Eusebius's Four Tempora: A Brief Survey of Christian Chronological Traditions through Their Reception in Byzantine Supputationes

Abstract:No one would deny that Eusebius of Caesarea's chronicle exerted an enormous influence on later Greek chronicle writing, but there is still much to be said about the concrete characteristics of this influence and its extent, which is difficult to assess due to the loss of many sources and the precarious state of preservation of others. This article examines several supputationes—a basic element of chronological writing that can be defined as chronological summaries in the form of lists of temporal intervals between relevant events—embedded in works of different historiographical or chronological genre or transmitted independently, composed in Greek between the fourth and tenth centuries. It analyses these chronological lists as evidence of the reception of Eusebius's chronicle in Byzantine chronological literature or in the chronological sources of Byzantine historiography, and, in particular, of its influence on the construction of the periodization of history. The result of this analysis shows considerable uniformity with regard to the elements (epochai and intervals) concerning the biblical period of history—between the creation and the incarnation—regardless of their origin or context, which points to a tradition that has as its basis the revision of Eusebius's chronicle.