SOURCE: Chaffin, Christopher. “Olympiodorus of Thebes.” In Olympiodorus of Thebes and the Sack of Rome: A Study of the “Historikoi Logoi,” with Translated Fragments, Commentary and Additional Material, pp. xxx-lxiv. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993.

In the following excerpted introduction to his translation and reconstruction of the fragmentary Books of History by Olympiodorus, Chaffin considers the state of the text as partially preserved by later commentators, recounts the facts of Olympiodorus's life, and explores the literary style and method of historical judgment presented in this work.

Olympiodorus of Thebes

In the middle years of the ninth century the Byzantine churchman and scholar Photius compiled an annotated catalogue of books called the Bibliotheke (Library).¹ The eightieth entry (Cod.80) begins as follows:²

Read: the ‘Books of History’ (historikoi logoi) by Olympiodorus in twenty-two volumes. He begins in the year in which Honorius Emperor of Rome was consul for the...