Most of the original Greek text of the Chronicle has been lost. This translation is based on a Latin translation of the Armenian translation of the Greek original, in the Schoene-Petermann edition. The references in are the page numbers from that edition.
About the institution of theOlympic Games
It is necessary to say a little about the origin of the games. Some writers, who trace back the institution of the games to the earliest times, say that they had been held beforeHeracles, by one of theIdaean Dactyls; and then by Aethlius, as a challenge for his sons (from his name, the competitors were called athletes); and then by his son Epeius; and thenEndymion, Alexinus and Oenomaus were each in charge of the sacred festival. ThenPelops held the games in honour of his fatherZeus; and next, Heracles the son ofAlcmene. There were ten generations (or, according to some, only three complete festivals) from Heracles until the time ofIphitus.
Iphitus was a citizen of Elis, who was concerned about the condition of Greece, and wished to rid the cities of their wars. He sent envoys from the whole of thePeloponnese to consult [the god] about release from the wars which gripped them. The god gave this response to thePeloponnesians:
You who dwell in the Peloponnese, gather round the altar;
Make sacrifice, and obey the instructions of the prophets.
He added these words to theEleans:
Elean servants of the gods, who maintain your ancestral rites,
Protect your homeland, and desist from war.
Lead the Greeks in mutually just friendship,
Until the gathering comes in the year of good will.
[p193] As a result of this,Iphitus proclaimed the truce [which had been fixed byHeracles at the summer solstice; they no longer fought against each other,] and he organised the games together withLycurgus, who happened to be his relative because they were both descended from Heracles. On this occasion, the only contest was thestadion race; later the other contests were added in their turn.
Aristodemus ofElis relates that the victors in the athletic contests began to be registered in the 27thOlympiad after Iphitus. Before then, no-one had thought to record the athletes' names. In the 28th OlympiadCoroebus of Elis won thestadion race, and he was the first victor to be registered. This was then established as the first Olympiad, from which the Greeks calculate their dates.
Polybius says the same as Aristodemus; butCallimachus says that thirteenOlympiads passed after Iphitus without victors being registered; and Coroebus was the victor in the 14th Olympiad. Many writers state that the institution of the games by Heracles the son ofAlcmene occurred (?) 419 years before what is counted as the first Olympiad. TheEleans hold the games every fifth year, with a gap of four years in between them.
The Greek Olympiads, from the first Olympiad up until the 247th, whenAntoninus the son ofSeverus was emperor of the Romans:
[The equivalent years B.C. or A.D. are shown in ]
The record of theOlympiads which we have found ends at this point.
[We know from elsewhere that the victor in thestadion race at the nextOlympic games, the 250thOlympiad, was Publius Aelius Alcandridas ofSparta, who also won at the 251st games. So, thanks to Eusebius, we have a complete list of the victors in this race for a period of a thousand years, from 776 B.C. to 225 A.D.]It will be fitting to add here lists of the kings of theCorinthians, kings of theSpartans, rulers of the sea and the early kings of theMacedonians. I will set down in order their names and their dates, taking them from theHistorical Library ofDiodorus, who gives a very accurate account of them.
The kings of the Corinthians - from the books of Diodorus
After thoroughly investigating that, it remains to tell howCorinth andSicyon were settled by theDorians. Almost all the nations in thePeloponnese, except theArcadians, were uprooted by the return of theHeracleidae. In their division of the land, the Heracleidae picked out Corinth and the surrounding area; they sent forAletes, and awarded the territory to him. Aletes became a distinguished king and increased the power of Corinth; he reigned for 38 years.
After the death of Aletes, his descendants ruled the land, the eldest son succeeding in every case, until the tyrantCypselus, who [came to power] 447 years after the return of the Heracleidae.
The first of them to become king wasIxion, for 38 years.
[p221] Then Agelas was king for 37 years.
Then Prymnis, for 35 years.
Then Bacchis, also for 35 years. Bacchis was the most distinguished of the kings up to his time; so that the kings after him called themselves Bacchidae instead ofHeracleidae.
