Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
The sixth-century bishop Jordanes was actually in the process of writing, in Constantinople, his de summa temporum vel origine actibusque gentis Romanorum (Romana, after Mommsen) when he was exhorted by his friend Castalius to undertake a summary of Cassiodorus’ Gothic history, de origine actibusque Getarum (Getica, after Mommsen). When he had completed the Getica Jordanes turned his attention once again to the Romana and soon finished it off, publishing it after the Getica in A.D. 551.
1 Get. Praef. 1; for Jordanes’ status and the circumstances of his writing, Mommsen, MGH (AA) V i, especially pp. v-xiii; Kappelmacher, RE IX, 1908–29; and Momigliano, A.D. ‘Cassiodorus and Italian Culture of his Time’, Proceedings of the British Academy 41 (1955), 207–45Google Scholar (= Studies in Historiography [London, 1966], pp. 181–210, especially pp. 195–6).
2 Mommsen, op. cit. pp. xiv–xv; Kappelmacher, op. cit. 1915.
3 Get. Praef. 3.
4 On Jordanes’ sources: Mommsen, op. cit. pp. xxiii-xliv; Kappelmacher, op. cit. 1917 (Rom.), 1919–22 (Get.).
5 Cass. Chron. 1153 = MGH (AA) XI, 154: ‘His conss. Valentinianus uitae tedio apud Viennam laqueo periit’.
6 Prosper, Chron. 1197 = MGH (AA) IX, 463: Valentinianus ad uitae fastidium nimia Arbogasti magistri militum austeritate perductus laqueo apud Viennam periit’.
7 Marc. Com. Chron. ad annum 391 = MGH (AA) XI, 62: ‘Valentinianus imperator apud Viennam dolo Arbogasti strangulatus interiit idibus Martiis’. Martiis for Maiis is explicable!
8 Ed. Fr. Pichlmayr (Teubner: Leipzig, 1970).
9 Oros, vii 35.19: ‘sua se manu pereulit’.
10 Also: ‘frigore consumpti sunt’ (Rom. 343) for ‘fame extabuit’ (Marc. Com. Chron. ad annum 467 = MGH (AA) XI, 91); ‘cum septuagentis et tribus navibus’ (Rom. 325) for ‘cum septuagentis et tribus milibus navium’ (Marc. Com. Chron. ad annum 413 = MGH (AA) XI, 71; cf. Orosius vii 42).
11 Momigliano, op. cit. p. 196.
12 Get. xx 108.
13 Get. lx 308, Rom. 151.
14 Get. xxx 156.
15 Geog. Rav. iv 21; cf. Schnetz, J. ‘Jordanie beim Geographen von Ravenna’, Philologus 81 (1925), 86–100.Google Scholar