Chronicle

^A returning to the city from the Blachernae to the gate called Golden, displaying his own power, he performed abominable sacrifices in the meadow of the Golden Gate. He requested that the emperor make a peace treaty, or else fix his spear at the Golden Gate. When the emperor did not accept this, he returned to his own tent, having marveled at the city walls and the orderly ranks of the emperor’s army. He turned to the negotiation of peace, making deceitful proposals. The emperor, seizing the opportunity, attempted to slay him through an ambush, but he was prevented from carrying this out to completion by the ineptitude of those ministering the deed, who indeed struck him but did not inflict a mortal wound. Because of this, that mad plague, having dispatched cavalry, burned down the palace erected at Saint Mamas, and having loaded the bronze lion of the Hippodrome together with the bear and the hydra-serpent, along with most beautiful marbles, onto carts, he returned and besieged Adrianople. Having captured it, he ordered very many of the Macedonian nobility, with an immense multitude of the people, to be deported across the Danube and to dwell in those regions. ^B Leo, after two years of his reign, turned to madness, and having sent into exile the divine Nicephorus from whom he had received the crown, he ordained in his stead Theodotus, a man unskilled and more voiceless than the fish, and stirred up an implacable persecution against the Church. In his time, a comet appeared in the shape of two bright moons joining together and again separating into various forms, as if representing the formation of a man without a head. Moreover, there were terrible earthquakes, droughts, and intolerable heat during the days of this enemy of God. ^C Furthermore, imitating the leader of this abominable heresy—a man of the same name and the same character—he began to profess the heresy itself, and having sought out those who were accomplices in the same sacrilege, he found John, called the Grammarian, or rather an "Jannes" or another Simon, notorious for divinations performed by a basin, tricks, and filth, and he found others who were his peers in thought. He summoned, therefore, the praiseworthy patriarch Nicephorus and the bishops who were with him before the senate, and said: "It certainly does not escape your notice that some persons have arisen saying that images ought not to be worshipped." But immediately the holy Euthymius, bishop of Sardis, speaking with confidence, rebuked the wanderer from the divine Scriptures; after whom Theodore, the fervent defender of the orthodox faith and abbot of the Studium, said: "Do not unsettle, O emperor, the state of the Church. For the state of the commonwealth and the administration of the army is your concern. Attend to these things; but permit the Church to remain in the orthodox faith." ^D The tyrant, having heard these things, ignited with fury; and though he was an ape, he roared in the manner of a lion, cast everyone out with insults, and drove the great Nicephorus from the city, and restricted him, and likewise...

^A drove the head of the Studios into exile, and commanded Theodotus Cassiteras to be ordained patriarch. From that time forth, having poured out the fury and deceit of his soul, he surrendered himself to those who were privy to his impure sacrilege; for they, having become intimate with him, suggested to him three things previously promised to him and pleasing to him: the abnegation of our orthodox faith, the deposition of the holy images, and the persecution of the pious. Addicted to these deceits, the madman — encouraged by the wretched impulse — first of all removes every holy representation from the churches. From that point on, he condemned to terrible tortures and death those found having an image of Christ or any saint, and he murdered many noble and illustrious men.

Furthermore, Michael, who held the rank of commander of the Excubitors, was slandered to the emperor as if he were conspiring against him; for this reason he kept him bound in fetters and held him in prison. As the feast of our Savior's nativity was approaching, he wished to destroy him by night; but being hindered by his own wife, he spared him out of reverence for the feast. Michael, held in prison and having learned of this, secretly signaled to all those who were participants in the plot with him: "If you do not exert yourselves to remove me from this confinement, I shall denounce you all to the emperor." There was with them also the palace keeper (pappias), who was a kinsman of Michael. These men, having armed themselves by night and carrying swords beneath their garments, as the pappias opened the gates, entered as if they were priests dressed in phelonia. When the emperor arrived at the church, they leaped out and, having seized him, they cut him limb from limb, while he cast forth his sacrilegious soul in the palace, in which no one of the emperors before him had been killed. At that very same hour, they went to the prison and brought Michael out, and they led him to the celebration as a wearer of the crown instead of a wearer of fetters, so that the saying of the psalm was fulfilled in his case: *At evening weeping shall have place, and in the morning gladness* (Ps. XXIX, 6).

After these things, having wrapped the body of the destructive man in cheap rags and thrown it into a small boat, they carried his most filthy limbs to the island called Prote, where they also tonsured his sons and forced them to adopt the monastic habit.

MICHAEL

Michael the Amorian ^D reigned for eight years and nine months. He dismissed some of the malice which had previously occupied his soul, insofar as...

^A he allowed those who were held in prisons, punishments, and exiles to dream of a feigned liberty and relief, yet he cherished the God-hating disposition of his godless predecessor; for he was likewise snagged by the same hook of terrible heresy, out of the utmost foolishness and ignorance. Hence, in a silent gathering—that is, a council—he said: “Those who before us have examined the laws and decrees of ecclesiastical dogmas will render an account for them, whether they decreed well or ill. We, however, have decided to observe the Church in the same state in which we found her proceeding.” He had a son by Euphrosyne named Theophilus, whom he crowned as emperor in the Great Church. It was during his reign that the rebel Thomas, having already set out from the eastern regions and dragging along a rabble-rouser, mixed multitude—being himself low-born ^B and obscure—arrived at the regions of Syria, naming himself Constantine and son of the Empress Irene. From there, having deceived many of the barbarians against the Christians and having gathered an infinite multitude of people, he marched upon Constantinople, exulting in the number of his people, not understanding that a king is not saved by a great host. He devastated the lands of Constantinople for the space of one year, while the citizens, meanwhile, were prepared to stand firm with excellent discipline, whether it were necessary to defend the city walls or to fight a naval battle. For they set many of his ships on fire and put the elite companies of the enemy to flight. Finding himself in great straits, he left the city and retreated into Thrace, intent on ravaging it. Michael, having gone out of the city with a powerful force, resolved to engage him. Wherefore, he besieged him for a short time, and having captured him without toil, and having ^C amputated his hands and feet, and having thus impaled him on a stake, he put an end to the harsh and civil war which had been raging through him for three years. While Michael was preoccupied with the rebel Thomas and, in his concern for this, was slighting every other matter, Crete, Sicily, and the islands called the Cyclades were severed from the Roman Empire, taken by the Africans and Arabs—firstly, on account of the sins of the people and the impiety of those who ruled, and in order that the Christian people and their affairs might be humbled under the hand of their adversaries. While things were in such a state, Michael died a wretched death from a difficulty in urination and pain in his kidneys. ^D His successor, his son Theophilus, assumed the empire with his mother Euphrosyne.

^A Theophilus reigned for twelve years. His mother, Euphrosyne, having sent into all the provinces, brought back young women of elegant form in order to find a consort for her son Theophilus. Having gathered them all in the palace at the triclinium called the "Margarites," she gave a golden apple to Theophilus, saying, "Give this to whomever pleases you most." Now there was among them a young woman of noble birth named Icasia, who was most beautiful. When Theophilus saw her, he was greatly struck by her beauty and said, "From a woman how many evils have flowed!" But she, filled with modesty, replied, "But from a woman, better things spring forth." He, however, stricken in his heart by the remark, dismissed her and gave the apple to Theodora, who was from the lands of the Paphlagonians. He crowned Theodora in the oratory of Saint Stephen, and being himself adorned with a nuptial crown by the patriarch Antony, he proceeded on the day of Holy Pentecost to the Great Church, having showered the patriarch, along with the clergy and the senate, with many gifts. The aforementioned Icasia, frustrated in her hope for the empire, built a monastery; there she took the tonsure, practiced asceticism, lived a philosophical life, and lived for God alone until the end of her life; she left behind many ^B writings of her own. The king's mother, Euphrosyne, having voluntarily departed the palace for her own monastery, which is called "Ta Gastria," lived a quiet life.

Theophilus held chariot races, and he commanded Leo Chamodrakon, his *protovestiarios*, to bring out the polycandelon which had been broken by the sword at the slaughter of Leo the Armenian. When the races were completed, he summoned the whole senate to the place called the *Kathisma*, and bringing out the polycandelon and showing it to them, he said: "He who enters the temple of the Lord and slays the Lord's Christ, of what crime is he guilty?" The senate, answering, said: "He is guilty of death, master." And immediately he ordered the prefect to seize those who, along with his father Michael, had slain Leo; and, although they offered many excuses and objections, pleading that the sentence was unjust—for they said, "Had we not brought aid to your father, you would not be reigning yourself today"—he ordered that their heads be cut off at the ^C *Phoundax*. In this manner, in the sight of everyone, their heads were severed, under the pretext that they had dared to commit such an act in the temple of the Lord, but in reality because they had murdered a man who shared their opinion and was infected with the same heresy. For that wretched man was held by the stain of that same God-hating heresy, tearing down some of the holy icons and others he dug up. To this Theophilus fled Theophobus the Persian, along with his father and fourteen thousand Persians. These he distributed among the provinces, settled them, and organized them into ^D turmae.

^A He also made this very Theophobus his brother-in-law, by marrying him to the sister of the Augusta Theodora. ^B Now, Theophilus, being fond of fine works of art, ordered the head of the goldsmiths—a man of great reputation and skill, and a relative of Antonius the patriarch—to cast a Pentapyrgion and two very large instruments of solid gold, adorned with various gems and crystals, as well as a golden tree on which perched small birds that, by means of some machine, would sing musical songs. He also refurbished the imperial robes, renewing them completely and weaving them with golden threads; yet, while pretending to observe public law and rigor, he harmed the faith and piety more than those who had reigned before him.

A widow came to him at the Blachernae, and cried out that she was being wronged by Petrona, the brother of the Augusta, who was the Drungarios of the Watch. "For," she said, "he is raising the walls of his own house and creating new buildings such that they completely darken my home, and, as usually happens to the despised and widows, he renders mine utterly useless..." Those who went and witnessed such an injury, and were convinced that what was said by the woman was true, returned and reported it to the Emperor. And Petrona, having been convicted by them, was stripped in the middle of the street and severely lashed on his back. The Quaestor and the secretaries were then ordered to go and demolish his houses to the very foundations and hand them over to the woman to possess.

He took to himself Alexius the Armenian, surnamed Musele, a brave and robust man, as a son-in-law, giving him his beloved daughter Maria, and made him a Patrician, and shortly thereafter a Magistros. ^C But later, having fallen into some suspicion concerning him, as if he were aspiring to the throne, he sent him away as commander of the army and Duke of Sicily, an office he himself had established. Since envy is wont to bring forth such things, certain Sicilians went and slandered him to the Emperor, saying that he was betraying the affairs of the Christians to the Agarenes and plotting against the Empire. Meanwhile, the Emperor’s beloved daughter Maria having died, he adorned her sarcophagus with silver and granted a privilege of immunity to those fleeing to it for any crime (which silver, after this, the Emperor Leo removed from the tomb). ^D At the time that Alexius suffered this calumny, Theophilus summoned the Archbishop Theodore, nicknamed Crithinos, who happened to be in the city, and, handing him his own cross—which he wore around his neck as an amulet—sent him to Sicily to give a pledge of safety to Alexius and to bring him back to him. He, having gone and by his innate wisdom persuaded Alexius with his words, brought him to the Emperor; but the Emperor, having beaten him as a rebel, placed him in prison and confiscated all of his property.

^A When he went to the Blachernae, the archbishop, having preceded him and being vested in his priestly robes, stood before the altar. As the Emperor approached the solea, together with the men of the senatorial order, the archbishop cried out in a loud voice, "Attend, proceed prosperously, and reign!" The Emperor, blushing with shame before the senate, said, "For what reason, O Emperor?" The archbishop replied, "For the sake of truth, and meekness, and justice." The Emperor then said, "And what justice is there in you, seeing that you have not kept the word which you signed and sent to Alexius through me?" The Emperor, moved by an ungovernable rage and anger, as if he had been rebuked, violently dragged him away from the altar, and after inflicting many blows upon him, sent him into exile; this he did not only because he had been rebuked by him, but because he had ^B learned that he revered and venerated the holy icons, and that he privately condemned his own impiety. Not long after, when the patriarch came to the Great Church and rebuked him for the crime committed against the bishop, the Emperor, out of respect for his earnest entreaties, recalled him from exile. But since the bishop judged himself unworthy of the priesthood because of what he had suffered, the Emperor appointed him oikonomos of the Great Church, and, having ordered Alexius to be released from prison, he received him back, restored all his property to him, and held him in honor.

There was a soldier named Manuel, most renowned of all those in the East who were held in esteem by the Emperor. This man had once spoken with Myron, an official who was logothete of the drome and father-in-law of Petronas; through the instigation of Myron, Manuel was slandered ^C to the Emperor, as one who aspired to the imperial throne and was wickedly plotting against him. Leo the protovestiarius, however, stood as a defender on behalf of Manuel and, being concerned for his safety, asserted to the Emperor that the things said against him were false. When Manuel learned of this, and wishing to escape the anger of the Emperor and the slanders, he slipped out of the city gates by night, and, boarding public carriages, he fled as far as the Syrian frontier, cutting the hamstrings of the horses. He made these things known to the Hagarenes: "I am fleeing the anger of the Emperor, and if you will not force me to abandon my faith, I will pass over to your lands; if you receive me thus, send me a guarantee of safety." They, heartened by this message, sent him a document of immunity and received him as if he were the Emperor of the Romans. ^D The Emperor, however, upon hearing that Manuel had defected to the Hagarenes, was seized with great sorrow and anguish of soul, and he took counsel regarding this with John the syncellus. He said, "If you truly desire, O Emperor, for Manuel to return to you, I myself am ready to do this. Having taken money and having been sent to the Amerumnes, as if I were going to visit those detained as prisoners, I am prepared to bring this matter to completion; and from the empire

^A of your Majesty, I possess a signed document ^B by which I shall persuade Manuel when I come into his sight. I think I shall accomplish this, both by the signed document and by my own persuasion." The emperor gave him a great deal of money and gifts for the Amerumnes and sent him off. He entered with great sums of money and finery of all kinds, so that the Agarenes were astonished at his wealth; having gone through the prisons and seen the chief counselor, he was able both to converse secretly with Manuel ^C and to give him the signed document and the protective charm of the emperor. Having done these things, he returned, reporting to the emperor all that he had accomplished.

Manuel, having requested of the Amerumnes permission to set out against a nation hostile to them, obtained his request; for, having taken with him the son of the Amerumnes and a large army, he set out and achieved a great victory. This caused him to be held in even greater honor than before, and he could do anything he wished with the Amerumnes. Wherefore, having great concern to depart for Romania, after some time had passed, he said to the satraps ^D of the Amerumnes, "If you provide me with the son of the Amerumnes and an army, I shall go out and subjugate all Romania." They, regarding this as a very great joy, and as a further advantage on top of his previous one, immediately armed him and sent him against Romania.

Having come near the Anatolic theme, he called together his subordinates and the son of the Amerumnes, as if to exercise and to hunt; having gone far from the enemy, he embraced the son of the Amerumnes and kissed him, and said, "I, for my part, am departing to the emperor and to my own people; you, with your own men, since you suspect that you will suffer no harm from us, depart to yours." And he, indeed, returned with tears and shame in this manner. Manuel, however, proceeded to the emperor, having sent ahead a messenger to inform him. The emperor honored the messenger with money and dignities, and received Manuel as he deserved, immediately making him Magister and Domestic of the Schools, and he stood as sponsor for his children at their holy baptism. Elated by these things, the emperor marched forth with Manuel and the Senate against the Agarenes, and having easily conquered the cities of Zapetra and Samosata, which were at that time teeming with wealth and power under the Amerumnes, he returned in triumph with the spoils. Having returned to the place of Bryas, he built a palace, planted gardens, and ordered water to be brought; and this was done. From there...

he arrived in the city, held a triumph for the spoils, staged a horse race, and for the first time played the part of the *baptis*; he mounted a white chariot, dressed in the color of the Veneti, and having won, he was crowned as the factions shouted: "Welcome, incomparable factionary!" ^A

The patriarch Antonius having died, John the syncellus was ordained in his place—in truth, one might call him a new Jannes and Jambres—being notorious for divinations, lecanomancy, and all manner of impiety. Finding him to be a most apt instrument for the emperor’s own impiety and inclination, he cooperated with him in all things leading to destruction; and that venomous basilisk of impiety which the emperor had conceived in his soul, but kept hidden, John brought forth and gave birth to, when he ordered the holy icons to be painted over in a single color, or rather, I should say, to be erased. ^B This John, having constructed a building of hewn stone before the city—which is called the Trullus to this day—consorted with demons through certain sacrifices and would announce future events to the emperor. Because of the frequent presence of demons, the house remained uninhabited.

While things were thus, the Arabs rose with great power against Romania, and the emperor, accompanied by the Persian fugitives and Manuel the domestic, marched against them. A battle having taken place, the emperor was defeated and plunged into the midst of the Persians, to be saved by them. ^C But Manuel, when he learned that the emperor was in the midst of the Persians, and knew that they were already meditating to betray him to the Arabs and through him to be reconciled to the Arabs, divided their wedge formation, found the emperor in the middle, and grabbing the reins of the emperor’s horse, led him out; for he deemed it a great shame to be branded on the Romans if the Arabs were to take the Roman emperor captive. The emperor, however, dismayed by the terror of what had happened, was minded to surrender himself again to the Persians. But Manuel drew his sword against him, threatening to strike him down. Terrified, he reluctantly followed, ^D barely [missing text] forcing Theophilus to withdraw from his own homeland.

FRANC. COMBEFIS' NOTES

Soxopetra itself, which was the fatherland of the Ameramnun, was besieged; for which reason it happened that he requested Theophilus by letter to withdraw from there.

[The] continuator brings forward the edicts of the impious emperors against the holy images: 1. From Leo the Isaurian, that the name "holy" should never be appended to them, nor should they be called by that name; for he said that it was proper to God alone that he should be [called] and have the name "holy." 2. From Michael, the father of Theophilus, that they should not be adored. 3. From Theophilus, that no one should paint them with colors.

^A Having been saved, he returned from there to Dorylaeum with shame and great defeat. Manuel, having been wounded in the battle and fallen ill, died after performing many brave deeds against the Hagarenes. His body, having been carried away, was placed in the monastery built by him, the one of Manuel, near the cistern of Aspar. And immediately there were slanders against the Persians to the emperor. At that time, a son is born to the emperor by Theodora, whom he named Michael. As the emperor was proceeding to Blachernae, someone met him and said, "The horse upon which your majesty rides is mine." As the horse was prancing and the emperor held it fast, the emperor asked the count of the stable, "Whose is the horse?" He replied, "The count of Opsikion sent it to your majesty." Since the count of Opsikion was in the city at that time, when he had been brought the next day, together with the man who had accosted him as he was proceeding, the emperor said, "Tell the truth: whose is the horse?" He, answering, said that, "It was mine, and the general sent and took it away from me by force, neither giving me a price nor granting me a position." The emperor said to the count, "Tell me if it is so, and why, without paying the price for the horse, you sent it to me?" He replied, "Because he was seeking to become a scholarios. I, however, not knowing if he was brave, offered him one hundred nomismata, but he did not accept them." The matter having been examined and it having been well understood that the horse had indeed been taken by force, the emperor corrected the general with appropriate beatings, and he restored the horse to the man who had approached him. The latter, refusing to receive it, accepted two pounds [of gold] for it. The general was ordered to test him, and if he were brave, to make him a scholarios. But when he went off to war, having been found as a coward among those fleeing in the fray, he was slaughtered.

^C When the emperor was at the palace of Bryas, a message came to him from the general of the Anatolikon, [saying] that the protosymbulos, having gone out with a multitude to plunder, was going to capture Amorium. The emperor, having made the customary largesse to the army and the nobles, quickly marched as far as Cappadocia. The Amerumnes, having set apart eight thousand of his people, and giving to them as their leader Sudem, who was most renowned among the Hagarenes for bravery and prudence, sent [them] against the emperor. When they joined battle, the emperor, having been defeated, fled and returned with shame, having barely escaped with his life; and the Amerumnes, departing with a great force, having surrounded Amorium with a palisade and having engaged in many battles, was unable to capture it, because the citizens inside were fighting bravely and steadfastly. A certain disciple of Leo the philosopher was in the fortress and, to the Amerumnes who was wanting to withdraw, by the help of someone, as if [by means of] astrology...

he signaled: If you remain at the fortress for two days, you will capture us. And that is what happened. For it was betrayed by both the one called Boiditzes and Manicophagus ^A. Many men of name and not ignoble were captured and taken away as prisoners into Syria: Theophilus the patrician, and the generals—Melissenus, and Aëtius, and Theodorus the protospatharius (also called Craterus), and Callistus the tourmarch, and Cyril the drungary, and Bassoes, and certain commanders of the tagmata. These, having been forced by the protosymboulos to deny their own faith, and refusing to be persuaded by him, were beheaded by the sword; instead of a fleeting life, they chose the eternal one. But the disciple of Leo the Philosopher, exchanging a shameful survival for a most beautiful outcome, approached the Amerumnes and was questioned by him concerning his knowledge. He declared that he was a student of Leo the Philosopher. The Amerumnes [asked] who this Leo was, and he desired to see him. And indeed, having given letters to one of ^B the captives, he sent them to Leo the Philosopher at Constantinople, promising him that if he should come to him, he would be held in honor. Leo, having received the letters and fearing lest he be recognized, brought them to the Emperor Theophilus. The emperor, having recognized the nature of his science, took him and kept him in the palace of Magnaura, granting him the faculty of teaching and students and all things necessary for his ministry; he subsequently became metropolitan of Thessalonica.

The same emperor built the triconchos in the palace, and what is called the Sigma, and the stands where the factions stand, and a fountain in which the so-called Saximodeximon ^C takes place, with the horses of both parties passing through wearing golden trappings. Under the triconchos, moreover, he fashioned by a machine the so-called "secret," in which, in one corner, should anyone say anything, it is heard in the other. When Theophilus himself learned that Theophanes the poet and Theodorus his brother, living by themselves, were mocking and refuting his impiety, he sent for them in a rage and brought them to him, saying as follows: "Where are you from?" They replied: "Where are we from? From Palestine." The wretch then said: "Why have you abandoned your own land and, coming into our dominion, are you not obedient to our empire?" As they answered nothing, he ordered their faces to be struck ^D severely. After this, having scourged them to the point of death, in a fury and with a harsh voice he said to the prefect: "Take them to the praetorium, and inscribe [verses] on their faces," adding this: "Even if..."

your verses are not good, pay no mind." He said this knowing them to be most learned and thoroughly trained. They replied: "Write, write, O emperor, whatever pleases you, for you will read the same before the fearsome Judge." The prefect led these men to the praetorium, and after two days, having stretched their bodies and bound their hands and feet, he pierced them with needles, and having inscribed the verses on their faces, sent them into exile. In exile, Theodore, who is among the saints, died and is inscribed in the number of the saints. ^B The illustrious poet Theophanes survived until the times of Michael and Theodora, exerting himself greatly for the establishment of the Orthodox faith; he later became metropolitan of Nicaea, when affairs had already been restored to a better state and greater piety. In his time, the golden globe of the statue of Justinian, the so-called Augustus, fell to the ground. While all were anxious and debating how they might ascend to that height, a certain master of scaffolding was found who, having climbed the tiles of the Great Church, cast a rope with a projectile toward the horse of Justinian. When the projectile stuck there, he himself ran along the rope, casting those watching into amazement; and having replaced the globe, he won the favor of the emperor and was gifted by him with a hundred gold pieces. Theophilus crowned his son Michael in the Great Church, and he built a lodging for the reception of pilgrims, which is called "Theophili" after his name. Furthermore, before his death, that emperor, hated by God, having held a great council with men of his own mind concerning the Persian Theophobos—saying that the Persians under him held him in great love and faith, and fearing that after I die they might plot tyranny against my son, who has not yet passed his childhood years, and against my wife—therefore brought Theophobos into the palace and kept him with him. But as his illness grew worse, he imprisoned Theophobos in the vaults of the Bucoleon. ^C When the Persians inquired what had become of him, the emperor sent Petronas, the brother of the Augusta, with the logothete, and ordered the head of Theophobos to be cut off. They assured the Persians that he was with the emperor in the palace. But when the emperor miserably gave up his soul to a dysenteric disease, his cursed body was carried to the Holy Apostles. The body of Theophobos, however, was secretly led out through the Bucoleon and brought to a monastery, now called "Theophobia," near the house of Narses, and it was buried there. ^D

457 MICHAEL. Michael reigned with his mother Theodora for fifteen years, and with Basil for one year.

FRANC. COMBEFIS' NOTES.

