The Historians' History of the World 06

Themistius, philosopher and rhetorician, lived at Constantinople and Rome in the reigns of Constantius, Julian, Jovian, Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius, all of whom regarded him with favour. He became a senator, and in the reign of Theodosius was appointed prefect of Constantinople. He was frequently employed on embassies and in other public business. Besides various philosophical works, thirty-five of his orations survive, several being congratulatory addresses to the emperors Constantius, Valentinianus, and Valens. He died about the year 390 A.D.

Theodorus Anagnostes (Lector), Ἐκκλησιαστική ἱστορία, edited by R. Stephens, in his Excerpta, Paris, 1544; by Christopherson, with a Latin version, Geneva, 1612; by H. Valesius, Paris, 1673; reprinted, Cambridge, 1720; Turin, 1748.

Theodorus Anagnostes (Lector) lived probably in the reign of Justin I or Justinian I, and wrote a compendium of church histories from Constantine the Great to the death of Constantius II. His Historia covers the period from Theodosius the Younger to Justin I or Justinian I, but it survives only in extracts by Nicephorus Callistus (fourteenth century), by Joannes Damascenus, and others. He is the chief authority for the reign of the emperors Zeno and Anastasius.

Theodorus, bishop of Cyzicus, Χρονικόν.

Theodorus of Cyzicus was supposed to be the author of a chronicle of the world from Adam to the reconquest of Constantinople in 1261, but very little is known of his personality, and his work exists only in fragments, which have never been published.

Theodosius of Syracuse, Θεοδοσίου μοναχοῦ τοῦ καὶ γραμματικοῦ ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς Λέοντα διάκονον περὶ τῆς ἁλώσεως Συρακούσης, edited by B. Hase (with Leo Diaconus), Paris, 1819.

Theodosius was a monk of Syracuse, taken away as a captive to Panormo when the Saracens took Syracuse in 880. While the events of the catastrophe were fresh in his memory, he committed them to writing in the form of a letter to Leo Diaconus.

Theophanes of Byzantium, Ἱστορικῶν λόγοι δέκα, fragments edited by C. Müller, in his Fragmentorum Historicorum Græecorum, vol. IV, Paris, 1841-1870, 5 vols., new edition, 1883; by L. Dindorf, in his Historici Græci Minores, Leipsic, 1870-1871, 2 vols.

Theophanes of Byzantium lived probably in the sixth century. His history deals with the Persian War under Justin II, from the breaking of the truce with Chosroes in 567, and going down to the tenth year of the war. Theophanes preserved the record of the bringing of the silkworm to Italy, the Romans not knowing previously that silk was the product of an insect.

Theophanes Isaurus, Χρονικόν, edited by J. Goar, Paris, 1655.

Theophanes Isaurus, named also the Confessor, was born of noble parentage during the reign of Constantine V (741-775), and while a youth married the daughter of Leo the Patrician. After discharging sundry public offices he retired from the world and founded a monastery, his wife going into a convent. He attended the Council of Nicæa in 787, where he vehemently defended image worship, and when, in 813, he was called upon to recant his views, he preferred imprisonment and banishment. His history begins with Diocletian, 284 A.D., at the point where Georgius Syncellus stopped, and continues to 813, the time of his imprisonment, his death occurring in 818. The work is of no high order, but is valuable in the absence of better sources of information. His accounts of the affairs of the Eastern Empire are far more trustworthy than those relating to the Western Empire, in regard to which he makes the most extraordinary mistakes. A continuation of Theophanes’ Chronicle was prepared at the command of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, and has come down to us under the title of Χρονογραφία συγγραφεῖσα ἐκ προστάγματος Κωνσταντίνου τοῦ φιλοχρλιστου δεσπότου καὶ αὐτοράτορος … ἀρχομένη ὅπου ἔληξε Θεοφάνης … τω βασιλεῖ Μιχαὴλ υἱοῦ Θεοφίλου τοῦ κουροπαλάτου, ἤγουν ἀπο τῆς βασιλεάς Λέοντος τοῦ Ἀρμενίου (Scriptores post Theophanen), edited by Leo Allatius, in his Σύμμικτα, Cologne, 1653; and by Combesius, in the Paris “Corpus.” The period dealt with is 813-961, and the compilation is by sundry anonymous writers. Georgius Monachus and Leo Grammaticus also took up his history from 813.

Theophilus Abbas, Life of Justinian, edited by James Bryce, in the Archivio Storico of the Società Romana de Storia Patria, Rome, 1887.