Then Agelas, for 30 years.
Eudemus, for 25 years.
Aristomedes, for 35 years.
When Aristomedes died, his son Telestes was still a child; and so the direct succession was interrupted by his uncle and guardianAgemon, for 16 years.
Then Alexander was king, for 25 years.
Telestes, who earlier had been deprived of his father's kingdom, killed Alexander, and ruled for 12 years.
Automenes ruled for one year, after Telestes was killed by his relatives.
The Bacchidae, descendants ofHeracles who were more than 200 in number, seized power and jointly governed the city; each year they chose one of their number to be president, in place of the king. They governed the city for 90 years, until they were suppressed by the tyrantCypselus.
The kings of theCorinthians are as follows:
The kings of theSpartans - from the books ofDiodorus
It happens that it is difficult to establish the dates between theTrojan war and the firstOlympiad, because at that time there were no annual magistrates either at Athens or at any other city. Therefore we will take the kings of the Spartans as an example.
According toApollodorus of Athens, there were 308 years from the destruction ofTroy until the first Olympiad . 80 of those years passed before the expedition of the Heracleidae ;[p223] the rest are covered by the reigns of the kings of theSpartans -Procles,Eurysthenes and their descendants. We will set down the order of [the kings of] each family up until the firstOlympiad.
Eurysthenes began his reign in the 80th year after theTrojan war, and he was king for 42 years.
After him,Agis reigned for one year.
Echestratus for 31 years.
After him, Labotas reigned for 37 years.
Dorystus for 29 years.
They were followed byAgesilaus, who reigned for 44 years.
Archelaus for 60 years.
Teleclus for 40 years.
Alcamenes for 38 years. In the tenth year of his reign, the first Olympiad was established, in whichCoroebus ofElis won thestadion race.
Procles was the first king of the other family, for (?) 49 years.
After him,Prytanis reigned for 49 years.
Eunomius for 45 years.
And then Chariclus reigned for 60 years.
Nicander for 38 years.
Theopompus for 47 years. The first Olympiad occurred in the tenth year of this reign.
In summary, there were 80 years from the capture ofTroy until the expedition of theHeracleidae, and then these kings of the Spartans:
The kings from the other family were:
The Thalassocracies, who ruled the sea - in brief, from the writings ofDiodorus
After theTrojan war, the sea was controlled by:
After this, it will be fitting to move on to the kingdom of theMacedonians.
[p227]
The kings of theMacedonians
The end of theAssyrian empire, after the death ofSardanapallus the last king of theAssyrians, was followed by theMacedonian age.
Before the firstOlympiad,Caranus was moved by ambition to collect forces from theArgives and from the rest of thePeloponnese, in order to lead an army into the territory of the Macedonians. At that time the king of the Orestae was at war with his neighbours, the Eordaei, and he called on Caranus to come to his aid, promising to give him half of his territory in return, if the Orestae were successful. The king kept his promise, and Caranus took possession of the territory; he reigned there for 30 years, until he died in old age.
He was succeeded by his sonCoenus, who was king for 28 years.
After him, Tyrimias reigned for 43 years.
Perdiccas for 42 years. He wanted to expand his kingdom; so he sent [a mission] toDelphi.
A little further on, [Diodorus] says:
Perdiccas reigned for 48 years, and left his kingdom toArgaeus, who reigned for 31 years.
The next king wasPhilippus, who reigned for 33 years.
Aeropus for 20 years.
Alcetas for 18 years.
Amyntas for 49 years.
He was followed byAlexander, who reigned for 44 years.
ThenPerdiccas was king for 22 years.
Archelaus for 17 years.
Aeropus for 6 years.
ThenPausanias was king for one year.
Ptolemy for 3 years.
Perdiccas for 5 years.
Philippus for 24 years.
Alexander, [who] fought against thePersians, for more than 12 years.
In this way the most reliable historians trace the ancestry of the Macedonian kings back toHeracles. From Caranus, who was the first to rule all the Macedonians, until Alexander, who conqueredAsia, there were 24 kings who reigned for a total of 453 years.
