Excerpta historica quae Constantini VII Porphyrogeniti dicuntur. Vol. I. De legationibus Romanorum ad gentes

The Excerpta de Legationibus Romanorum (ELR) consist in one section of a huge historical collection, the so-called Excerpta Historica Constantiniana (EC), i.e., Constantinian Extracts, which the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913-959) had assembled by anonymous scholars around the midpoint of the 10th century. Most of the Excerpta Historica Constantiniana are now lost, while the ELR are the best preserved volume, as regards percentage. We know that the whole was divided into 53 sections/volumes by subject and that the ELR were the 27th section. The text of the ELR consists in the Prooemium and in 167 excerpts, extracted from 16 Greek authors from Polybius to Georgius Monachus and dealing with Roman embassies from the 3rd century b.C. to the 9th AD. The text was critically edited in 1903 by Carl de Boor, who did not even know the existence of a third branch in the stemma codicum: the Cambridge manuscript was re-discovered in 1913 by Mihail N. Krašeninnikov and displayed promising new findings/variants. Yet a new critical edition was never produced and any further Russian investigations into Byzantine excerpts ceased upon the death of F. I. Uspenskij in 1928. For the first time, Carolla's edition offers a complete investigation of the manuscripts of the entire ELR collection, a new critical text and apparatus based upon solid philological investigation, a literary and historical apparatus fontium, an index nominum, and an index locorum. The book paves the way for a new comprehensive research about Roman and Byzantine diplomacy through the lenses of the ELR anthology. Furthermore, this critical edition fits in the revival of interest to the scholars that the EC are experiencing: see e.g. the recent contributions by L. M. Ciolfi, A. Cohen-Skalli, B. Flusin, A. Kaldellis, P. Magdalino, F. Monticini, A. Neméth, P. Odorico, D. Rafiyenko, U. Roberto and many others. The ELR have much to tell the readers as regards both historical contents and literary style.