The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

INTRODUCTION xv
property with good connections in the o⁄cial hierarchy as well as the
spiritual elite. When Evagrius remarried in 588, there were public celebrations
in Antioch which were disrupted by the earthquake of 29
October (vi.8). He was privileged to see the head of Symeon Stylites the
Elder at close quarters when it was being sent to the eastern armies to
lend supernatural help (i.13). He was in a position to know the great and
the good: he talked to the emperor Maurice’s parents about the portents
which had presaged the birth of the future emperor (v.21), and he was
su⁄ciently friendly with Maurice’s brother-in-law, Philippicus, to be
concerned to protect his reputation from possible denigration (vi.3). He
was granted the honorary rank of quaestor by Tiberius, and of prefect
by Maurice, both in return for literary works (vi.24): he produced a
collection of ‘reports, letters, decrees, speeches, discussions and other
similar matters’, of which most had been issued in the name of Patriarch
Gregory, and a work which celebrated the birth of Maurice’s eldest son,
Theodosius, in 584. These compositions would have been of considerable
interest, at least for the purpose of identifying material that Evagrius
recycled, 8 but they have not survived. As a result, Evagrius’ reputation
rests solely on his major work, the Ecclesiastical History, which records
the history of the Church from the First Council of Ephesus in 431
down to Evagrius’ own lifetime, the reign of Maurice.
EVAGRIUS’ WORLD
The focus of Evagrius’ world in the History is the city of Antioch, and
above all the ¢gure of its patriarch. Thus he reproduces from his
major local source, the Antiochene chronicler John Malalas (John the
rhetor), various reports of constructions at Antioch, and natural disasters
which a¡ected the city, but this is not straight transcription.
With regard to the Psephium reconstructed by Memnon and the
basilica built by Zoilus, both under Theodosius II, he remarks that
there have been ‘changes in the buildings due to diverse disasters’
(i.18). The size of the southern extension to the city by Theodosius II
could be assessed, since the remnants of the former wall could still be
8 For example, much of the description of portents and other panegyrical material about
Maurice would have ¢tted well into the panegyric on Theodosius’ birth; Cassius Dio was
another historian who attracted the notice of the reigning emperor, Septimius Severus,
with a work on portents (Dio 73.23.1^2), which he then reused in his main History.