Nicetas Choniates
A Byzantine historian from Chonia (Colossæ), Nicetas Acominatos (d. c. 1213/16) was a member of the lesser nobility who was educated at Constantinople under the tutelage of his brother Michael, a scholar who was later elected archbishop of Athens. Nicetas rose rapidly in royal service until Alexios V Doukas usurped the throne in 1204. The same year, Crusaders sacked the city, and Nicetas lost everything. He joined the Byzantine government in exile at Nicæa, where his political expertise was ignored.
Nicetas is the author of a 21-volume history, usually translated as The History of the Times, which begins in 1118, when Anna Komnena's history ends. He was governor of Philippopolis when Frederick Barbarossa passed through on his way to crusade. Nicetas' chronicle includes eye-witness accounts of that and of the sack of Constantinople. He is considered reasonably objective, and his history is an important source for modern scholars. Nicetas also wrote The Treasury of Orthodoxy (sometimes translated the Thesaurus of Orthodoxy), a 27-volume anthology that supplements Euthymios Zigabenes' Panoply of Orthodoxy. Nicetas' orations, poems, and letters also survive.
Karen Rae Keck
including the header and this copyright remain intact.