[p229] The individual [kings] are as follows:
The kings of theMacedonians, from the writings of our enemy, the philosopherPorphyrius:
These were the kings ofMacedonia and Greece after Alexander the son of Philippus; and theMacedonian kingdom continued until its dissolution as follows.
The Macedonians appointedAridaeus, the son of Philippus andPhilinna ofThessaly, to be king after Alexander because of their affection for the family of Philippus, although they knew that Aridaeus was the son a courtesan and he was feeble-minded. He began to reign, as we said, in the second year of the 114thOlympiad . He is reckoned to have reigned for 7 years, because he lived up until the fourth year of the 115th Olympiad .
[p231]Alexander left two sons,Heracles the son ofBarsine the daughter ofPharnabazus, andAlexander the son ofRoxane the daughter ofOxyartes theBactrian; this Alexander was born about the time of his father's death, at the start ofPhilippus' reign.Olympias the mother ofAlexander killedAridaeus, but thenCassander the son ofAntipater executed her and both the sons of Alexander, the one by himself and the other (the son of Barsine) by promptingPolysperchon. Cassander cast away Olympias' body without a burial, and proclaimed himself king; and from then onwards, all the othersatraps acted as kings, because the family of Alexander had been destroyed. Cassander marriedThessalonice the daughter of Philippus, and survived as king for another 19 years as king, until he died of a wasting disease. His reign, including the year in which Olympias ruled after the death of Aridaeus, lasted from the first year of the 116thOlympiad until the third year of the 120th Olympiad .
Cassander was succeeded by his sons,Philippus andAlexander andAntipater, who reigned for 3 years and 6 months after the death of their father. The first to rule was Philippus, who died atElateia. Then Antipater murdered his mother Thessalonice, who favoured her other son Alexander, and fled toLysimachus. But Lysimachus put him to death, even though he had married one of Lysimachus' daughters.
Alexander marriedLysandra, the daughter ofPtolemy, and in the war against his younger brother called on the aid ofDemetrius the son ofAntigonus, who was called Poliorcetes. But Demetrius killed Alexander, and made himself the king of theMacedonians. The reign of the sons of Cassander is reckoned to last from the fourth year[p233] of the 120thOlympiad until the third year of the 121st Olympiad .
Demetrius reigned for 6 years, from the [fourth year of the] 121st Olympiad until the first year of the 123rd Olympiad , when he was deposed byPyrrhus the king ofEpirus, the 23rd in line fromAchilles the son ofThetis. Pyrrhus claimed the kingdom belonged to him after the extinction ofPhilippus' family, through his connection withOlympias the mother ofAlexander, who was also a descendant ofPyrrhus the son ofNeoptolemus.
Pyrrhus ruled theMacedonians for seven months in the second year of the 123rd Olympiad . In the eighth month, he was replaced byLysimachus the son of son ofAgathocles, aThessalian fromCrannon who had been a bodyguard of Alexander. Lysimachus was king ofThrace and theChersonese, and now overran the neighbouring country ofMacedonia.
Lysimachus was persuaded by his wifeArsinoe to kill his own son. He ruled Macedonia for 5 years and 6 months, from the second year of the 123rd Olympiad until the third year of the 124th Olympiad .[p235] He was defeated bySeleucus Nicator, the king ofAsia, at the battle ofCorupedium, and lost his life in the battle. But straight after his victory, Seleucus was murdered byPtolemy Ceraunus, the son ofLagus andEurydice the daughter ofAntipater, even though Seleucus was his benefactor and had received him when he fled [fromLysimachus].
Then Ptolemy ruled over theMacedonians, until he was killed in battle against theGalatians. He reigned for one year and five months, which lasted from the fourth year of the 124thOlympiad until the fifth month of the first year of the 125th Olympiad .
