Abstract

What is the literary genre of the Roman Liber pontificalis? For what purposes was this work written? In what controversy was its author involved? By answering these and other questions, this paper offers a new interpretation of the relationship between the prefatory letters of the Liber pontificalis and the Canones apostolorum, and highlights the polemical use of some of these canons in the disputes between partisans and opponents of Symmachus (even after the latter’s death) in the first decades of the 6th century in Rome.