Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/529

 APPENDIX 507 Oster, Anna Comnena (Programmes, 1, 1868; 2, 1870; 3, 1871); C Neumann, Griech. Gescliichtschreiber u. Geschichtsquellen im 12 Jahrh., 1888.] The thread of Imperial history is taken up by John Cinnamus where Anna let it drop. He too, though in a less exalted position, had an opportunity of observing nearly the course of political events. Born in 1143 he became the private secre- tary of the Emperor Slanuel, whom he attended on his military campaigns. His history embraces the reign of John and that of Manuel (all but the last four years 24), a.d. 1118-1180 ; but the reign of John is treated briefly, and the work is intended to be mainly a history of Manuel. It has been recently proved by Neumann that the text which we possess (in a rmiqueMs.) does not represent the original work, but only a large extract or portion of it.''^^ As a historian Cinnamus has some of the same faults as Anna Comnena. He is a panegyrist of Manuel, as she of Alexias ; his narrow attitude of hostility and suspicion to Western Europe is the same as hers, and he treats the .Second Crusade with that Byzantine one- sidedness which we notice in her treatment of the First ; he affects the same pur- ism of style. But he is free from her vice of long-windedness ; there is (as Kjumbacher has put it) a certain soldier-like brevity both in his way of appre- hending and in his way of relating. As a militarj- historian he is excellent ; and he rises with enthusiasm to the ideas of his master. [In the Bonn series, 1836. Study of the work in C. Neumann, Gr. Geschichtschreiber und Geschichtsquellen im 12 Jahrhundert, 1888.] NiCETAs AcoMiNATos (of Cliouae). Nicetas filled most important ministerial posts under the Angeli, finall}' attaining to that of Great Logothete. He was witness of the Latin conquest of Constantinople, and afterwards joined the court of Theodore Lascaris at Nicaea. He was the younger brother of Michael Acomi- natos, archbishop of Athens, who was also a man of letters. The historical work of Nicetas (in twenty-one Books) begins where Anna Comnena ended, and thus covers the same ground as Cinnamus, but carries the story on to 1206. But he was not acquainted with the work of Cinnamus ; and for John and Manuel he is quite independent of other extant sources. He differs remarkably from Anna and Cinnamus in his tone towards the Crusaders, to whom he is surprisingly fair. Nicetas also wrote a well-known little book on the statues destroyed at Constanti- nople by the Latins in 1204. See further below, vol. vi., cap. Ix. , ad fin. [Ed. Bonn, 1835, including the essay De Sign is. Panegyrics addressed to Alexius Comnenus II., Isaac Angelus, Theodore Lascaris, and published in Sathas, Bibl. Gr. med. aevi, vol. i. Monograph by Th. Uspensky (1874). Cp. C. Neumann, op. cit.] Another coutinuator of Theophanes arose in the eleventh centurj- in the person of John Scylitzer (a euro palates and drungarios of the guard), a contem- porary of Psellus. Beginning with a.d. 811 (two j-ears before Theophanes ends) he brought his chronicle down to 1079. His chief sources are the Scriptores post Theophanem, Leo Diaconus, and Attaleiates ; but he used other sources which are unknown to us, and for his own time oral information. His preface contains an extremely interesting criticism on the historiographers who had dealt with his period. Since Theophanes, he says, there has been no satisfactory epitome of history. The works of ' ' the Siceliot teacher " (a mysterious person whose identity has not been established) -'' and " our contemporary- Psellus " are not serious, and are merely bare records of the succession of the Emperors — who 24 The Ms. is mutilated at the end; the original work doubtless ended with the death of Manuel ; it was written not long after his death. 25 Griechische Geschichtschreiber, &c., p. 79 sqq. 26 He has, of course, been brought into connexion with a certain John the Siceliot, who is named as the author of a chronicle in a Vienna and in a Vatican Ms. The chronicle ascribed to him in the latter (Vat. Pal. 394) is merely a redaction of George Monachus. For the chronicle in Vindob. histor. Gr. 99, see Krumbacher, op. cit. p. 386-7.