The Excerpta de Legationibus Romanorum (ELR) are one section of a long historical anthology, the so-called Excerpta Historica Constantiniana, which the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus had anonymous scholars assemble around the midpoint of the 10th century. Though most of the Excerpta are now lost, we know that they were divided into 53 sections by subject. The ELR were the 27th section.The text of the ELR (the Prooemium and 167 excerpta) was critically edited in 1903 by Carl de Boor, who did not yet know about the existence of a third branch in the stemma codicum: the Cambridge manuscript, which was discovered in 1913 by Mihail N. KraSeninnikov, offered promising new findings but a critical edition was never produced. 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. This volume opens the way for new comprehensive research about Roman, Late Antique and Byzantine diplomacy through the lenses of the ELR anthology.
