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[John of Lydia] 6th century. Byzantium. Administrator and author of works on divination and on history. Ioannes was born ca 490 at Philadelphia in Lydia (today Alasehir in Turkey). Apparently he came to Constantinople around 510, and there he began his official career as a high functionary of the Early Byzantine State during the reign of Emperors Anastasius (490-518) and Justinian I (527-65). He retired in 552 and, like many Roman nobleman, he became a writer and took particular pride in teaching Latin. We do not know when he died.Two of his works deal with history. The first, on th…

13th-14th century. Byzantium. The son of the historian Georgius Akropolites. Little is known of his biography. He followed his father, who was tutor to the Emperor Theodoros II Doukas Laskaris (1254-58), in a series of high positions in the civil administration of the Byzantine Empire. From 1282 to 1294 he was finance minister ( logothetes tou genikou) and from 1305 to 1321 "prime minister" ( megas logothetes). Apparently he must have been died after 1324/25.Besides his rhetorical and hagiographical writings Konstantinos began to compile a Roman and Byzantine history …

[Byzantine Emperor John VI] ca 1292-1383 (reigned 1347-54). Byzantium. The reign of Ioannes VI marks the beginning of the gradual mortal agony which started in the Byzantine Empire about 1350 and would last about 100 years. The first half of the 14th century had been characterised by long civil wars, and the hatred between noble families and different social groups. Ioannes Kantakouzenos was born in Constantinople and his family was closely related to the ruling dynasty of the Palaeologues. During the war between the Emperors Andronicus II (1272-1328) and Andronicus III (1322/28-134…

9th century. Byzantium. The text with the title Συγγραφὴ χρονογραφίου τὰ κατὰ Λέοντα υἱὸν Βάρδα τοῦ Ἀρμενίου περιέχουσα (Compiled chronicle containing what happened to Leo, the son of Bardas the Armenian) is a record on the reigns of the Byzantine Emperors Michael I (811-13) and Leo V (813-20). Leo himself was a son of the Byzantine patricius Bardas, whose family originated from Armenia. Modern scholars are not sure if the text was composed as an independent chronicle or if it was intended to continue Ioannes Malalas or Theophanes Confessor. The author fiercely criticises Leo V for…

second half of the 5th century. Byzantium. On record as a notary or clerk in the service of certain noble families of his native Isauria, Candidus was the author of a History (Λόγοι ἱστορίας, Logoi historias), which according to the information supplied by the patriarch Photios I (9th century), originally consisted of three volumes ( l ogoi). From the whole text only a short summary in the so-called Bibliotheke of Photios has come down to us. Photios reports some autobiographical comments from Candidus's work, recording that he was born at Tracheia in Cilicia (A…

early 14th century. Byzantium. Author of a verse chronicle of Roman and Byzantine Emperors, written in iambic trimeters and in highest level of Greek language. Unfortunately we have little exact information about Ephraem, though he was probably born at Ainus (now Ezes in European Turkey). This assumption is based on the old library catalogue of the Vatican, which has listed the work since the 16th century as Ἐφραὶμ Αἰνίου χρονικὴ ἱστορία (Chronicle of Ephraem from Ainos); presumably this must have been taken from earlier catalogues or from the manuscript it…

[Chronicle of Cambridge] 11th century. Sicily. A short text in Greekabout the history of Arab Sicily, which remarkably is known also in an Arabic translation.From the manuscript tradition we can tentatively reconstruct the Greek title, Χρονογράφιον ἀφ᾽ οὗ εἰσῆλθον οἱ Σαρακηνοὶ ἐν Σικελίᾳ (Chronicle beginning at the point when the Saracens had entered Sicily). The misleading title Chronicle of Cambridge refers to the location of the Arabic manuscript, as this was known to scholarship before the Greek original.The text consists of 64 brief notes on the Arab rule in Sicily …

[Agathias Scholastikos] 6th century. Byzantium (Asia Minor). Author of a History (Ἱστορία) of Byzantine affairs 552-59. Agathias, whose biography we know quite well from the preface of his History and from his poetry in the famous Palatine Anthology, was from Myrina (now Sandarlik) in Mysia, Asia Minor (approx. 40 km from Pergamon). There he was born about the year 532. Like many of his contemporaries he completed a rhetorical education which allowed him to take over a higher function in the administration of Smyrna (İzmir). Later on he moved to Constantinople where he worked as lawy…

ca 1028 - after 1085. Byzantium. Michael Attaleiates is one of those figures in the Byzantine society of the 11th century who were beneficiaries of the dynastic change from the Macedonian Emperors to the family Commenus, he was able to gain not only high official rank, but also extensive lands for his own use. Attaleitates was born in Constantinople. As his family name reveals, his forefathers migrated to the Byzantine capital from Attaleia (now Antalya, Asia Minor). After his training in rhetoric and law he made his fortune rapidly. About 1059 we can find him in the …

[Χρονογραφικὸν σύντομον (Concise chronicle)] end of the 10th century or later. Byzantium. A short universal chronicle from the Creation to the death of the EmperorKonstantinos VII Porphyrogennitos in 959. Late 19th-century scholarship judged it to be a falsification by the 16th-century writer and librarian Andreas Darmarius, but this view has been refuted with good reason by the modern editor.The manuscript tradition ascribes the Chronographicon syntomon implausibly to the patriarch Cyril of Alexandria (375/80-444), but the long title of the work states that it w…

