2

4
o
NOTES
The Gallic Chronicle. R.W. Burgess writes: I was rather surprised by the rebuttal of my 'The Dark Ages
return to fifth-century Britain: the "restored" Gallic Chronicle exploded' (Britannia xxi (1990), 185-95)
made by M.E. Jones and J. Casey in Britannia xxii (1991), 212-15. My first impression was that they
had not even read my paper, given that they so seriously misrepresent and misunderstand what I said
there. The most serious aspect of Jones and Casey's rebuttal, however, is its disingenuous backtracking
from the fundamentals of the original paper (Britannia xix (1988), 367-98). For instance, they now deny
a belief in the chronicler's inerrancy (pp. 212-13). Yet without a belief in inerrancy their entire
supposition of extensive scribal corruption and interpolation - used to prove that the chronicler himself
committed no error near the Saxon entries (62 and 126) - collapses, since the only proof for such
tampering was the fact that the entries in question are misdated.
152
By Jones and Casey's own admission,
unless the entire regnal-year chronology and the material that surrounds the Saxon entries are accurate,
the chronology of these key entries is almost valueless. Yet without inerrancy they cannot claim that the
errors of the manuscripts are not the errors of the chronicler, unless they admit circular reasoning.
153
They have denied the entire foundation of their paper, yet they pass it over as if it were unimportant. The
linchpin of their argument for the acceptance of the accuracy of the date of 441 for entry 126 on the
Saxon conquest of Britain is the original accuracy and later transposition of entry 129 on the Vandals in
Africa.
154
Jones and Casey admit that they accept my refutation of this hypothesis, but they cannot
renounce the hypothesis either, and so they clutch desperately at straws, offering no proof or evidence for
contentions that are still based solely on inerrancy (p. 213). They must now face the reality that the
misdated entries in the Chronicle were misdated by the chronicler himself and as a result, by their own
arguments, they must accept that their secure chronology, like the rest of their conclusions, has been hit
for six.
It must be realized that Jones and Casey are rebutting not only my article but also by extension other
scholars, empirical facts, and literary, legal, papyrological, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence on the
basis of little more than their own personal opinions. On the other hand, the general views that I
presented in my article concerning textual criticism, source criticism, historiography, and history are
not unusual and are supported by solid evidence and general scholarly opinion (see below). Jones and
Casey claim that many of the details of my criticism seem to them to be 'carping, insignificant and
even deceiving' (p. 213). Yet most are far from insignificant: if Jones and Casey cannot get the details
right, of what value are their general conclusions?
155
I cannot here cite chapter and verse to reveal
every error that they have made; but let me select two points that are crucial to their reconstruction and
about which they are the most defensive in their rebuttal: imperial seniority (pp. 214-15)
156
and regnal
years (p. 215).
152
In their original article the following entries are claimed to be Carolingian interpolations on the basis of no
evidence other than the fact that they are thought by Jones and Casey to be in error: 1, 10, 24, 32, 39, 42, 54, 58, 83,
94, 122, 137. The Olympiads and years of Abraham were also claimed to be interpolations for the same reason. The
following entries are claimed to have been shifted or redated by scribal corruption on the basis of no evidence other
than the fact that they are thought by Jones and Casey to be in error: 30, 31, 53, 82, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 129 (cf.
Britannia xix (1988), 371 n. 6; 373; 375-9). There is no reason for suspecting any of these entries unless one assumes
that the chronicler could not have made such 'errors'.
153
For instance, without inerrancy they have no grounds for redating entry 53 on Arcadius' death to a position
between entries 56 and 57 (two years later), the cornerstone of Jones and Casey's acceptance of the chronology of
entry 62 on the Saxons. This leaves the chronicler open to charges of gross error at a key point in the Chronicle for an
event much better known than the Saxon invasions (cf. rebuttal, pp. 212-13; Britannia xix (1988), 376-7).
154
cf. Britannia xix (1988), 377-8. The importance of this entry was also stressed by John Casey at an Oxford
seminar in December 1984, which I attended.
155 My attack on Jones and Casey's Latin ('Chronica Gallica a CCCCLIP) was petty and uncalled for. But their
rebuttal (p. 213) shows that they still do not understand the point that their 'a' (= preposition) is different from
Mommsen's 'a.' (=a(nni)/a(nno)).