^A and four months. Theodora was so faithful and orthodox that, while her husband was still alive, she secretly honored and venerated the holy icons. By her own judgment and following the suggestion and advice of Theoktistos, the *kanikleios* and *logothete*, she drove from the Church and from the city the patriarch John, who was her own *synteknos*, exiling him to a monastery known as Stenos, in a place called Kleidion. She introduced the monk Methodios, a man of, holy life, and appointed him patriarch. Having recalled from exile all the monks and bishops who had been sent away by Theophilos, she confirmed the orthodox faith and restored peace to the Church. On the first Sunday [(27)] of the holy Fast, she sent the logothete Theoktistos against Crete. He departed with a large force and a great fleet, striking significant terror into the Hagarenes, but he himself became even more terrified when he heard that the Augusta had fled the city and had elevated another as emperor. This had been prepared through the wiles and trickery of the Saracens, and through the bribery of those in his retinue, who, upon receiving gifts from them, induced him—having cast this groundless fear into him—to return to the city and to abandon the army to the sword ^B of those in Crete; thus he appeared to have fared ill in Crete. For when the Amer, having set out at that time against Romania, was pillaging and destroying everything in his path, Theodora and Michael sent the same Theoktistos, as he was most faithful and very dear to them, against the Amer with a large force. He arrived and joined battle with the Amer, but because of the severity and unpopularity of the logothete—among whom was Theophanes the Pharganian, who excelled many in courage and strength and who later, having received a promise of safety, fled to the Christians—^C the emperor, now come of age, occupied himself with hunting, horse-racing in the hippodrome's track, and other impure pursuits. The Augusta Theodora, together with the logothete Theoktistos, decided to find a wife for her son. For she knew that he had become intimate with Eudokia, the daughter of Inger, who was thoroughly detested by the logothete and the empress because of her shamelessness. Therefore, they joined him in marriage to Eudokia the daughter of Dekapolites, with whom he was crowned in the holy church of Saint Stephen at the Daphne. The marriage chamber was prepared at the Magnaura, while the senate reclined in the nineteen ^D *Koubitēs*. Shortly after, the *strategos* of the Boukellarioi brought the emperor a spirited and noble horse. Desiring to break him in the hippodrome, he wished to test...

his teeth, by which the age of horses is determined, and to ascertain the number of his years. But as the horse was fierce and kept rearing, the emperor was troubled, having no one capable of taming such a spirited animal. As he was in this distress, Theophilitzes, who was present, came forward: "I have," he said, "a youth, very experienced and brave with horses, just as your imperial majesty requires, whose name is Basil." The emperor gave the order for him to be brought, and one of the chamberlains was sent to the Iron Gate. Having found Basil, he brought him with haste to the emperor. When ordered to take hold of the horse, he seized the bridle with one hand, while with the other he took hold of its ear, and reduced it to the gentleness of a sheep. The emperor was delighted and pleased by this, and entrusted Basil to Andrew the *hetairiarch*, that he might be enrolled in the *hetairia* and serve among his horses. I have deemed it necessary to relate the upbringing of this same Basil, and whence he originates. ^C He had his home in Macedonia, in the villages of Adrianople, under the reign of Michael Rangabe, the father of Ignatius the patriarch. In his time, Krum, the ruler of Bulgaria, took up arms against the Christians, and after Michael was put to flight, and Leo the Armenian subsequently seized the tyranny and became emperor, Krum came and besieged the city. Being wounded by a spear by Leo the Armenian, as he was returning to Bulgaria, he sent men to the sanctuary of Saint Mamas to plunder the spoils and seize the bronze statues placed there. Then, turning toward Adrianople, he took it and carried off twelve thousand men, excluding the women, and settled them on the Danube. In the days of the Emperor Theophilus, there was a *magistros* of the military in Macedonia named Cordyles. He had a son named Bardas, already grown to manhood, whom he left in his place to rule over the Macedonians who dwelt beyond the banks of the Danube river. He himself, by some device and pretext, came to Theophilus, who received him joyfully and, having learned what he desired, ordered that ships be provided for them so that they might return to the city. Now, the ruler of Bulgaria was Baldimer, the grandson of Krum and father of Simeon. The host of captives, with their wives and children, took counsel to depart into Romania. When Michael the Bulgar set out toward Thessalonica, they began to cross over with their possessions. ^D When Krum—or rather, as the text here says, the *Komes*—learned of this, he crossed over to the opposite bank to wage war against them. The Macedonians, in their desperation, made Tzantzes and Cordyles their leaders, and joining battle, they killed many, while some...

they seized and some they even led away captive. The Bulgarians who could not cross, in order to report the events carried out by the Macedonians, turned aside to the Hungarians; meanwhile, the ships sent by the emperor to pick up the captives ^A so that they might be brought into the city, arrived, and at that same moment the Huns were seen approaching in infinite numbers. The Macedonians, having caught sight of them, cried out with tears, saying, "God of Saint Adrian, help us!" And they prepared themselves for the clash of battle. The Turks, however, said to them, "Hand over all your possessions and depart wherever you wish." They did not consent to this, but stood ready for battle for three days, and on the fourth day they began to board their ships. Seeing this, the Turks joined battle from the fifth hour of the day until evening; and the tribe having been routed, the Macedonians pursued them. On the following day, as they were wishing to depart, the Huns appeared again to fight them. ^B But another of the Macedonians, named Leo, of the house of the Gemostoi, who later became *hetairiarches*, took courage and opposed them; and other prominent Macedonians joined him, put their adversaries to flight, and made a charge against them. Finally, having returned, they made for the ships to go to the emperor, unharmed, and having been kindly received by him, they returned to Macedonia, their own country.

Now Basil was at that time blooming in the prime of his youth, having returned from captivity—a captivity in which he had remained during the entire time of the emperors Leo and Michael of Amorium, and he returned under the Emperor Theophilus—such that his years were counted at twenty-five. Having been restored to his own country, he attached himself to serve the *strategos* of Macedonia, the one nicknamed Tzantzes, but having received no profit from him, ^C he desired to experience the abundance of the imperial city and departed for it, and arrived at the Golden Gate. Further, exhausted from the journey—for it was the Lord's Day and the sun was already verging toward the west—he lay down in the portico of Saint Diomedes. For the church was at that time a public one, common to men and women, which had a custodian named Nicholas. On that night a divine voice called the custodian, saying, "Arise, bring the emperor into the oratory." But he, having arisen, found no one except Basil himself, lying there like a pauper; so he turned back, closed the gate, and lay down again. And immediately someone struck him in the side with a sword, saying, "Go out and bring in the one you see lying outside the gate; this is the emperor." ^D Going out then with haste [and] trembling, and having found Basil with his wallet and staff, he brought him inside the church. And on the second day, having led him to the baths, he offered him clothes to change into, and publicly in the church he entered into a fraternal bond with him, and they rejoiced together. Now the same Nicholas had a brother who was a physician, who was attached to the service of the Theophilitzes. The physician, having come by chance to visit his brother, saw Basil, and having marveled at his stature and his bravery, said to his brother, "Whose man is this?" The rest of the page covers the city's abundance; hence, having arrived.

^A at all that was related concerning him, he commanded that the secret be kept. As the physician was sitting at a table with Theophilitzes, and the latter, having considered within himself, said, "I cannot find a suitable man for the horses," the physician, taking the opportunity, told his master about Basil's strength, and that he was just such a person as he desired and was seeking. Sending, therefore, with haste, he brought him. Having seen that he was a raw youth [(30)] and had a large head, he gave him the name Kephalas and handed over the horses to be cared for by him. Thus, as has been said before, for such a reason did he offer him to the Emperor Michael. Thus far concerning the upbringing of Basil. The emperor, however, bringing Basil into the palace, said to his mother, as if rejoicing, “Come, mother, see what a male I have found at this present time.” She went out, and having caught sight of him, turned back, saying to her son, “This is he, my child, who is going to destroy our race.” But he, not at all persuaded by the prediction of his own mother to that which she was saying, did not listen to her.

The holy patriarch Methodius died, and Ignatius, the son of Michael the Curopalates, was ordained ^B in his place. The Bulgarians, making raids through Thrace and Macedonia, were devastating those provinces. Theodora disposed garrisons against them. The soldiers, moreover, stationed at the camps of Bulgaria, attacking the Bulgarians in groups and cohorts, plundered through their region; and with these being killed, and others led away into captivity, they rendered the Bulgarians and their region subject.

Bardas Caesar, however, was reconciled with Damian the patrician and parakoimomenos. He, having gained control of the emperor, persuaded him that Bardas should be brought into the city; who, having reconciled the emperor’s household to himself by gifts, was ordered to enter the palace along with the parakoimomenos. Furthermore, having taken to himself Theophanes the protospatharios, as being noble (this man was called Phanganus) and also having called Damian, they enter into a council concerning the killing [(31)] of Theoctistus the kanikleios. The emperor also, persuaded by Damian, gave his consent to this and approved that it should be done. For Bardas was saying to Damian, “As long as Theoctistus is with the Augusta, the emperor will never rule or hold power.”

Theoctistus, however, having bathed in the baths of Arabindus, as was his custom, then retiring into the inner chamber, ^D and holding reports in his hands, entered the Lausiakos; and looking about, he saw Bardas sitting and sumptuously dressed. And, being violently agitated, he said, “I shall enter to the Augusta and drive this man out again.” But when he moved forward to the horologion, Michael came to meet him with Damian, and did not permit him to enter unto Theodora, but commanded him to—

[alt-version omitted]

commanded to open the petitions and read them before them with rage. He, seeking to comply, was ordered to return home and go back. He left, weeping and wailing bitterly, and departed for the Lauziacum. ^B Thereupon Bardas met him, began to strike him in the face with his fists, and pull out his hair. The drungarius of the watch, Maniaces, seeing this, rose up and spoke against Bardas, that he should not strike the logothete. But Bardas, answering, said he was doing this by the order of the emperor. The emperor also appeared at the counsel of Damianus, and upon seeing him, Bardas, together with Theophanes Phalganus, seized the logothete, slaughtered him, and cut him limb from limb at the Scyla.

When Theodora learned this from the papas, she went out against Michael, as was to be expected, and was indignant; and although the emperor tried by every means to appease her, she accepted no consolation, nor did she relax her anger or soothe her grief. From that time the emperor changed, and as he had altered his soul and purpose, so did he change his own habits and conduct, striving to grieve her by as many means as he had previously feigned to please her. Indeed, he cast his own sisters named Thecla, Anastasia, and Anna out of the palace, and led them down to the [house of] Carianus; but Pulcheria, as being beloved by his mother, he sent to the Gastria monastery. ^C Shortly thereafter, having gathered them all together in the same Gastria monastery, he tonsured them as nuns. Having been acclaimed by the entire senate, he reigned alone; and he promoted Bardas to magister and domestic of the schools.

As his mother was not reconciled, discord between them remained relentless. He had sent her down into the monastery called Gastria. She, having become agitated in her mind by sorrow, conceived a design against Bardas unworthy of a mother, wishing to make the emperor's protostrator a participant along with many others, so that they might kill Bardas as he returned from his suburban estate. The plot, however, was revealed before the act was carried out, and it brought danger upon the heads of those who had meditated the evil. For they were discovered, arrested, and beheaded at the turning post of the Circus. ^D Michael then promoted Basil to the position of the deceased protostrator, and likewise promoted his uncle Bardas to curopalates.

At that time, dust fell from the sky onto the roof tiles, full of a blood-red color; and many found stones in streets or gardens that were red as blood. Michael then appointed Antigonus, the son of Bardas, as domestic of the schools; and to his other son—having given him a wife, upon whom he would sometimes heap insults—he granted the rank of supreme commander over the western themes, where he also finished his life. Shorty after, on the Wednesday of Easter week,

Michael promoted his uncle Bardas to the rank of Caesar, who, having been conveyed in a chariot through the middle of the city, scattered largesse among the populace. ^A

The Saracen Ameras, however, having set out, descended as far as Sinope, laying waste to the entire Roman region. Michael, together with Bardas the Caesar, set in motion an army against Michael, the other prince of Bulgaria, by land and sea, having learned that the Bulgarian nation was being consumed by famine. When the Bulgarians learned of this, they were struck as if by the sound of thunder and, losing heart, they despaired of victory before any engagement or battle; they promised instead to become Christians and to submit to the emperor and the Romans. The emperor, having baptized their prince and received him, bestowed his own name upon him. He then brought his nobles into the city and had them all baptized, and from that time there was profound peace.

When Ameras again set out against Romania, Petronas, commander ^B of the East, and Nasar, chief of the Buccellarii, having laid an ambush along the path of his retreat, encountered him at Lalacaon. A battle having taken place, they put Ameras to flight and forced him to seek safety on foot. Some of the counts pursued the fugitive, and having severed his head, they brought it to Petronas the commander. The commanders having returned, they celebrated a triumph with these trophies of victory in the Hippodrome. And from that time there was great tranquility in the East because of the slaughter of Ameras.

While the labors of others and their notable achievements against the enemies... the love of the emperor for Basil was so poured out that he considered him to be the only one who showed him due service. Michael constructed a stable ^C for his horses, adorning it with marbles and irrigation of waters, making it very beautiful to look upon. When this was completed, there was a man in the city named Peter, a learned and mocking man whom they called the "Master of the Poor." Michael, having summoned him to the stable, showed him the senseless elegance of the building he had constructed, wishing to be praised by him, and boasting that he would be remembered forever because of the construction of this work. He said to the emperor: "Justinian built the Great Church, adorning it with gold and silver and most precious marbles, yet his memory is now extinguished. And you, emperor, having built a dung-heap and a resting-place for animals, do you claim that you will be remembered through this?" Frustrated of the praises he had sought from his mouth, and inflamed by anger, he had the Master of the Poor beaten, dragged by force, and cast out of his sight.

A rumor having spread throughout the city that Bardas the Caesar was having an illicit affair with his own daughter-in-law, ^D and this having been reported to the patriarch, Ignatius frequently admonished him to abstain from such a defilement, and not to be a scandal to many, he who ought to have been an example of virtue and every temperance. He, however, not persuaded by the patriarch, remained hostile to him; and one day, when Bardas was about to partake of the holy mysteries, the patriarch pushed him away, as one who...

did not obey the canons or his admonitions. Being struck in his soul by the wound of anger, he ejected the monitor as a wicked man and a corrupter of the Church, and subjected him to endless and pitiless torments, so that he was forced to abdicate his dignity. And because Ignatius did not yield, he ordained in his stead Photius, who at that time was the chief of the secretaries ^A and a man of great learning, to be patriarch.

The emperor undertook an expedition against the Agarenes, leaving in the city, to guard it, Ooryphas the Eparch. He, before the emperor had gone far, and not knowing anything of what the emperor was planning or had in mind, reported the arrival of the godless Rus’, who had already reached the Black River. The emperor, repenting of the way he had taken, turned back the expedition, not having accomplished anything royal or noble. The Rus’ penetrated as far as the Hieron, causing great slaughter of Christians and shedding innocent blood. They had two hundred ships, with which they surrounded the city and threw the inhabitants into great terror. The ^B emperor, having arrived, barely managed to cross over, and taking the patriarch Photius with him, they proceeded to the church of the Mother of God in Blachernae, where they sought to appease the divine Power. Then, with hymns and chants, they brought out the holy robe of the Theotokos and carried it to the extreme edge of the sea. And while the air was calm, suddenly a violent gust of wind arose, and the sea, which until then had been tranquil, began to surge with wave upon wave, and the ships of the godless Rus’ were broken, with few escaping the danger.

When Caesar Bardas was passing by in a famous procession, dressed in a purple *scaramangion*, on his way to the horologium, Damianus the patrician and *parakoimomenos*, sitting there, ^C did not rise to do him honor. Seeing this, the Caesar was very angry; and having entered the golden triclinium and sat down with the emperor, he was shedding tears from wrath and fury, and the emperor asked him the cause. He said: "To me, whom your majesty has advanced to great honor, Damianus, in contempt of you and your empire, did not rise in the presence of the senate and the retinue." Incensed, the emperor immediately ordered a certain cubicularius named Maximianus to take Damianus and carry him off to the emporium of Saint Mamas, and to tonsure him first and cast him into prison; and on that same day, he promoted Basil the protostrator to be *parakoimomenos*. Hearing this, the Caesar was jealous, ^D and from that moment he meditated killing Basil. Moreover, Michael forced Basil to divorce his own wife, Maria, and gave him as a wife Eudocia Ingerina, ordering him to keep her as his mistress and legitimate spouse. Indeed, she was the emperor’s concubine, and by him she was...

^A much beloved, being beautiful; having given gold and other things to his former wife, Maria, he sent her away to Macedonia to her own family. He then arranged for his own sister, Thecla, to be kept by him privately. From that time on, the Caesar and Basil were suspicious of one another and searched for ways to destroy each other. Basil privately insulted the Caesar, as if he were plotting against him. Basil, meanwhile, striving to secure the confidence of the emperor, formed a friendship with Symbatios the patrician and logothete of the dromos, who was the Caesar’s son-in-law. By exchanging oaths, they promised to maintain a perpetual consensus and an inviolable treaty with one another. Basil further informed Symbatios, asserting with horrific oaths: "The emperor loves you greatly, and while I am always concerned for your interests, he is planning to elevate you to Caesar, but he is unable to do so because of your father-in-law." Symbatios, deceived by Basil’s oaths, became an adversary to his own father-in-law, Bardas the Caesar. Approaching the emperor, he used oaths to persuade him, saying, "The Caesar intends to kill you," and he revealed the details of the plot. The emperor, therefore, led by the oaths ^B of Symbatios and confirmed by the testimony of Basil, began to plot secret traps against the Caesar. Basil, knowing that everything had been well-prepared against the Caesar and realizing that he could not carry it out within the city, persuaded the emperor to move the fleet and army against Crete. When this happened, Leo the Philosopher advised Bardas the Caesar to withdraw and to protect himself from Basil. The Caesar, in turn, besought the emperor to spare Basil. When the feast of the Annunciation occurred, a procession was made to the church which is in the Chalcopratia; after the entry had been made and the Gospel had been read, Patriarch Photius and the emperor, along with the Caesar and Basil the Parakoimomenos, ascended to the catechumena. The patriarch held in his hands the precious body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The emperor ^C and Basil, dipping a pen into them, signed with the holy crosses, confirming with an oath to the Caesar that he could set out with them on the expedition without danger. For Leo the Philosopher had openly warned Bardas not to depart with them, saying that if he once left, he would not return. After the holy feast of Easter, the emperor weighed anchor with a vast army and arrived in the Thrakesion theme. When they had encamped at Kepi, Basil the Parakoimomenos plotted to kill the Caesar. Present in the conspiracy were his brother Marianos, and Peter the Bulgarian, and John the Chaldian, and Constantine the ^D

^A Toxaras: but the plan became known to John the Neatokomites. Coming down to the Caesar's tent at sunset, and meeting Procopios, the Caesar's protovestiarios, he asserted to him, "Your master the Caesar is to be hacked to pieces tomorrow morning." He entered and reported this to the Caesar. The Caesar, having heard this, said to Procopios, "Go, say to the Neatokomites: 'You yourself are sowing these weeds.'" Late at dawn, he summoned all his men and disclosed to them what had been spoken to him, seeking their counsel. Philotheos, the protospatharios and general, who was his faithful friend, said to the Caesar, "Tomorrow, master, clothe yourself in your golden-Persian tunic and appear before your enemies; they will flee from your face." As the sun rose, he mounted his horse and proceeded to the emperor's retinue, shining in splendid attire. Constantine the Toxaras, to fulfill Basil’s counsel, bowed in reverence and signaled his arrival to Basil. Basil, having come out, bowed down to him and, taking him by the hand, brought him to the emperor. The Caesar, having sat down with the emperor, said, "Master, now that the whole army is assembled, command that it cross over to Crete." Basil, who was standing behind, struck him with a sword, and the others with him hacked him to pieces while the emperor looked on; it was the third hour of the day. Immediately, the emperor and Basil returned to the city. As they were arriving at the market of Akritas, with a large crowd gathered to see the emperor, someone clothed in a monastic habit cried out from a high rock to the emperor: "You have performed a fine expedition, O emperor, having slain with the sword your own kinsman and one of paternal blood. Woe to you, woe to you, that you have done these things!" The emperor and Basil, angered, sent the captain of the guard, Maurotheodoros, to kill the monk with a sword. The crowds, rushing in, claimed he was mindless and demon-possessed; and thus he barely escaped the punishment.

^D It was late on the Saturday of Pentecost that the emperor signaled the patriarch Photios through his protovestiarios, Rendakios, that the joint rule of Basil had been established, so that he might announce it in his presence. On the next day, two chairs were brought out; the people were amazed that, when there was only one emperor, two chairs were brought out. As the emperor proceeded in ceremonial procession, Basil, as was the custom for the parakoimomenos, walked behind wearing a skaramangion with a sword. Coming as far as the palace gates, the emperor did not lay aside his crown, as is the custom for emperors, but entered with him as far as the holy doors; then, turning back, he ascended three steps of the ambo while still crowned. Below the ambo stood Basil the parakoimomenos, and below Basil stood Leo the quaestor, and the asekretis holding the scroll in his hands, and Michael the praepositus of the Angure, along with the leaders of the tribes of the people.

^A Leo the asekretis then began to read, saying: "Bardas the Caesar plotted to take my life, and for this reason he removed me from the city; and had it not been reported to me by Symbatius and Basil, I would no longer be among the living. He has paid the penalty of death for his own wickedness. As for Basil, my chamberlain, since he is faithful and the protector of my empire, and has delivered me from the enemy, I wish him to be the guardian of my empire and to be acclaimed by all as emperor." Basil was filled with tears, and Basil [the emperor] having given the crown to Photius the patriarch, having taken it from his own head, for him to bring it into the holy table, he [Photius] offered a prayer over it; and the praepositi, having brought the *deditision* and the *tzangia*, ^B clothed Basil, who, having put on the chlamys, fell at the emperor's feet. Then the patriarch went out and took the crown from the emperor's head and handed it to the emperor; and the scepters having been inclined, as is the custom, Michael crowned Basil, and all acclaimed: "Many years to Michael and Basil!"

Castor the asekretis, who had read the document, departed for Nicomedia, and coming to a monastery for men, he remained in the middle of the meadow. There was a well there, and falling into it, he was drowned and buried there. Symbatius, the son-in-law of the Caesar, having been disappointed of the dignity of Caesar, and seeing that he had been mocked by Basil, was stirred to hatred against Basil; and having taken counsel with George Peganes, the master of the soldiers, he requested on the following day to be appointed general in his place. Gumer was then appointed logothete of the dromos, and he [was made] count of the Opsikion. ^C And setting out together, both Symbatius and Peganes began to ravage and burn the regions and the vineyards (for it was the time of harvest), acclaiming Michael alone, while reviling Basil. Having learned of this, the emperors ordered the rest of the generals to make war upon them. Nicephorus Maleinus, having taken counsel, scattered documents among all the people, so that by this ruse and craft they might capture them, and not fall into civil war by fighting openly. Peganes was captured, and having seized him, they brought him into the city; and by order of the emperor, Constantine the eparch, the Mytaris, blinded him, and seating him in the Milion, they gave a vessel into his hands, and all those passing by threw into it whatever they had on their own initiative. ^D And after thirty days, Symbatius the Armenian was seized by Maleinus in the inn at Keltzine; and Maleinus brought him to the emperor, who was then at Saint Mamas. And by the emperor's command, they brought Peganes to meet Symbatius, placing in his hands

^A a pottery censer with which to cense him. Then they blinded Symbatius in one eye, and they cut off his right hand also, and they seated him in the Latus, and they placed a vessel in his bosom so that if he had the inclination, he might throw something into it. And after three days, they led them away to their own houses, keeping them under guard.

