Chronicon OF GEORGE THE MONK LIVES OF THE NEW EMPERORS.

 he summons to the palace Nikephoros the renowned patriarch and with him the leading bishops and priests in the presence of the senate, and says, Know

 a man-slaying fruit of a seed bitterly kept and sprouted in our generation, I know not whence this terrible condemnation was allotted to the Romans. w

 and the fool will speak foolish things. For being exceedingly ignorant and nonsensical, he did not know at all those Cherubim wrought of gold, which t

 we have recorded as being preserved. 21 And sight is a witness, a truthful teacher. Both the length of time and the building of the venerable churches

 This apostolic preaching they continue to uphold and never in another jurisdiction, where there are Christians, is that wicked and lawless and God-ha

 {THE REIGN OF MICHAEL THE STAMMERER.}

 Therefore, having plundered it moderately, but not as he had hoped, but as divine providence allowed on account of our sins, he accomplished nothing m

 {THE REIGN OF THEOPHILOS.}

 of impiety and insolence, and of tyranny and madness, the deluded and vain-minded one. Since therefore he was possessed by the same deceit and derange

 this? But the emperor, as if rebuked, forcefully dragged him from the sanctuary, and having inflicted no small number of blows upon him, exiled him,

 as was fitting, he received him, immediately making him magister and domestic of the scholae, and receiving his children from holy baptism. 14. Elated

 most lawless ones, or Pharaoh the Egyptian, or Nebuchadnezzar the Assyrian? Or should we bring all these together and name you one and the same, since

 he wished to take, but he received two pounds for him, the general having also been ordered to test him, and if he was brave, to make him a guardsman.

 Then, having impiously committed many shameful, terrible, and absurd acts, they were driven from there as apostates. But having fled to the imperial c

 having secretly brought out Theophobos through Boukoleon, they saved him near Narsou, in what is now called 'of Theophobias', and they placed this the

 and overturned every day. And so finally, through imperial commission and cooperation, the fathers in exile and bitter prisons were recalled and resto

 Theophilitzes said, My lord, 817 I have a young man, most experienced and most brave with horses, just as your majesty desires, by the name of Basil.

 church, having a warden named Nicholas. And on that night a divine voice called the warden, saying Arise, bring the emperor into the oratory. And ha

 to Bardas, Do not strike the logothete. But they slaughtered him and cut him limb from limb in the Scythian manner, showing the rawness and savagery

 having constructed it very beautifully with flowing water. And when this was completed, there was someone in the city named Peter, a man of letters an

 plotting against him. But he heard these things as nonsense. But Basil, hurrying to convince the emperor, befriends Symbatios, a patrician and logothe

 standing on a high rock, cried out loudly to the emperor, A fine journey you have made, O emperor, having slain your own kinsman and your paternal bl

 Peganes to cense him with an earthenware censer with sulfur. And they blind Symbatios in one eye, and they also cut off his right hand, and they set h

 the emperor. And John the Chaldos immediately with his sword striking the emperor cut off his hands. And Iakobitzes the apelates, the Persian, woundin

 and having been eaten by worms, he died. 3. And the emperor, having come forth on the day of Christ's nativity during the procession to the great chur

 before the fleet arrived, with the emperor lamenting and mourning greatly. 12. And when Niketas Xylinites, the epi tes trapezes, was accused of being

 he made Leo fashion and wear in his boot, saying to him that Often when your father is looking for a small knife for some need, why do you not give i

 of the drome and having gone up to the ambo of the church, having read the charges against the patriarch Photius, they brought him down from the thro

 to make war against Hagion. And when an engagement occurred, those with Constantine were defeated and slaughtered, with him barely escaping. 9. And th

 He having died, Symeon sought pretexts to break the peace for seeking other captives as well, he advanced against the Romans. And the emperor Leo app

 he having given his word to Basileios, he confided everything to him. But Samonas, entering in to the emperor, said to him that, my lord, I wish to te

 Of Nicholas the Patriarch, the monks were pardoned from death, Karamalos to the Pikridiou monastery, and Eustathios to the Stoudiou monastery. And the

 He was persuading, he fled to Siricha to the precious cross, pretending that he had come on account of faith in the cross. So Constantine, the son of

 Andronikos, learning this, despairing, along with his relatives and his children and his men, went away and seized the fortress of Kabala, having come

 Samonas said, Against whom is the affliction? The metropolitan said to him, Against you and if you get past the 13th of June, from then on you wil

 he dressed it and made an illumination for the animals. For this reason the hand of God was lifted from him, as one who attached the honor of God to i

 of the detachments fell, and so many that the place was flooded with blood pouring down like a river. And Gregoras the son of the Doux was also killed

