1)
At the beginning we find the following changes: a. transposition of syntax: Croatian present participle is transposed into Latin ablative absolute; Croatian prepositional phrase is transposed into a dative object (and, accordingly, the perspective has shifted from where the emperor rules to which region he rules over); b. recasting of word order: the position of participle and noun is inverted, but the syntactic unit still encloses its supplements; c. explanation and clarification: Marulić supplies the name of the emperor, as if making up for the jumble that we read instead of the name of Constantinople; d. aptum: M. aims at a cultured readership — readers who would know who Justinian is and where he rules. “Partibus Orientis” may sound vague, but this turn of phrase has a certain pedigree, going back at least to Cicero; it can be found numerous times in authors of Christian Latin (including historians such as Eusebius of Caesarea) and late antiquity. — We can also consider this as translator's implicitation, leaving out information which is readily inferred from the context.
2)
Note the following translators' techniques: a.Recasting: Marulić changes the order of units, giving precise date immediately, unlike CC, which has first the relative dating by Germanus, Sabinus, and Benedict. b.Accepted translation: the phrase anno Christianae salutis is an equivalent to the “year of Our Lord”. It is not the more common (and less elegant) “anno Domini” that we moderns would perhaps expect. c. Marulić corrects the date.
3)
In 1.4 and 1.5, note: a. hypotaxis instead of parataxis (eo tempore > quo tempore); b. more concision: bishops go together; c. cultural aptum: the readers would know who were bishops Germanus and Sabinus; d. correction (Benedict's monastery); e. reduction: less epithets (none for Benedict); f. the praise is transposed from a sentence into an adjectival phrase; it comes after the names, not before (the names gravitate towards the beginning of a clause).
4)
Two techniques are prominent in passages 7–11: a. Omission: one motif is transposed to the next sentence (description of the Goths), the other is dropped altogether (three fabular brothers). b. Editing the narrative: from the date RDCG takes us straight to a succession to the throne; what is dated is the event, and not the barbarian invasion. So a jumbled chronicle turns to a tight plot. The CC narrative moves from date to invasion and then, by the way of rulers, back to succession.
5)
Notable features: a. Cohesion and economy: more information is packed into the ablative absolute. We meet the king and learn his name as he dies, instead of having to remember him from previous sentence. b. Recasting: the name is again placed at the beginning of the sentence. c. Classicizing collocation: uita defuncto, which Marulić likes (cf. CroALa), is found in Vergil, Ovid, Aulus Gellius etc. For “deceased” the Christian writers, more often than “uita defunctus”, use just “defunctus”.
6)
a. Recasting: information from the beginning of GRS and CC is presented after the ablative absolute
b. Equivalence (substitution of idioms): a terminus technicus “successit in regno” replaces metonymy (“sedit in solio” was obviously felt to be strange to Croatian at the time of translation). Yet classical authors (Pompeius Trogus, Pliny the Elder) seem to have only “regno succedere”, as opposed to the Bible and the Christians. c. Reduction: by recasting, transposition, and equivalence M. makes the text more concise. d. Expansion: “Natu maior” is expanded by “inter liberos eius” and not by “ceteris”. In Croatian it is possible to leave out the comparison altogether (especially as it was explained already), so Marulić's addition makes explicit what was implicit in Croatian. The expansion is at the same time classicizing.