MARCELLINUS, COMES. — Born of a noble family in Illyria, chancellor to the heir-apparent Justinian under Emperor Justin I (518–27).
He composed in Constantinople a Chronicle in Latin covering the years 379–534 of the Eastern Roman Empire. The work was continued up to 548 by an unknown continuator. He made use of the Historiae of Orosius and the De viris illustribus of Gennadius. Important for the years from 470 onward. He also wrote an itinerary containing topographical notices on Constantinople and Jerusalem (v. Cassiodorus, Instit. div. lett., 17: PL 70, 1134).
BIBL.: critical ed. by Th. Mommsen: MGH. Auct. antiquis., XI: Chronica minora, II, Berlin 1894, pp. 37–108. Studies: O. Holder-Egger, Die Chronik des Marcellinus Comes und die ostromischen Fasten, in Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichte, 2 (1877), pp. 49–109; P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident, Paris 1943, pp. 354, 374 (on the cosmography of M. in the library of Cassiodorus). Erik Peterson