George Syncellus

George Syncellus (died after 810) was a Byzantine chronicler and ecclesiastic. He had lived many years in Palestine as a monk, and came to Constantinople to fill the important post of syncellus to Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople. The syncellus served as the patriarch's private secretary, was generally a bishop, and was the most important ecclesiastical person in the capital after the patriarch himself, and often the patriarch's successor. However George did not succeed Tarasius, and he retired to a monastery where he wrote his "Extract of Chronography" (Ekloge chronographias), which covered events of the world from Adam to the beginning of Diocletian's reign.

References

• Editio princeps by J. Goar (1652) in Bonn Corpus scriptorum hist. Byz., by W. Dindorf (1829).
• H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus, ii. I (1885).
• Heinrich Gelzer. Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantinische Chronographie. New York: B. Franklin, 1967, reprint of Leipzig: 1898.
• C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinische Litteratur (2nd ed., Munich, 1897).
• William Adler. Time immemorial: archaic history and its sources in Christian chronography from Julius Africanus to George Syncellus. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, c1989.
• Alden A. Mosshammer, ed., Georgii Syncelli Ecloga chronographica. Leipzig: Teubner, 1984.
• William Adler, Paul Tuffin, translators. The chronography of George Synkellos: a Byzantine chronicle of universal history from the creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.