The Paschal Chronicle records that the emperor Constantine refounded the city of Drepanum, north-west Asia Minor, and granted it immunity from taxation in honour of the martyr Loukianos/Lucian of Antioch (S00151), as well as renaming it after his mother Helena. Written in Greek at Constantinople, c. 630.
Evidence ID
E07953
Type of Evidence
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
Major author/Major anonymous work
Pascal Chronicle
Paschal Chronicle, s.a. 327
Δρέπανον ἐπικτίσας ὁ βασιλεὺς Κωνσταντῖνος ἐν Βιθυνίᾳ εἰς τιμὴν τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος Λουκιανοῦ ὁμώνυμον τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ Ἑλενούπολιν κέκληκεν, δωρησάμενος ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν ἕως φανερᾶς περιοχῆς πρὁ τῆς πόλεως εἰς τιμὴν τοῦ ἁγίου μάρτυρος Λουκιανοῦ ἀτέλειαν.
'The emperor Constantine, after refounding Drepanum in Bithynia in honour of the holy martyr Lucian, named it Helenopolis, with the same name as his mother, and in honour of the holy martyr Lucian he granted it to the present day immunity from taxation to the extent of the environs visible outside the city.'
Text: Dindorf 1832, 527.
Translation: Whitby and Whitby 1989, 15.
Non Liturgical Activity
Awarding privileges to cult centres
Source
The Chronicon Paschale (paschal or Easter chronicle) is a chronicle compiled at Constantinople in the first half of the 7th century. It covers events from the creation of the world up to the anonymous author's own time. The Chronicle probably concluded with the year 630 (see Whitby and Whitby 1989, xi), though the surviving text breaks off slightly earlier, in the entry for 628. The traditional name for the Chronicle originates from its introductory section, which discusses methods for calculating the date of Easter. The Chronicle survives thanks to a single manuscript, Vatican, Gr. 1941 (10th c.), on which all other surviving manuscripts depend. The only critical edition remains that of Ludwig Dindorf (1832).The chronicler uses multiple chronological systems to date events: Olympiads, consular years, indictions, and years from the Ascension, as well as using Roman, Greek, and sometimes Egyptian dates (see Whitby and Whitby 1989, x). Numerous literary sources are utilised for the period before the author's own time, including well-known historical sources such as Eusebius and John Malalas. We have not included entries for material in the Paschal Chronicle which simply reproduces material in earlier sources already entered in our database.
Discussion
This entry in the Chronicle relates the honours bestowed by Constantine in 327 on the town of Drepanum, near Nicomedia in Bithynia, because of its association with two individuals, the martyr Lucian of Antioch and Constantine's mother Helena. According to the Chronicle, Constantine refounded Drepanum (raising it to the rank of a city from its previous status as a town) and exempted it from taxation in honour of Lucian, who was buried there. He also changed its name to Helenopolis in honour of his mother. The association of these honours with Lucian is confirmed by the Chronicle of Jerome ($E###); other sources ignore Lucian and associate them only with Helena (e.g. Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 1.17.1). In a more garbled account, Philostorgius claims that it was Helena who founded the city in honour of Lucian (Ecclesiastical History 2.12; E04193).The fact that the tomb of Lucian of Antioch was in Drepanum is well-attested, although it is not clear whether he was buried there immediately after his martyrdom in 312 in the nearby city of Nicomedia or whether his body was translated there at a later date (Barnes 2011, 37).
Helena's previous connection with Drepanum is not clear. The idea that she had been born there does not appear before the 6th century and seems simply to be an inference from its renaming. Barnes 2011, 37, suggests that it had simply been her place of residence, before she left for her tour of the Holy Land (which is where she was when the renaming took place, if the Chronicle's date of 327 is correct).
Bibliography
Edition:Dindorf, L., Chronicon Paschale (Bonn, 1832).
Translation:
Whitby, M., and Whitby, M., Chronicon Paschale 284-628 AD (Translated Texts for Historians 7; Liverpool, 1989).
Further reading:
Barnes, T.D., Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Chichester, 2011).
Record Created By
David Lambert
Date of Entry
22/08/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00151 | Loukianos/Lucian of Antioch, theologian and martyr of Nicomedia and Helenopolis | Λουκιανός | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
David Lambert, Cult of Saints, E07953 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E07953