This text is entitled “Summary Exposition of History from Adam Until Now, by the Orthodox and Christian Peter of Alexandria.” We do not know anything else about Peter. The text is seventeen pages long in the modern edition and goes from Creation to Leo VI (886).

This text contains a brief listing of the times between the births of biblical patriarchs, lists of peoples found in various regions of the world, the peoples descended from the sons of Noah, events that took place in northern and eastern parts of the world, reckonings of the number of years between major biblical events, years of biblical judges, kings and prophets, lists of kings of Egypt, lists of emperors of Rome, and emperors of New Rome up to Leo VI.

Manuscripts, Editions, and Translations

Manuscripts

The text survives in a manuscript stylistically dated to the tenth century: Coislinianus 229, which was brought from France to Moscow Imperial University in the early nineteenth century. A second manuscript of the text was destroyed in Dresden during the Second World War. The edition is based on the Moscow manuscript.

Edition

Samodurova, Zinaida., ed. “ Khronika Petra Aleksandrii skogo.” Vizantiiskii vremennik 18 (1961): 180– 97.

Starting Points

Hunger, Herbert. Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner: Philosophie, Rhetorik, Epistolographie, Geschichtsschreibung, Geographie. vol. 1. Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, 12.5. Munich : Beck, 1978, 360.

Külzer, Andreas. “ Die Anfänge der Geschichte: zur Darstellung des ‘Biblischen Zeitalters’ in der byzantinischen Chronistik.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 93, no. 1 (2000): 138 – 56.