of the great gates, were restored under Leo the Great and Pious (Leo III), on that occasion they also held a religious procession and chanted the 'Kyrie eleison' forty times, and the demos of the Greens shouted 'Leo has surpassed Constantine'.

May 2002

Revised November 2006

Google Book link added January 2009