Ptolemy was succeeded by his brotherMeleager, but the Macedonians deposed Meleager after only two months, because they considered him unfit to rule. In his place, since no-one was left from the royal family, they appointed as kingAntipater, who was the nephew ofCassander and the son ofPhilippus. But he too was deposed after ruling for 45 days bySosthenes, a commoner who considered him to be too poor a general to face the dangerous invasion ofBrennus theGalatian. The Macedonians gave Antipater the name Etesias, because theEtesian winds blow at about the time when he was king. Sosthenes repelled Brennus, and died after being in charge of the state for two complete years.
After Sosthenes, there was anarchy inMacedonia, because the followers of Antipater and Ptolemy andAridaeus were competing for control of the state, but no-one was completely in charge. In the period from Ptolemy until the end of the anarchy, that is from the fourth year of the 124th Olympiad until the [first year of the] 126th Olympiad , Ptolemy Ceraunus reigned for one year and five months,[p237]Meleager for two months,Antipater for 45 days,Sosthenes for two years, and the rest is reckoned to have been a time of anarchy.
While Antipater was plotting to take over the state,Antigonus set himself up as king; he was the son ofDemetrius Poliorcetes andPhila the daughter ofAntipater, and was called Gonatas because he had been born and brought up atGonni inThessaly. Antigonus reigned in total for 44 years; before he gained control ofMacedonia, he had already been king for 10 whole years. He was proclaimed king in the second year of the 123rdOlympiad , and became king of theMacedonians in the first year of the 126th Olympiad . Antigonus subdued Greece by force; he lived for 83 years in all, and died in the first year of the 135th Olympiad .
Antigonus was succeeded by his sonDemetrius, who conquered the whole ofLibya and capturedCyrene. Eventually he gained absolute control of all his father's possessions, and ruled over them for 10 years. He married a captive girl whom he called Chryseis, and by her he had a sonPhilippus, who was the first of the kings to fight against the Romans and caused the Macedonians much woe.
When Demetrius died, Philippus was left as a [young] orphan, and a member of the royal family,Antigonus called Phuscus, became his guardian. Seeing that Phuscus acted honourably in his role of guardian, the Macedonians made him king, and gave him Chryseis to be his wife. Chryeis bore him sons, but he did not bring them up, because he was holding the kingdom in trust for Philippus. And indeed he was succeeded by Philippus, when he died.
Demetrius, called the Fair, died in the second year of the [?] 130th Olympiad. Philippus then became king,[p239] with the aforesaidAntigonus as his guardian. Antigonus died in the fourth year of the 139thOlympiad ; he had been guardian for 12 years, and lived for 42 years in all.Philippus began to rule without a guardian in the 140th Olympiad ; he reigned for 42 complete years, and died in the second year of the 150th Olympiad , aged 58 years.
Perseus the son of Philippus caused the death of his brotherDemetrius by making accusations against him to his father. Perseus was king for 10 years and 8 months, until the fourth years of the 152nd Olympiad , when LuciusAemilius defeated and conquered theMacedonians atPydna. Perseus fled toSamothrace, but then agreed to surrender to the enemy, who transferred him toAlba, where he was imprisoned and died five years later. He was the last king of the Macedonians.
At that time the Romans allowed the Macedonians to remain autonomous, out of respect for their glorious reputation and the greatness of their [former] empire. But 19 years later, in the third year of the 157th Olympiad , a certainAndriscus falsely claimed to be the son of Perseus, and took on the name ofPhilippus, from which he came to be called the false Philippus. With the help of theThracians he conqueredMacedonia, but after ruling for a year he was defeated and fled to the Thracians, who handed him over, to be sent as a prisoner to Rome.
Because the Macedonians had been ungrateful, and had co-operated with the false Philippus, the Romans made themtributary in the fourth year of the 157th Olympiad . So fromAlexander until the end, when they became tributary to the Romans, that is from the second year of 114th Olympiad[p241] until the fourth year of the 157thOlympiad , the kingdom of theMacedonians lasted for 43Olympiads and two extra years, which is a total of 174 years.
These are the kings of the Macedonians afterAlexander the son ofPhilippus:
After that, they were subject to the Romans.
