John Lydus: On the Months

...to the specialist, and (concomitantly) fertile territory for finding evidence on a broad range of subjects without sound understanding of the context of such material and the nature of John's work and perspective.

BIOGRAPHY

In A.D. 511, at the age of 21, John came to Constantinople from his home town of Philadelphia in Lydia in search of employment in the civil service and hoping to secure a position among the officials of the imperial palace. ³ While waiting for opportunities, he studied Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy under Agapius, a student of the great Proclus. ⁴ His entrée into government work was soon secured by a fellow Philadelphian, the Praetorian prefect Zoticus. ⁵ Early on, he prospered in the prefecture, at first as an exceptor (shorthand clerk). John's cousin Ammianus was already so employed. Zoticus oversaw John's education in the process of deriving solid financial benefits from his post, as well as his exceptionally quick advancement to the position of first chartularius (secretary) in the department of civil law (headed by the ab actis) within the prefecture. ⁶ Beyond the remuneration he secured through his posts, John was also specifically rewarded by Zoticus for a panegyric he delivered, probably on the occasion of the latter's departure from his brief tenure in office (512); John cites the rate of one gold solidus per line. Through the good graces of Ammianus and Zoticus, too, John found a respectable wife who was endowed with a dowry of 100 pounds of gold (7,200 solidi); little is known about her except that she died early. ⁷ John further, and concurrently with...

³ For Byzantine bureaucracy in general, see A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Oxford, 1964), pp. 562-606; C. Kelly, "John Lydus and the Eastern Praetorian Prefecture in the Sixth Century AD"; Dubuisson-Schamp, 2: cciv-cccxiii; J. F. Haldon, "Economy and Administration: How Did the Empire Work?" in Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 28-59 (with useful structural diagrams on pp. 42-3, 46-7); M. McCormick, "Emperor and Court," ch. 6 of CAH XIV (Cambridge, 2000); S. Barnish, "Government and Administration," ch. 7 of CAH XIV (Cambridge, 2000).

⁴ See Dubuisson-Schamp, 1.1: xxi-xxvii, for further details about this Agapius and discussion of possible locations of this instruction.

⁵ John oddly says (De mag. 3.26) that Zoticus was able not only to "persuade" him but also to "force" him into the service; presumably this means that John was not happy at first to transfer his ambitions from the palace to the prefecture.

⁶ John (De mag. 3.27) stresses the special honor of this promotion—the two others were already "old men" and had (unlike John) paid fees to secure those positions. He adds more detail about his role here, describing how he compiled court records (personalia and cottidiana)—cf. De mag. 3.20—as well as judicial reports (suggestiones) to the council, that is, to the imperial consistorium (Kelly, Ruling the Later Roman Empire, pp. 82, 263; Caimi, pp. 51-55; against PLRE 2: 612 and Kaster, p. 307).

⁷ De mag. 3.28; John mentions her "sudden" demise in De mens. 4.89, without specifying exactly how long she lived.