 879 of Domenikos the Hetaeriarch. Zoe deposes Patriarch Nicholas along with those with him in anger, telling him to look after and care for the affair

 others in the engagement of the war, 882 both Constantine Lips and John Grapson and a sufficient number of other commanders. 17. And at some point Rom

 These things came to pass. 23 But the emperor took Nicholas the patriarch and Stephen the magister to be with him in the palace, drawing the authority

 the basileopator, having made signed golden bulls as if from the person of the emperor Constantine, containing the overthrow of such a plot, and that

 they came forth in a procession. 2. In the month of June, of the 8th indiction, on a Sunday, the union of the church took place under Romanos, with al

 and many others. Therefore, having barely been saved, he entered into the dromon. And Alexios Mouseles the droungarios also came fleeing, armed, with

 is deprived. They tonsured Bardas Boilas as a monk, since the emperor pitied him as he was a friend. 15. When the patrician nicknamed Moroleon, who wa

 of silver-shielded and silver-speared men, and of those adorned with every color of arms, all of them fenced in with 900 iron, who, having taken Symeo

 Stephen the metropolitan of Amaseia being a eunuch. 903 26. In the month of October, the mystikos John, the paradynasteuon, was accused of aspiring to

 and with Maria the daughter of Christopher and with the whole senate to the church of the most holy Theotokos of the Spring, and they blessed both Pet

 son of the emperor Romanos, whom they were about to ordain patriarch of Constantinople. 38. On the twenty-fifth of the same month an unbearable winter

 he having already reached old age and his sons being still infants. and his remains were placed in the aforementioned monastery of his father. 43. And

 Consequently, the rest of the dromons and the triremes, having sallied forth, worked a complete rout, and they sank many ships with their crews, and w

 a military force being besieged and coming into the greatest necessity, its inhabitants sent an embassy to the emperor Romanos to have the siege lifte

 a monk. 1 Constantine, his son-in-law, was therefore left as sole emperor who, having immediately honored Bardas, the son of Phokas, with the dignity

of impiety and insolence, and of tyranny and madness, the deluded and vain-minded one. Since therefore he was possessed by the same deceit and derangement and frenzy of those impious and blood-guilty men, who sprang from Manichaean madness and Arian rage, he himself also again likewise renewed a persecution against the church. 793 4. To this God-hater, rather than Theophilus, fled Theophobos the Persian together with his father, with fourteen thousand Persians, whom he distributed among the themes, settling them and establishing them into turmae, which until now are called the turmae of the Persians; and he made Theophobos himself a son-in-law to the sister of Theodora Augusta. 5. And the same Theophilus, being a lover of splendor, constructed through the archon of the goldsmiths, who was very eloquent and a relative of Patriarch Antony, both the Pentapyrgion and the two very large all-gold organs, adorning them with various stones and pearls, and a golden tree, in which sparrows, perching, sang musically through some mechanism. And the emperor also remade the imperial robes, renewing and making of gold-thread the so-called loroi and all the rest. 6. And pretending to worldly justice, he who wronged the faith and piety more than the emperors before him, when a widow approached him in Blachernae—for it was his custom to go there—and cried out that she was being wronged by Petronas, the brother of the Augusta, who was drungarius of the Vigla; "For he raises his own dwellings with the buildings he is erecting, and darkens my own and brings them to nothing, since I am a 794 scorned widow." And immediately he sent Eustathios the quaestor, surnamed Monachos, who lived in Oxeia, with Leo Symbatios and Demetrios Kamoulianos, to see if the newly built house wronged the woman; who, having gone, and having seen such an injustice, and having been confirmed that the things said by the woman were true, returned and reported to the emperor. And in the sight of the emperor the same Petronas, having been convicted by them, was stripped in the middle of the street and beaten severely on the back. And it was ordered that both the quaestor and the secretaries go and tear down such buildings to their foundations and hand them over to the woman. 7. This man made Alexios the Armenian, who was surnamed Mosele, a brave and strong man, a son-in-law to Maria his beloved daughter, making him a patrician, and after a little while also a magister. Then having some suspicions about him as one aspiring to the emperorship, he sent him out as strategos and dux of Sicily. But as envy was in labor, certain Sicilians, having come up, slandered this man to the emperor saying that he betrays the Christians' affairs to the Saracens, and plots against your rule. In the meantime, when Maria, the emperor's desired daughter, had died, he adorned her sarcophagus with silver, and established a grant of freedom for those who took refuge there for some crime; which silver emperor Leo afterwards took from the tomb. 8 And 795 Theophilus, having summoned Theodore the bishop, called Krithinos, who happened to be in the city at the time of the slander of Alexios, and giving him his own personal seal, sent him to Sicily to give a word of immunity to Alexios and to bring him to him in the city. And he, having gone and with his inherent intelligence having persuaded Alexios, brought him to the emperor. whom the emperor, having beaten as a rebel, put in prison, confiscating all his property .... restored to Alexios, saying "Through me you have suffered all terrible things." And when the emperor went to Blachernae according to his custom, the archbishop, anticipating him, stood inside the sanctuary, clothed in priestly vestments; and when the emperor with the senate approached the solea, the archbishop cried out with a loud voice, "Stretch forth and prosper and reign for the sake of what, O emperor?" The emperor therefore, feeling shame before the senate, said, "For the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness." But he [said], "And what righteousness is in you, that having given a signed promise to Alexios through me, you did not keep it

