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Excerpta Latina Barbari ("Excerpts in Bad Latin") is a Latin translation of a 5th or early 6th century Greek chronicle.
Contents
Origin
The Excerpta Latina Barbari is a Latin translation of a Greek chronicle composed in Alexandria during the reign of Zeno (474-491) or Anastasius (491-518). The original Greek chronicle was a variation of the Chronica Alexandrina. It was translated into Latin c. 750 by an anonymous Merovingian author. Excerpta Latina Barbari derives its name from the fact that the late Merovingian translator made many mistakes in translating the Greek into Latin. It is also now known that the translator included some alterations to the original chronicle. These alterations include the insertion of a lineage linking the Merovingian kings to the ancient Trojans (see Francus) as popularised in the Liber historiae Francorum.
Joseph Justus Scaliger took the first scholarly interest in the chronicle in his Thesaurus temporum (1606) and first named the chronicle Barbarus Scaligeri. This subsequently became Excerpta Latina Barbari because of the translator's bad conversion Greek into Latin. Some modern scholars have criticized this name, but it remains in use.
The 8th-century manuscript of the Latin version of the text is now housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Contents
The chronicle contains two main sections: (a) the history of the world from the creation to Cleopatra and (b) a list of kings or rulers from Assyria to the consuls of Rome (including the Ptolemaic dynasty, a list entitled "high priests and kings of the Jews" and an entry for Macedonian kings). The king's lists start by including some mythological kings, for example the entry for Assyrian rulers starts from Belus dated c. 2206 BC. Menelaus is also considered a historical king of Sparta.