John Lydus: On the Months

(in office 551-552), who named him "most learned" [logiôtatos]—and John says he valued this appellation more than any official title. Yet John's statement that he received this recognition (timê) "instead of a great amount of money" seems to reveal at the same time that he thought he deserved more in the way of concrete remuneration.

Although frustrated to the end with the pace of his advancement and self-enrichment in the Praetorian service, John shows more appreciation for the fruit eventually borne by his literary skills outside the prefecture. As John tells it,^35 his erudition and learning came to the notice of the emperor Justinian—and so he was invited to deliver a panegyric (presumably in Latin) at court while élite visitors from Rome were present. Next, he was asked to compose an account of a recent Persian war, sparked by the enemy's attacks on Dara. Finally, he was rewarded with a teaching post^36—in the "university" of Constantinople, that is, the officially sanctioned higher education establishment, consisting of numerous professors of Greek and Latin studies (grammar and rhetoric).^37 John himself cites the letter of appreciation and appointment from the emperor to the Praetorian prefect.^38 The dates of these events in John's career are debatable. While some have interpreted the Persian war about which John was asked to write an account as the hostilities of 527-32, Schamp has recently argued strongly for a reference to the siege of Dara in 540.^39 This view also provides a more likely context for the presence of Latin speakers from Rome to witness John's panegyric, when Rome was threatened by the Ostrogoth Totila in the early 540s.^40 It further aligns well with the probability that John's appointment to a teaching position had something

^35 De mag. 3.28.
^36 De mag. 3.29.
^37 John tells about these three separate aspects of literary recognition in quick sequence in De mag. 3.28-29. For the teaching position, note especially Caimi, p. 80, who points out that the precise post is not possible to determine, although Latin grammar is usually assumed on the basis of Justinian's letter (quoted below), which mentions that John's efforts had rendered the Latin language "more august" (De mag. 3.29); Dubuisson-Schamp, 1.1: xliii-xliv; Maas, pp. 35-6; Bandy (1983), p. xvi. For the "university of Constantinople," see J. A. S. Evans, Age of Justinian (London, 1996), p. 27; G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale (Paris, 1976), pp. 142, 144, 383; P. Lemerle, Le premier humanisme Byzantin (Paris, 1971), pp. 63-4; Jones, pp. 707-8.
^38 The matter was then taken up by the city prefect, as John further details.
^39 Dubuisson-Schamp, 1.1: xxxviii-xlii, noting Carney's tentative prior suggestion (Bureaucracy 2: 15-16) of this same setting; see also Schamp, "Pour une étude," pp. 266-7. Bandy (1983), pp. xv-xvi, Maas, p. 33, and Kelly, Ruling the Later Roman Empire, pp. 12-13, more traditionally suggest the war of 527-32, in which Belisarius succeeded in routing a Persian force near Dara in 530; cf. also M. Meier, Das andere Zeitalter Justinians: Kontingenzerfahrung und Kontingenzbewältigung im 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr. (Göttingen, 2003), pp. 150-51.
^40 Dubuisson-Schamp, 1.1: xlii, suggest a date in in this period.