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
Chronicon OF GEORGE THE MONK LIVES OF THE NEW EMPERORS.
THE REIGN OF LEO THE ARMENIAN.
In the #22ti' year of the world, and in the 810th of the divine incarnation, Leo the Armenian, the patrician, reigned, who was later revealed to be a transgressor, for 7 years and 5 months, having been crowned by Patriarch Nikephoros. For after two years, having apostatized to impiety, and having rejected the document which he made concerning orthodoxy, he went astray just like Saul; for he too, having reigned lawfully for two years, 764 then having gone astray and been stripped of divine grace and handed over to an evil spirit, was armed against his benefactor David and committed the bloody murders of the priests. Likewise this wretched and god-opposing man also, after two years, raging and maddened against piety, exiled the divine Nikephoros who had crowned him. 2. He ordained Theodotos as a so-called patriarch, an irrational man, or rather a slave, and more voiceless than fish and knowing nothing more than impiety; and from then on he stirred up a relentless persecution against the church. If then one must marvel at a vile change upon a vile one, one must marvel at him and those around him more than the Galatians, who were so transformed from him who called them in the grace of Christ to a different gospel; which is not another, except to provoke God and to draw down divine wrath. 3 For Krum, the new Sennacherib, puffed up by his previous victory, leaving his own brother to besiege Adrianople, six days into Leo's reign came to the city and went around the walls from Blachernae to the Golden Gate, displaying the force around him. And having performed foul sacrifices in the meadow of the Golden Gate, he also asked 765 the emperor to make peace, if he would fix his spear in the Golden Gate. But when the emperor did not accept, he returned to his own tent, marvelling greatly at the city's walls and the emperor's well-ordered battle line. He turned, therefore, to a peace agreement, making testing proposals. 4 But the emperor, seizing the opportunity, attempted to spear him; but was prevented from bringing this to completion by the incompetence of his assistants, who struck him indeed, but did not inflict a fatal blow. Enraged at this, the fiend, sending horsemen to Saint Mamas, burned the palace that was there, and loading the bronze lion of the hippodrome along with the bear and the dragon of the water-clock and the most beautiful marbles on wagons, he returned, having besieged Adrianople and taking it; and crossing over with a very great host of people, including the noble Macedonians, he encamped by the Danube river. But Leo was committing acts of impiety in the city. 5. In his reign a comet appeared in the shape of two bright moons uniting and again dividing into different shapes, so as to be formed into the likeness of a headless man; which foretold the headless leadership of those who afterwards rebelled against the Christians and who had the vain Thomas as head and leader of the division from the other Christians. And indeed 766 both terrible and successive earthquakes, and famines and droughts and fiery phenomena in the air occurred, and civil strifes in every city and country, beginning from the days of the God-hated fiend; and for a long time the terror of the civil calamity happened to prevail. 6 Imitating therefore the founder of this abominable heresy, his namesake and one of like character, he began the heresy. Then, having sought out allies and fellow initiates, he found John, the so-called Grammarian, or rather another Jannes or Simon, who was notorious for bowl-divination and sorcery and shameful deeds, and certain others of his like-minded Jannites and Jambrites and Simonites; whom indeed, keeping by him in the
Chronicon ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΥ ΜΟΝΑΧΟΥ ΒΙΟΙ ΤΩΝ ΝΕΩΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ.
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑ ΛΕΟΝΤΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΡΜΕΝΙΟΥ.
Τῷ #22τιʹ ἔτει τοῦ κόσμου, τῆς δὲ θείας σαρκώσεως ωιʹ, ἐβασί λευσε Λέων Ἀρμένιος ὁ πατρίκιος, καὶ παραβάτης ὕστερον ἀνα φανείς,
ἔτη ζʹ καὶ μῆνας εʹ, στεφθεὶς ὑπὸ Νικηφόρου πατριάρ χου. μετὰ γὰρ δύο χρόνους ἀποστατήσας πρὸς τὴν ἀσέβειαν, καὶ τὸ ἔγγραφον
ὅπερ ἐποίησε περὶ τῆς ὀρθοδοξίας ἀθετήσας, ὥσπερ Σαοὺλ ἐξώκειλεν· καὶ γὰρ κἀκεῖνος δύο ἔτη βασιλεύσας ἐννόμως, 764 εἶτα παρατραπεὶς
καὶ τῆς θείας χάριτος γυμνωθεὶς καὶ πονηρῷ πνεύματι παραδοθεὶς κατὰ τοῦ εὐεργέτου ∆αβὶδ ἐξωπλίσθη καὶ τὰς τῶν ἱερέων εἰργάσατο
μιαιφονίας. ὡσαύτως καὶ ὁ δύστηνος οὗτος καὶ ἀντίθεος μετὰ δύο ἔτη κατὰ τῆς εὐσεβείας μανεὶς καὶ λυττήσας τὸν στέψαντα αὐτὸν
θεῖον Νικηφόρον ἐξώρισεν. 2. Θεόδοτον δῆθεν πατριάρχην ἀντιχειροτονεῖ, ἄλογον ἄνδρα, μᾶλλον δὲ ἀνδράποδον καὶ ἰχθύων ἀφωνέστερον
καὶ μηδὲν πλέον τῆς ἀσεβείας ἐπιστάμενον· καὶ ἔκτοτε διωγμὸν ἄσπονδον κατὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἀνερρίπισεν. εἰ οὖν χρὴ θαυμάζειν
φαῦλον ἐπὶ φαύλῳ μετάθεσιν, τοῦτον δεῖ μᾶλλον καὶ τοὺς ἀμφ' αὐτὸν ἢ Γαλάτας θαυμάσαι, τοὺς οὕτω μετατιθεμένους ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος
αὐτοὺς ἐν χάριτι Χριστοῦ εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον· ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο εἰ μὴ τὸ παροργίσαι τὸν θεὸν καὶ τὴν θείαν ὀργὴν ἐπισπάσασθαι.