156
They state that I 'fail to undermine the validity of the authors' view that these regnal years are computed in
relation to imperial seniority' (p. 215), and that Theodosius created two separate states with Arcadius and Honorius as
equal emperors (cf. Britannia xix (1988), 372, and rebuttal, p. 214 n. 37).
NOTES
2 4 I
1. Imperial seniority. Seniority was based solely on the dies imperii as Caesar or Augustus, with Augusti
outranking Caesars. The only time that the term Senior Augustus is ever used as a title is to describe
Diocletian and Maximian after their retirement in 305. These are empirical facts and can be verified from
a vast host of literary, epigraphic, numismatic, legal, and papyrological evidence.
157
Jones and Casey's
hypothesis and supporting arguments are without foundation and simply false. These rules were still
observed by Arcadius and Honorius, and their successors; there was no change. Nothing unusual
happened in 395 upon the death of Theodosius I; the Empire had been effectively split since 337 (as it
had between 282 and 324). Theodosius had simply appointed Honorius Augustus in 393 to replace the
dead Valentinian II as emperor of the West, and upon his death his sons simply succeeded to their
respective positions, Honorius in the West as successor to Valentinian II, Gratian, and Valentinian I, and
Arcadius in the East, as successor to Theodosius and Valens.
158
2. Regnal years. Jones and Casey claim that Gratian's regnal years are a 'test case' for my rebuttal and
they 'prove' that Gratian ruled for six years between 9 August 378 and 25 August 383 by counting the
first six months from August to December 378 as 'Year One' (!), January to December of 379 as 'Year
Two', and so on (p. 215).
159
Roman emperors, however, counted their regnal years from dies imperii to
dies imperii, as one would expect. In fact, Gratian's first regnal year was counted from 24 August 367 to
23 August 368, and August 378 to August 383 - regnal years twelve to sixteen - was thus both five
regnal and five calendar years, as I stated in my paper, not six, as Jones and Casey maintain. Regnal
years as a 'junipr partner' were never discounted and even years as Caesar were counted. Again, this is
empirical fact, evident from literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence; it is not open to debate.
160
Again, Jones and Casey's theories have been shown to have no basis in reality. This is, anyway,
irrelevant, since apart from full imperial titles used to head important state letters and laws, regnal years
were never used in the West at this date and the chronicler would never have seen them or known them
(he had no idea in what month and, in some cases, even in what year, any emperor became Augustus).
Like all chroniclers, the Gallic chronicler took his regnal year totals from his sources in the form 'Valens
regnauit a. XIIIl, m. V and constructed his regnal year chronology accordingly. The regnal years of the
Chronicle, therefore, have no reality outside of the Chronicle.
My paper was a historiographical study; I was not primarily interested in history. I had come to my
conclusions on the Saxon entries in the Gallic Chronicle long before Jones and Casey's paper appeared,
chiefly as a result of Steve Muhlberger's fundamental article in Britannia xiv (1983), 23-33, which Jones
and Casey essentially ignored in their original paper. As regards the invasions of Britain by the Saxons I
have no axe to grind; I am interested in why the Gallic Chronicle says what it does and what its sources
were. One cannot simply mine chronicles for historical nuggets without understanding all one can about
157
See especially T.D. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constamine (1982), 3 n. 1; 24 n. 12.
158
The unimportance of 395 has been realized since the beginning of this century, cf. Jean-Remy Palanque,
'Colle'gialite' et partages dans 1'empire romain aux IV et V
c
siecles', REA xlvi (1944), 47-64, 280-98, esp. 285-6, and
n. 7. I cannot find any modern work that would support Jones and Casey's claims. The passage Jones and Casey
misquote (p. 214 n. 37) from a panegyric delivered to Honorius by Claudian in Milan in 398 is a piece of propaganda
and is taken completely out of its political context.
159
In their original paper they stressed that this method mirrored 'strict imperial protocol' (Britannia xix (1988),
370-2, 374). If their odd calculation were true, then the Chronicle would even start out incorrectly, since 2 on the
accession of Theodosius, placed in Gratian I ('Year One'), took place on 19 January 379, which is not between Aug.
and Dec. 378. By Jones and Casey's calculation it ought to be under Gratian II. Another scribal transposition? Notice
that elsewhere they can nevertheless discount partial years as regnal years when it does not fit their hypothesis. Here
they count the period 24 August to 31 December 378 as 'Year One' of Gratian, but they do not count the period 15
August to 31 December 423 as 'Year One' of Theodosius II (Britannia xix (1988), 370-1, 374, and rebuttal, pp. 214
and 215). Part of the problem is that they think that Honorius died in October not August (cf. PLRE I: 442). This is the
type of 'insignificant' error to which I referred above; their original paper is full of such errors.
