Chronicle
A year-by-year Latin chronicle that shortens Jerome’s down to 378 and continues it to 455, dating each entry by the consuls. For the years from about 410 its author, a lay theologian from Gaul and a supporter of Augustine, writes as a contemporary.
Prosper came from Aquitaine, lived in southern Gaul, and took Augustine’s side in the disputes over grace. His chronicle is an epitome of Jerome’s as far as the death of the emperor Valens; at that point he writes that Jerome’s reckoning ends and that he has added what followed (§1166). From there each year is headed by its consuls, which is what allows the entries to be converted to years AD.
The notices are brief: the sack of Rome in 410, the condemnations of Pelagius, the council of Ephesus, the death of Augustine on 28 August 430. For these Prosper is close in time, and he is the earliest source for several of the dates. He is not neutral in doctrine, and he calls the opponents of Augustine heretics as a matter of course. The day of the month given for the capture of Rome stands in only part of the manuscript tradition, which Mommsen marks with square brackets.
Cited in
- 7 March AD 203, estimated date
- AD 386, firm date
- August AD 410, firm date
- AD 411 to AD 418, estimated date