3 ὁ γὰρ νέος Σεναχηρεὶμ Κροῦμος, ἐπαρθεὶς τῇ πρῴην δίκῃ, καταλιπὼν τὸν ἴδιον ἀδελφὸν πολιορκεῖν τὴν Ἀδριανούπολιν, μετὰ ἓξ
ἡμέρας τῆς αὐτοκρατορίας Λέοντος ἐπελ θὼν τῇ πόλει περιῄει τὰ τείχη ἀπὸ Βλαχερνῶν ἕως τῆς Χρυσῆς πόρτης, ἐπιδεικνύων τὴν περὶ
αὐτὸν δύναμιν. ἐπιτελέσας καὶ μιαρὰς θυσίας ἐν τῷ λιβαδίῳ τῆς Χρυσῆς πόρτης ᾐτήσατο καὶ 765 τὸν βασιλέα εἰρήνην ποιῆσαι, εἰ
τὸ δόρυ αὐτοῦ πήξει ἐν τῇ Χρυσῇ πόρτῃ. τοῦ δὲ βασιλέως μὴ καταδεξαμένου ὑπέστρεψεν εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν σκηνήν, ὑπερθαυμάσας τὰ τῆς
πόλεως τείχη καὶ τὴν εὔτα κτον τοῦ βασιλέως παράταξιν. ἐπὶ σύμβασιν οὖν εἰρήνης τρέπε ται, πειραστικοὺς λόγους ποιούμενος.
4 ὁ δέ γε βασιλεὺς ἀφορ μῆς δραξάμενος ἐπειράθη τοῦτον λογχῆσαι· ἀλλ' εἰς πέρας ἀγα γεῖν τοῦτο ἐκωλύθη τῇ τῶν ὑπουργησάντων
ἀφυΐᾳ, πληξάντων μὲν τοῦτον, καιρίαν δὲ μὴ ἐπαγαγόντων πληγήν. ἐπὶ τούτῳ μανεὶς ὁ ἀλάστωρ, ἀποστείλας ἱππεῖς ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ Μάμαντι,
ἐκεῖσε ὂν παλάτιον ἐνέπρησεν, καὶ τὸν χαλκοῦν λέοντα τοῦ ἱππικοῦ σὺν τῇ ἄρκτῳ καὶ τῷ δράκοντι τοῦ ὑδρίου καὶ μαρμάρων καλλίστων
ἐν ἁμά ξαις φορτώσας ὑπέστρεψεν, παρακαθίσας τὴν Ἀδριανούπολιν καὶ ταύτην ἑλών· καὶ μετὰ λαοῦ πλείστου διαπεράσας τῶν τε εὐγενῶν
Μακεδόνων, κατεσκήνωσεν ἐν τῷ ∆ανουβίῳ ποταμῷ. ὁ δὲ Λέων τὰ τῆς ἀσεβείας ἔργα διεπράττετο ἐν τῇ πόλει. 5. Ἐφ' οὗ ἐφάνη ἀστὴρ
κομήτης ἐν σχήματι δύο λαμπρῶν σεληνῶν ἑνουμένων καὶ πάλιν διαιρουμένων εἰς διάφορα σχήματα, ὡς καὶ εἰς ἀκεφάλου διάπλασιν
ἀνδρὸς τυπωθῆναι· ὅπερ τὴν ἀκέ φαλον κεφαλὴν τῶν μετὰ ταῦτα στασιασάντων κατὰ τῶν Χριστια νῶν καὶ τὸν μάταιον Θωμᾶν κεφαλὴν
καὶ ἀρχηγὸν τῆς ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων Χριστιανῶν διαιρέσεως ἐσχηκότων προεμήνυσεν. καὶ μέν 766 τοι καὶ σεισμοὶ φοβεροί τε καὶ ἐπάλληλοι
καὶ λιμοὶ καὶ αὐχμοὶ καὶ ἀέρος φλογώσεις γεγόνασι καὶ στάσεις ἐμφύλιοι κατὰ πᾶσαν πόλιν καὶ χώραν, ἐκ τῶν ἡμερῶν ἀρξαμέναι
τοῦ θεοστυγοῦς καὶ ἀλά στορος· καὶ μέχρι πολλοῦ τὸ δεινὸν τῆς ἐμφυλίας συμφορᾶς ἐπι κρατῆσαι συμβέβηκεν. 6 Ἐκμιμούμενος τοίνυν
τὸν τῆς μυσαρᾶς ταύτης αἱρέσεως ἀρχηγὸν ὁμώνυμον αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁμότροπον ἤρξατο τῆς αἱρέσεως. εἶτα συμμάχους καὶ συμμύστας ἐκζητήσας
εὗρεν Ἰωάννην τὸν λε γόμενον γραμματικόν, μᾶλλον δὲ Ἰαννὴν ἄλλον ἢ Σίμωνα, ἐπί τε λεκανομαντείαις καὶ φαρμακείαις καὶ αἰσχρουργίαις
βεβοημένον, καὶ ἑτέρους τινὰς ὁμόφρονας αὐτοῦ Ἰαννίτας καὶ Ἰαμβρίτας καὶ Σιμωνίτας· οὓς δὴ καὶ παρ' ἑαυτῷ κατέχων ἐν τῷ