160
cf. Michel Festy, 'Puissances tribuniciennes et salutations imperiales dans la titulature des empereurs romains de
Diocldtien a Gratien', R1DA xxix (1982), 193-234; Barnes, op. cit. (note 157), 25-7; Dietmar Kienast, Romische
Kaisertabelle (1990), 37-9, 329; and R.W. Burgess, NC cxlviii (1988), 77-96. Regnal year calculations were slightly
different in Egypt, however; cf. Barnes, op. cit. (note 157), 28-9.
2
4
2
N 0 T E S
the authors and their work.
161
To pluck a single entry out of context without understanding anything
about it is valueless. Apart from two early entries relating to Magnus Maximus (6 and 7; source
unknown) and the two entries under consideration (62 and 126), the Gallic chronicler knows nothing
about Britain. Once this is realized, it is obvious that 62 and 126 are related and serve a moralistic and
rhetorical purpose in the context of the Chronicle. The result of source criticism proves beyond serious
doubt that the Narratio de imperatoribus domus Valentinianae et Theodosianae and the Gallic Chronicles
of 452 and 511 derived much of their material from the same common sources.
162
Similar entries in the
Gallic Chronicle of 511, which combines both the earlier and the later entries into one, and the Narratio
(511: 'Britanniae a Romanis amissae. . .'; Narratio: 'Britanniae Romano nomini in perpetuum sublatae')
strongly suggest that the common source for these entries and entry 62 simply mentioned the loss of
Britain to the Empire. Since it is obvious that 452's access to sources for this period was quite restricted,
it seems highly unlikely that out of the blue in a mass of generalities and trivialities he was able to obtain
accurate information about a Saxon invasion. Therefore, I concluded that the reference to the Saxons in
the Chronicle of 452 was the work of the compiler himself as a plausible antecedent to the Saxon
conquest he recorded in 441.
163
Jones and Casey note that I did not mention the evidence of Zosimus
(p. 214). I did not, because Zosimus (or rather his source, Olympiodorus) is irrelevant, since we do not
know what sort of barbarians he is referring to in Book VI. 5. 2 of his history. If they were Franks, then
Jones and Casey's whole argument would collapse. It is rather more speculative, I think, to ignore the
indications of source criticism and then use Olympiodorus to verify the Chronicle and the Chronicle to
verify Olympiodorus.
My comments on earlier Saxon invasions are made much of and rather twisted in the process (p. 214).
I was only concerned with the Saxons, so I only mentioned the Saxons; no one would deny that the
Saxon Shore (both in Britain and on the Continent) was prey to a great number of other seafaring
marauders (like the Franks) from the third century. But if this area was called the Litus Saxonicum in
395-400 (the sections on Britain in the Notitia Dignitatem date no later than c. 400), then surely it must
have been because over a great number of years previously the Saxons were regarded as the chief
threat.
164
Such names do not suddenly materialize; they grow up over time. Besides, I invoked the Saxon
Shore simply to show that the chronicler's comment in entry 62, though of his own making, was based on
an external reality of Saxon raiding and not on mere invention.
Jones and Casey obviously do not understand my refutation of their arguments involving the value of
entry 126 and its date: around 441 (give or take a few years) someone or some people in Gaul believed
that Britain had been conquered by the Saxons. Such an event (or rather series of events) cannot be dated
to a single year and given that this is all the chronicler seems to know about Britain, it does not suggest
that he was privy to any detailed or accurate information. It sounds like a piece of hearsay. This entry is
analogous in historical and chronological accuracy to the entry on the Vandal conquest of Africa (129) -
which dates events of 439 and 442 to 444 - though the chronicler obviously had more information on
Africa, as one would expect. If he could not correctly date recent events in Africa, how, could he have
accurately dated events in Britain, which was, after all, practically at the end of the world?