1242- post-1308. Byzantium. Georgios Pachymeres was born in Nicaea (today Iznik, Turkey), which after the Fourth Crusade had gradually replaced Constantinople as the most important local centre of the Byzantine Empire. He received a thorough rhetorical and literary education which found its expression in his observable preference for linguistic and verbal archaisms. One of his teachers may have been Georgios Akropolites. After the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople in 1261, Pachymeres soon became deacon and also lawyer ( dikaiophylax) at the Hagia Sophia.Besides numerous …

[Anonymus Sathas, Synopsis Sathas] 13th century. Byzantium. A high Byzantine cleric and confident of the Emperors Theodorus II Doucas Lascaris (1254-58) and Michael VIII Palaeologus (1259-82), and author of a universal chronicle in Greek prose. After Constantinople was recaptured in 1261, Skoutariotes was appointed counsellor ( dikaiophylax) and economist ( tou sakelliou) of the patriarchate. In the 1270s he became metropolitan of Cyzicus (now in the Turkish province Balıkesir). During the negations of church unification between Latins and Greeks which were instigated by Micha…

[Ἔκθεσις χρονική (Chronological consideration)] early or mid-16th century. Byzantium. An anonymous chronicle of the years 1392-1517. We do not know where it was composed, but it is written in a quite low level of style particularly close to the vernacular language. A later version was continued up to 1543.The chronicle records the last decades of Byzantium, as well as the Ottoman conquests in the Balkans and the social interaction of Christians and Ottomans after the fall of Constantinople (1453). Sources include Doukas and Georgios Sphrantzes. The text was later incorporated a…

1217-82. Byzantium. Born at Constantinople, he was sent by his parents in 1233 to Nicaea to study rhetoric and philosophy. One of his teachers was Nikephoros Blemmydes who introduced him to the circle of Emperor Ioannes III Doukas Vatatzes (1222-54). About 1246 Akropolites was made teacher of the Emperor's son Theodoros and also began his career as Byzantine functionary which continued under the reign of Michael VIII Palaeologos. From ca 1240 as megas logariastes Georgios was responsible for the finances of the Nicaean army, and from 1255 to 1282 he held the office …

11th century. Byzantium. This anonymous Greek-language chronicle, apparently compiled after the year 1033 probably at Constantinople, has been known by the modern title Chronicon Bruxellense (from the location of the manuscript, in Brussels) since the 19th-century edition. It is in fact an annotated list of Roman and Byzantine emperors from Julius Caesar up to Romanos III Argyros (1028-33), with expansive historical notes assigned to the reign of every emperor, often containing unique information. For the classical Roman period one can find especia…

[Τὸ περὶ τῆς κτίσεως τῆς Μονεμβασίας χρονικόν (Chronicle about the foundation of Monemvasia)] 9th century. Greece. A local chronicle in Greek prose dealing with the historical events on the Byzantine Peloponnese from the foundation of Monemvasia in 559 till the year 806. It provides scarce information about villages, wars and foreign peoples, although the city of Patras receives special attention. As a historical source the text is particularly valuable for the settlement of Avars and Slavs in Southern Greece and the gradual consolidation of the Byza…

Introduction: Historiography and ChronographyIn Byzantine historical writing we find two main text types which are also known in the literature of other cultures: on the one hand the narrative history which deals with a particular sequence of historical events, and on the other, the traditional annalistic chronicle, be it universal or more limited in scope. Both models can, of course, be traced back to precursors of the classical period or late antiquity; as we might expect, the Byzantine tradition…

[Χρονικὸν τοῦ Μορέως; Livre de la conqueste e de la prince de l'Amorée] 14th century. Crusader states. A chronicle the history of southern Greece under the period of French rule, existing in five versions, two in Greek verse and one each in French, Italian and Aragonese prose. The Chronicle of the Morea uniquely straddles Medieval Greek and French literature, composed as it was in the Greek world, but with content which rather belongs to the Romance cultural area. This is reflected in the complicated transmission of the text.Following the capture of Constantinople by crusader troops i…

9th century. Byzantium. A Greek-language chronicle, originally part of a more comprehensive work which is now lost. The surviving chapter bears the title Περὶ Νικηφόρου τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ πῶς ἀφίησιν τὰ κῶλα ἐν Βουλγαρία (About the Emperor Nicephorus I and for what reason he left his bones in Bulgaria). The text records the unfortunate campaign of Emperor Nikephoros I (802-11) with a more critical eye than other Byzantine sources, and provides us with valuable information about the military tactics of the Bulgarians. After Nicephorus bought peace in the…

[Ἐκλογὴ ἱστοριῶν (Selections from history)] 9th and 12th century. Byzantium. An anonymous universal chronicle in Greek, surviving in two versions. Version (a) must have been composed under the reign of the Emperor Basileios I (867-86). Presumably it originally ran from Creation to Emperor Anastasius I (491-518), but now it ends with the Old Testament king Uzziah of Judah. Version (b) is identical with (a), but it continues to the year 1118. The author claims to have used the chronicles of Sextus Iulius Africanus and of Eusebius of Caesarea, though no borrowing can be verified. Lon…