Hydatius - Chronicle

Chronicle

Hydatius' main claim to historical importance is the chronicle he wrote towards the end of his life. The chronicle was an historical genre very popular in Late Antiquity, though with precedents in older chronographic genres like the consular fasti. A consciously Christian genre, the main goal of the chronicle was to place human history in the context of a linear progression from creation according to the Genesis creation myth to the Second Coming of Christ. Under the entry for each year one or several events were listed, usually with great brevity. The greatest exponent of the form had been the fourth-century bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. Jerome brought the Greek chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea up to date as far as the year 378, after translating it into Latin. Jerome's translation and continuation proved very popular, and others decided to continue Jerome in the same way.

Hydatius was one such continuator. His continuation begins with a preface explaining his debt to Jerome, and then picks up in the year 379. Hydatius had access to a number of chronographic and historical sources and used four parallel chronological systems. Because of this, and particularly towards the end of the chronicle, it can be difficult to translate his chronology into any modern calendar. At the beginning, Hydatius' continuation offers relatively little information for each year. He narrates the events from 427 onward as a contemporary witness and the text becomes increasingly full as the years progress until it resembles an organic literary work more than a typical chronicle.

Hydatius' main concern throughout is to show the dissolution of civil society in the western Roman empire and in Hispania in particular, and he paints a very dark picture of fifth-century life. His deep pessimism may stem from a belief in the imminent end of the world, since he had read the apocryphal letter of Christ to Thomas, which was interpreted to show that the world would end in May 482. Hydatius may thus have believed that he was chronicling the world's last days, and on occasion he deliberately distorted his account to show events in a gloomier light. This is especially true of the narrative climax of his account, the sack in 456 of the Suevi capital at Braga by the Visigothic king Theodoric II, acting in the service of the Roman emperor Avitus. Regardless of his sometimes very sophisticated literary devices, Hydatius' chronicle is an essential source of information for reconstructing the course of fifth-century events. Moreover, it is our only source for the history of Hispania in the period up to 468, at which point the narrative breaks off.

It is doubtful whether Hydatius is also the author of the "Fasti consulares" for the years 245-468, appended to the "Chronicle" in the only almost complete manuscript in our possession. The Chronicle is printed in Migne, P.L. vol. 51, 873-890, and vol. 74, 701-750; the "Fasti Consulares" are found in P.L., vol. 51, 891-914.

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