Another important misinterpretation made by Jones and Casey concerns my table and the 'Adjusted'
years in Column (c): in no way did I adjust my chronology 'to match that produced by the authors'
161
See now, for instance, Steve Muhlberger, The Fifth-Century Chroniclers: Prosper, Hydatius, and the Gallic
Chronicler 0/452 (1990), esp. 2-6, 152, and 146-60; John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton (eds), Fifth-Century Gaul: A
Crisis of Identity? (1992), 5-37; Brian Croke, The Chronicle of Marcellinus Comes in its Contemporary and
Historiographical Context (unpub. D. Phil, thesis, Oxford, 1978); R.W. Burgess, Hydatius: A Late Roman Chronicler
in Post-Roman Spain (unpub. D. Phil, thesis, Oxford, 1989); Elizabeth Jeffreys with Brian Croke and Roger Scott
(eds), Studies in John Malalas (1990), esp. m- 66; and Alden A. Mosshammer, The Chronicle ofEusebius and Greek
Chronographic Tradition (1979). Michael Klaassen of the University of Pennsylvania is working on a study of
Cassiodorus' chronicle.
162
For a comparison of the Narratio and 452 in the reign of Honorius, see Steve Muhlberger in Britannia xiv
(1983), 29-30, and his book cited above (note 161), 152-5.
163
This hypothesis can certainly be challenged, but not in the way Jones and Casey attempt it.
164
cf. Stephen Johnson, Later Roman Britain (1980), 95-107.
NOTES
(p. 215). My adjusted dates in no way affect the fabric of the Chronicle or impose personal calculation
theories upon the chronicler, as does the chronology proposed by Jones and Casey. The only chronology
contained in the Chronicle, and the only chronology against which any measurements of 'accuracy' can
be made, appears in Columns (a) and (b), and it is a mess. Of the 104 events that I list, 90 are incorrectly
dated (13.5 per cent accuracy). In anyone's book, that is an inaccurate chronology. However, the adjusted
chronology was an attempt to reveal not the absolute chronological accuracy of the Chronicle, but any
sequences of entries correctly placed in chronological relation to one another, in spite of any other
inaccuracies. For instance, the eclipse of 402 (46) is placed three years before the invasion of
Radagaisus in 405 (50), which is placed three years before the death of Stilicho in 408 (57), which is
placed five years before the deaths of Sallustius and Sebastian in 413 (70). The chief importance of this
was as a research aid, to see what light it might shed on the chronicler's use of sources and to help us
date other entries from their relative chronological context, rather than from the faulty regnal years; it did
not impose an alternative chronology upon the Chronicle. Since most of the early chronology is
hopelessly confused and since one would expect any work of history to be more accurate in the more
closely contemporary material, I decided to start at the end and number the years backwards from 452.
The dashes (-) indicate where the four non-existent years that so disrupt the overall chronology were
added. This method revealed two roughly coherent and consistent blocks of material, the first in 402 to
413, the other from about 418 to 452. These blocks were added one year and three/four years respectively
out of sequence with the main chronology. Nevertheless, even with the adjusted dates many other entries
contained within these blocks are randomly misdated: in the first the Chronicle's accuracy is still only 75
per cent (5 incorrect out of 20
165
) and in the second it falls to 50 per cent (18 out of 36). Jones and Casey
still claim, 'The accuracy of the Chronicle is surely established' (p. 215). They will not find many
followers.
Even before the Romans had left Britain a thick fog closed in around the island that later historians and
compilers, including the Gallic Chronicler of 452, Gildas, Bede, ' Nennius' , and others, could not
penetrate. If they could not penetrate it, we cannot, especially if all we do is pretend that they could and
try to 'restore' what they have told us.
University of Ottawa
165
Jones and Casey reiterate their claim that the death of Arcadius is the only chronological error between 406 and
413 (p. 212). Yet Caelestinus became Bishop of Rome in 422, not 406 (54); Nestorius became Bishop of
Constantinople in 428, not 408 (58); the Sueves did not occupy 'Hispaniarum partem maximam' until the 440s, not
in 410 (64); and entry 63 is so vague that it would be hard to get it wrong if it were put almost anywhere in this
block. Jones and Casey stop at 413 because entry 73, the cession of Aquitania to the Goths in 418, and entry 75,
Heraclian's attempted usurpation of 413, are dated to 414 (their redating).