Now Emperor Michael sent an engineer, the one called Labaris, and he took Constantine Caballinus out of the tomb, and found his body sound and whole; and, wanting to clothe it in a sack, since it could not be contained, he wrapped it about. He likewise took out John the patriarch along with his pallium from the monument. Immediately, by the emperor's sentence, the prefect shut them up in the prisons of the praetorium, and when an equestrian contest was held, he had them stripped, scourged them, and having sent their bones away, burned them at the place of the Amastriani. The sarcophagus of Copronymus, which was of green marble and marvelous, he cut in two and made into pillars in the church built by him in the palace at the Pharos.

Birth of Emperor Leo; The Emperor's passion for the chariot races; The plot against the Emperor

^B Now Emperor Leo was born to Michael and Eudocia Ingerina, while Michael was still living, on the first day of the fourth month, in the fifteenth indiction. The emperor held circus games at Saint Mamas, having enrolled himself with the Blue faction. But Constantine the Armenian, the father of Thomas the patrician and of Genesius, who was the drungarius of the Watch, rode among them as a White, Agallianus rode as a Green, which is to say, of the Verdant, and Bousias as a Red. When the emperor was declared the victor, and as he sat at dinner with Basil and Eudocia, Basiliscianus the patrician, because the emperor had skillfully driven the chariot, praised him. The emperor ordered him to rise, to take off his own royal buskins, and to put them on him. As he refused, and was casting glances at Basil, the emperor commanded this to be done ^C in such a fury. With Basil nodding his assent, he put on the buskins; but the emperor, invoking God, said to Basil: "They fit him better than you; for do I not have the power, just as I established you, to create another emperor equally?" Saying this, his anger gradually flared up against Basil.

Then Eudocia, weeping, said to the emperor: "The dignity of the empire, my lord, is something great, and we have been honored despite being unworthy, and it is not just for it to be held in contempt." The emperor replied: "Do not be saddened by this; for it is my intention to promote Basiliscianus to the empire." Now Basil was held in great anger and sorrow. When the emperor went out to the hunt, a certain monk met him and gave him a document ^D revealing the plot that was being prepared against him by Basil. Having read this and becoming enraged, he plotted against Basil. When his mother, Theodora, invited the emperor to the house of Anthemius, he sent Rentacius, his protopovestiarius, along with other members of his household, so that they might hunt and that he himself might offer them to his mother. Now Basil was contriving a wicked deed against Michael, and in deep sorrow...

^A. When the emperor sat down to dinner, he invited Eudocia (44) and Basil to dine with him. As the emperor partook of much wine, Basil arose, pretending a need to go into the bedchamber, and because he was strong, he twisted the bolt so that the door could not be closed. He then returned and again dined with the emperor. When the emperor was quite drunk, and Ingerina, as was his custom, was rejoicing with him, Michael arose, led by the hand by Basil, and went into the bedchamber, where Basil kissed his hand and departed. Inside the bedchamber, by the emperor's command, was Basiliscianus, sleeping on Rentacius's bed to guard him. ^B Ignatius the chamberlain, moving to close the door of the bedchamber, found it jammed; in desperation, he sat on the bed pulling at his hair. While the emperor was sleeping a sleep akin to death, Basil suddenly arrived with others and opened the doors. Terrified, Ignatius stood in the way to prevent Basil from entering. Petrus the Bulgarian, however, slipping under Basil's arm and making for the emperor's bed, was restrained by Ignatius, who was opposing him. From this, the emperor's sleep was broken. Then Joannes the Chaldian, having dealt a blow with his sword, cut off his hands. Jacobitzes and the Persian (45) wounded Basiliscianus with a sword and threw him down from the bed to the floor. Marianus, and Basil's father Bardas, and Constantine Toxaras were standing outside on watch, so that no member ^C of the household knew what was being done to Michael. But the conspirators gathered with Basil [and said,] "Even though we have cut off his hands, we have left him alive. If he survives, what defense will we have?" Soon the Chaldian, intending to favor Basil, returned inside and found Michael—who had no hands and was lying on the bed—miserably lamenting against Basil. He pitilessly plunged the unsheathed sword into the emperor's heart, tearing through his intestines, and turning back, he boasted to Basil as if he had performed a heroic deed. Because there was a storm ^D at sea, they gathered together and went down to the ferry, and crossing over, they came to the house of Eulogius the Persian. Bringing him along, they went to the district of Marina, and climbing over the wall, they came to the palace. There was a slab blocking the wall, which Basil, with two of his companions holding him, struck with his heel, broke through, and made it to the palace gate. Eulogius the Persian spoke in his own tongue to the hetairiarch Artabasdus, saying that Michael had died by the sword; and [added], "Open for the emperor." Artabasdus hastened to the papias, forcibly took the keys from him, and opened for Basil [for the emperor]. And once Basil was inside, he took the keys of the pa

palace to his hands; and in the morning, he made one Gregory, called the son of Philemon, papias. Immediately he sent to Saint Mamas, and brought Eudokia, the wife of Inger, to the palace with great glory. He also sent John the praepositus to take the Decapolitissa and lead her to her own parents. He also sent Paul the cubicularius to bury Michael. And he went and found him wrapped in the saddle-cloth of the right-hand horse, which he had been riding, with his entrails hanging out. Taking the mourning and lamenting women there, and his mother and his sisters, and bringing them into a small boat, he transported them to the monastery of Chrysopolis, and there he buried him in a tomb.

BASILIUS.

^A was saved by standing near a column under some other structures, along with two others, and five others remained under the ambo. When the emperor came to the church and was about to take communion, the patriarch Photius called him a robber and a murderer, and unworthy of the divine communion. The emperor, enraged, sent to Rome and, with the Roman bishops accusing him, obtained a written sentence against him; he deposed him from his throne and for the second time installed the most holy patriarch Ignatius in his place.

Alexander the emperor was born to him from Eudocia, the daughter of Inger. This boy was the legitimate son of Basil. ^B The emperor armed himself against the Agarenes living in Africa, but in the engagement that followed, he was defeated; and in further battles, the Romans lost many men to the arms of the Agarenes. During this flight of the emperor, Theophylact Abestactus, the father of Romanus who later reigned, saved the emperor, who had almost been captured by the Agarenes. When the emperor later sought out and recognized him—for many had told the emperor, "It was I who saved you"—he, disdaining honor, requested an imperial property, which he obtained. Upon returning to the city, the emperor sent his son-in-law Christopher into Tephrice, and having won a great victory, he laid the place waste and razed it to the ground. ^C Ignatius the patriarch built a beautiful church at the Emporium of Sator in the name of the Archstrategos, and made it a monastery for men, where his body now lies.

When Thecla, the sister of Michael, sent a certain man of simple mind to the emperor with a suppliant petition, the emperor asked him, "Who is the master of your lady?" He replied, "Neatokomites." The emperor suddenly ordered him to be brought, and having had him beaten, he tonsured him and clothed him in the monastic habit. He likewise sent Procopius the protovestiary to Thecla, and having inflicted blows, he seized all her wealth, which was then added to the treasury; but later he appointed Neatokomites steward in the Great Church. ^D The same emperor compelled all the Jews who at that time were found under his power to undergo baptism, while men of noble rank stood as their sponsors, and the emperor himself bestowed great generosity upon them. Nicholas, of whom mention was made above, known as Androsalites, the mansionarius of Saint Diomedes, to whom the martyr, as has been said, appeared, was graced with the dignity of steward and syncellus.

^A He also honored his brother John with the rank of drungarios of the Watch; another brother, Paul, he made prefect of the Sakellion; and a fourth, he made general logothete. When Nicholas the syncellus died, they buried him in the Arcadian Quarter, in his own house, where the dependency of Saint Constantine is located.

News was brought to the Emperor that Syracuse was being ravaged by the Agarenes. But since the naval forces were occupied with the construction and the digging of the foundations for the New Church, before the imperial fleet could arrive, the city of Syracuse surrendered, at which the Emperor was deeply grieved. Nicetas, son of Xylinites, the supervisor of the table, having been accused of being a lover of the Augusta, the Emperor had him tonsured and made a monk; he later became steward of the Great Church under Emperor Leo, and when he died, he was placed in the monastery which he himself had built. He also had his sisters tonsured to become nuns. ^B Furthermore, the Emperor removed many marbles and mosaics from several churches for the sake of constructing the New Church. Among these ornaments was also a bronze statue standing in the Senate, bearing the form of a bishop, which held in its hand a staff with a serpent coiled around it. This they took down and placed in the vestiary. The Emperor went there, and descending to the place where the statue was erected, he inserted his finger into the mouth of the serpent. But a living serpent was found in that very place, and it bit the Emperor's finger, so that—a thing which appeared wondrous to all—he could barely be healed with remedies. Furthermore, he had the statue of Solomon that stood at the Great Basilica smashed, and he ordered its metal to be cast in his own image and placed deep in the foundations of the same New Church, as if offering himself as a sacrifice to God in such a work. ^C The Emperor then marched again against Melitene, and after taking much booty and fighting many battles, he returned. Saint Ignatius the Patriarch passed away, and Photius was once again raised to the patriarchal throne in his stead. After Photius the patriarch later died in exile, his body was deposited in the monastery called the Eremia at Merdosagares, which had previously been a public communal church, but which Photius had turned into a women's monastery. Again the Emperor set out on an expedition toward Syria as far as Germanicia, and after ravaging it and carrying off captives, he returned home. Constantine, the son of the Emperor Michael and Eudoxia, died; Basil mourned his death greatly. ^D In the month of May, the church which the Emperor had built and decorated with much splendor was inaugurated and dedicated by the Patriarch Photius.

^A On that occasion of its dedication, he wore the *loron* [(55)], and having distributed a great quantity of money, he named it the "New" [church].

Meanwhile, Procopius the *protovestiarius* was sent by the Emperor with the Western themes, with Eupraxius, the son of Mozilices, established as master of the soldiers in Sicily, ^B and the one called Rhabduchus in Dyrrhachium, and the one called Eniates and Apostupes as masters in the Peloponnese. This Procopius, having performed many notable deeds and actions worthy of an illustrious leader, was finally—once war had been joined and all had been betrayed by Apostupes—slain. Now Leo Salibaras brought to the Patriarch Photius a certain Theodore, Abbot and Archbishop of Euchaita, a man noted for his piety, prominent for his miracles, and famous for his foreknowledge of future events. Photius presented him to the Emperor Basil, and brought him into his presence. The Emperor, pleased with him (for the bishop accommodated himself to the Emperor's desires), held the man in high esteem. For the Emperor’s soul was afflicted with perpetual mourning over the death of his son Constantine, to whom he was deeply attached, and he was wasting away from a continuous philter of love; for this reason, the bishop deceived him, promising to show him the boy alive—which he indeed did. For while the Emperor was walking in a certain wooded area, a phantom encountered him, riding on horseback, dressed in garments interwoven with gold, in the likeness of Constantine. ^C When he saw this with his own eyes, he rushed to embrace and kiss him; and when the phantom vanished, he believed he had seen him and had not been deceived. For this reason, he built a monastery on that spot and dedicated it in the name of Saint Constantine. By these means, and by many others of the same sort—being well-versed in the teachings of Apollonius [(54)]—the aforementioned Santabarenus gained great confidence with the Emperor.

Furthermore, the Emperor had betrothed a daughter of Martinacius to his co-emperor Leo, whom he crowned Augusta after celebrating the wedding in the Magnaura and in the Nineteen Couches. Thereafter, the Emperor Leo was denounced to his father by Santabarenus on the charge: "He carries a dagger, wishing to kill you with it." This same dagger, Santabarenus had, through treacherous counsel, caused Leo to have made and to carry in his boot [(53)], saying to him, "Since your father often asks for a dagger when some need arises, why do you not have one ready to offer him?" ^D Having thus had it made, Leo the Emperor was slandered by Santabarenus; and having been caught carrying this in his boot, he was not listened to at all, despite any defense he attempted. On that account, Nicetas the *protovestiarius*, who later became *papas* under Emperor Romanus, was scourged with many blows; and many others who were with him suffered most severe beatings and were sent into exile. The Emperor, however, having imprisoned Leo in the *triklinion* of the Margarita, wished to blind him, if the Patriarch Photius had not...

diverted his plan with many entreaties, together with Zautza Stylianos, the lesser hetairiarch. ^A Thus, excluded from the Emperor's presence for three months, he spent the time lamenting and weeping, and by frequent letters, supplicated the Emperor in many ways. Now, as the Emperor Basil had great faith in Saint Elijah, he kept a vigil on the feast of Saint Elijah. When the procession took place, the crowds, seeing him, cried out: "Glory to you, O God!" The Emperor, turning to them, replied: "Do you glorify God on account of my son? You will have to suffer many troubles and mournful days from him."

Andreas, the Domestikos of the Schools, was likewise accused by Santabarenos to the Emperor of being a partaker in the counsels of Leo, and for that reason, he was removed from his rank by the Emperor, and Stupiotes was installed as Domestikos in his place. But having set out for Tarsus, he was defeated. Then, Andreas, the Domestikos, was once again appointed by the Emperor.

There arose a conspiracy against the Emperor by John Kourkouas, the Domestikos of the *Hikanatoi*, who had been deceived by the prophecy of one held in confinement in the Blachernae regarding his attainment of the imperial dignity. About sixty-six of the senators and other nobles followed him, among whom were numbered Michael the hetairiarch, and Katoudaris, and Myxares, ^B and Babutzikos, and others. When this plot was reported to the Emperor by the protovestiarios of Kourkouas, after everyone had gathered, the Emperor went out to the Hippodrome. Having sat there and examined the charges against them, he had them all beaten and shorn, and he scorched the remaining hair down to the skin.

After these things, he went out for the procession of the Annunciation, the time when they intended to carry out the conspiracy. They walked behind him naked, bound, as he had ordered, all the way to the Forum. Then, having confiscated the goods of all of them, he sent them into exile.

When the Emperor went out to hunt, a deer of immense size appeared from somewhere. As the Emperor was pursuing it, the deer turned back and caught the Emperor by his belt, pulling him from his horse with its horn. But someone from his retinue ran up, drew his sword, and cutting the belt (57), rescued the Emperor. Afterward, the Emperor ordered that the man who had cut the belt should be beheaded for having drawn his sword against him, even though he was pleading that he had done it for his sake. ^C But it did not help him at all. Regarding the fact that the Emperor wished him to be reconciled to himself, that he might obtain forgiveness, Samonas spent four months out of sight, sitting in the house of the Caesar. After this, he was deemed worthy of the imperial sight and conversation. He spent three months out of sight, ^D this was the most lenient penalty imposed upon him, that it was not permitted for him to come into the Emperor's sight. He withdrew for a time from the court. The following account of the same anonymous author declares: "Samonas spent four months in the house of Bardas the Caesar, excluded from the court; then he was admitted to the sight and conversation of the Emperor." Thus it is concerning Leo himself, which follows, leaving out the rest as odious to Basil; for he was more of an orator of his praises than a reliable narrator of the things done by him.

^A Having been afflicted by the tearing of the stag, Basil dies, leaving Leo and Alexander as emperors.

LEO

In the time of Leo, the fortress called the High was betrayed and occupied by the Agarenes, and many of the citizens were led into captivity. A great fire also occurred near the Sophia, by which the church of the Holy Apostle Thomas, which Leo himself later magnificently restored, was consumed. The emperor sent a messenger to Euchaita and summoned Theodore Santabarenus to the city. Andreas, the Domestic, and Stephen, the magister, son of Bona Maria, having formerly suffered insults from Santabarenus, then devised a trap against him; they suggested to the emperor that ^D Patriarch Photius and Theodore Santabarenus had formed a conspiracy to make someone from the kinsmen of Patriarch Photius emperor. The emperor ordered that Patriarch Photius and Theodore Santabarenus be taken to the palaces of the Pegae, and he commanded that each be guarded separately. He gave orders to Stephen the magister, Andreas Craterus the Domestic, Gouber the patrician, and John the Hagiopolite to diligently investigate their case. And so, having brought the patriarch,

^A and having bidden him sit on the throne with honor, and sitting down themselves, Andreas the Domestic said to the patriarch: "Do you recognize, master, the abbot Theodore?" He replied: "I do not recognize Abbot Theodore." And Andreas said: "Do you not recognize Abbot Theodore the Santabarenus?" The patriarch answered: "I know the Abbot Theodore who is the Archbishop of Euchaita." And they brought forward the Santabarenus; and Andreas the Domestic said to him: "The emperor signifies to you: Where are the moneys and the possessions of my empire?" He said: "Where the emperor who reigns this day has placed them. Now, if he commands that these be sought out, he has the power to take them back." And Andreas said to him: "Answer: Whom were you planning to make emperor when, by your fraudulent contrivances, you suggested to my father that he blind me: one of the patriarch's friends, or one of your own?" He, answering, said: "I know nothing at all about this matter." Then the magister Stephen said: "And how did you signify to the emperor that you would convict the patriarch regarding this?" ^B But the Santabarenus, immediately falling at the feet of the patriarch, said: "I adjure you by God, my master, that you first perform my deposition; and then, having stripped me of the priesthood, let them punish me as a criminal. For I did not report such things to the emperor." The patriarch immediately said in the presence of all: "By the salvation of my soul, Lord Archbishop Theodore, I [do not recognize you as such] either in this present age, or in the one to come." ^C Angered by this, Andreas said: "Did you not report, abba, to the emperor through me, that 'I might convict the patriarch in this'?" But he denied knowing anything. Having returned, they reported to the emperor what had been said by them. The emperor, seized by anger and unrestrained fury, since he found no cause against the patriarch, sent and beat the Santabarenus severely and ordered him to go into exile on Mount Athos. ^D Afterward, however, sending men behind him, he blinded him and exiled him to Asia. But after many years the emperor, having been appeased, brought him back into the city and ordered him to receive a stipend from the New Church. And this same Santabarenus died under Constantine and Zoe his mother.

Upon the reign of Leo, Agion the Lombard and duke, having become the son-in-law of the king of the Franks, rebelled against the emperor and enslaved the entire region to himself. Having learned this, the emperor sent Constantine, the prefect of his table, together with all the western legions to wage war against Agion; and, a battle having taken place, those who were with Constantine were defeated and slaughtered, with him barely surviving. And a solar eclipse occurred, with the stars appearing for six hours, as if a deep night had fallen.

^A Moreover, there were thunders, a strong press of winds, and lightnings, such that seven men were consumed by fire on the steps of the Forum. The city of Samos was captured by the Hagarenes, and the magistrate was taken prisoner. Now the Emperor Leo bestowed the title of *basileopator* upon Zautzas, having become related by marriage to him through his daughter Zoe, whom he already loved, after her husband, Theodore Guzuniates, had been carried off by a certain poison. ^B And upon the passing of the patriarch Stephen, there was ordained in his place Anthony, surnamed Cauleas.

There came a message from the commander of Macedonia, that the prince of Bulgaria, Simeon, was meditating an expedition against Romania. The cause, however, which moved Simeon was this: Zautzas the *basileopator* had a slave, a eunuch named Musicus. He was joined in friendship with Stauracius and Cosmas, wealthy Greek merchants, who, intent on base gain and supported by the authority of Musicus, transferred the trade of the Bulgarians from the city to Thessalonica, and by imposing taxes, treated the Bulgarians abominably. When these things were reported to Simeon by the Bulgarians, he made them known to the Emperor Leo. ^C But the Emperor, hindered by the *basileopator*—who was overly partial to Musicus—regarded all of it as nothing but trifles. Therefore, the Bulgar, raging, drew up an army against the Romans. When this was heard, the Emperor sent the *stratelates* Crinites against the Bulgarians with arms and many of the city’s nobles; and a battle having been joined in Macedonia, the Romans were put to flight, with Crinites, the Armenian Cortices, and all the rest being slaughtered. ^D Those of the Chazars who had come as auxiliaries to Leo were captured, and their noses were cut off, and they were sent to the city by Simeon in contempt of the Romans. When the Emperor saw them and was inflamed with anger, he sent Nicetas, surnamed Sclerus, with *dromones* to the banks of the Danube river, to offer gifts to the Turks and to stir them up for war against Simeon. He departed and conferred with the chiefs Arpad and Cusan; and they, consenting to an alliance of war and having given hostages, returned to the Emperor. He again dispatched the patrician and *drungarius* of the fleet, Eustathius, by sea, and by land he sent the patrician Nicephorus Phocas, the Domestic of the Scholai, who penetrated as far as Bulgaria. The Emperor, desiring peace thereafter, sent the *quaestor* Constantine to Simeon to consult regarding terms of peace. Simeon, seeing the weapons and the war moved against him by land and sea, confined the *quaestor* in guard, as if he had come with treachery. While Simeon was occupied with the forces of Phocas, the Turks crossed the Danube and made the whole of Bulgaria captive. Hearing these things, Simeon moved against the Turks. Crossing to the opposite bank with the Bulgarians

The Turks, while Simeon was occupied against the army of Phocas, took all of Bulgaria captive. ^A Learning of this, Simeon moved against the Turks. They crossed over and joined battle against the Bulgarians, and Simeon was turned to flight, barely escaping safely into Distra. The Turks then asked the Emperor to send and buy the Bulgarian captives; this the Emperor did, sending citizens from the city to purchase them. Simeon, through the drungary Eustathius, asked for terms of peace, to which the Emperor yielded; he sent Leo Choerosphactes to conclude the peace. Nicephorus, with the army, thought it best to return, and the drungary Eustathius likewise. But Simeon did not even deign to speak with Leo, but instead confined him in prison. Having later marched against those Turks, who had no aid from the Romans, and further were caught unawares and destitute of all military preparations and armaments, Simeon slaughtered them all. Having increased his own magnanimity, he returned ^B and found Leo at Muldagra, and said to him: "I will not make peace unless I receive all the captives." The Emperor therefore ordered that they be returned. Theodore the Bulgarian, a domestic of Simeon's, came with Leo and received them. Afterwards, Nicephorus Phocas having passed away, Simeon sought pretexts to break the peace; for, seeking other captives, he marched against the Romans. Emperor Leo appointed Leo Catacalus, who had his dwelling at the Rabdos, as Domestic of the Schools, and with him sent the patrician and protovestiarius Theodosius, commanding them all to cross over with the legions and forces. A battle having been joined with Simeon at Bulgarophygum, there was a horrible flight of all, and they were all destroyed, among whom was the patrician Theodosius, for whose sake the Emperor grieved not a little. In his time ^C the inhabitants of the castle of Cherson slew their own leader, Simeon the son of Jonas; the castle of Corum in Cappadocia was also captured by the Hagarenes. The Emperor subsequently held a famous procession to the house of Damianus, accompanied by Zautzas, who was wielding the supreme power after him, and his daughter Zoe, who was a companion at the ceremony. Theophano, his lawful wife, was not present there, but was at the Blachernae at the holy sepulcher, occupied with constant prayers. As the Emperor intended to stay there, the kinsmen of Zautzas, including his son Tzantzes and others, took counsel to slay the Emperor by night. Zoe, sleeping with the Emperor, heard the murmur, and looking through the window, commanded them to be silent. But having learned of the danger and the plot they had devised, she awakened the ^D Emperor, who immediately boarded a ship and crossed over to Pegae, leaving Zautzas and everyone else there. At early dawn he entered the palace in haste, and having cast out the drungary John, he put in his place Pandus, the son of the hetaeriarch Nicholas. Nicholas himself, being a companion of the Emperor's friendship, revealed the plots which Zautzas was engineering against him. And from that time on the Emperor did not enter into the chamber of Zautzas.

until Leo the Magister and Theodotakes convicted them. ^A

Theophano Augusta dies after twelve years of rule; whom, not long afterwards, God revealed as a worker of miracles, because she had been free from the vice of jealousy and the holding of grudges, and because she had incessantly devoted herself to God and to the holy churches with alms and prayers. Emperor Leo crowns Zoe, the daughter of Zautzas, and receives with her the nuptial blessing from a cleric of the palace by the nickname of Synapes. And he who gave the blessing was deposed. ^B She reigned for one year and eight months. Upon the death of this same Zoe, a sarcophagus was found to deposit her body, bearing inside letters carved and inscribed in this fashion: "Miserable daughter of Babylon." Leo the Musician and Stauracius were accused before the Emperor, as though they had received gifts from some leader and state officials so that they might intercede in their favor with the Emperor's father. And so, when Stauracius had gone in to Zautzas with a petition from one of the leaders, the Emperor, seeing him as he stood by the solar clock, followed behind him, and seizing him by the nape of the neck, he dragged him out. ^C When he had questioned the man about the leader's business, he dragged him to the Monothyron, and having taken the documents, cast them into the air and shook them out; he then handed him over to some of those standing by to be cast out of the palace, and ordered him to be tonsured. When the Musician learned of this, he was moved by a sense of desperation. Then the Emperor entered the place where the Musician was standing beside Zautzas, and seizing him by the neck, he thrust him out and handed him over to Christopher the chamberlain to be taken away to the Studites and to be subjected to monastic penance. A little later Zautzas dies in the palace; and they carried his body out through the Bucoleon and took it away to the monastery of Kaulias, to bury him there. ^D

After the death of Zautzas, Basil, prefect of the royal works, the son of Nicholas the hetairiarch, was joined in friendship with Samonas the chamberlain, who was of Hagarite descent, and glowed with the desire for imperial power. And he confidently revealed his mind to Samonas: "Now that Zoe, our aunt, has passed away, the Emperor is about to take another wife for himself, and he intends to destroy us all. But give me your word, so that I may reveal to you all that is being plotted." And when he had given his word to Basil, he revealed everything to him. Samonas then entering in to the Emperor, said to him: "My lord, I wish to tell you something in private; if I say it, I die; but if I do not say it, you die instead."

