On the Magistrates of the Roman Republic

ON JOANNES LYDUS

II. Although I can be brief regarding the author's life—since he himself followed his own affairs at length in his book On the Magistracies original: "de Magistratibus"—I will nevertheless provide a summary. Therefore, while referring diligent students of Lydus to that book and to the Index of things and words on page 506 of our edition, I shall here touch upon only the main points chapter by chapter. I have established this timeline as far as is possible in such a thorny matter The "thorny matter" refers to the difficulty of reconciling conflicting historical dates and administrative titles in the late Roman Empire. by drawing from Hubert Giphanius’s Commentary on the Emperor Justinian (Nuremberg, 1640, 12mo, p. 178 ff.); Giles Perrin’s Life of Justinian (Paris, 1576, 8vo); Hardouin’s Coins of the Justinianic Age in his Various Works (Amsterdam, 1733, folio, pp. 461–547); and especially from Johann Peter von Ludewig’s Life of Justinian the Great (Halle, 1731, 4to); François Baudouin’s Four Books of Commentaries on Justinian, or the New Law (Halle, 1728, 8vo); and from Nicolaus Alemannus’s Excursus on the Praetorian Prefects in the times of Justinian, found in the notes to the edition of Procopius's Secret History original: "Historiæ arcanæ" (Lyon, 1623, folio, pp. 95–98), which was reprinted in the second volume, second part, of the Royal Edition of Procopius, pp. 159–161. JOANNES, therefore, called Laurentius, and known as Lydus from his homeland Lydus indicates he was from Lydia, a region in modern-day Turkey.—a surname which prevailed among writers more by chance than by design—was born in Philadelphia in proconsular Asia, during the consulship of Flavius Longinus and Flavius Faustus... This identifies his birth year as 490 AD.