Heroic Kings and Unruly Generals: The "Copenhagen" Continuation of Prosper Reconsidered

For much of our knowledge of late antiquity we are indebted to historically-minded bibliophiles of the Middle Ages who assembled the fragments of Roman history into great collections of chronicles and histories. Perhaps the most interesting of such collections is preserved in Copenhagen Ns. 454. Largely made up of the well-known chronicles of Jerome, Prosper, and Iáidore, it also contains material found nowhere else concerning events of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. Particularly valuable are the notices of the years 475 through 480. The Copenhagen collection includes capsule accounts -- derived apparently from a contemporary work or works -- of the deposition of the Emperor Nepos, the usurpation of Romulus Augustulus, last Roman emperor of the West, and the subsequent revolt of the /oederati through which Odoacer was made the first barbarian king of Italy. The Copenhagen manuscript is, in fact, our fullest source for these famous events.