^A And he explained to the Emperor the whole conspiracy of Basil. But when the Emperor did not credit the things spoken by him, and said: "Did someone suggest that you say these things to me, and have you done this in the hope of a reward?" He said: "Send my lord, those whom you wish, faithful men, into the chamber, and let them remain hidden, and whatever they hear from Basil and from me, let them write it down." ^B Immediately the Emperor sent Christopher the protovestiarios together with Calocyrus the cubicularius; and they entered and hid themselves in his chamber. Basil, therefore, having been enticed, and having received a sworn promise from Samonas in his oratory, revealed to him all the details of the plot and [named] those who were conspiring with him. As they stood up, Christopher and Calocyrus departed and read everything out to the Emperor. And immediately, having summoned Basil, he gave him twenty thousand miliarisia ^C as if they were alms for the soul of his aunt Zoe, as a legacy, and sent him away into Macedonia; and in this way he drove Basil out of the city. As for the rest who had partaken in his conspiracy, he sent Pardus, the drungarios of the watch (vigla), to the Stypiot, ostensibly to bring him to himself, but he had been previously ordered by an imperial decree to seize him in bonds. The Emperor, making a pretext that he was going out to dine at Saint Lazarus at the descent of the Tzoukanisterion, detained John Garidas with the rest of the ^D hetaireia in the cubiculum; and when the Emperor descended, he took Nicholas the hetaireiarch, who had been seized with John, and brought him out of the city. Having brought Basil back from Macedonia, he questioned him, and scourged him, and shaved his hair, and paraded him through the middle of the city, and exiled him to Athens, where he died miserably. Likewise, he tonsured Nicholas the hetaireiarch, and Stylianos, and John, and all of the kin of Zaoutzas, while exiling others and confiscating their property. The Emperor then summoned all the magistroi and those in authority, and read before them the things that had been revealed by Samonas. They praised him exceedingly as one who provided for the life of the Emperor, and said that he was worthy of the greatest honor. And he immediately decorated him with the rank of protospatharios.

The death of Patriarch Stephen; the succession of Nicholas

^A The Emperor also purchased buildings near the Apostles, and built a beautiful church in the name of his former wife, the holy Theophano. Likewise, in the place called "the Topoi," he built a church to Saint Lazarus and arranged for it to be a monastery for eunuchs, to which he transferred the body of Saint Lazarus and of Mary Magdalene, ^B and celebrated the dedication of that same church.

While the fleet was occupied with the construction of these churches, Tauromenium, a city of Sicily, was captured by the Africans through the negligence—or, more truly, the treachery—of Eustathius, the drungary of the fleet, and Caramalus and Michael Charactus, who were there; a great slaughter of Romans took place. When they returned to the city, they were convicted of treachery by Michael Charactus, and were condemned to death by the Emperor and the Patriarch. ^C But because Patriarch Nicholas interceded with the Emperor, their lives were spared; they were only beaten, their goods confiscated, and they were tonsured as monks—Caramalus at the monastery of [the] Picridiu, and Eustathius at the monastery of Studios. The island of Lemnos was also captured by the Agarenes, who carried off many captives from it.

During the procession of the great feast of Pentecost, ^D as the Emperor Leo was proceeding to Saint Mocius, accompanied by the court, and was entering to celebrate, while he was near the soleas, a certain man came out from the ambo and struck him on the head with a strong and thick club. Had the force of the club not been slowed and hindered by striking a multi-branched candelabrum, it would have instantly finished him off. As blood flowed profusely from the Emperor’s head, a panic and flight of the nobles ensued, in which many perished. His brother Alexander pretended to be ill and did not come to the procession, from which the suspicion arose that he had been the author of such a conspiracy. Samonas was likewise absent; in fact, he had departed to bring Zoe to the palace. The man who had struck the Emperor was seized, examined, and endured many torments and punishments for several days; because he confessed no accomplice in the conspiracy, his hands and feet were finally cut off, and he was burned at the goal of the Circus. From that time on, such a procession was abolished.

Some time later, Marcus, the most wise steward of the same church, who had completed the *Tetraodion* of the Lord’s Great Sabbath begun by Cosmas, reclining at table with the Emperor, ^D begged him not to diminish the solemnity. When the Emperor refused, Marcus said: "The prophet David learned this from [index: entries preserved]

O master," and he prophesied, saying: *How the enemy did wickedly in thy sanctuary; and they that hate thee have boasted in the midst of thy solemnity.*[Ps. LXXIII, 3, 4] "And from this moment, O master, it is necessary for you to hold the empire for ten years." And so it happened, for on the very same day on which he received it, on that same day he died. Zoe, the emperor's fourth wife, lived in the palace not yet adorned with the imperial crown.

When the Emperor had set out for the harbor of Botios in order to celebrate the dedication of the monastery of Christopher, his protovestiary, a report came that the fleet of the Hagarenes, together with the Tripolitan, were advancing ^B against Constantinople. The Emperor therefore sent Eustathius, the drungary of the fleet, with the entire fleet and the commanders against the Tripolitan; but as they were unable to draw up in opposition, they returned in vain. He had come before them and had entered as far as Pera. Upon learning this, the Emperor was filled with great despondency and sent Himerius, the protospatharios, as head of the fleet against the Tripolitan, but he did not dare at all to approach the fleet of the Hagarenes. But by the secret judgments of God, the same Leo the Tripolitan turned his face and went toward Thessalonica and besieged it, and took it together with its commander, Leo Chatzilicios, having caused ^C much slaughter and taking captives. A certain cubicularius named Rodophyles, who had been sent to Sicily on some business, having one hundred pounds of gold with him, happened by chance on the way to enter Thessalonica to bathe and recover his strength; and he was captured by Leo and, after being much tortured, died. Simeon, the protoprasekretes (who later became a patrician and first of the asecretis), traveling on that road, had at that time taken possession of the gold and the gifts which Rodophyles had left behind on the way. When the Tripolitan wished to destroy the city, Simeon, having learned of this, informed him to take the gold and spare it. Having persuaded him and given his word, he agreed to give gold to the Tripolitan so that he might spare the city; which was indeed done. Samonas, however, pretending ^D to go out to his monastery of Spira which is at Damatrys, took flight, taking with him his own wealth and horses, having hamstrung the public horses. Learning this, the Emperor sent after him Basil Camateros, the hetairiarches, and George the Krinites, to capture him. And as Samonas was [crossing] the Halys river...

Nicephorus the drungarios, called Campinas, caught up with him and did not permit him to cross. Since Samonas promised many things but could not persuade him, he took refuge at the precious Sirichon [Siricha], pretending that he had come there due to his faith in the cross. Constantinus, the son of the Doux, having arrived and taken him, returned to the city. The Emperor ordered him to be kept in the house of Bardas the Caesar; and he questioned Constantinus the son of the Doux about him. And having learned how he was truly fleeing into Syria, he instructed the Doux not to say this before the Senate when asked by them, but [to say] that he had gone for prayer to Siricha. For the Emperor wanted him to be reconciled to him. Having therefore summoned Constantinus the son of the Doux before those in authority, he said: "As you value God and my head, was Samonas fleeing, or not?" He, however, as he had previously asked the Emperor not to make him swear an oath, and to say what was commanded, hearing the oaths, declared before all that he was indeed fleeing to Syria. Having sent him away in the Emperor’s anger, Samonas spent four months in the house of Bardas. He was reconciled during the Emperor's reign. There appeared then also a comet, casting its rays toward the East, and it remained visible for forty days and nights.

Leo begot ^B a son, Constantinus, from Zoe, his fourth wife. He was baptized on the feast of the Theophany by Nicholas the Patriarch in the Great Church, with the Emperor Alexander and Samonas the Patrician and all the authorities receiving the child from the font. It happened, however, that the Emperor, having celebrated the feast in this manner with Zoe, received a nuptial blessing from Thomas the presbyter, who was deposed from his office on that account. The Emperor proclaimed this same Zoe as Augusta, for which reason the Patriarch forbade him from entering the church; whence he would proceed from the right side as far as the metatorikion, not passing through by the customary way at all. Samonas was promoted to parac ^C oimomenos because he provided the Emperor with an auxiliary hand for every crime and wickedness, and they began to plot against the Church. For they summoned the Patriarch Nicholas on the first of February, and having entreated him much to receive them, since they could not persuade him, they drove him out from the public banquet to which he had been called, and having led him through the Bucoleon and put him into a small boat, they took him across to Hiera, from where he went on foot with difficulty as far as the Galacrenai, with much snow lying upon the ground. And in his place is ordained...

^A Euthymius the syncellus, a man grave, preeminent in temperance and piety; who they say accepted this office through divine revelation, since the emperor was contemplating establishing a heresy and a law that it should be permitted for a man to have three or four wives, with many most learned men assisting him in this. In the month of June, the emperor Leo was invited by Constantine Libs to the monastery situated in Merdosagares, that he might celebrate its dedication and attend the banquet. Thereafter, a wind named Africus prevailed for three days, blowing most vehemently, shaking and overturning houses and churches, so that everyone fled into open spaces and thought that the end of the world had arrived, had not God in his benevolence towards men commanded that a disturbance of this kind be calmed.

^B The emperor appointed Himerius, the logothete of the dromos, as head of all the naval forces, after the fleet of the Agarenes had set out against the Romans. And Andronicus the dux was ordered by imperial command to join Himerius the logothete in the ships and to campaign against the Agarenes. At that time, Samonas persisted as an implacable enemy of Andronicus, and was continually concocting various schemes against him, and was making every effort and using every means to harm Andronicus, ^C from the time that Andronicus had fled. He instigated someone to write secretly to Andronicus: "Do not board the ships, lest you be seized by Himerius. For Samonas has suggested to the emperor that you should be captured by him and blinded." Although Himerius urged Andronicus many times to enter the ships against the Agarenes who were threatening, he refused. Himerius, therefore, alone on the day of Saint Thomas, joined battle with the Agarenes and won a great victory. Upon learning this, Andronicus, driven to despair, was cast into total rebellion; with his kinsmen joining his flight, he seized the fortress of Cabbala. ^D Because of this, Samonas reproached the emperor: "Did I not tell you, master, that the dux was contemplating rebellion against you?" Immediately, therefore, the emperor sent Gregoras, the domestic of the schools, surnamed Hiberitzes, who was a co-father-in-law of Andronicus, to defeat him. When Andronicus learned of this, and that the Patriarch Nicholas had been expelled from the Church, together with his kinsmen, children, and friends, he went forth...

^A to the territory of the Hagarenes, who were then moving against the Romans, and he was received by the great Amerumnes.

The Emperor Leo was saddened on account of Andronicus, and he had frequently contemplated sending him a document signed in his own hand to recall the man. Theophilus, for the sake of Manuel, also did this. Certain men advised the emperor to conciliate someone from the Saracen praetorium and to send him into Syria with a signed document of amnesty. The emperor duly prepared this, inscribed with cinnabar letters, and enclosed it within a brief wax tube, ^B secured with a golden seal. But as the Saracen was departing from the emperor, Samonas called him and said to him, "Do you know what you are carrying?"—insinuating this on account of the wax tube—"You are carrying with you the destruction of Syria." And having bestowed money and gifts upon him, he persuaded him to place it into the hands of Uzer. The man departed and performed what had been recommended. Andronicus was thus detained and cast into chains with all his kinsmen. And when he learned that these things had befallen him through the treachery of Samonas, ^C compelled by necessity, he himself and those with him renounced their faith. From that time on, his son Constantine and the remainder of his friends, knowing that it was in no wise permissible for Andronicus to return, made use of flight alone (which was a marvelous thing) and returned from Syria to Romania. Driven by various calamities through diverse places, only a few escaped unscathed with his son Constantine. Eventually, Abalbaches the elder and the father of Samonas came to the city from Tarsus to negotiate an exchange of captives. The emperor admitted these into his presence and received them in the Magnaura with the utmost humaneness, honor, and glory. ^D He decorated the Great Church with sumptuous ornament and displayed all the precious vessels to the Agarenes—a thing unworthy of the empire and of Christian institution, for the holy vessels of God to be beheld by the gentiles. The father of Samonas sought to remain with the emperor and his son and to stay in Romania. But Samonas exhorted him, saying, "Keep the faith which you have; for if I am able, I shall come to your parts later." On the day of Pentecost, the Emperor Leo crowned his son Constantine with the aid of the Patriarch Euthymius. Now Samonas gave to the service of the Empress Zoe his own man, Constantine, who had previously served the Magister Basil and the Prefect of the Canicleion. He subsequently became most dear to the Emperor Leo and the Empress. For this reason, Samonas was moved with envy against the man and accused him of being intimate with the Empress. The emperor, having suspected this, took [the man] aside to be a monk in the monastery of Saint Tarasius through the agency of Samonas.

^B Afterward, however, he commanded that he be received into his own monastery, called Spira, so that he might the more easily summon him back to himself. Proceeding, therefore, to Damatrys, and intending to breakfast in the monastery of Samonas, he saw Constantine, and immediately commanded Samonas to have him put on his customary secular garments. Then, during the meal, he offered the emperor a drink, and returned with him to the palace. Samonas, however, seeing the emperor’s growing affection for him, took counsel with the chief chamberlain and Michael Steredon; and they produced a document filled with abuse against the emperor, written and composed by Rhodios, the notary of Samonas. The emperor, having gone to the Great Church, found it on the seat where he was accustomed to pray, at the *mitatorium*; he took it up, and having read it, was in great distress, seeking the one who had done this. An eclipse of the moon also occurred, and the emperor commanded the astronomers who were present at that time to declare its significance. As Pantaleon, the metropolitan, who was a friend of Samonas, was entering to see the emperor, Samonas asked him: "To whom does the evil [portended by this] apply?" He replied: "To you; but if you pass the thirteenth of June, from then on you shall suffer no evil." But others told the emperor that the moon's malignancy threatened the second person from him, which the emperor suspected was his brother Alexander. After this, however, Steredon privately announced to the emperor: "Samonas invented the document." And the ^C emperor immediately compelled Samonas to withdraw to his own house; and he ordered him to be tonsured there first, and led away to the monastery of the Patriarch Euthymius; and after this, having been convicted of other crimes, he was deported to the monastery of Martinakes. He made Constantine *parakoimomenos* and built for him a monastery in Nosiai. He went there together with the Patriarch Euthymius and dedicated it with a solemn service. In the month of October, a naval war took place with Himerios the logothete against Damian and Leo the Saracen, while Romanos, who later reigned, was the general at Samos. Himerios was defeated and barely escaped, with almost everyone there in danger. Emperor Leo began to be afflicted with an abdominal ailment, so that he could not appear in the Magnaura to hold the oration at the beginning of the Fast. ^D A fire also occurred in the *keroulara* of the Great Church, in which all the records and the *sakelle* were burned. Finally, on the eleventh of May, Emperor Leo, having previously designated his brother Alexander as his successor, died—whom he, as they say, catching sight of as he was approaching him, said: "Beware; after thirteen months a most evil time impends," and he most earnestly entreated and adjured him to protect his son Constantine.

^A Alexander the brother of Leo ruled for one year and twenty-nine days, together with Constantine, the son of Leo. Having sent a messenger to Nicholas at Galacrenas, he deposed Patriarch Euthymius and restored the same Nicholas for a second time. Alexander held a *silentium* and a council at the Magnaura, having summoned Euthymius from Agathou; and sitting together with Patriarch Nicholas, they spent their time most assiduously on the deposition of Euthymius, shamefully plucking the venerable beard of that man, who was in all respects to be admired and worthy of love, and inflicting upon him other insults and punishments, which that honorable and holy man bore quietly and meekly. From these events, at the dwellings of Agathou, he finished his life and was laid to rest at that same monastery in the city of Psamathias.

Alexander, free from the suspicions which his brother Leo had harbored against him while he was alive, devoted himself entirely to continuous hunting and roaming through the various palaces, without meditating upon or executing anything worthy of an emperor, but always living in pleasures, debauchery, and drunkenness, he surrendered himself entirely to such things. Whence, he immediately appointed a cleric named Janes, surnamed Lazarus, as rector, who after the death of Alexander miserably ended his life; likewise, he greatly enriched Gabrielopulos and Basilitzes, of the Sclaveni race, with the wealth of the palace, to such an extent that, having no offspring of his own, this Basilius is said to have entertained the thought of making him heir to the empire. He also consulted how to make Constantine, the son of Leo, a eunuch, and often attempted this, but was hindered by those whom Leo had benefited, who put forward now his infantile age, now his infirmity.

In his time, a comet appeared in the west for fifteen days, which they said was called "the Sword," and portended that a shedding of blood would take place in the city. He abandoned himself entirely to impostors and sorcerers, who even persuaded him, saying: "The symbol of the wild boar which is erected in the Hippodrome is bound to you and your own life," pointing out to the witless man the life of the pig. Deceived by these, he ordered the genitals and teeth of the pig to be restored, as if they were lacking to him; and trusting in his own delusion, having celebrated a horse race, he adorned the games with the vestments of the church and with branched candelabra brought forth, and decorated the animals with the splendor of lights. For this reason, the helping hand of God was removed from him, for he did not fear to offer the honor of God to idols.

As for Himerius the Logothete, who was returning from the slaughter he had suffered at the hands of the Hagarenes, Alexander, having sent a messenger, confined him in the palace monastery called Campa, threatening him as one who was his enemy during the time of his brother Leo. Through much affliction, he fell ill, and having been confined for six months, he died. He also sent... ^{B C D}

envoys to Alexander, held a pact for peace. Simeon was setting his weapons in motion against the Christians. ^A Now Emperor Alexander, having indulged in a meal and being in a drunken stupor during the heat of the dog days, went out to play ball, and having been struck by a divine blow, he returned having suffered an injury, shedding blood from his nostrils and genitals; and after two days he died, leaving as regents Nicholas the Patriarch, and Stephen the Magister, and John the Magister known as Eladas, and John the Rhaictor, and Euthymius, and Basilitzes, and Gabrielopoulos, having bequeathed the empire to Constantine, the son of Leo. And Alexander was laid to rest in the ^B tombs with his father.

CONSTANTINE

Constantine, with his father Leo now dead, being still a boy (for he was in his seventh year of age), was left in the empire under his uncle, administered by regents. He reigned under his regents, and with his mother, and together with Romanus, his father-in-law, to whom he was subject, for another twenty-six years; and he reigned as sole emperor for fifteen years; so that his entire time of rule amounted to fifty-five years. Therefore, Nicholas the Patriarch, having obtained the authority of the palace, took providence over public affairs and had concern for the matters pertaining to the empire daily. ^B While the state of the empire was thus, it was suggested to Constantine, the Doux of the Scholae, by certain of the magnates in the city who were his friends, that since he was a man brave and wise, and able to govern the ^C realm well, he should enter and take control of it without labor. He, as one who had long dreamed of it and was ever burning with a lust for the crown, set out with all possible speed to the Queen of Cities together with chosen troops suitable for any daring deed. Entering by night through the postern of the protovestiarius Michael—which was near the acropolis—he stayed in the house of Gregoras, his father-in-law, sleeplessly with his associates. Nicetas the Asecretis, who later became protonotary, signaled the arrival of Constantine to the Patrician Constantine the Eladic, and both together on that same night came to the Doux Constantine; and having taken counsel while it was still night, at the break of day, but while darkness was still deep...

they occupied the gate of the Hippodrome with torches and a great multitude of people and arms, acclaiming Constantine as emperor. There, his groom was first slain by those who held the inner parts of the Hippodrome. Constantine, not being received there, but rather repulsed like one possessed by a demon, and not having his mind composed owing to the lust for empire, withdrew ^B from the Hippodrome, somber and downcast, judging the slaughter of the groom to be an evil omen. From there, therefore, he came, accompanied by favorable acclamations, as far as the so-called Chalke, and having entered through the iron gate, he arrived at the place of the excubitors. The Master John Eladas, therefore, having made a selection of those of the company and the rowers, sent them armed against the Doux. Accordingly, when they reached the Chalke, and the battle commenced, many from both sides fell, becoming victims to the sword, and so many that the place began to reek with blood flowing like a river. There fell also Gregoras, son of the Doux, and Michael his cousin, and that Cortices who was of Armenian origin. Constantine the Doux, learning of these things, because a great tumult had been stirred up throughout the city, spurred his horse more vehemently; the horse slipped on the stone flagging laid out beneath and threw the rider to the ground, while all his companions scattered and fled in every direction. When a certain person caught sight of him lying on the ground, abandoned and alone, he seized him and cut off his head with a sword. These things having been so accomplished, Gregoras the Master, his father-in-law, together with Leo surnamed Choerosp- ^C hactes, fled to the church of Holy God-Wisdom, from which they were dragged out by force, dressed in rags and vile clothing, placed upon an ass, and paraded in triumph through the middle of the city; and having led them away to the monastery of Dalmatus, they had them shut up in a place known as "Condemnation." As for Leo Catacalitzes and Abessalom, the son of Arotres, they blinded them and sent them into exile. Philotheus the Eparch severed the head of Constantine, the son of Eulampius, and his companions with a sword at the turning-post of the Hippodrome. A not insignificant search was made for Nicetas the Asecretis and Constantine Libos, but they were not found, as they had made use of flight. But him, and many, being valiant men, who were with him, they suspended on double wooden stakes or forks from Damalis, which is a place in Chrysopolis, as far as Lacatas; and these so-called procurators would have cruelly and causelessly delivered many more to death, had not certain judges restrained their unjust impulse, saying to them: "While the emperor is still..." ^D

^A a child, how do you dare to commit such acts without his command?" Consequently, having shorn the duke's wife, they sent her away to her own house which she possessed in Paphlagonia, having first castrated his son.

In the month of August, Simeon, prince of Bulgaria, having prepared an army with a great multitude, marched against the Romans and arrived at Constantinople. Having invested the city, he threw up a rampart from the Blachernae to the so-called Golden Gate, and, lifted high on the wings of hope, promised that he would subjugate it with no effort at all. But when he discovered the strength of the walls and perceived the security of the city due to the abundance of its people and its siege engines, he was disappointed in his hopes, and returned to the place called the Hebdomon, requesting terms of peace. ^B The procurators most gladly accepted the peace, and Simeon sent Theodore, his magister, to negotiate the terms of peace. Patriarch Nicholas, along with Stephanus and John the Magister, took the emperor with them and went to the Blachernae; they brought in the two sons of Simeon, who feasted in the palaces together with the emperor. When Patriarch Nicholas approached Simeon, Simeon bowed his head before him. The patriarch, therefore, intending to say a prayer over him, placed his own head-covering upon his head in place of a diadem ^C (13). Thus, having been received with boundless and most magnificent gifts, Simeon and his sons returned to their own country, parting company, however, disagreeing over the peace that had been declared.

Since Emperor Constantine was still a child and was looking for his own mother (for Emperor Alexander had long before removed her from the palace), they brought her back. She, then, having gained control of the empire, brought into the palace Constantine the parakoimomenos, and Constantine and Anastasius, brothers dubbed the Gongylioi. By the counsel of John Eladas, they dismissed the household and intimates of Emperor Alexander—John the rector, and the one called Gabrielopoulos, and Basilitzes, and the rest. Zoe Augusta appointed Theophylact Dominicus as hetaireiarches.

