"History through Excerpts in Byzantium. Studies on the Excerpta Salmasiana between Autonomy, Heteronomy and Source Research"

My project aims to explore the origins and structure of the Excerpta Salmasiana. Excerpta Salmasiana are a collection of historical excerpts written around the 10th century in Byzantium. It is a collection with a very complex and controversial origin and transmission. Indeed, Excerpta Salmasiana play an important role in the so-called "Johannine Question", i.e. in the scholarly debate surrounding the figure and work of the late antique historian John of Antioch, which is still an open problem in Byzantine historiography. Moreover, Excerpta Salmasiana are a reservoir for other historiographical traditions that are also not without problems: Julius Africanus, Johannes Malalas, Cassius Dio, Agatias and finally the so-called Epitome, "one of the most intricate problems of Byzantine historiography". An examination of Excerpta Salmasiana in relation to the traditions that flow into it and the modus excerpendi of the compiler is therefore the first aim of my research. In addition, it will attempt to grasp the relationship of Excerpta Salmasiana to other contemporary works, such as the tradition of the Chronikon of Symeon Logothetes and the well-known Lexicon Suda. Although the collection draws on earlier material, it represents an independent and original intellectual operation in which the juxtaposition of excerpts from earlier authors creates a new narrative and interpretation of history. Investigating this aspect, i.e. the autonomy of the collection as a literary product, constitutes the second aim of my project.