Death of Marcian; Leo succeeds
The Chronicle of Marcellinus Comes records under the consulship of Constantinus and Rufus (AD 457) that the emperor Marcian, whom it calls comparable to good emperors, died after reigning six years and six months, and that Leo succeeded him.
What this does and does not establish
A Latin chronicle written at Constantinople c. 518-534, used through Mommsen's 1894 edition (MGH AA 11) as Internet Archive OCR text (page images not checked); the English is an AI working translation. The Latin is printed on the same OCR lines as the parallel Greek column, so the item is taken in four Latin-only spans; OCR 'boiiis' read as bonis, 'succcssit' as successit, '5' is a margin line number. The passage does not name the city. The parallel Greek column also enters Marcian's death and Leo's coronation under these consuls; Mommsen's page note gives '457 = Iordanes R. 332 et 335' (Jordanes depends on Marcellinus) and indicates that two of his manuscripts omit the year 457. The retained passage does not explicitly establish the site of the relevant act. No occurrence region is assigned.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- No region assigned This collection has not fixed where the act took place. It is not a statement that the place is unknown.
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- Indiction/consul heading (OCR line 7314): '457 X. CONSTANTINI ET RVPI. i^d. i vrc. Kiovatavtivov ■/«/ 'Polnpov.'
- How we use it
- Placed in the consular year under which Marcellinus enters it (as numbered by the editor). The listing uses year precision. Any finer dating belongs to the quoted passage; the chronicle can misplace events.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Consular year to AD 457 per the heading index marcellinus-headings.json (one indiction/consul heading per year in order, indiction expected 10, read 10), matching the AD years Mommsen prints in the margin.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (Latin), ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 11 (Chronica minora II), 1894
Marcellinus Comes (6th-century, Constantinople); critical edition by Theodor Mommsen (1894)
Quoted text (Latin)
1 Marcianus imperator boiiis principibusAI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
1 The emperor Marcian, to good emperors
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (1894), Internet Archive OCR text. English renderings are AI working translations from the Latin.
Exact source version
e805805fe7b68265bd53e46c3152420178fa7275b1ed420804dfd243bfc628c9Source 2 · Supports the statement
Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (Latin), ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 11 (Chronica minora II), 1894
Marcellinus Comes (6th-century, Constantinople); critical edition by Theodor Mommsen (1894)
Quoted text (Latin)
conparandus vitae spiritum amisit : impo-AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
comparable, lost the breath of life: he ruled (impe-)
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (1894), Internet Archive OCR text. English renderings are AI working translations from the Latin.
Exact source version
e805805fe7b68265bd53e46c3152420178fa7275b1ed420804dfd243bfc628c9Source 3 · Supports the statement
Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (Latin), ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 11 (Chronica minora II), 1894
Marcellinus Comes (6th-century, Constantinople); critical edition by Theodor Mommsen (1894)
Quoted text (Latin)
ravit annos sex menses sex. Leo eidemAI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
(-rated) six years, six months. Leo, him
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (1894), Internet Archive OCR text. English renderings are AI working translations from the Latin.
Exact source version
e805805fe7b68265bd53e46c3152420178fa7275b1ed420804dfd243bfc628c9Source 4 · Supports the statement
Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon (Latin), ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 11 (Chronica minora II), 1894
Marcellinus Comes (6th-century, Constantinople); critical edition by Theodor Mommsen (1894)
Quoted text (Latin)
defuncto succcssit.AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
being dead, succeeded.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (1894), Internet Archive OCR text. English renderings are AI working translations from the Latin.
Exact source version
e805805fe7b68265bd53e46c3152420178fa7275b1ed420804dfd243bfc628c9Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-05. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
This is a corrected version of this record. During research, before this release, an earlier version was withdrawn after independent review and replaced by this one.
Revision sgap_auditfix_s1h_457_marc_1
Exact revision fingerprint
312eb8f4cdeb85d9cd2405c6912c2a63d7dff98b7d644351d1fadbd4521efd1c