Meanwhile, John Eladas, having fallen ill, left the palace, and arriving at the Blachernae, died as his sickness grew worse. ^D On the advice of Dominicus (14) and those like-minded with him, Zoe arrogantly claimed for herself the administration of the empire, boasting that she was taking care of it. As Simeon, prince of the Bulgarians, was again ravaging Thrace, the Augusta and the high officials of the empire were anxious about how to restrain and appease his arrogance. Upon learning this, John Bagas sought the dignity of patrikios, and, on the condition that he obtained what he requested, he promised to bring the Patzinaks. Having obtained his request, he ...

and having received many gifts, he went off to the territory of the Patzinaks; and having taken hostages from there, he brought them to the city, the Patzinaks having agreed to cross over and wage war against Simeon. There also arrived at the city Asotios, a man most famous for his skill, the son of the prince of princes, who, they say, when holding an iron rod at its two extremities, would bend it by his surpassing strength, and move it into a circular shape, the iron’s natural hardness yielding to the force of his hands. They received him upon his arrival with great honor, and sent him back again to his own country. In the month of September of the third indiction, the Armenian Pankroutoukas betrayed Adrianople to Simeon. Not long after, the patrikios Basil and the kanikles, and Niketas the protospatharius, the Helladicos, were sent by Zoe ^B with many gifts, and received it back again. An emir also arrived at the island of Strobylos with many warships and much force; and he would have captured it, had he not fallen ill and died. But the inhabitants of Greece and Athens, being constantly harassed by Chase, the son of Juba, and unable to endure his luxury and insatiable greed, pelted him with stones and killed him miserably inside the sanctuary of the temple in Athens.

Empress Zoe, having learned of the arrogance of Simeon and his hatred toward the Christians, which was well known, held a council with the nobles and determined to arrange a treaty and peace with the Agarenes, and to move the entire army of the East to defeat and destroy Simeon. Therefore, John the patrikios, surnamed Radenos, was sent into Syria to conclude the treaty; and Michael Toxaras ^C crossed into Thrace, the magister Leo Phokas acting as domestic. When the venerable and life-giving woods had been brought out by Constantine, the chief priest of the palace, called Cephala, and by Constantine of Malelia in Thrace, all prostrated themselves on the ground, and having given their word of oath that they would die for one another, they set out with all their forces against the Bulgarians. John the Graphon commanded the Excubitor regiment, and the son of Maroulis commanded the Hicanati; Romanus Argyros, his brother Leo, and Bardas Phokas were in command, and Melias was with them with the Armenians, along with the other commanders of the themes. Constantine ^D the patrikios, surnamed Lips, was also with the others, acting as counselor to the domestic Leo in all matters pertaining to him. On the twentieth of August of the fifth indiction, the war between the Bulgarians and the Romans was joined at the river Achelous; and as the judgments of God stand, which are altogether impenetrable, the usual distribution of the donative—having been made among the regiments—these, having been taken up together with the themes, crossed over into Thrace.

^A and the Romans were drawn up for battle near the river Achelous (18), and—oh, the judgments of God! how unsearchable and inscrutable!—the Romans were turned to flight, with the entire army. There ensued a flight and a terrifying wailing, with some being trampled by others, and others being slaughtered by the enemy; and such a shedding of blood occurred as has never happened since the beginning of the world. Leo the Domestic fled and found safety in Mesembria; but Constantine the Lips, and John Grapson, and many other of the commanders were put to the sword.

At that time, Romanos, the patrician and [drungarios] of the fleet, was sent with the entire fleet to the Danube river to bring aid to Leo Phocas (19). But because Romanos and John the son of Bardas had fallen into disputes and verbal quarrels, and the Patzinaks, seeing them feuding and at odds with one another, returned to their own lands, the war reached its conclusion.

Upon the return of Romanos and the son of Bagas (for such was his name) to the city ^B, the situation concerning them became volatile, and they placed the [drungarios] Romanos in such peril that they brought against him a sentence of condemnation to be deprived of his eyes, on the grounds that through negligence, or rather malice, he did not ferry the Patzinaks across, but rather, having withdrawn too quickly and not even receiving the fugitives into his ships, he had allowed the situation to escalate (21). And he would have suffered this fate had not the judgment been overturned through Constantine Gongyles and Stephen the [magistros], who had great influence with the Augusta.

When the Bulgarians were emboldened by the victory and marched their forces as far as the city, Leo the Domestic of the Schools, and John the [hetairiarch], and Nicholas, the son of the [doux], went out toward the region of Thrace—called Catasyrias—along with a vast army against the Bulgarians. ^C But at night, when the Bulgarians fell upon them unexpectedly and the Domestic took to flight, Nicholas the son of the [doux] was slaughtered, along with many others with him.

Theodore, therefore, the tutor of Emperor Constantine, observing that Constantine the [parakoimomenos] was plotting to transfer the empire to Leo, his own son-in-law, suggested to the Emperor Constantine that he should appoint Romanos as [drungarios] (22)—as he was a servant of his father and well-disposed toward him—so that he might always be present to assist him, keep him safe, and be his helper and companion in all things that might be necessary. Although frequently spoken to about this matter, Romanos declined. The Emperor Constantine, therefore, having drafted a document and secured it with his signature, sent it to him; and he, upon receiving it in his hands, ^D and frequently speaking about it, although he was resistant, Romanos accepted it. Wherefore Constantine sent to him a scroll written in his own hand and confirmed by signature: which, when he had received in his hands, [alt-version omitted]

^A he promised to undertake the attack against the chamberlain Constantine and his kinsmen when the need arose. This rumor, therefore, having spread everywhere, and the chamberlain Constantine compelling Romanos to depart with the fleet, he himself, for his part, offered obstacles, making the difficult expedition of the fleet a pretext, since the stipulated pay for the soldiers had not yet been distributed. While Romanos was outfitting the expedition and preparing the fleet, the chamberlain Constantine went out to set sail, with the intention of spurring him on. He [Romanos], however, met him in servile attire, and promised to execute his orders with alacrity. When the chamberlain was prepared to return, and had asked Romanos if he had men of handsome appearance and brave soul, suitable for rowing the royal trireme, he [Romanos] immediately signaled with his hand to those who were ready ^B and nearby to approach. They, seeing the plan, and having already come very close to the dromon of Romanos, seized him with their hands and shouted: "Take him!" Immediately, they snatched him up, brought him onto the trireme of the drungarios Romanos, and held him under guard, with none of his companions daring to fight for him or defend him; rather, all had shamefully fled.

When these things were reported to Empress Zoe, she summoned Patriarch Nicholas and the nobles who were well disposed toward her, and sent them to Romanos, being anxious to be informed of the order of all the events that had taken place. But as they were traveling toward her, the people pursued them with stones. On the following day, therefore, Zoe went out to the solar ^C clock of the Boukoleon, and cried out to her son and to all: "How, then, did this rebellion come about?" The pedagogue of Emperor Constantine, Theodore, said to her that these things had happened because Leo Phocas had ruined the Romans and the chamberlain Constantine had subverted the palace. The emperor, however, declared that the authority of the empire had been withdrawn from his mother and transferred to himself, and he ordered Patriarch Nicholas and Stephen the Magister to be present with him in the palace. On the following day, he sent John the Toubaches to remove Empress Zoe from the palace. She, with wailing and tears, embraced her son and moved him to maternal compassion and grief, so much so that the emperor said: "Allow my mother to be with me." And they, at that single word, let go of the one requested. The emperor ^D and the patriarch, moreover, summoned John Garidas and ordered him to be Domestikos of the Schools, fearing lest Leo Phocas might lapse into rebellion. He refused to undertake the office unless they appointed Theodore, the brother-in-law of Zuphinezer, and his son Simeon, as hetaireiarches. Being assured by oaths, therefore, he went to his house. They immediately expelled his kinsmen from the palace, and when Garidas saw them flocking to him, [he was seized] by an unusual fear.

FRANC. COMBEFIS NOTE. (25) He signaled to those who were ready and at hand. From which also Cedrenus supplies and amends the following: "When Romanos was already near the light boat, and walking behind the chamberlain Constantine, having seized him with his hands, he had shouted 'Take him!'; immediately, those, having snatched him away, [put him] into, etc."

and struck with an unusual stupor of mind, he was seized with trembling. Therefore, he immediately went to Romanus and explained to him what he had suffered. Having become reconciled with him, and having given and received oaths so that both might have but one soul, he became of the same mind and spirit with him, so that they agreed to form a marriage alliance, thereby binding more tightly the bond of love between them. ^A On the twenty-fourth day of the month of March, Romanus sent John the presbyter, his own most trusted domestic, and Theodore, surnamed Matzoukēs, as envoys to the palace, to offer an apology, saying: "This which has been done by me is not a rebellion, but, fearing the machinations of Phocas and dreading lest any innovation be attempted by him against the emperor, for this reason I have determined to come up to the palace and to undertake the protection of the emperor." When Patriarch Nicholas did not agree to this, it was signaled to Romanus by Theodore, the aforementioned tutor, to come with the whole fleet as far as the Boukoleon; having consulted with those with him ^B (for a hidden urge drove him), on the day of the Annunciation of the most holy Theotokos (which was a Thursday), he arrived with the fleet, armed, at the Boukoleon. Immediately, Stephanos the magister left the palace; Nicetas the patrician, the father-in-law of Romanus's daughter, having gone up into the palace, removed Patriarch Nicholas from there. The minds of the courtiers having been confirmed by Romanus through an oath, and the venerable cross having been sent to him, he himself, having adored it and having pledged with an oath, went up with them into the palace and, with a few of his own men, to pay homage to the emperor. And having entered with him into the temple which is in the Pharos, and having given and received pledges of safety, he was immediately created magister and great hetaireiarches by the emperor. ^C At the same moment, a sacred mandate was sent to Leo Phocas, enjoining him to abandon any intention of stirring up sedition and to remain quietly at home for a short time. In the same sense, other letters were ordered to be written to Constantine the acoubitor, commanding the same thing and that he should not plot anything in opposition, but persevere in obedience to the emperor Constantine. Andreas, the primicerius of the sacred imperial vestiary, taking these, delivered them to him while he was in Cappadocia, and, having received them, he went away to his own house and kept quiet. In the fifth week of the holy Fasts, in the month of April, the betrothal of the marriage alliance is given by the emperor Constantine to Helena, the ^D daughter of Romanus, and on the third day of Easter, the one called the day of Galilee, she is blessed and established.

^A by the patriarch Nicholas, and then Romanus is declared Father of the Emperor: and his son Christopher is appointed hetairiarches in place of Romanus.

Not long after, Leo Phocas, seduced by the people and moved by some of the nobles and the soldiers of the legions entrusted to him, stirred up a revolt, and having sent a messenger, he took to himself the cubicularius Constantine, and the other Constantine, and Anastasius, brothers by blood, and Constantine, the son of Maleles, as secretary, informing and persuading them all that this movement was being made in obedience to the emperor Constantine. But Romanus, the Father of the Emperor, issued ^B golden-sealed tablets signed as if in the name of the emperor Constantine, containing the overthrow of such a plot, and declaring that those who abandoned Phocas and took refuge with the emperor were considered to be on the side of the emperor; and he entrusted these to a certain woman of shameless mouth and profligate virtue named Anna, and to a certain cleric named Michael, to distribute them through the adversary’s army. They, having received the letters, took care to have them distributed throughout the entire army. And Michael, having been discovered, was cruelly punished by Phocas, having his nose and ears cut off; he afterwards received a fitting reward from Romanus, as did the woman who had been sent with him. First, the son of Barymichael abandoned Phocas and fled to Romanus, having become the originator of the dissolution ^C of such a revolt and tyranny; and with him went Balantius, both of them being turmarchs. Leo Phocas, having arrived at Chrysopolis with an army strongly equipped with every kind of weapon, and intending to terrify the citizens of Constantinople, stationed his soldiers in a long encampment from the Stone Dam to Chalcedon. While these things were being carried out by Romanus, Simeon, the prefect of the inkstand, was sent, traveling by a fast boat, carrying a document signed by the hand of the emperor Constantine, proclaiming the following: "Finding no one among my subjects, nor among the Romans, more vigilant or faithful as a guardian of my empire than ^D Romanus, I have entrusted my guardianship to him after God, and I have decided to consider him in the place of a father, he having shown motherly affection and fatherly disposition toward me. I have always suspected this Leo Phocas of plotting against my empire, and now I have found him to be a plotter in deed and a tyrannical rebel against my authority; therefore, I decree that he is no longer domesticus from this moment, and I declare that he has not performed this revolt by my will, but that he has undertaken this aggression by his own voluntary intent, usurping the empire for himself." When these things were read to the people, they all began to withdraw and to approach the Father of the Emperor, Romanus. And Phocas, being cast into distress and despair, as if having failed of all hope, resorted to flight, and desperate— 27

having arrived at a place called Goeleon, he was seized. ^A Romanus then dispatched John Tubaces and Leo, his own kinsman, to bring him into the city. Having seized him, they put out his eyes, although they had received no order for this, but had acted on their own initiative, so that the Basileopator Romanus was saddened by the deed.

In the month of August, the plots of Constantine Ctenatenus, David Camulianus, and Michael, curator of the Mangana, were uncovered. For this reason, these men also had their goods confiscated, were subjected to scourging, were led through the middle of the city, and were sent into exile. They also brought Leo, the Magister and Domestic of the Schools, into the city, who was led through the middle of the forum riding upon a mule. It was also reported that Zoe Augusta was plotting against Romanus ^B by means of poisoned food prepared by Theocletus, a notary of her ministry. For this reason, they forced her to withdraw from the palace and, having shorn her hair in the monastery of Saint Euphemia situated at Petrium, they made her a nun.

Theodore, the tutor of the Emperor Constantine, and Simeon his brother, were invited to a banquet by Theophylactus the Patrician and Count of the Stable. While they were reclining, John the Drungarius Curcuas entered with a crowd of people, and having seized them, he cast them out to the Opsikion and forced them into exile in their own suburban estates, as if they had conspired against Romanus. ^C On the twenty-fourth of the month of September, with the dignity of Caesar, and on the seventeenth of the month of December, on the feast of the Forefathers of the Lord, Romanus was crowned with the imperial diadem by the Emperor Constantine and the Patriarch Nicholas; and on the day of Holy Lights, he crowned his wife, Theodora.

In the month of May, in the fifth indiction, on the seventeenth day, Christopher, the son of Romanus, was proclaimed emperor; he was crowned on the twentieth of the same month by the Emperor Constantine on the day of the feast of holy Pentecost, and these two alone proceeded in the same solemn procession through the city. ^D Furthermore, in the month of July, in the eighth indiction, on the Lord’s day, concord was established for the whole Church by Romanus, with all the metropolitans and clerics who had stood divided in their minds over the parties of Nicholas and Euthymius returning to agreement.

On the eighth day of the month of February, in the nineteenth indiction, Romanus, having sent [orders], exiled the Magister Stephen, son of Calomarias, to the island of Antigone, having accused him of aspiring to the throne; having first shorn him, along with Theophanes Tichiotes and Paul the Orphanotrophos, his personal servants. The Emperor Romanus held a solemn procession at the Tribunal, with all the armed forces gathered there.

^A Romanus and Constantine returned with great haste to the palace, for a conspiracy by Arsenius and Paul the Maglanites had been reported by Leo, a servant of Arsenius. Upon being whipped and having their property confiscated, they were sent into exile. At that time, the presiding minister was the presbyter and *raiktor* John, who had made Leo, the son of the Armenian, a *hebdomadarius*, having previously commended him to the Emperor.

When the Bulgarians again made an incursion as far as Katasyrtas after the death of the Domestic Adralestes, Pothos, the son of Argyrus, was appointed Domestic of the Schools. Having marched out as far as Thermopolis with the tagmata, he sent Michael, the son of Moroleon, who was acting as his lieutenant, to spy on the movements of the Bulgarians. Coming unexpectedly and suddenly upon their column, he killed many of the Bulgarians, but having received wounds himself, he died later in the city. ^B At that time, a conspiracy against the Emperor Romanus was reported by Theokletos, a notary of the cabinet, involving the *sakellarios* and chief of the gold-dealers, Anastasius, as well as the cubiculary Theodoretus, the imperial notary of the private office, Demetrius, and Nicholas Koubatzes. They were convicted, whipped, and led in procession through the middle of the city. Theodoretus was whipped separately in the so-called TRICONCH of the palace and also sent into exile. As for the *sakellarios* Anastasius, he was tonsured in the monastery of the Eleimones, where he also died. Taking this pretext, Romanus demoted the Emperor Constantine from the first rank, and established him as second, placing himself in the first position. ^C

Simeon once again led an army against the Romans and, having dispatched a multitude of Bulgarians, ordered them to advance against the city as quickly as possible. Having passed through the mountains, they reached the Maglabas. Having learned of their approach, the Emperor Romanus, fearing that they might spread through the Stenon and burn the palaces of the Pegae, sent the *raiktor* John, together with Leo and Pothos, known as the Argyroi, taking with them a multitude from the imperial regiments, the *hetairia*, and the tagmata, to whom were joined the patrician Alexius and the *droungarios* of the fleet, Mouselas, with his own men. It was the fifth week of the Fast. As they were organizing the army into companies, and the Bulgarians ^D

^A appeared from the higher and more elevated ground with an armed force, using an indistinct and fearful shouting, John the *rector* immediately took to flight, and Photeinos, son of Platypous, fighting on his behalf, was killed, along with many others. John, having escaped with difficulty, entered a *dromon*. Alexius, protected by all his armor, also came fleeing, but as he was unable to ascend fully onto the gangway of the *dromon*, he fell into the sea together with the *protomandator* and was drowned. The Argyroi, however, saved themselves by fleeing to the small fort. The Bulgarians, finding no one to stop them, burned the palaces of the Pegae and scorched the entire Stenon. On the twentieth of the month of February, in the tenth indiction, Theodora, the consort of Romanos, died, and her body was deposited in his house ^B. In the same month, Sophia, the wife of the Emperor Christopher, was crowned. At that time the Curopalates of Iberia arrived in the city and, having proceeded through its midst while it was splendidly decorated, was led in to the Hagia Sophia; and having gazed upon its beauty and size, and having greatly admired its costly adornment, he returned again to his own lands.

In the month of June, the Bulgarians campaigned again and reached the palaces of Saint Theodora, handing these over to the fire; the Emperor Romanos, rising up, summoned the commanders of the divisions, while Saktikes, who was mentioned in that context, was also with him; he exhorted them and urged them to go out against the enemy and to fight for the fatherland. They agreed that they were ready to die for the sake of the Christians. Therefore, on the following day, the aforementioned Saktikes, having armed himself, proved his faith and his courage to be true. For, having gotten behind the Bulgarians and having fallen upon their camp, he slaughtered all who were found there. The Bulgarians, having learned what had happened, returned to the camp, and when the battle was joined, they forced Saktikes, who had few with him, to turn back. He, having fought bravely and killed many of the enemy, and having been attacked by so many others that he could no longer resist, slackened the reins of his horse and rode in flight. As he was crossing a river flowing nearby, his horse became stuck in the mud, and he was wounded in the buttocks and the hip joint. After the horse was with difficulty extricated from the mud, he was carried to the Blachernae and placed in a holy shrine ^C, but because the wound was mortal, he died that night. Furthermore, a certain Adrian the Chaldean, as well as Tatzates the Armenian, a very wealthy man, by the counsel and exhortation of Bardas Boelas, who was in command of the Chaldean force, incited tyranny and rebellion against the Emperor Romanos ^D, and...

and seized the fortress called Paiper. ^A John Kourkouas, the Domestic of the Schools, fought against them; he captured some, blinding the more prominent ones and confiscating their property. Tatzates, however, escaped to another, very strongly fortified castle, and having received a promise that he would suffer no harm, he entered the city; being honored with the rank of *manglabites*, he resided in the palace of the Manganon as a prisoner. When he plotted an escape, he was caught and deprived of his eyesight. They tonsured Bardas Boelas as a monk.

Now, concerning the patrician who was surnamed Moroleon ^B, the governor of the city of Adrianople, a man most powerful in military matters and highly skilled, who had shown many deeds worthy of a man in the war against Bulgaria: the Bulgarian Simeon, with his entire army, surrounded the aforementioned city and, building a wooden rampart, besieged it heavily. When the grain in the city had given out and a severe famine pressed upon them (for they were unable to acquire food from anywhere), being weighed down by necessity, they surrendered themselves and their governor to the Bulgarians. Simeon seized the governor, bound him with chains over his entire body, and killed him with a bitter death. Having then handed over the keeping of the city to the Bulgarians, he withdrew.

When Leo of Tripoli was bursting forth against the Romans with a large force and warships, and had occupied the island of Lemnos, the patrician and *drungarius* of the fleet, John Radinos, attacked him by surprise. After the battle had begun, by the aid of God, those who were with him—the Hagarenes—were routed, and only Tripoli himself was saved by flight.

^C In the month of September, in the second indiction, Simeon, the ruler of Bulgaria, having led out all his forces, prepared an expedition against Constantinople. He laid waste to Thrace and Macedonia, started fires everywhere, destroyed everything, and cut down even the trees. Having arrived as far as Blachernae, he requested that Patriarch Nicholas and some of the nobles be sent to him, so that they might confer with him regarding peace. They exchanged mutual hostages and went out: first Patriarch Nicholas, then Michael the patrician, the Stypiotes, and John the Mystic, who held second place under the Emperor. For already John the *Raictor*, having been slandered to the Emperor, had made a pretense of illness and left the palace, and had later been tonsured in the monastery of Galacrenae nearby. ^D These men, then, were holding discussions with Simeon regarding peace; but Simeon sent them back, for he desired to see the Emperor Romanos himself, having been informed by many of his wisdom, bravery, and intelligence. The Emperor...

^A rejoiced greatly at this, for he longed for peace and wished to stop the daily shedding of blood. He sent and ordered a very strong structure to be built in the sea at the shore of Cosmidion, so that the imperial trireme might easily be brought alongside it. Having fenced this in on all sides, he ordered a partition to be made in the middle, in which they were to converse with one another. Simeon, however, sent soldiers and burned the temple of the most holy Theotokos at the Pege, as well as everything around it, showing thereby that he was not seeking peace, but was only deceiving the Emperor with empty hopes.

The Emperor Romanos, having arrived at Blachernae along with Patriarch Nicholas, entered the holy shrine and stretched out his hands in prayer. Then, prostrate on the ground, he watered the holy floor with his tears, beseeching the immaculate Theotokos ^B to soften the unbending and relentless heart of the proud Simeon and to inspire him toward peace. After they had opened the holy casket where the venerable mantle of the holy Theotokos was treasured, the Emperor took it up; and with the faith he had in the immaculate Mother of God, putting it on his head like a helmet and fortified by most secure armor, he approached the prearranged place to negotiate with Simeon, accompanied by a fleet adorned with shields and weapons.

On the fifth day after these events, on the ninth of November, at the fourth hour of the day, Simeon arrived, surrounded by an immense multitude of his army—some with golden shields and gilded spears, others with silver shields and spears gleaming with silver, and others adorned with every kind of weapon; all were enclosed in iron. Those who surrounded Simeon in the middle hailed him like an emperor ^C in the Roman tongue. All the men of the senatorial order, leaning on the walls, watched what was happening. It was then possible to behold an imperial soul that was truly greatness-minded, and to marvel at the fixity of a spirit that, seeing such an onslaught of enemies, was in no way terrified, cowed, or caused to retreat; rather, just as if he were walking into a multitude of friends, he proceeded so undauntedly, all but offering his soul as a ransom for the salvation of his subjects. Therefore, having reached the aforementioned scaffolding first, he awaited Simeon.

