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360 giovanbattista galdi
who sometimes chooses, among different lectiones of the manuscripts, the
most ungrammatical ones. This point has been particularly stressed by
Giunta and Grillone in their more recent edition of the Getica. 10 It must
be noted, however, that these two scholars often make the opposite mistake
by going too far in their ‘normalisation’ process: in several instances
they arbitrarily refuse the form transmitted by the first manuscript family,
particularly by the Palatinus, and ‘correct’ it through grammatically ‘better’
variants in the second or third one. 11 Moreover, most of their changes
concern phonetic aspects, such as u for o, e for i, and vice versa: the morphology
and syntax of the text (which constitute the bulk of the present
contribution) are much more rarely involved.
Jordanes left us two historical works, De origine actibusque Getarum
(or Getica) andDe summa temporum vel origine actibusque Romanorum
(or Romana), which, as the author himself states, were completed during
the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Justinian, that is in ad 551–
2. 12 Both works are epitomes: the Getica summarises the twelve volumes of
Cassiodorus’ Historia Gothorum, occasionally supplemented ex nonnullis
historiis Grecis ac Latinis (Get. 3). The Romana, considered by Jordanes as
his minor work (cf. Get. 1), is a world chronicle, from Adam to Justinian.
The sources of the Getica (apart from the lost books of Cassiodorus)
are mainly unknown, whereas most of those used in the Romana have
been identified and discussed by Mommsen (1882). 13 The most frequently
employed are the Epitome of Florus (second century) and the Chronicon of
Jerome (fourth century), the only author besides Ablabius whom Jordanes
expressly mentions by name (Rom. 11 sicut Eusevius vel Hieronimus). Less
common is the use of other works such as the Chronicon of Marcellinus
Comes (sixth century), the Historiae of Orosius (fifth century), the
Breviaria of Eutropius and Rufius Festus and the Epitome of Ps.-Aurelius
Victor (fourth century). 14
10 See Giunta and Grillone 1991: xviii–xix: ‘Difficile non est statuere permulta illa errata, et syntactica
et graphica, quae traduntur ex prima familia tantum [i.e. the first manuscript family], non ad
auctorem nostrum esse tribuenda, sed potius ad amanuenses Germanicos.’ According to Mommsen
(1882: lxxii) the Romana is transmitted by two manuscript families, the Getica by three. The
most important and reliable codices of both books (Heidelbergensis, Valenciennensis, Palatinus and
Laurentianus) belong to the first one.
11 See on this point my discussion in Galdi, forthcoming.
12 Cf. Rom. 4 in vicensimo quarto anno Iustiniani imperatoris quamvis breviter uno tamen in tuo nomine
et hoc parvissimo libello confeci; 363 Iustinianus imperator regnat iam iubante [sic] domino annos xxiii.
13 Modern scholarship generally rejects the old theory of Enßlin (1949) according to which the text
of the Romana is mainly based on the lost Historia Romana of Symmachus. See on this point the
remarks of Luiselli (1976).
14 For a full list of the sources used by Jordanes see Mommsen (1882: xxiii–xxix).