GEORGE THE

See also:

• SYNCELLUS

SYNCELLUS IGEORGIOS  SYNCELLOS], of Constantinople, Byzantine chronicler and ecclesiastic, lived at the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th century A.D . He was the syncellus (cell-mate, the confidential campanion assigned to the patriarchs, sometimes little more than a spy; see SYNCELLUS) or private secretary of Tara(u)sius, patriarch of Constantinople (784—806), after whose death he retired to a convent, and wrote his Chronicle of events from Adam to Diocletian (285) . At his earnest request, the work, which he doubt-less intended to bring down to his own times, was continued after his death by his friend Theophanes Confessor . The Chronicle, which, as its title implies, is rather a chronological table (with notes) than a history, is written with special reference to pre-Christian times and the introduction of Christianity, and exhibits the author as a staunch upholder of orthodoxy . But in spite of its religious bias and dry and uninteresting character, the fragments of ancient writers and apocryphal books preserved in it render it specially valuable . For instance, considerable portions of the original text of the Chronicle of Eusebius have been restored by the aid of Syncellus . His chief authorities were Annianus of Alexandria (5th century) and Panodorus, an Egyptian monk, who wrote about the year 400 and drew largely from Eusebius, Dexippus and Julius Africanus . Editio princeps, by J . Goar (1652); in Bonn Corpus scriptorum hist . Bye., by W . Dindorf (1829) . See also H .

Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus, ii . I (1885) ; C .

Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897) .