When hostages were taken from both sides, and the Bulgarians had thoroughly inspected the scaffolding so that no trickery or ambush might be hidden, Simeon dismounted from his horse and went to the Emperor. After they had exchanged greetings ^D, they initiated discussions of peace. The Emperor is said to have spoken to Simeon thus: "I have heard that you are a God-fearing man and a true Christian, but I see that your deeds do not correspond in any way to your words. For it is characteristic of a God-fearing man and a Christian that peace and love...

be embraced, since God is and is called Love. But it is characteristic of an impious and faithless man to rejoice in slaughter and in blood unjustly shed. If, therefore, you are a true Christian, as we are fully persuaded, ^A restrain at last these unjust slaughters and the shedding of unholy blood, and strike up a treaty of peace with us Christians, since you are yourself a Christian and are so called; and do not desire to pollute the hands of Christians with the blood of fellow-believing Christians. You are a man, and you yourself await death, and resurrection, and the retribution of your deeds. Today you exist, and tomorrow you shall be dissolved into dust. A single fever will extinguish all your arrogance. What account, then, will you give to God when you have gone there for these unjust slaughters? With what countenance will you look upon the terrible and just Judge? If you do this out of a desire for wealth, I shall satisfy you even to the full with that which you desire, only check your hand; embrace peace, love concord, that you yourself may lead a life peaceful and free from trouble, and that the Christians may at last cease from their calamities. For it is not right that they should take up arms against those of the same faith. Having said these things, the Emperor fell silent. Simeon, therefore, ^B admiring his moderation and his words with reverence, agreed to make peace. Having then embraced one another, they departed, the Emperor having honored Simeon with magnificent gifts. And I shall relate a prodigy that happened at that time, which is marvelous even to those experienced in judging such things. They say that while the princes were conversing, two eagles flew over them, arriving quickly, and intermingled with one another, and were immediately separated from one another; and the one flew toward the City, but the other was carried by the action of its wings toward Thrace. Those who carefully inquire into such matters did not deem this a good omen. For they said that being discordant, they would depart with the peace unfulfilled. Simeon, having gathered his army, explained to his nobles the wisdom and moderation of the Emperor.

On the twenty-fifth day of the month of December, Romanus crowned his sons, Stephen and Constantine, with the imperial crown; ^C but the patriarch also tonsured his son Theophylact as a cleric, and ordained him subdeacon, and promoted him to syncellus, after he had first processed among the ranks of the subdeacons into the Holy of Holies. On the twenty-ninth day of the month of April, Romanus designated John the Mystic as a patrician and proconsul. On the fifteenth day of the month of May, in the third indiction, the patriarch Nicholas departed this life, having held the throne in his second tenure for thirteen years; and his body was deposited in the monastery of the Galacrenai, which had been founded by him. In the following month of August, Stephen, metropolitan of Amasea, a eunuch, was initiated as patriarch. ^D

the patrician and ^A logothete of the dromos, Cosmas, who had given his daughter to him as a wife. On this account, he was expelled from the palace, though free access to the emperor was preserved for him, and he was permitted to obey the emperor’s commands and to manage necessary affairs with him; for the emperor’s affection for him was great. But as his accusers pressed the emperor, and the emperor, having investigated, learned that these charges were true, he intended to arrest and examine him. John, having foreseen this, fled; he reached the place called Monocastanon and took the monastic tonsure. Constantine, son of Boelas, the overseer of the table, who was intimate with and friendly towards him, fled as well; having reached Olympus, he donned the monastic habit. He was also afraid, as he happened to be a confidant of the Mystic and a sharer in all his ^B secrets. The emperor punished the patrician Cosmas, who had been stripped of his office, with floggings at the Horologium. Theophanes the protovestiarios was appointed as administrator of the empire in place of John the Mystic. At that time, there was also a terrible earthquake in the theme of the Thracians, and a great and astonishing chasm in the earth opened, such that many villages and churches were swallowed up, people and all.

In the month of May, on the twenty-seventh day, in the fifteenth indiction, Simeon, prince of Bulgaria, died, leaving as prince his son Peter, whom he had by his second wife, the sister of George ^C Surzubules, whom Simeon had also left as guardian to his own children. Therefore, the surrounding nations, upon learning of the death of Simeon, planned to campaign against the Bulgarians. But since famine and locusts were consuming the Bulgarian lands, they feared an incursion by the Romans. Having taken counsel, they armed themselves against the Romans and occupied Macedonia. Afterwards, learning that the emperor Romanos intended to campaign against them, they sent Peter and a certain monk, secretly, named Kalokyros, of Armenian descent, carrying a golden bull. The message within it stated that they desired not only peace with the Romans, but also to forge a marriage alliance. The emperor ^D accepted this monk very gladly and immediately dispatched the monk Theodore Abukes and the royal cleric the Rhodian along with a swift ship to Mesembria to negotiate peace with the Bulgarians. Having arrived and discussed the appropriate matters, they set out together along with Stephen the Bulgarian by land. George Surzubules followed them, and all of them, having arrived in Constantinople, ratified the peace. Having seen Maria, the daughter of the emperor Christopher, and being greatly pleased with her, they wrote to Peter to come as quickly as possible. When the Bulgarian Peter had arrived, the emperor Romanos boarded his triremes and sailed to Blachernae; he saw Peter and greeted him. [alt-version omitted]

^A Once they had conversed as was fitting and had drafted the terms of the peace and the agreements for the marriage, on the eighth of October, the Patriarch Stephen went out, together with Theophanes the Protovestiarius and Maria, the daughter of the Emperor Christophoros, and the entire senate to the church of the most holy Theotokos of the Pege; he blessed both Peter and Maria. After a sumptuous and most magnificent banquet had been prepared, and all the customs associated with weddings were splendidly performed, Theophanes the Protovestiarius returned to the city along with Maria, the daughter of the emperor. On the third day of the wedding, the Emperor Romanos arranged a brilliant feast at the wharf of the Pege. The Bulgarians, having raised a not insignificant objection that Christophoros should be hailed first—or, in that manner, Constantine—the emperor yielded to their protest, and that which they requested came to pass.

When all matters regarding the wedding had been concluded, and Maria was about to begin the journey to Bulgaria, her parents accompanied her as far as the Hebdomon; they surrounded their daughter, shedding many tears—as is usual when human beings are deprived of an object of their deep affection—and after kissing their son-in-law and committing her into his hands, they returned to the palace. Thus, Maria, having been entrusted to the Bulgarian, set out for Bulgaria.

At that time, envoys arrived from Melitene to the Emperor Romanos to negotiate terms of peace. Not long after, Apocaps, the grandson of the Emir of Melitene, and Apolasath, a most noble and wealthy commander, came from Melitene. Having been received with appropriate honors by Romanos and having established the terms of peace, they returned home. But when Apocaps, a prudent and sagacious man, was dead, they immediately dissolved the peace. John Kourkouas, the Domestic of the Schools, together with the legions and Melias with his Armenian contingents, burst in upon them and drove Melitene into such straits that they laid it waste on the spot and leveled it completely to the ground. ^D The emperor therefore established Melitene as a curatorate, imposing upon it the obligation of collecting many thousands of gold and silver pieces annually. Nicetas the Magister, father-in-law of the Emperor Christophoros, was accused of having counseled insurrection against the emperor and of having plotted to depose him from the empire. For this reason, he was driven from the city and shorn as a monk.

On the eighteenth day of the month of July, in the sixth indiction, the Patriarch Stephen died. In the month of December, they took the monk Tryphon, who was well-regarded for his piety and holiness, and ordained him patriarch, until such time as Theophylactus, the son of the Emperor Romanos—whom they intended to create Patriarch of Constantinople—should reach the age of maturity.

On the twenty-fifth day of the same month, such a great winter occurred that the earth remained frozen for one hundred and twenty days. ^A From this, a great famine and much death followed, to such an extent that the living were not sufficient to carry out the dead. The Emperor Romanos, having contemplated that intolerable calamity, and being inclined toward mercy, provided aid worthy of his compassionate charity to alleviate the shortage caused by the famine. He partitioned the spaces of the colonnades with boards and added windows, so that the snow and cold might not invade upon the poor from those places. At that time, he also placed in all the colonnades those [receptacles] called ^B *arclae*, and ordered that silver coins be distributed every month to the poor lying there, and that monthly *trimitia* be distributed to other poor people through the churches; so that the stamped silver coins being dispensed through the *arclae* and the churches amounted to twelve thousand. These things his compassionate soul devised, providing for the poor. Moreover, he ordered three poor men to eat with him daily, and he distributed one gold coin to each. On Wednesday and Friday, three poor monks dined with him, receiving the established coin. ^C And just as it was customary in the monasteries to have a reading at the time of the meal, he himself followed this practice, setting a double table for himself and his guests; while his body was nourished with the habitual food, he nourished his soul with contrition, shedding abundant fountains of tears. He never saw a monk devoted to virtue to whom he did not disclose his own actions with many tears. He adorned all the churches of the city with translucent veils and a brilliant abundance of candles and lamps. Nor did he cease from sending annual stipends, which he had established, to the monks living on the mountains—on Olympus, ^D and on Kymenai, and on the mountain of Barachaios. And these few things out of his countless benefits of charity we have gathered.

John, the brother of Peter the Bulgarian, plotted traps for him along with other Bulgarians of Symeon. When their deed was discovered, John was beaten and locked in prison, while the others were subjected to unusual punishments. When Peter made these same things known to the Emperor Romanos by letter, the emperor sent the monk John, who had been rector, under the pretext

^A of making an exchange for the prisoners of war being held, but in truth to seize John and bring him to Constantinople; which was indeed done. For, having entered the ship with John at Mesembria, he came to the city. Not long after, when he [John] had discarded the monastic habit and was seeking to marry, the emperor gave him a house and many estates, as well as a wife from his own fatherland, that of the Armeniacs, and celebrated a magnificent wedding in the house of the Caesar.

On the second day of the month of March, the *Cosmites*, which stood upon the columns of the Forum, fell to the ground and crushed six men. ^B There also occurred a great and fearful conflagration in the portico of the Forum, near the church of the most holy Theotokos, such that the workshops of the candle-makers and of the furriers of the Forum, as far as the *Psechas*, were consumed.

Emperor Christophoros departed this life in the month of August, in the fourth indiction, and his body was laid to rest in the aforementioned monastery of his father. They deposed the patriarch Tryphon in the month of August, in the third indiction, and as he withdrew to his own monastery and died, the Church remained widowed of a pastor for a year and five months, because of the immature age of Theophylact, the son of the Emperor Romanos.

However, a certain Macedonian named Basil, a wicked impostor, falsely claiming to be Constantine Doukas, ^C led many after him. This man was seized by Elephantinos, a *tourmarch* of the Opsikion, and conducted to Constantinople, where his hand was cut off by Peter the Prefect. Then, seizing an opportunity, he moved back into the Opsikion and, having fitted a bronze hand in place of the one that had been cut off and fashioned an enormous sword for himself, he wandered about, deceiving many by pretending that he himself was Constantine, the son of the Doukas. Having drawn many to himself, he stirred up a great rebellion against Romanos. The emperor, having dispatched an army against him, pursued him and his companions; when he was captured and brought into the city, they examined him before the tribunals and inflicted many blows upon him. He, looking to his own interests, falsely accused men of high rank as if they were conspiring with him; but being proven to be saying nothing true against them, he became fuel for the fire at the Armastrianos.

The aforementioned son of the emperor, Theophylact, was consecrated patriarch on the second of February, ^D of the second indiction, with the legates of the Roman pontiff standing by and presenting a synodal tome dealing with his ordination, and they installed him upon the patriarchal throne. The Emperor Romanos betrothed to his son Stephen the daughter of Gabalas, Ann by name, the granddaughter of Catacylas. Along with the nuptial crown, the crown of the empire was also placed upon him.

The first incursion of the Turks against the Romans occurred in the month of April, of the seventh indiction; they raided as far as the city and plundered all the lands.

^A of all Thrace. The patrician Theophanes, the protovestiarius and administrator of the empire, was sent against them, bearing away much praise from them for his prudence and wisdom, at which time the emperor Romanos also displayed his magnanimity and philanthropy, sparing no expense to ransom the captives. The emperor also arranged for his youngest son, Constantine, a wife from the Armenian nation named Helena, daughter of the patrician Hadrian; and upon her death, he joined him to another woman named Theophano.

On the eleventh day of the month of June, in the fourteenth indiction, the Rus prepared a fleet of ten thousand against Constantinople. The protovestiarius Theophanes was sent out with triremes and dromons; he readied the fleet and, having fortified it as best as he could, awaited the Rus. When they arrived and appeared near the Pharos, he was the first to station himself at the mouth of the Euxine Sea, at the place called ^B Hierum, and indeed, before all others, he sailed forward in his own dromon, broke the formation of the Russian ships, and burned many with the prepared nautical fire; the rest he put to flight. Following him, the other dromons dashed out and completed the rout, sinking many ships with their crews, killing a great number, and capturing very many alive.

At that time, John the Domestic, Curcuas, came down with the entire army of the East and, by catching those who were straggling here and there, destroyed many of them. For these men had committed many evils. ^C For they burned the place called Stenum, and those they took as captives they partly crucified, partly impaled; others they set up as marks and shot with arrows. As for those of the priestly order whom they captured, they tied their hands behind their backs, drove iron nails through the center of their heads, and delivered many holy churches to the fire.

As winter was already approaching and they lacked provisions, they deliberated on returning home, yet they sought to conceal their departure from the imperial fleet. But attempting to cross over to the regions of Thrace in the month of September of the fifteenth indiction, they were met by the aforementioned Theophanes (for they could not escape his most vigilant soul). ^D Immediately, therefore, a second naval battle took place, in which he sank very many ships: a few, however, were saved with their vessels and, having reached the coast of Coela, fled as night drew on. Theophanes, returning famous for his victory, was received with honor and was decorated with the rank of paracimomenus. Since the aforementioned John, the magister, was excellent in matters of war, he extended the borders and ravaged very many cities of the Agarenes. Because of the glory of such a man...

^A a domestic was substituted, the patrician Pantherios, who was a kinsman of Emperor Romanos.

In the first indiction, in the month of April, the Turks again broke in with great force. But the patrician Theophanes, the *parakoimomenos*, went out and made a peace treaty with them, that the peace should be maintained for five years. In the second indiction, Emperor Romanos sent Paschalius, the *protospatharios* and *strategos* of Longobardia, to Hugh, the King of Francia, to seek his daughter as a bride for Romanos, the son of his son-in-law Constantine; and when the aforementioned Paschalius had taken her, he brought her to the city with great wealth. The marriage took place in the month of September, and she died having lived with her husband for five years.

In the days of the reign of Constantine, her father-in-law, a very violent wind blew in the month of December; the [seats] called in the Hippodrome, which happened to be opposite the imperial throne, fell down ^B and crushed the marbles underneath, and those called *stethea*; and as the year came full circle, in this same month, they brought Emperor Romanos out of the palace.

The city of Edessa, in which the venerable Mandylion of Christ was kept, was besieged by the Roman army and brought into very great straits; its inhabitants sent envoys to Emperor Romanos, pleading for the siege to be lifted and promising to surrender the holy Mandylion of Christ. In return for such a favor, they asked to receive noble captives from among their own people, and requested that a treaty be confirmed by a golden bull, so that their region should no longer be ravaged by the Roman army; and this was indeed granted.

When the holy Mandylion had been sent and was now approaching Constantinople, the patrician and *parakoimomenos* Theophanes went out to the river Sangarios, met it with magnificent pomp and hymnody, and on the fifteenth day of the month of August entered the city with it, while the Emperor was at Blachernae; and he did obeisance to it there. On the following day, it was brought out to the Golden Gate; then the Emperor's two sons, Stephen and Constantine, and his son-in-law Constantine, along with Patriarch Theophylact, with the whole senate ^C going before them, received the holy pledge with due honor, and proceeded on foot with a multitude of candles preceding it to the temple of the Holy Wisdom of God; and having paid the worship due to it there, they brought it into the palace.

At this time, a portent from Armenia was brought into the city: two male children ^D born of one womb, complete in all their limbs, but from the mouth...

to the navel and down to the groin they were joined together, and they were seen with their faces turned toward one another. ^A Having spent a long time in the city, they were looked upon by everyone as a sinister portent and an ominous sign, and they were expelled from the city. Under the sole reign of Emperor Constantine, however, they returned again. When one of them died, certain very skilled physicians, hoping that the other would survive safe and sound, skillfully cut away the joined part; that little boy survived for three days and then died. In all things, as has been related above, the emperor possessed faith in monks, but he especially honored and revered Sergius, who shone among the monastics. He was the brother of the magister Cosmas and happened to be the nephew of the patriarch Photius, a man whom the nobility of his soul, as well as the nobility of his lineage, rendered more illustrious. The emperor kept this reverend man as an unceasing companion, a true rule and plumb line always ordering his life, for he frequently exhorted the emperor to take care of his children and not to allow them to fall into evil for lack of discipline, lest he himself suffer what Eli suffered. ^B When his sons drove him from the palace and he was exiled to the island of Prote, he had this man again as a solace for his calamities and a soothing remedy for his distress. At that time, the most pious monk Polyeuctus was with him, comforting him with frequent exhortations as was fitting. After the patriarch Theophylact died, this man was promoted to patriarch by Emperor Constantine. But since God desires to save man in many ways, He allowed Emperor Romanus to fall into an unexpected calamity so that, instructed through it and becoming conscious of his own transgressions, he might be deemed worthy of salvation. For He permitted his son Stephen to rise up against him, just as Absalom once rose up against his own father David. ^C Employing as advisors for this undertaking the former monk Marianus, Basil the "Petinos," and Manuel the "Curtices"—while the other emperors were also aware of and abetting the plot—he roughly drove him from the palace, and after exiling him to the island of Prote, had him tonsured as a monk.

The Sole Rule of Constantine

Therefore, Constantine, the son-in-law of this man, was left as emperor. ^D He immediately honored Bardas, the son of Phocas, with the rank of magister; having frequently displayed instances of martial valor in wars over a long period, he was appointed Domestic of the Schools. Next, he promoted Basil, surnamed Petinos, to patrician and great hetaireiarch, and took Marianus of the lineage of the Argyroi out of the monastic habit, making him patrician and Count of the Stable; likewise, he promoted Manuel, called Curtices, to patrician and Drungary of the Watch. Not long after, the just judgment of God overtook these three—as those who had sinned against the Lord's anointed and had laid violent hands upon him—moved by a desire for imperial power. For, having been caught in the act of lèse-majesté, each of them...

^A met a miserable death and was cut off from life. I shall set forth a more expansive and detailed account of them in the aforementioned ^B narrative. Forty days later, on the twenty-seventh of the month of January, Constantine, having become suspicious of the Emperor Stephen and his brother Constantine, fearing that they might attempt similar deeds against him, and reasoning—as was indeed likely—that if they had not spared their own father, how would they spare him? As they were sitting at the table with him, and while the food was still in their mouths, he ordered them to be seized; certain individuals called Tornikoi, along with the patrician Marianus and others who had been readied for this task, dragged them out of the palace, had them tonsured as clerics, and deported them to the nearby islands. Not long after, moved by a desire to see their father, they traveled to the island of Prote, and having beheld him in monastic garb, they were overcome with inconsolable mourning. The father, weeping with them, said: "I have begotten and brought up children, but they have rejected me." And so they were exiled: Stephen to Proconnesus, then from Proconnesus to Rhodes, and finally from Rhodes to Mitylene; Constantine to Tenedos, and from there to Samothrace, where, having plotted an insurrection against his guards, he was slain by them. Michael, the son of the Emperor Christopher, he stripped of his imperial hose and made a cleric. While the Emperor Romanus was staying on the aforementioned island, the Patriarch Theophylactus, the patrician Theophanes, and the *parakoimomenos* entered into a council to bring him back into the palace. Having communicated this to him and persuaded him, they were watching for an opportune time to bring this plan to its conclusion. When, however, these designs were uncovered and reported to the Emperor Constantine, he took vengeance upon their accomplices; he sent into exile the patrician Theophanes, and having had the *protostatharios* George, the *pinkernes*, and the *primikerios* Thomas scourged and tonsured, he paraded them through the middle of the city and sent them away into exile. In the month of December of the sixth indiction, some individuals plotted an insurrection against the Emperor Constantine, desiring to bring the Emperor Stephen from the island into the palace. This plot having been revealed to Constantine by Michael, called Diabolinos, he subjected the conspirators to intolerable floggings; some of them he had their noses and ears cut off, and having seated them on donkeys, he paraded them through the middle of the city. On the fifteenth day of the month of July of the sixth indiction, the Emperor Romanus died before his time on the aforementioned island, and his body was brought to the city and buried in the monastery he had founded.

The Chronographia of the later emperors reached its end under Leo Grammaticus, completed on the eighth day of the month of July, the feast of the illustrious martyr Saint Procopius, in the year from the creation of the world 6521, in the eleventh indiction.

FRANC. COMBEFIS'S NOTES

DISSERTATION OF GODEFRIDUS HENSCHENIUS, HAGIOGRAPHER OF ANTWERP, OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS, ON THE CHRONOGRAPHY OF ST. THEOPHANES

(Acta sanctorum Bolland. Martii, t. III, p. v.)

CAPUT I.

A suit of the ancient kings and nations, moreover, with their state and government noted, and the ages of each observed as much as possible; he enumerated the pontiffs of the supreme and universal sees—I mean Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—and arranged their years and times in an excellent order. But because death overtook him, he could not continue the work, which he had carried, as we have mentioned, in his writing up to the times of Diocletian, to the goal he had proposed for himself. He left it to us, as it were, as his more sincere friends, excusing himself much, and encouraged us in many ways not to leave his labor imperfect, and compelled us to undertake it. Therefore, compelled to obey his admonitions, we undertake a burden far heavier than our own strength. For having searched out many volumes with diligence, and having examined them as much as our ability and talent permitted, we are compiling the present *Chronographia* from the times of Diocletian to the reign of Michael and his son Theophylact; moreover, we describe the kings and patriarchs, as well as their deeds and eras, with due care, adding nothing of our own; but rather, gathering everything from ancient historians and orators, we have arranged each in its own place, ordering the events according to the sequence of time, so that those who wish to read may have at hand in what year each thing was done in war or in the Church. ^B

Before all else we say that it cannot be doubted that he who, at the beginning of his work, took no other title than Θεοφάνους τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ (as his excellent illustrator and translator, Jacques Goar, of the Order of Preachers, vicar general of the reformed congregation of Saint Louis, admits in his notes on page 1), is certainly the same person whom the Greeks celebrate annually on the 12th of March with a festival as the hegumen of the Great Agros in Sigriana, and an excellent confessor under Leo the Armenian. For we have as a witness to this truth, one greater than any exception, the very ancient translator of Theophanes and almost his contemporary, Anastasius the Librarian. I say translator, because he professes that he will extract first from the *Chronographia* of George, then from that of Theophanes, and indeed he generally extracted word for word whatever Deacon John thought could be desired from the Greek authors we have named for the purpose of writing Latin ecclesiastical history. But after he briefly touched upon the praises of George: "As for the other," he says, "namely Theophanes, what shall I say? Since his written life loudly proclaims to those who are near and those who are far away, through Byzantium and the surrounding regions, how, having sold his ample patrimony, he took up his cross; how he followed Christ, served in the office of abbot in the monastery of Agros, shone with virtues, glittered ^C with miracles, and died a confessor."

