From: Canadian Journal of History | Date: August 1, 1993| Author: | COPYRIGHT 1993 Canadian Journal of History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

John Lydus is not a highly-ranked author by any standard. Michael Maas calls him, with justice, "a disgruntled civil servant and antiquarian" of the first half of the sixth century, which was dominated by the emperor Justinian whose rule contemporaries counted from 518, when his uncle Justin donned the purple. He came from the city of Philadelphia, which went back no further than the Hellenistic period, but it was in the territory of the ancient Lydian empire, which had fallen a thousand years before his time. But John had an antiquarian's interest in Lydia and knew at least one ...