The kings of theThessalians:
For a long time, the Thessalians andEpirus had the same rulers as the Macedonians. They were granted independence by the Romans afterPhilippus was defeated by the Roman generalTitus inThessaly. But eventually, for the same reason as the Macedonians, they were madetributary to the Romans.
Like the Macedonians, they were ruled by Aridaeus, also called Philippus, for seven years after the death of Alexander. Then his successor Cassander ruled over Epirus and the Thessalians for 19 years. After him, his sonPhilippus [ruled] for 4 months. Then his brothersAntipater andAlexander [ruled] for 2 years and 6 months. And thenDemetrius the son of [Antigonus ruled] for 6 years and 6 months. After him, Pyrrhus [ruled] for 4 years and 4 months. Then Lysimachus the son ofAgathocles [ruled] for 6 years.[p243] AndPtolemy, who was called Ceraunus, [ruled] for one year and 5 months. ThenMeleager [ruled] for 2 months. After him,Antipater the son ofLysimachus [ruled] for 45 days. After him,Sosthenes [ruled] for one year. Then there was anarchy for 2 years and 2 months, after whichAntigonus the son ofDemetrius [ruled] for 34 years and 2 months.
During this time,Pyrrhus won over Antigonus' army and ruled over a few regions, but he lost control of them when he was defeated byDemetrius the son of Antigonus in a battle at Derdia. Shortly afterwards Antigonus died, and his son Demetrius reigned for 10 years. After him,Antigonus, the son ofDemetrius who went off toCyrene and of Olympias the daughter of Pauliclitus ofLarisa, [ruled] for 9 years. Antigonus came to the aid of theAchaeans, defeatedCleomenes the king of theSpartans in battle, and liberatedSparta. Therefore theAchaean people honoured him like a god.
After him,Philippus the son ofDemetrius reigned for 23 years and 9 months, until he was defeated in a battle inThessaly byTitus the Roman general. Then the Romans allowed theThessalians to be autonomous, along with the rest of theIonians [? Greeks] who had been subject to Philippus. For the first year there was anarchy in Thessaly, but then they started to elect annual leaders from amongst the people.
The first to be elected wasPausanias the son of Echecrates, fromPherae. ThenAmyntas the son of Crates, from [?]Pieria; in his year, Titus returned to Rome. ThenAeacides the son of Callas, fromMetropolis. Then Epidromas the son of Andromachus, from Larisa, for 8 months only; for the remaining 4 months of the year, the leader wasEunomus the son of Polyclitus, from Larisa. Eunomus was leader again for the whole of the following year. Then Aeacides the son of Callas, from Metropolis, for a second time. Then Pravilus the son of Phaxas, fromScotussa. Then Eunomus[p245] the son of Polyclitus, fromLarisa, for a second time. ThenAndrosthenes the son of Italus, fromGyrton. ThenThrasymachus the son ofAlexander, from [?]Atrax. Then Laontomenes the son of Damothon, fromPherae. ThenPausanias the son of Damothon. ThenTheodorus the son of Alexander, fromArgos. ThenNicocrates the son of Paxinas, from [?]Scotussa. ThenHippolochus the son of Alexippus, from Larisa. Then Cleomachides the son of Aeneus, from Larisa. Then Phyrinus the son of Aristomenes, fromGomphi.
In his year,Philippus the king ofMacedonia died, and was succeeded by his sonPerseus. As we said, Philippus reigned over theThessalians for 3 years and 9 months, but in all he reigned over theMacedonians for 42 years and 9 months. From the start of the reign of Philippus [Aridaeus] until the death of Philippus the son ofDemetrius, that is from the second year of the 114thOlympiad until the fifth month of the second year of the 150th Olympiad , is a total of 144 years and five months.
A summary of the kings of the Thessalians:
And then the following [annual] leaders:Pausanias,Amyntas,Aeacides,Epidromus,Eunomus, Aeacides again, Praviles, Eunomus again,Androsthenes,Thrasymachus, Laontomenes,Pausanias,Theodorus,Nicocrates,Hippolochus, Cleomachides, Phyrinus, and Philippus.
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