It is an unfortunate fact that historians of the Later Roman Empire are forced to derive much of their chronological material from chronicles and consular fasti. I say unfortunate, for chronicles are not nearly as accurate as modern historians would like them to be. This is because they were an exceptionally difficult type of history to compile, prone to error at every turn, from the gathering of sources to the copying of the final text, and because most chroniclers were essentially ‘amateurs’, having little experience in doing research, thinking or writing historically, and usually separated by considerable time and space from the events they were describing. These facts constantly rankle with modern historians, and some who have had to rely heavily on chronicles rather than attempt methodological or historiographical explanations of why they believe particular entries in chronicles are incorrectly dated, have often taken the easy way out and tried to solve their problems by emending them away: they alter the texts themselves, offering as excuses the assumptions (usually only implicit) that the chroniclers were skilful historians with access to reliable sources, that they were able to present their information accurately and carefully, and that the texts as we have them now were corrupted by ignorant and careless medieval scribes.