These annals, an outgrowth of the consular fasti and more recently known as Fasti Vindobonenses or Consularia Italica, are important for their accurate chronological data of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Orationes (Pro Sex. Roscio Amerino), edited by Andrew, bishop of Aleria, Rome, 1471; German translation by Klotz, Leipsic, 1835, 3 vols.; English translation by Wm. Guthrie, London, 1806, 2 vols.; and by C. D. Yonge, London, 1851-1852, 4 vols. Cicero’s writings, though not primarily historical, furnish valuable material for the historian.—Claudian(us), Claudius, Opera, Vincenza, 1482; Vienna, 1510; edited by Palmannus, Antwerp, 1571; by Burmann, Amsterdam, 1760; English translation by A. Hawkins, London, 1817, 2 vols.
Claudian was the last Latin classic poet. He was a native of Alexandria, but came to Rome about the end of the fourth century. He enjoyed the patronage of Stilicho, who granted him wealth and honours, but probably shared his patron’s ruin in 408. Claudian wrote numerous panegyrical poems, three historical epics, and many occasional verses. His epics are not without value as historical sources, as they follow the facts of history closely.
Cluverius (Cluver), Philip, Germania Antiqua, Leyden, 1616.—Cochtaens, Joannes, Vita Theodorici regis Ostrogothorum et Italiæ, annotated by J. Peringskiöld, Stockholm, 1699.—Codex Carolinus (Letters from the Popes to Frankish Kings), edited by Philip Jaffé in his Monumenta Carolina, Berlin, 1867.
The Codex Carolinus, Letters from the Popes to the Frankish Kings, collected by the order of Charlemagne, is one of the most important of historical sources.
Codex Gothanus, edited by Waitz, in Monumenta Germaniæ, Historica, Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum, Hanover, 1819, in progress.
Composed probably about 810, and prefixed to a manuscript of Lombard laws now in the Ducal Library at Gotha.
Codex Theodosianus, Paris, 1686; edited by Hanel in the Corpus Juris Antejustinia neum, vol. II, Bonn, 1842.
A compilation in the year 438, of the constitutions of the Roman emperors from Constantine the Great to Theodosius II. It formed the basis for the Code of Justinian, and is the great authority for the social and political history of the period. These decrees with their appendices were officially recognised in the eastern empire, but in the west they had force only in an abbreviated version. The original work was in sixteen books, arranged chronologically by subjects, but at least a third of the entire work exists only in the abbreviated form.