2-3. What state, furthermore, Theophanes found the work begun by George to be in, and in what manner he himself proceeded, it is helpful to learn from the prologue itself, which is of this sort: "The syncellus of the most holy patriarch of Constantinople, Tarasius, George the abbot, an excellent and most learned man, having perused many books of chronographers and historians, wrote a summary chronology from Adam to the times of Diocletian, and having studiously discussed the accounts of the times, compared, corrected, and arranged them most skillfully, as no one had done before his age." ^D We have translated *συνεγράψαμεθα* and *τετάχαμεν* by the present rather than the past tense, because we are persuaded by those arguments that force us to believe that not all things which he had preconceived in his mind were brought to effect by him, because that prologue was prefixed to the work not as completed, but as one to be completed; and when some sciolist presumed to supply the deficiency of these, he was not a little injurious to the most illustrious author. For the *Chronographia* of Theophanes, as we now have it, consists of two parts from the collation of five manuscripts—namely the Royal, Peyresc, Barberini, Vatican, and Palatine: of which the one that is better, and truly golden and most worthy of all acceptance, exhibits the history digested by years; the other, scarcely [alt-version omitted]

deserving of being called lead, consists of chronological tables (which Goar terms "Canons") in which the contents are divided into compartments, first the year of the world, then the year of the Incarnate Christ, then the Roman Emperor, next the King of the Persians or the Prince of the Arabs, of those who held power in Palestine after the Persians, and finally the order and years of the five chief bishops or patriarchs are contained: Roman, Constantinopolitan, Hierosolymitan, Alexandrian, and Antiochene. However, that these tables, besides being prefixed to years not their own with great inconsistency, are also written very erroneously, abounding in gaps, and teeming with completely monstrous calculations of years, especially regarding the patriarchates, is something Goar himself acknowledges and confesses. It is a wonder that either he himself, or Combefis, who brought the work of the deceased Goar to light, could have persuaded themselves that they were by Theophanes. "Who, having followed the varying opinions and numbers of various authors, and not having revised his own work under the urgent necessity of persecution, could then expect from his reader—who tolerates a nodding Homer—that he should also raise up and correct a fallen Theophanes? For when he transfers subsequent and mutually coherent numbers to later years, or inconsistently shifts joined years into distant canons: or when he assigns now fewer, now more years to the same man in different canons; or when fewer years of one and the same man occupy more canons; or when, with some omitted by leaving equal compartments or canons in the sum of an age, he does not receive them; or finally, when no small confusion is brought about by the repeated numbering of the same year." ^B

5. Truly, if we choose to impute so many and such grave errors to Theophanes, we are to be feared lest more and even graver ones occur, which the lenity of the reader, however kind, might be unable to forgive. For, to pass over those things which we have shown to be most foully erroneous concerning the chronotaxis of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem and his predecessors and successors, "it surpasses all Emendation," says Goar himself, "that the name of the Roman bishops is frequently omitted and, on page 208, is utterly unknown to the author." Just as this is manifest to us from the certain years of the pontiffs, so perhaps we might discover it in other patriarchs, if their successions and ages were known to us in an equal manner. Nor could you say that Theophanes, having faulty catalogs before his eyes and calculating years from them, could have fallen into no small part of these errors: for wherever in the history itself mention is made of a Roman pontiff, he never named anyone other than who it was fitting to name; how then could he have been ignorant of their series and age? Or what such great negligence of any writer can be conceived, as that in arranging annals and marking them at the head of the years of emperors and pontiffs, he should write a name most different from him about whom he is to write in the history itself; or at least, when he has dealt with some person ^C by name, can he not think that this one is different from the one he had expressed on the front? Thus, to the year 10 and 11, the acts of Constantius are narrated between Athanasius and Pope Julius, who in the 15th year of Constantius completed his own 15th and final year of the pontificate; when in the meantime in the tables his entire pontificate is pushed back to six years, making Liberius succeed Julius in the same 10th year of Constantius we mentioned.

6. But what shall we say of the series of Persian kings? George Syncellus begins it in the fourth year of Alexander Mammea, which was 218 of the common Alexandrian era, and having laid out the names of each individual, and how many years each reigned, up to the end of the Persian empire under the Saracens, he introduces the fifth king, Uraces (called Arareuches in the tables attributed to Theophanes) into the empire in the year 264 of the Alexandrian era, conformably to the spans of years assigned to each of his predecessors in the catalog; and he writes that he reigned for 17 years. However, the tables (which almost everywhere agree with George regarding the numbers of years attributed to each reign, but occasionally change the order and the names) while admitting that Arareuches reigned for just as many years, compose his final year with the first of Diocletian, the 277th of the Alexandrian era, and thus take away four years. But who would believe that Theophanes, the continuator of George, would have thus departed from his author without any apparent cause, if he himself had written the tables? Who again would believe he would have omitted the name and 4 years of Varanes, or Uranes, if he had had before his eyes the catalog left to him by George; and then, for Urarane, would have written Arsabelus, and for Samaspus, Pecmasaphus—names entirely unknown to the Georgian series? ^D

7. In a similar manner, it is permissible to argue from the patriarchs whom George subjoins in the last year of his work; so that the tables of Theophanes, beginning from the first year of Diocletian, should begin from them; even if Theophanes thought there was nothing for him to write about that year, as it was already sufficiently described: indicating by this very fact that an earlier work was being continued by him, not a new one being written, which otherwise ought to have been begun from his entry into the empire, which was the first thing offered as the argument of the history. But when George described this year, he concludes it thus: Rome Bishop 28, Caius, 15 years. Antioch Bishop 17, Cyril, 15 years. Alexandria Bishop 16, Theonas, 19 years. Hierosol. Bishop 58, Hymenæus, 12 years. From which, according to the earlier calculations of George, Caius and Theonas would have had that first year in the episcopate: Cyril, created in the 264th year of the Alexandrian era, would have passed his 14th year; Hymenæus, however, his last, unless (which is likely) you say it happened by a fault of the scribes that it was written as twelve years.

^A Having been supposed to have sat, to whom elsewhere more than 20 years are commonly assigned.

| Year of the world | Year of Divine Incarnation | Roman Imp. Diocletian years | Persian King | Year of Arareuthes 17 | Roman Bishop Caius 15 | Hierosol. Bishop Hymnenæus 24 | Alexandr. Bishop Theonas 19 | Antioch Bishop Tyrannus 13 | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | 5777 | 277 | 1 | 15 | 7 | 13 | 11 | 2 | | | 5778 | 278 | 2 | 16 | 8 | 14 | 12 | 3 | | | 5779 | 279 | 3 | 17 | 9 | 15 | 13 | 4 | | | 5780 | 280 | 4 | Varanisan. 1 | 10 | 16 | 14 | 5 | |

We do not ask which of the two tables' calculations approaches closer to the truth, nor whether greater trust should be placed in Eusebius, who arranges the bishops nearest to his own times in such a way that Caius, upon Diocletian receiving the empire, acted in his episcopate for 5 years, Hymenæus for 19, Theonas for 4, and Tyrannus, after eight years, succeeded Cyril, who was acting in his year about 6 of the beginning of Diocletian. These things, I say, we do not ask; but we leave this in particular to the judgment of a fair reader to be estimated: whether it is possible to believe that the continuator of George, or anyone at all who has read George, could have written things so poorly coherent with George’s chronology? Much less he who inherited all the instruments which he had acquired for himself for the weaving of the chronology.

CAPUT II.

9. What then? You ask. Was it so shameless that someone should attribute to Theophanes tables about which he had never thought? We do not say this; but we absolutely believe that such tables were not only devised by him (that they might be more convenient for the use of the reader than the method that George kept—placing the years of the world and of Christ and of the Roman emperor before the history as a title, and subjoining the kings of the Persians and the prelates of the four sees at the bottom of each year), but that the lines, within which the descriptions were to be made into cells, were also drawn by the same Theophanes, at least at the beginning of the work, and where he did not do so, that the space in the codex was left empty by the scribe for similar lines to be drawn. ^B However, we say that he was content to have written the years of the world and of Christ and of the Roman emperor, and had preset the titles of the episcopates to each cell, but had omitted the cells themselves for a time, letting them remain without the names of the bishops and the years of each, until he had completed what was the principal thing in the work: but afterwards, either impeded by sickness or hardships, or even deterred by the difficulty of the matter (when he saw how the episcopal catalogs in designating the time of the pontificate of each were either in conflict among themselves or with more certain notes, and the sum of the years, once begun, could never be correctly finished in making the descent and ascent), he despaired of success. He was therefore satisfied for a time, the care of perfecting the more accurate series being omitted, to name in the very context of the history sometimes some of the bishops sitting in that year, and sometimes to inscribe their names, more certainly known to him, in the cells prepared for that purpose: whence you may find them accepted in the version of Anastasius in this way: "In the year of the world 6099. In the year of the Divine Incarnation 599. But in the year of the empire of Phocas 5; Isacius of Jerusalem, Theodore of Alexandria, and Anastasius of Antioch are held to be the prelates." And a little later: "In the year of the empire of Phocas 7, Sergius of Constantinople, Zacharias of Jerusalem, and John of Alexandria are held to be the prelates." For these and other similar things, indeed not very rare in Anastasius, are hardly ever to be found in the text of Theophanes, whence would he have received them if he had not marked them in the said cells? ^C But we believe that he did this more diligently and frequently in the Patriarchs of the city of Constantinople, who were better known to him, since he inserted into the history itself so accurately the beginnings and endings of those who were nearer to his own time. Moreover, he also very diligently expressed the times of the Roman pontiffs, who were closer to him, in the same history: and although he strayed from time to time in the earlier ones from the truth, having followed not very corrected catalogs; yet he was never so hallucinated (beginning from Julius, whose year he mentions to the 334th year of the Alexandrian era), that the pontiff did not in reality preside at that time or in the near year over the Roman throne, whose some action is explained in the history.

10. But that Anastasius found the tables thus vacant in the codex, we believe entirely: but that it happened afterwards that some sciolist, from the catalogs found in the compendious chronology of the holy Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, attempted to fill the aforementioned cells, thence, where they ended in his manuscript, ascending upwards through the gaps of the years, correctly or incorrectly defined; having no care how many months and days more or fewer sat than the number of full years added signifies. Thus it necessarily had to happen that such computations, rendered even more vicious by the sometimes corrupted notes of the numbers in the ms., not only departed much from the truth, but could not coincide either with the following history of Theophanes ^D nor with the preceding computation of George. But we are moved by the version of Anastasius to believe that by no means did Theo-

-^Aphanes inscribe in his tables, whether always or from the beginning, the names—as we have said: being moved by the same authority, we are persuaded that the number of the mundane and Christian era was not marked in each individual year by Theophanes; but, just as Anastasius does, only at the beginnings of the emperors, and sometimes elsewhere: for in other places he has only marked the year of the empire, as historians were accustomed in public documents to designate them almost exclusively. Hence it could easily come to pass that, while the years of the emperors were being recalled from time to time to the years of the world, if some difficulty occurred, a uniform progression was not always maintained, as we intend to show below, and we shall demonstrate that this was done not so much by the error of Theophanes himself as by the chronotaxis of the Alexandrian Church, which was accepted throughout the entire Orient, and to which the author had to adapt himself. However, so that this might not cast much darkness, we have decided to publish this dissertation for those who intend to adapt the chronology of Theophanes to the years of the common era.

11. Theophanes himself explains to us the difference between the Alexandrian or ecclesiastical era and the era of the Greeks or Romans, that is, of the Constantinopolitans, at the end of the year of the Emperor Zeno with these words: “Furthermore the year in which Zeno died and Anastasius began to reign is numbered by the Romans from Adam as 5999; which according to the more diligent and truer calculation of the Alexandrians is noted as 5863, from the empire of Diocletian 207, from the divine incarnation 483, in the 14th indiction.” Since this year was without any doubt 491 of the common era, it clearly appears that the Alexandrians counted sixteen years fewer in mundane [years], but deducted eight years from the Christian era: and this, as it appears, for the sake of a more convenient computation, so that in the entire one century the numbers of the units and the decades would proceed equally in reviewing the years of the world and of Christ. Following this calculation therefore, Theophanes, and about to further texture the chronology which had been led by George Syncellus up to Diocletian, composed the first year of the said emperor with the year of Christ 277, which for us, with the eight years added, is 283, and thus he silently corrected the error of his author, who made the year 278 the first of Diocletian. For indeed, this Alexander Mam-^Dmeia, rightly starting the thirteen years in the year 215, which for us was 295, had less rightly given him the successor Maximinus; for the year 228, which would have been of the common era 236, when it is agreed that the said Alexander had reigned only nine days beyond thirteen years, and thus was acclaimed on the day before the Nones of March, and died on the Ides themselves: so that it follows that the first year of Maximinus should have been set at 227, and the remaining years subsequently counted by George, such an error once posited, grow by one year beyond the just number.

12. Theophanes therefore did well in that he subtracted that one superfluous year of the chronography of George: not so, however, those who detached both, and think even that Diocletian was induced by him into the empire later than is right. For since the year of the Greeks takes its beginning from the month of September, and we have it both from other authors and from the Chronicle which they call Alexandrian, that the Emperor Diocletian was proclaimed at Chalcedon on the 15th of the Kalends of October, that he entered Nicomedia in his purple on the 3rd of the Kalends of October, and that he appeared as consul on the Kalends of January, ^B it is evident that no part of the year 276 belonged to his empire, unless you defer counting the beginning of the year until the Kalends of January: which the authors do not do, judging that the beginning of Diocletian should be anticipated by one year, but they rely upon another foundation, persuaded, namely, by the Palilia festivals, that is the 5th of the Ides of May, that he had begun to reign. But how rashly this was assumed from the words of Claudius Mamertinus in the chronicle, twisted into a meaning altogether different from what they truly have, our Petavius clearly shows in book 11, De doctrina temporum, chapter 30, ingenuously retracting what he had otherwise written from the inveterate opinion of chronologers, as he says. However, the fact that the consulship of Diocletian composed with the 11th year of the tribunician, that is the imperial, power, is found in certain stones, can help them not at all. For the beginning of both is different: and with this it is most clearly established that he entered upon this consulship in the first year of his empire, and therefore the years of the same Diocletian were rightly digested by the consuls Diocletian 11 and Aristobulus for the purpose of ordering Easter, as is expressly said in the Constantinopolitan fasti.

15. I say, Constantinopolitans, although they are better known now by the name of the Alexandrian Chronicle, from the opinion of our Raderus, who edited them in Greek and Latin: and this appellation we also use, (in order to abide by accepted usage) the more willingly; for it can be enough to have warned the learned reader here that that chronicle is in truth nothing less than Alexandrian; indeed, because it has nothing in common with the accounts of the Alexandrians. Neither the names of the months, nor of the days; which for the Alexandrians were all Egyptian, but in this chronicle are partly Greek and partly Latin, such as Kalends, Ides, etc. For instance, the month Thoth, whose first day corresponds to the 29th day of the month of August: but in the chronicle it is reckoned from the Kalends of January, in the Roman manner. It does not take the title of the year, which the Egyptians took from kings or emperors, but the Chronicle takes it from the consuls in the Roman manner. It does not [take] the era of Christ; which we have already seen how the Alexandrians used, but the chronicle does not reach this at all, proceeding in the Greek manner by Olympiads, which were unusual for the Egyptians in recording public affairs. But as it is manifestly refuted from such a great discrepancy of chronological characters from the usage of the Alexandrians that it is Alexandrian in which that [discrepancy] is found, so conversely it seems that an indubitable judgment can be reached that the aforesaid fasti

were written at Constantinople, or New Rome, where all these things were in colloquial use, having been in large part brought there from ancient Rome along with the seat of the empire; not so in the rest of Greece, which abstained more from Latin names. This is especially clear from the final years of the aforementioned Chronicle, in which the Acts of the good Master, buried in the temple of the Studites at Constantinople in the 17th year of Heraclius, are described so prolixly—Acts which other historians have covered only lightly; so that it appears most likely to us that the author not only wrote there, but was one of the Studites. But this chronicle is prefaced by the following maxim: *Peter of Alexandria: "From this point the sum of the years from the protoplast Adam, or from the beginning of the world's creation, must be gathered, corresponding to the Scripture inspired by God and to the feasts inaugurated holily by the divine Fathers and rightly celebrated in the Catholic Church."* There is also frequent discussion concerning the typical Lamb and the Paschal questions, and from the reasons of mathematics: it is known that it was the duty of the Alexandrian bishops, once the cycles of the sun and moon were accurately defined, to indicate to the whole Christian world the day on which Easter should be celebrated. But what then, if, notwithstanding this, all those who wished to be considered learned among the Latins were keen to have the reasons of the Paschal Cycle understood during the age of Heraclius? Now, a maxim of such a kind does not indicate any more that the author was an Alexandrian by fatherland, much less a bishop of that city, than does some other similar maxim, accepted from a booklet or some epistle of Eusebius of Caesarea or another writer and prefixed to the book, prove that Eusebius was the author of that which contains the maxim. And so Panvinius and others acted not much more correctly, who called the said Chronicle, found in Sicily before Raderus published it more fully and accurately from the Augustan manuscript, the "Sicilian Fasti," since it is accepted among the learned (which we also follow in the nomenclature of ancient martyrologies, as often as we are ignorant of the use for which they were composed) that manuscripts should take their name from the place where they were found, or from him who possesses them as his own in his library.

CHAPTER III. Concerning the year of Constantius and Galerius as co-regents and the fifth year of Phocas in Theophanes' Chronography being passed over, and finally, after a series of many years, having been added beyond their proper time to fill the gap, to Julian and Copronymus.

14. Since we have vindicated the name of our most diligent author from the infinite number of almost endless errors which the most faulty tables were pinning upon Theophanes, and have shown them to be altogether unworthy to be circulated with his chronography, we do not think it our task to recall each of his chapters for examination, or to bring back into the path, upon finding a wanderer—which is human—by monuments and chronological markers more certain than those he himself saw. His aforementioned interpreter, Goar, performed this with great study and labor: Combefis, intent on producing his brilliant fruit after the author's death, added later Notes. Therefore, omitting those errors which they themselves observed and corrected in Theophanes, and passing over the difficulties which they touched upon, we shall note here only two points: not so much because they were treated by them with too light a hand and were not sufficiently explained, as because, pertaining as they do to very many subsequent years, they render the whole chronology of Theophanes most obscure, and for those wishing to adapt his calculations to the numbers of the common era, they generate incredible difficulties: which, having been taught by experience, we now liberally confer into the public domain—the remedy which we had privately procured for ourselves to soften them.

Now, this consists in this: that, the occasion for the error having been detected, and the terms on either side of it having been established, the reader may be taught that, in the space of time which elapsed between the beginnings of Great Constantine and the Emperor Jovian, a nine-year difference between the common era and the Alexandrian era must be conceived in order that each may be adapted to its own times: and again, from the fourth year of Phocas up to the death of Constantine Copronymus, whereas it is commonly held, as was said before, that only eight years should be added to the number of the Alexandrian era in order to compose it with the common one. We do this all the more willingly, in that we can show with the greater certainty that the blame for the final error does not reside at all with Theophanes, but that it was common then everywhere for all those using the Alexandrian era to number the years of the world and of Christ one fewer than was proper at that time, and thus, though diminished, to compose them no less with the true indiction.

15. We can suspect that something similar happened in the first case, though we cannot demonstrate it. For Georgius Syncellus, whose chronological work our Theophanes undertook to continue, prefaced it on page 32 of the Royal edition [by saying] that he would "refute the doubtful conjecture of the Chaldeans by demonstrative art, necessarily thinking it his duty to interpret the years of the watchers up to 165. Enoch," which was the 1287th year of the world, "in order then," he says, "to carry over to the twentieth year of Constantine, the series of counting being preserved from Adam: and, the names of the kings ruling over each nation having been brought forth, to demonstrate that I have not sleepily collected the sum of 816 years." These are his words, with Goar as interpreter. But if anyone responds that the term *usque* signifies, as they speak in the schools, "extrinsic," and that therefore Georgius thought that the Vicennalia of Constantine looked to the year 816 next following the said sum—which is our 325—the entire computation of Georgius will hold correctly, and they alone have erred who placed the same Vicennalia in the last year of the designated number. Now, Theophanes clearly did this, since he conjoined the indiction 12 with the Vicennalia of Constantine and the time of the celebration of the Nicene synod, which is established to have been held on the 20th of May in the consulship of Paulinus and Julianus; at

that point it was seen to pertain to the 15th Indiction. ^A Once such an error was already posited, it was necessary, in ascending for 20 years, to set the first year of Constantine as the 297th year of his era. Nor could he reserve for himself any year to ascribe to Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Maximianus, as if, after the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian Herculius (which took place, as he himself reports and everyone agrees, in the 296th year of the Alexandrian era, on the 11th before the Kalends of March), Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine, had lived for only four months: for he himself manifests that he holds this view when he says: "In the eleventh year of his empire he finished his life"; whom he had previously said was appointed Caesar in the year 285.

16. Yet the Alexandrian Chronicle does not merely say that Constantius, father of the Emperor Constantine the Great, died after reigning for 12 years; and it aligns the first year of Constantine himself with the beginning of the 272nd Olympiad; but it is also clear from the consular fasti that, besides that year in which, with his fathers-in-law yielding the empire, Galerius and Constantius were declared Augusti, Constantius also wore the insignia of the consulship in the following year. Therefore, the reign of Constantius lasted for one year and four months: after which, his father having died on the 8th before the Kalends of August, the remaining time—which for the Greeks amounted to only one month until the end of his year—could not constitute the first year of Constantine for them; yet the computation of the Latins could render their successors uncertain; to which, counting five additional months up to January, Constantine had begun to reign. Be that as it may, and from whatever source they might have erred, those who gave Theophanes the occasion of error, he himself could have recognized and corrected the error when he proceeded to describe that cruel famine ^B which, with the seventh indiction looming, afflicted the East, and which—once the anticipation of events by one year had been posited—he referred to the year 324. For if at that time, when the Nicene synod was held, the Alexandrian year was only 316 and the indiction the 12th; and the indiction impending over those same Alexandrians after the summer of the year 324 could only be considered the sixth, he could therefore have known, when he said "the seventh," that the events that preceded that indiction were anticipated by one year: and that he ought to have counted the year 225, so that he might have the age which the seventh indiction followed. He preferred, however, to follow the calculations once posited for the entire remaining time of Constantine and his successor Constantius; and in order to finally fill the gap of that one year, he divided the reign of Julian (which did not entirely complete one year and eight months) over nearly three full years.

17. Returning to the path after the addition of this one year in Julian's tyranny, Theophanes, from the beginning of Jovian—that is, from the 356th year of the Alexandrian era, whose January coincides with our 364th—proceeds with an unfaltering step, and aligns his years with the indictions (which in the remaining fourth and fifth centuries he indicates differently, ^C as marked by the years) correctly up to the times of Phocas and Heraclius; where a new knot occurs, which was also noticed by Goar; but he was content to have noticed it thus, and did not solicitously investigate the cause of it, or the beginning and the end of the error: though it matters no small amount for chronology to know in what place one year has been removed, in which then another one was substituted. And this is all the more worth doing, the more certain it is that no hallucination of Theophanes intervened by chance, but that, even because it was sometimes used publicly, he was led into the necessity of doing such a thing, if he were unwilling to depart from the customary calculations and yet wished to return to the path at some point. The matter stands thus. After he had narrated that in the 595th year of the Alexandrian era, in the month of November, in the 6th indiction, Maurice and his children were killed by the tyrant Phocas, he aligns the first year of Heraclius with the 602nd year of the Alexandrian era and begins thus: "In this year, on the 4th day of the month of October, in the 14th indiction, Heraclius arrived with ships from Africa, and thus from the eight years of Phocas and their corresponding indictions, he takes away one." If you ask, "Which one?" we answer: "The tenth, into which the fifth year of Phocas fell"; with his fourth year being deliberately combined into one, with the death of the patriarch Cyriacus rejected to the end—who, according to the aforesaid chronicle, died on the 29th of October, a Saturday, and his funeral was held on the 30th of the same month, a Sunday—we have the characters of the times ^D falling in the year 599 of the Alexandrian era and in the 10th indiction: the remaining three years of Phocas, as well as the preceding four, thus cohere in the narrative in such a way that absolutely nothing can be inserted between them.

18. What, however, forces the Alexandrians to pass over one year as dissembled will be clearly shown by the aforementioned Chronicle, concerning the first year of the Emperor Heraclius, in these words: "From the 7th of October of the present 14th indiction until the 4th of January of the same indiction, it is written in the public records of the empire of Heraclius. And from the 14th of the same indiction of the same month, it is written for the remaining time of the year until December, namely completed, in the 15th indiction and the consulship of the same most religious prince of ours." Thus, one and the same first year of Heraclius, distracted into two indictions, brought about the occasion of setting as the first year of Heraclius that which in truth preceded its beginnings, and was entirely owed to Phocas. But this once posited, it was necessary for those who held such an order that all the deeds of Heraclius and his successors be anticipated by one year, more than the Alexandrian era, having been counted in its entirety, would have allowed: which we shall see prevailed thereafter right up to Palestine, even around the end of the 9th century, namely in ecclesiastical writings, which adapted themselves to the Alexandrian era; which Theophanes, as a monk, followed, and finally, either noticing this exorbitance or wishing to correct the first time in his own chronographia, Constantine

^A he divided the penultimate year of Copronymus into two, once again concealing the indiction, and says that Copronymus himself (whom he says died in the Alexandrian year 768, on the 14th day of the month of September, in the 14th indiction, after having reigned 34 years, 2 months, and 26 days) left a total of 35 years. Since in the Alexandrian year 733, because of the aforementioned anticipation of events and indictions, he had established the beginning of the empire as accepted by him from the 27th of June, pertaining to the following 10th indiction, when the following indiction should have been numbered only 9, he would have lost one year of the Alexandrian era, unless it were doubled in the first year of Heraclius.

