Marcellinus Comes

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Marcellinus Comes (fl. 6th century) was a Byzantine chronicler.

An Illyrian by birth, he spent most of his life at the court of Constantinople, and died around 534. Only one work of his survives, a chronicle "Annales", which was a continuation of one by Eusebius. It covers the period from 379 to 534, although an unknown writer added a continuation down to 566. Although his work is in Latin, it primarily describes the affairs of the East; indeed the writer says that he has "followed only the Eastern Empire." Some information about Western Europe, drawn from Orosius's "Historia adv. paganos" and Gennadius' "De viris illustribus", are introduced insofar as it relates to Constantinople. The chronicle is filled with details and anecdotes about the city and the court. Marcellinus was an Orthodox Christian and has little good to say about heretics in his work.

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

[edit] Further reading

• Count Marcellinus and His Chronicle by Brian Croke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001

[edit] List of selected works

• The Chronicle of Marcellinus : a translation and commentary : (with a reproduction of Mommsen's edition of the text) by Comes Marcellinus; Brian Croke; Theodor Mommsen. Sydney : Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1995.