δυσσεβείας καὶ παροινίας τυραννίδος τε καὶ ἐμβροντησίας ὁ πεφενακισμένος καὶ ματαιόφρων. ἐπεὶ οὖν τῇ αὐτῇ συσχεθεὶς τῶν ἀσεβῶν ἐκείνων καὶ παλαμναίων ἀπάτῃ καὶ παραπληξίᾳ τε καὶ οἰστρηλασίᾳ, τῶν ἐκ Μανιχαϊκῆς μανίας καὶ Ἀρειανικῆς λύσσης ὡρμημένων, πάλιν διωγμὸν καὶ αὐτὸς κατὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ὡσαύτως ἐπανετείνετο. 793 4. Τούτῳ τῷ μισοθέῳ μᾶλλον εἰπεῖν ἢ Θεοφίλῳ προσέ φυγε Θεόφοβος ὁ Πέρσης ἅμα τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ, μετὰ Περσῶν χιλιάδες δεκατέσσαρες, οὓς διένειμεν ἐν τοῖς θέμασι κατασκηνώ σας καὶ εἰς τούρμας ἀποκαταστήσας, αἳ μέχρι τοῦ νῦν λέγονται τοῦρμαι Περσῶν· αὐτὸν δὲ τὸν Θεόφοβον εἰς ἀδελφὴν Θεοδώρας Αὐγούστης γαμβρὸν ἐποιήσατο. 5. Φιλόκοσμος δὲ ὢν ὁ αὐτὸς Θεόφιλος κατεσκεύασε διὰ τοῦ ἄρχοντος τοῦ Χρυσοχόου λογιωτάτου πάνυ ὄντος καὶ συγγενοῦς Ἀντωνίου πατριάρχου τό τε Πενταπύργιον καὶ τὰ δύο μέγιστα ὄργανα ὁλόχρυσα, διαφόροις λίθοις καὶ ἑλίοις καλλύνας αὐτά, δένδρον δὲ χρυσοῦν, ἐν ᾧ στρουθοὶ ἐφεζόμενοι διὰ μηχανῆς τινὸς μουσικῶς ἐκελάδουν. ἐκαινούργησε δὲ καὶ τὰς βασιλικὰς στολὰς ὁ βασιλεύς, ἀνανεώσας καὶ χρυσοϋφάντους κατασκευάσας τοὺς λεγομένους λώρους καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ πάντα. 6. ∆ικαιοσύνην τε κοσμικὴν προσποιούμενος ὁ τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν εὐσέβειαν πλέον ὑπὲρ τοὺς πρῴην βασιλεύσαντας ἀδικήσας, προσελθούσης αὐτῷ γυναικὸς χήρας ἐν Βλαχέρναις ἔθος γὰρ ἦν αὐτῷ ἐκεῖσε ἀπέρχεσθαι καὶ βοησάσης ὡς ἀδικοῖτο παρὰ τοῦ τῆς Αὐγούστης ἀδελφοῦ Πετρωνᾶ δρουγγαρίου τῆς βίγλης ὄντος· "ὑψοῖ γὰρ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ οἰκήματα τοῖς κτίσμασιν οἷς καινουργεῖ, καὶ τὰ ἐμὰ σκοτίζει καὶ εἰς τὸ μηδὲν εἶναι ποιεῖ, ἅτε χήρας οὔσης 794 καταπεφρονημένης." καὶ παρευθὺ ἀπέστειλεν Εὐστάθιον κυαί στορα ἐπίκλην Μοναχόν, ἐν τῇ Ὀζείᾳ οἰκοῦντα, σὺν Λέοντι τῷ Συμβατίῳ καὶ ∆ημητρίῳ τῷ Καμουλιανῷ, ἰδεῖν εἰ τὴν γυναῖκα ἀδικεῖ τὸ καινουργηθὲν οἴκημα· οἳ καὶ ἀπελθόντες, καὶ θεασά μενοι τὴν τοιαύτην ἀδικίαν, καὶ βεβαιωθέντες ὡς ἀληθῆ εἰσὶ τὰ παρὰ τῆς γυναικὸς ῥηθέντα, ὑποστρέψαντες ἀνήγγειλαν τῷ βα σιλεῖ. καὶ ἐπ' ὄψεσι τοῦ βασιλέως ἐλεγχθεὶς παρ' αὐτῶν ὁ αὐτὸς Πετρωνᾶς, ἐκδυθεὶς ἐν τῷ μέσῳ τῆς ὁδοῦ τύπτεται τὰ νῶτα σφο δρῶς. ὡρίσθη δὲ ὅ τε κυαίστωρ καὶ οἱ ἀντιγραφεῖς ἀπελθεῖν καὶ ἐκ θεμελίων ἐκδαφίσαι τὰ τοιαῦτα οἰκοδομήματα καὶ τῇ γυναικὶ παραδοῦναι. 