Library › Latin: History › Chronography of 354
The Chronography of 354 is an illustrated almanac produced at Rome for a wealthy Christian named Valentinus, with lettering by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus, who later worked for Pope Damasus. The text here, following Mommsen’s edition, includes the dedication and its good wishes, the images of the four cities of Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople and Trier, the birthdays of the emperors, a calendar of lucky and unlucky days and planetary hours, lists of consuls, an Easter table, the prefects of the city, and the list of the bishops of Rome, with the lists of the burial days of bishops and martyrs.
The collection is one of the most valuable sources for the city of Rome in the fourth century. It preserves the earliest list of Christian feasts, including the first record of Christmas on 25 December, the oldest catalogue of the popes, known as the Liberian Catalogue, and a calendar of pagan festivals still observed in a city that was becoming Christian. It survives only in later copies of a lost Carolingian manuscript.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from digilibLT, the Digital Library of Late-Antique Latin Texts (edition: Chronographus anni CCCLIIII, ed. T. Mommsen, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Auctorum antiquissimorum tomus IX. Chronica minora saec. IV. V. VI. VII, I,…), licensed CC BY-NC. Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.