The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

208
EVAGRIUS
agitation of the earth; likewise also Corinth, which is situated in Greece,
and then also Anazarbus, which is capital of the second province of the
Cilicians, ^ its fourth a¥iction. Justin restored these cities at great
expense. About the same time also Edessa, a very great and prosperous
city of Osrhoene, was inundated by the waters of the torrent Skirtos
which £ows by it, so that most of its buildings were swept away and a
countless multitude perished, whom the water took and carried o¡.
Edessa and Anazarbus were accordingly renamed by the same Justin,
and each of them was adorned with his own appellation. 25
9 When this Justin had led the empire for eight years and nine months
and a few days, his nephew Justinian became co-emperor after being
proclaimed on the ¢rst of the month Xanthicus, or rather April, in the
575th year of the Era of Antioch. 26 And after these matters had
proceeded in this way, Justin departed the present empire on reaching
the perfect day on the ¢rst day of Lous, which is also the month August,
after being co-emperor [160] with Justinian for four months, and having
in total exercised the monarchical rule for nine years in addition to a
few days.
When Justinian alone girded on the whole rule of the Roman
dominion, although the Synod at Chalcedon was already being
proclaimed throughout the most holy churches on the orders of Justin,
as I have described, ecclesiastical dispositions were still in disarray in
some prefectures, and especially in the emperor’s city and that of Alexander:
Anthimus was presiding over the bishopric of the queen of cities,
while Theodosius was leading the church of the Alexandrians. For both
these held the opinion of the one and only nature. 27
25 The information in this chapter, all of which originated in the same passage of
Malalas (417:20^419:4), has been inserted out of chronological sequence: Dyrrachium and
Corinth were struck by a quake in 520, Anazarbus in the next year. The £ood at Edessa,
which is said to have claimed 30,000 lives, occurred on 22 April 525; there are other accounts
of the disaster in Procopius, Buildings ii.7.2^12 (which also describes the repair
work carried out by Justinian), and the Chronicle of Zuqnin (Witakowski pp. 41^3).
26 The regnal length and Antiochene year are correct. Marc. Com. s.a. and Chron.
Pasch. 617:18^20 support the date of 1 April 527, though the Slavonic Malalas (the date is
omitted from the notice in the Greek text: 422:9^19) and the brief account of the co-option
ceremony in De Cer. i.95 have 4 April: following an illness, Justin had been urged by the
senate to co-opt a colleague, and Justinian was crowned by Patriarch Epiphanius.
27 Evagrius has not explicitly stated that Justin had ordered the proclamation of Chalcedon,
but this can be inferred from the description of events at Antioch in iv.4. Evagrius has