19. But although these things, thus firmly deduced, stand and are clear to those who consider both termini, namely the first year of Phocas and the last of Copronymus, it is nonetheless pleasing to prove it also with examples from Theophanes himself, how the weekdays in that whole space of 173 years are compared with the certain days of some month, so that, unless you add nine years to the year numbered by him, you would never have the true year of the common era, either in Theophanes or in another writer holding a similar chronotaxy. Therefore, in the Alexandrian year 613, Theophanes writes thus: "In this year, in the 10th indiction, Heraclius, having completed the Paschal solemnity on the 4th day of the month of April... proceeded into Persia." Now since this Paschal character falls on April 4th in the 10th indiction, and marks the year 622 of the common era, it is clear that it should have corresponded to the year 614 in the Alexandrian era, had not one year, as we have said, dropped out. You have something similar quite often in later years; but to dwell on the times of Heraclius, let us join to Theophanes the aforementioned Chronicle, and immediately in the first year of the said emperor we have: "Epiphania born in the month of July, in the same indiction," (the 14th, as stated, even though by the new constitution the emperor wished the 15th indiction to be named from the 14th of January) "born of Eudocia;" and this, as the Chronicle says, on the seventh day of the month, on the 4th day of the week. But such a day and weekday fall in the year 611 of the common era, and 605 of the Alexandrian: here, therefore, was primary to Heraclius in the empire with his 14th indiction, although Theophanes noted it as the year 602.

20. Add examples from later years, for instance, 732, towards the beginning of which, "in the month of October on the 26th day, Indiction 9, day 4 of the week, a huge earthquake occurred in Constantinople": certainly when we would be about to begin the year 741 with the next January, and thus it ought to have been numbered 733 by the Alexandrians. Item, from the year 755, when on the 16th day of the month of April, the 5th day of the week, Valid, the leader of the Arabs, is reported to have been taken away by a faction of his own people: where it appears from the collection of characters that the year 756 should have been marked, had not Theophanes followed his own precipitate calculations. Finally, the year is marked by the clearest notes in which ^B "Emperor Copronymus, a man of three wives, declared Eudocia his third wife [Empress] on the first day of the month of April, in the 14th indiction; on the following day, which was the second of April, namely the Lord's day of holy Easter, he declared two sons by her to be Caesars." For these things so clearly indicate the year 769 of the common era that it is manifest that one who would rise according to the Alexandrian [era] should have eight years subtracted, although Theophanes marked the year 760, being about to come to the equality of times a little later, in the penultimate year of Copronymus, as has been said, divided into two. Moreover, that the common era was in use by those using the Alexandrian era at that time and for a long time even after Theophanes, as the method of computing which he himself held, see proven on the 20th of March in the Sabaite martyrs, whose contemporary writer, had he not numbered the years thus and omitted one year from the custom of computing, could not have written that they met their death in the year from the creation of the world 6288, from the incarnation of Christ 788, in the 5th indiction, since the 5th indiction marks our year 797, and this same [indiction] proves the time of death to be most close to Easter, falling on March 23rd, which applies to none of the other nearby years.

CAPUT IV.

21. Theophanes wrote his Chronographia, and saint Nicephorus, whose life we gave on March 14th, held the patriarchate of Constantinople, who himself also wrote a breviary of things done after the death of Maurice: which we have edited in Greek and Latin with the chronological notes of the most learned man, Dionysius Petavius. A good part of these pertains to showing that the first year of Emperor Heraclius was the year 611 of the common era, which we also embrace, and it is entirely confirmed from the death, which both Theophanes and Nicephorus write he met after thirty years of empire and some months. But Heraclius died, as the former says, in the month of March in the 14th indiction, and so in the year 641, which would correspond to the Alexandrian 633, had not one year been taken away from this era by the method of which we have spoken. Nor can the years of Heraclius, which were accustomed to be numbered from that principle, be ^D proven otherwise than from the acts of Saint Anastasius the Persian, published on the 22nd of January from an ancient Latin interpretation, where he is said to have suffered martyrdom in the eighteenth year of the empire of Heraclius the most pious emperor and the sixteenth of Constantine his son. For if, with the indictions doubled within one year, the same year had also been imputed to Heraclius as two in the public records, and if after the 13th of January of the year 611, as the 15th indiction began to be written, so also the year 2 of Heraclius had been written, the year in which Anastasius suffered, and which from the epistle of Heraclius himself written to Constantinople concerning things done by him against Chosroes and with the Syrians, it is established that he had carried the feast of Pentecost back to [the] 15th of May, and had [celebrated] on the 3rd of April the Lord's...

^A Easter, and thus, I say, this year should have been reckoned as the 19th of Heraclius.

22. What, then, will you say of Theophanes and his translator Anastasius, who compressed all the events that occurred between Chosroes and the Syrians, and the Emperor’s victories obtained after the beginning of the 1st indiction, into the 17th year of Heraclius, and by their example moved him who adorned the acts of Saint Anastasius with a more polished style, so that he too would assign the same year to the mentioned martyrdom? This is indeed what we said regarding the aforementioned acts: that the 17th and 18th years of Heraclius were confused by the authors. The most learned Petavius understood this well enough when he said that the victory reported over Razates, the leader of the Persians, occurred in the 18th year of the reign, already begun with the 1st indiction: yet he did not explain what had happened during the entire winter and summer of the preceding year, 627; wherefore we would believe ourselves left in doubt, were it not that some light shines upon us from Theophanes himself, as he confuses his own calculations. For when he narrates, in the 16th year of Heraclius, the vast attempts of Chosroes with a double army, he easily shows that the entire year was occupied with the deeds described therein against the Persians, and therefore the return of the Turks from Persia and their junction with the imperial army either fell into that autumn, from which the next Greek year takes its beginning, or perhaps happened even much later; meanwhile, the other leader of the Persian forces, Sarbarus, continuing the siege even through the winter, pressed upon Chalcedon. In repelling and pursuing the enemy, the remainder of the winter was spent. Hence, the troops were given rest, and both sides devoted their energies to preparing for the final struggles—especially Heraclius—and he did so with such diligence that, forestalling the enemy, he moved against them immediately after the month of September, initiating the year 628 for the Constantinopolitans, and carried out those deeds which, because Theophanes had merged two previous years into one, he was compelled to refer all to the 17th year of Heraclius and the 15th indiction.

23. But while progressing through the individual months, he ^B finally arrives at the 12th day of December, on which the Emperor himself, rushing ahead of everyone, engaged the leader of the Persians and, by the virtue of God and the aid of the Mother of God, struck him down; he himself indicates his own error, and at the same time brings forward a torch for us again, saying: "It was a Saturday." For this does not square with the 13th indiction unless you count it from January to January; but as for the 1st indiction, in which, according to the Solar Cycle of 20, the Sunday letter D, the 12th of October fell on a Saturday, and the year 628 was in progress for the Greeks, and in our view at the gates. And so, with the remaining events of this year, the glorious return of the Emperor to the city and the peace brought to the empire are to be joined; with these two points alone Theophanes completes the year of the Alexandrian era, just as we said was precipitated, 619, while others were sent back and forth regarding the treaties ^C until the 15th day of May of the 1st indiction, on which day were read at Constantinople, from the rostrum in the most holy Great Church of God, the Emperor’s laurel-wreathed letters, announcing the death of Chosroes and the inauguration of Siroes, and the order and conditions of the established peace: which letters, in the full height of summer, the most joyful return of Heraclius received, as he was bringing back the Lord’s Cross, when a new indiction together with a common year of the Greeks had already begun.

24. And now, these things that were allowed to be touched upon only in passing are clearly seen to be explained, and they agree perfectly with what is called the Alexandrian Chronicle, written some years later. Now it is pleasing to observe from that same Chronicle how it came about, in the early years of Heraclius, that through the constitution explained above—ordering that from the 13th day of January until the end of the year, the 1st indiction and the consulship of Heraclius should be written—the beginning of the indictions was indeed transferred from September to another time, but their Cycle was not accelerated by one year: because, forsooth, the second year of Heraclius was not marked [as] indiction 1, which the number of the quindecennial Cycle would have required to be anticipated; but it was written thus: "ind. 15, year 11, after the consulship of Heraclius Augustus": and so consequently in the third year, "ind. 1, year 111 after the consulship of Heraclius Augustus 11," when it was also established that from the 23rd of January it should be written thus: "In the year 111 of the reign of our most religious princes and authors of the greatest benefits, Flavius Heraclius the most pious, in the year 14 after his consulship, and in the first year of Flavius Heraclius the Younger Constantine, his son protected by God, always August Emperors."

25. But regarding the beginning of the indictions, what of the time we mentioned? Theophanes, having taken no account of any of these novelties, clearly shows that he subtracts the years of the Emperor Heraclius and the indictions from the month of September, when he relates the coronation of Epiphanius by Patriarch Sergius, made "on the 4th day of the month of October, Indiction 1," in what he considers the third year of Heraclius, but which, according to truth and the public written formula, is still the second. And he proceeds thereafter at the same pace. The aforementioned Chronicle, however, leaving that which was done under the 15th indiction as it was, seems to extend it as far as January: then, however, it clearly indicates that the beginning of the years of the reign and of the indictions is not considered the same, and therefore, in the year 111 after the consulship of Heraclius, joined with the 11th indiction, adding the events of the 14th day of the month of Gorpiaeus, which for the Romans is September, he expressly adds to them indiction 111. From which it could be considered a consequence that already then, because of the difficulties emerging from the aforementioned change, the indictions had been reduced to the beginning of September, were it not that in the same Chronicle, it was soon referred to in the following year, compared with the 111th indiction,

that in that year it began to be observed during the chanting ^A from the first week of Lent, in the 4th indiction. What then? Had the new indiction begun even then at the start of March (for Easter was expected on April 20), and were two indictions almost being compressed into a single year? Or should we rather believe that the number 4 crept in through the scribe's error for 111? Examples from subsequent years certainly suggest this, attributing every month prior to September to the same indiction by which the year of the emperor is signed.

26. This error of the aforementioned chronicle having been admitted and corrected, it can be said that in the third year after the consulship of Heraclius, while it was still current up to January, the indictions began once more to be counted from September. Certainly, beyond the place already mentioned, which we suspect is erroneous, nothing can be brought forward to support the idea that the beginning of the indiction was attributed to January beyond that year; much less that it was ever begun in the month of March. For although the interpreter rendered the words of Heraclius in a letter written in the year 628, ^B *tēs enistamenēs epinemeōs*, as "the 24th of the past month of February, with the first indiction already instant/impending," as if the indiction, which had long since begun and was already flowing according to the ordinary Cycle, were still to come, he erred manifestly, because he thought *epinemēsin* here meant "indiction." For nowhere, neither here nor in any other author, is it called otherwise than by the Latin name *Indictionis*. Therefore, for you to understand the letter of Heraclius correctly, *tēs enistamenēs epinemeōs* (for so it must be read) must be translated into Latin as "with the first spring or first pasturing now impending"; for *epinemēsis* is a verbal noun from *epinemō*, "I graze upon the seeding that is lush with leaves." This, however, must be done immediately in March in those warmer regions: and this was the time that had to be awaited for the father of Siroes to move, lest the horses, in which the chief strength of the Persians and the hope of crushing Chosroes quickly resided, should fail through the severity of the winter due to a lack of fodder.

CHAPTER V

27. It remains now, passing over the errors of other authors or interpreters whose correction contributes nothing to the illustration of Theophanes, that we note for the sake of the curious reader certain chronological observations—which seemed to have escaped the diligence of former commentators and occurred to us while we were engaged in other matters—so that if anyone should wish to bring forth the excellent author into the light in a form and manner more convenient for public use, and to illustrate him with his own annotations drawn from his own diligence and that of others, he may have this gleaning of ours also at hand.

First, the Alexandrian year 483 is concluded thus: "Anastasius was crowned, in the aforementioned 14th indiction, on the 14th of April, the great fifth day of the ^A great Paschal solemnity, Wednesday." The interpreter: but if you look for what day April 14 was from the evidence of the year and the indiction, you will find it was the 17th of the Lunar Cycle, the 24th of the Solar, and that it was the very Sunday of Easter: wherefore, expunging *tē pemptē* [the fifth day], added by an unskilled hand from I know not where, you will render the sense clearly into Latin: "Anastasius was crowned... on the very day of the great Easter": than which manner of speaking there is nothing more familiar to the Greeks when acting on the subject of Easter.

II. The year 536 begins thus: "In this year, on the 6th day of the month of September, in the first week of the 6th indiction," as it is in the Greek: therefore, let it not be counted a fault in a learned interpreter that, through the hastiness of the scribes, "first indiction" is found in the Latin; but let it be read "seventh": and the due order between the indiction ^B 5 of the year 534, and the indiction 11 of the year 540, will be found to have been kept.

III. The consecration of the Apostles is said to have been done in CP [Constantinople] on the 28th day of the month of July, on the third day of the week: where, in the Greek text as well as the Latin, the month of June should be substituted for July, so that, with the Solar Cycle at 27 and the Sunday letter B, the day, month, and day of the week correspond correctly: thus Anastasius the Librarian read and translated it for the aforementioned year, except that in the Parisian royal edition, due to the carelessness of the printers, 46 is read instead of 42 for the years of the World and Christ, which error is not difficult to correct from what precedes and follows.

IV. For the year immediately following, the departure of Narses against the Goths begins in both the Greek and Latin text, and is marked "In the fourth indiction or ^C ... but from the year, which is marked immediately after 'the fifteenth indiction', *ta’*, you will easily perceive, however much you might be destitute of other aids, that an error of one cipher is to be supplemented, and that it should be read: 'In the fourteenth indiction, *ta’*'."

V. Conversely, in the year 546, where a "horrendous earthquake" is said to have occurred in the city of Constantinople on the 15th day of the month of August, *ta’*, "at the time of the already dawning Sunday after midnight," read the day of the month simply as the tenth, *i’*, because with the Solar Cycle at 2, and the Sunday letter E, it fell on the 10th, not the 15th, of the month.

VI. In the year 551, "In the Great Church of Constantinople, the Trullus, already instructed with almost all its ornaments, the eastern part is read to have fallen to the ground, with the dome collapsing toward the holy altar, on the 7th day of the month of May, the third of the week," where the Sunday letter E and Solar Cycle 13 demand that you read either the 27th day of the month, or the fourth day of the week. But the former ^D correction is preferred, because in numerical notations it is easier for one letter to be omitted than for different ones to be interchanged.

VII. In the year 622 (which, because of the excision of one Alexandrian year demonstrated above, has the month of January in common with our 631): "In the 1st indiction, on November 7, Heraclius David, son of Heraclius, was born." On the same day also Heraclius Heraclius [sic]

^A came into the light, and on November 3 in the 5th indiction, he was baptized in Blachernae: “and he was baptized in Blachernae by Patriarch Sergius, in the 4th indiction, on the 13th day of the month of November.”

VIII. Three years after this, 626 by the Alexandrians, 635 by our counting, a battle is recounted as having been fought unsuccessfully by the commander of the imperial army, Baanes, against the Saracen Arabs, “on the first day, which was the third of the week, the 23rd of the month of July,” which when rendered into Latin with no sounder meaning is, "on the very first day, which was the third of the week, and the twenty-third of the month of July." However, when corrected to the conventions of the aforesaid year, which has the Dominical letter A and an 11-year Solar Cycle ^B, it should be rendered to proper integrity as: “On the first day of the week, which was the 25th of the month of July.”

IX. In the year 671, 680 in our reckoning, the death of Muawiya, the first king of the Saracens, is ascribed to the first indiction, April 6: but the order of the indictions themselves shows that the eighth indiction should be read there, since in the year 650, 659 in our reckoning, the second indiction was noted: which Goar also observed.

X. In the year 721, 730 in our reckoning, Leo the Armenian celebrated a “silentium” against the holy images, *selentium ekratesen*, that is, he decreed that no one should defend their veneration, on January 7, in the 13th indiction, on the 3rd day of the week; but since the Dominical letter at that time was A, it appears the day of the month was 17. And these four relate to the times of the aforementioned anticipation: those that follow observe the common difference of both eras, namely eight years.

^C 1 March: so that Theophanes might not have erred in the very year in which he could have written, and in which he correctly composed many other chronographical notes; it must be believed that through the carelessness of copyists long ago (for even Anastasius found it written thus), one word had fallen out, and that Theophanes himself (as we have seen in another similar case regarding the indiction in the 28th year of Constantine, and regarding the spring time in the Alexandrian chronicle) had written *mellontos*, or *enistamenou tou protou Sabbatou ton Nesteion*, “at the arrival of the first Saturday of the Fasts.”

XI. In the year 789, according to the Alexandrians, “on June 17, in the 5th indiction, Emperor Constantine fled from Constantinople: but, apprehended by his friends at the command of his mother Irene, he was brought back to the city, on the Saturday of the same month, the 45th day.” In this place, one should correct the manifest error, to be concluded from a comparison of both days, and for “the 17th day of the month of June,” read “the 7th day of the month of July”; for in our year 797, it was not the 15th of June, but the 15th of July that was a Saturday. Anastasius the Librarian, translating *XVI Kal. Aug.* where he deals with the flight, seems to have read July 17: for which we do not know where Philippe Labbe might have found August 17: certainly in the chronological epitome of Constantine, he ascribes the blinding to August 19, which was likewise a Saturday.

XII. In the year 803, Leo, commander of the Armeniacs under Emperor Nicephorus, having come into the hands of the Saracens with a great part of the army and the treasury, in the month of February of the fourth indiction (it is read erroneously as the fourteenth in Anastasius), on the first Saturday of Lent. But in that year, with an 11-year cycle of 14 and a solar cycle of 8, with Dominical letter E, Easter was April 13, and thus the said Saturday fell on March 1.

^D Thus, with these matters observed and corrected, the entire chronology of Theophanes can be run through by students of Eastern history with a fairly unhindered step: for if any deeds are read together over several years in the year in which they began to be performed, they will not be able to trouble the reader so much that it is necessary to subject each one to examination. If the succession of Roman pontiffs or other patriarchs, occasionally inserted into the text itself, needs to be corrected here and there from more certain monuments, the fault should not be imputed to the author himself, but to the catalogues, which neither he nor someone who worked in a similar study, St. Nicephorus, had sufficiently corrected, as we have proved elsewhere and especially in the case of St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, § 3, regarding March 48. If, finally, having followed the best authors he could, he had before his eyes some temporal marker either wrongly or ambiguously noted by them, indulgence must be granted to human frailty, to which no diligence can guarantee that it will not sometimes depart from the truth. So, when Theophylact Simocatta, a writer of the 7th century, had described the history of Emperor Maurice in eight books, and in book V, c. 16, crossing over to events in Europe after the East had been pacified by imperial arms, had said that on the day on which the emperor himself was about to lead the army, in the early spring, “Having set out from the palace, he proceeded one and a half parasangs as far as the Seventh, the sun was almost entirely eclipsed,” and had added: “This happened in the ninth year of the Emperor Maurice,” that is, Theophanes, as well as the later Latin interpreter of Simocatta, Jacob Pontanus, understood it as the ninth year of his reign. But if both did this following the intent of the author, he certainly erred, as will soon be clear from Simocatta himself: for it is certain that this year was the tenth of Maurice's reign. If you excuse the author and think that he did not count the year of the *basileias* (of the reign), but the ninth year of the *hypateias* (of the consulate) (as he may have found it written before him), you will also excuse Theophanes, who, having followed a more obvious meaning, did not notice the other less common and, in this case, special one.

29. Furthermore, the occasion for error for this or that person is that in the second year of his reign alone, without a colleague, Maurice was called consul: for indeed his first year lacked consuls, and it is written by the common consent of men: “After the consulate of the divine memory Tiberius Constantine

the fourth year, as is said to be extracted from the Alexandrian Chronicle. ^A Hence a double epoch of the years of Maurice was born, one of his reign, the other of his consulate. And so, the year that was the tenth of the emperor was called the ninth of his consulate, or even (as the Alexandrian Chronicle reckons) the eighth after the consulate of Maurice Tiberius: in which year, and no earlier, the year 592 of the common era, it is first inferred that the forces were led into Thrace, because only in the preceding year, according to the Alexandrian Chronicle, was Chosroes restored to his kingdom, and so the East was pacified. But the same is demonstratively proven chiefly from that great obscuration of the sun, which Theophanes transcribed from Simocatta, and which, as we have said, he wrongly attributes to the ninth year of the reign of Maurice ^B along with the events that occurred then. For it is agreed from astronomical calculations that the solar eclipse which occurred on March 30, 591, could scarcely, if at all, have been seen at Constantinople, as, for our benefit, two men most skilled in astronomical matters, Michael Seneschal, S.J., and David vanden Nieuwenborcht, a priest of Antwerp, have observed. But indeed in the year 592, on March 19, that great eclipse occurred, which our Petavius reckoned at 10 digits at Constantinople, and which lasted from roughly the ninth hour of the morning until the middle of the twelfth hour. So that there is no doubt that this is the same eclipse of which Fredegarius makes mention, referring it to the 22nd year of Guntram, saying: “From morning until midday the sun was so obscured that hardly a third part of it appeared.” Indeed, it is not from an observation made among the Franks, but from the report of some Greek author, that the duration of this very eclipse became known to Fredegarius, as appears from the time designated by him; for (unless you happen to think that "midday" is said for the "whole day") that obscuration of the sun began to be seen in Gaul, as Petavius observed, around the seventh hour of the morning, and did not last until the middle of the ninth hour, and was, according to the same Petavius, not much more than six digits; according to the calculations of the aforementioned David, it was eight digits in all; ^C “As the moon,” he says, “had a northern latitude of 38 minutes, a parallax of 60 minutes, which at the incidence of the eclipse was 48 minutes, and thus the moon appeared 40 minutes below the sun,” so that in truth hardly a third part of the sun could be seen by the Franks, just as Fredegarius wrote.

30. Onuphrius Panvinius, in book III of the Fasti, establishes that in the year 592 of the common era, as he says, “Emperor Maurice served his second consulate without a colleague, which he continued until the twelfth, as is understood from the Greek Fasti and the book of Maffeius.” He calls the Greek Fasti those which elsewhere he calls the Sicilian, and most recently Raderus called the Alexandrian Chronicle: but in these (and we judge that the same can be said of the book of Maffeius) nothing similar is said, and with no mention made anywhere of a second consulate, the 18th year after the consulate of Maurice Tiberius is mentioned indiscriminately. Onuphrius therefore accepted the only foundation for inventing his third epoch from that which he alleges shortly after, from the register of the letters of St. Gregory, book IX, Indiction 4, where letter 22 begins thus: “In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in the reign of the Lords Maurice and Tiberius Augusti, in the year 601 of the incarnation of the Lord, and the same Lord being consul for the eleventh time on the 3rd day of the Nones of October.”

31. Truly, as is manifest in this letter, there is a mistake of a careless scribe in that he wrote either “Tiberius” for “Theodosius” (for the latter, not the former, the father had associated as a partner in the empire in the year 590), or that he noted the two names of one emperor with a conjunction inserted and pulling them into two persons, “Emperors Augusti,” instead of “the reigning lord Maurice Tiberius Augustus”: so he could likewise have erred in the number of the consulate by describing it at length beyond the custom of the ancients, and where it had been written or should have been written “and the same lord being consul 18,” he read “eleventh.” Similarly, the supplication of Abbot Probus inserted in the same letter, beginning “In the reign of the lord Maurice and the most pious Tiberius,” ought to be corrected by deleting the particle, etc. Let these things said here on the occasion of the consulate assumed by Maurice, with no new consuls subrogated thereafter as long as he lived, remain shaken in no part; as we shall say in the following exegesis concerning the death of Guntram, to be defined by the eclipse that preceded it by one year; and so that the reader of Theophanes may know that the things which he himself joins to the year 562 of the Alexandrian era as having been done in one and the same year, ^D for the greater part pertain to the year 583 of the same era: and that those things which are imputed to this year along with the eclipse ought to be joined to the history of the following year, in which the eclipse truly occurred, and the emperor led the army into Thrace.