Antiochus Strategos’ Account of the Sack of Jerusalem in AD 614

English Historical Review: v.25 (1910)

Abstract

In the ninth volume of his Texts and Studies and Armenogruzinian Philology (Tekstwe i Razweskaniyah po Armyano-Gruzinskoe Philologi) Professor N. Marr, of the University of St. Peersburg, published early last year the old Georgian version of a narrative entitled ‘Antiochus Strategos, the Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians in the year 614’ (Antiokh Strateg, Playnenie Jerusalima Persami). The Greek text of this narrative is lost, all except an insignificant fragment; but as it is our only detailed narrative by an eye-witness of this important but hitherto obscure episode, I have thought it worth translating for English readers.

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The Georgian text, edited by Professor Marr from to codices, of which one was written in the thirteenth century, fills sixty-six large octavo pages of thirty-three lines each. I have much reduced its bulk by omitting pious ejaculations and other passages devoid of historical interest. These omissions I note. Professor Marr’s book contains , besides the Georgian text, a long and learned introduction, and a careful Russian translation of the Georgian. The latter materially aided me in my rendering, because, as students of Georgian well know, the lexicons of that language are very imperfect.

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