7. Οὗτος Ἀλέξιον τὸν Ἀρμένιον, ᾧ ἐπίκλην Μωσηλέ, ἀνδρεῖον ὄντα καὶ ῥωμαλέον εἰσεποιήσατο γαμβρὸν εἰς Μαρίαν τὴν ἠγαπημένην αὐτῷ θυγατέρα, ποιήσας αὐτὸν πατρίκιον, μετ' ὀλί γον δὲ καὶ μάγιστρον. εἶτα ὑπολήψεις τινὰς ἐπ' αὐτῷ σχὼν ὡς ὀρεγομένῳ τῆς βασιλείας, στρατηλάτην καὶ δοῦκαν τῆς Σικελίας ἐξέπεμψεν. οἷα δὲ φθόνου ὠδίνοντος, Σικελοί τινες ἀνελθόντες διέβαλλον τοῦτον βασιλεῖ ὡς τὰ μὲν τῶν Χριστιανῶν Σαρακηνοῖς προδίδωσι, κατὰ δὲ τῆς βασιλείας σου μελετᾷ. ἐν δὲ τῷ μεταξὺ τεθνηκυίας Μαρίας τῆς πεποθημένης τῷ βασιλεῖ θυγατρός, τὴν μὲν λάρνακα ταύτης ἐξ ἀργύρου ἐκόσμησε, καὶ τόμον ἐλευθερίας τοῖς προσφεύγουσιν ἐπ' ἐγκλήματί τινι τέθεικεν· ὅνπερ ἄργυρον μετὰ ταῦτα Λέων ὁ βασιλεὺς ἀνείλετο ἐκ τοῦ τάφου. 8 ὁ δὲ 795 θεόφιλος Θεόδωρον τὸν ἐπίσκοπον τὸν λεγόμενον Κρίθινον ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τῆς διαβολῆς Ἀλεξίου ἐν τῇ πόλει τυχόντα προσκαλεσάμενος, καὶ δοὺς τὸ ἴδιον φυλακτόν, ἀπέστειλεν εἰς Σικελίαν δοῦναι λόγον ἀπαθείας τῷ Ἀλεξίῳ καὶ ἀγαγεῖν ἐν τῇ πόλει πρὸς αὐτόν. ὁ δὲ ἀπελθὼν καὶ τῇ προσούσῃ αὐτῷ συνέσει πείσας Ἀλέξιον ἤγαγε πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα. ὃν ὁ βασιλεὺς ὡς ἀντάρτην τύψας ἔθετο ἐν τῷ δεσμω τηρίῳ, δημεύσας πᾶσαν τὴν περιουσίαν .... ἀνέθηκεν Ἀλεξίῳ εἰπὼν ὅτι δι' ἐμοῦ πάντα πέπονθας τὰ δεινά. καὶ τοῦ βασιλέως κατὰ τὸ ἔθος εἰς Βλαχέρνας ἀπελθόντος προλαβὼν ἔστη ἔνδοθεν τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος, ἱερατικὴν στολὴν ἠμφιεσμένος· καὶ τοῦ βασιλέως τῇ σωλέᾳ πλησιάσαντος ἅμα τῇ συγκλήτῳ φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ἐφώνησεν ὁ ἀρχιεπίσκοπος "ἔντεινε καὶ κατευοδοῦ καὶ βασίλευε ἕνεκεν τίνος, ὦ βασιλεῦ;" αἰδεσθεὶς οὖν ὁ βασιλεὺς τῇ συγκλήτῳ ἔφη "ἕνεκεν ἀληθείας καὶ πραότητος καὶ δικαιοσύνης." ὁ δὲ "καὶ ποία δικαιοσύνη ἐν σοί, ὅτι δοὺς ὑπόγραφον λόγον Ἀλε ξίῳ δι' ἐμοῦ οὐκ ἐφύλαξας