INTRODUCTION

The four-book work "On the Months" (De mensibus) by John Lydus (that is, John the Lydian)¹ offers intriguing views of Roman and Greek traditions about the calendar, religion, philosophy, natural history, and much else, through the lens of antiquarian scholarship from the late Roman empire. John, its author, was an early Byzantine bureaucrat working from the beginning of the 6th century into the age of Justinian. He enjoyed a 40-year career with some successes and some setbacks; he eventually gained exposure and recognition at a high level, having delivered a panegyric at court and later being invited to write the official account of the war against Persia. He always took pride in his books and his educational attainments, and he utilized them in a teaching position and in writing the results of his research. Bitterness and pessimism, however, are a recurring undertone in his surviving works: he felt that the Roman empire had declined from its zenith and that the ways of the past needed to be remembered and revived. John's personal experiences with "reform" only served to reinforce his longing for an unrecoverable antiquity. All in all, he was a moderately successful functionary and teacher who nevertheless felt that he ought to have done much better—that he never achieved the brilliant success and recognition that he truly deserved. Barry Baldwin's summary remark is apt: "Lydus is a complex and fascinating fellow, by turn likeable and insufferable."² Beyond the questionable charms of his personality, however, his works are of lasting importance, yet have been largely inaccessible except...

¹ R. Wuensch (ed.), Ioannis Laurentii Lydi liber De mensibus (Leipzig, 1898). The name "Laurentius" that appears in Photius's notice, Bibliotheca cod. 180 (i.e., in the phrase "John Laurentius of Philadelphia, the Lydian") and has sometimes been treated as part of John's name, is more likely his father's name. The primary documentation of John's life history is the extended autobiographical section of De magistratibus 3.26-30; the other ancient sources are Photius and the Suda entry on John (ι 465 Adler). The most recent, full discussion of John's biography is that of J. Schamp in M. Dubuisson and J. Schamp (ed., tr., comm.), Jean le Lydien: Des magistratures de l'état romain (Paris, 2006), 1.1: xiii-lxxvi; other treatments are to be found in C. Kelly, "John Lydus and the Eastern Praetorian Prefecture in the Sixth Century AD," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 98 (2005), pp. 431-58; id., Ruling the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2004); M. Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age of Justinian (London, 1992); J. Caimi, Burocrazia e diritto nel De magistratibus di Giovanni Lido (Milan, 1984); A. Bandy (ed., tr.), Ioannis Lydus: On Powers or The Magistracies of the Roman State (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. ix-xxvi; T. F. Carney, Bureaucracy in Traditional Society: Romano-Byzantine Bureaucracies Viewed from Within (Lawrence, Kansas, 1971), 2: 3-19. Good briefer accounts of John appear in Averil Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (Berkeley, 1985), pp. 242-8; E. Stein, Histoire du bas-empire, vol. 2 (Paris, 1949), pp. 729-34, 838-40; R. Kaster, Guardians of Language, pp. 306-9; Martindale, PLRE 2: 612-15 (s.v. Ioannes 75); see also A. Klotz, PRE XIII.2: 2210-17 (s.v. "Lydos 7"); T. F. Carney, PRE Suppl. XII: 521-3 (s.v. "Lydos 7"); M. Chase, "Lydus (Iohannes -)," in R. Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. 4 (Paris, 2006), pp. 205-10 [not seen].

² Baldwin, "A Byzantine Sir Humphrey Appleby? John Lydus Reconsidered," review article on M. Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past, Échos du Monde Classique / Classical Views 38, n.s. 13 (1994), p. 66.