Spätantike Chroniken im Fluss der Zeit

Late antiquity brought with it a considerable change in society, statehood and religion, which stimulates broad discussion about this "transformational epoch". These changes also included a historiographical trend towards brevity, which was reflected not least in the widespread use of chronographical list formats and chronicles that were fully developed as a literary genre. The present study attempts to offer a panorama of this practice as a truly widespread literary phenomenon: Fully formed literary chronicles, scarcely annotated consular fasts (consularia) and chronographical lists were read, used and reworked in various ways in a decentralised manner, shortening, supplementing or continuing them. The resulting state of transmission poses fundamental challenges for the cataloguing and editing of the material. These are analysed systematically and in individual case studies in the second focus of the study. The volume thus opens up a hitherto neglected historical-philological field of knowledge of late antique (minor) historiography and its place in late antique cultural life.