Niketas or Nicetas Choniates ( el, Νικήτας Χωνιάτης; c. 1155 – 1217), whose actual surname was Akominatos (Ἀκομινάτος), was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

government official and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

– like his brother Michael Akominatos, whom he accompanied to

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

from their birthplace

Chonae Colossae (; grc-gre, Κολοσσαί) was an ancient city of Phrygia in Asia Minor, and one of the most celebrated cities of southern Anatolia (modern Turkey). The Epistle to the Colossians, an early Christian text which identifies its author ...

(from which came his nickname, "Choniates" meaning "person from Chonae"). Nicetas wrote a history of the Eastern Roman Empire from 1118 to 1207.

Life

Nicetas Akominatos was born to wealthy parents around or after 1150 in

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; grc, Φρυγία, ''Phrygía'' ) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires ...

in the city of

(near the modern Honaz in Turkey). Bishop Nicetas of Chonae baptized and named the infant; later he was called "Choniates" after his birthplace. When he was nine, his father dispatched him with his brother

Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

to receive an education. Niketas' older brother greatly influenced him during the early stages of his life. He initially secured a post in the civil service, and held important appointments under the

Angelos The House of Angelos (; gr, Ἄγγελος), feminine form Angelina (), plural Angeloi (), was a Byzantine Greek noble lineage which rose to prominence through the marriage of its founder, Constantine Angelos, with Theodora Komnene, the youn ...

emperors (among them that of Grand Logothete or Chancellor) and was governor of the

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

of Philippopolis at a critical period. After the

sack of Constantinople The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the c ...

during the

Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...

in 1204, he fled to

Nicaea Nicaea, also known as Nicea or Nikaia (; ; grc-gre, Νίκαια, ) was an ancient Greek city in Bithynia, where located in northwestern Anatolia and is primarily known as the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seve ...

, where he settled at the court of the

Nicaean emperor The Empire of Nicaea or the Nicene Empire is the conventional historiographic name for the largest of the three Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley ...

Theodore I Lascaris Theodore I Laskaris or Lascaris ( gr, Θεόδωρος Κομνηνὸς Λάσκαρις, Theodōros Komnēnos Laskaris; 1175November 1221) was the first emperor of Nicaea—a successor state of the Byzantine Empire—from 1205 to his de ...

, and devoted himself to literature. He died c. 1215–16. His theological work, ('' Thesaurus Orthodoxae Fidei''), although extant in a complete form in manuscripts, has been published only in part. It is one of the chief authorities for the

heresies Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

and heretical writers of the 12th century.

Choniates in fiction

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...

's novel ''

Baudolino ''Baudolino'' is a 2000 novel by Umberto Eco about the adventures of a man named Baudolino in the known and mythical Christian world of the 12th century. ''Baudolino'' was translated into English in 2001 by William Weaver. The novel presented a ...

'' Milan: Bompiani, 2000. English translation by William Weaver, New York: Harcourt 2002, is set partly at Constantinople during the Crusader conquest. The imaginary hero, Baudolino, saves Niketas during the sacking of Constantinople, and then proceeds to confide his life story to him. Niketas is a major character in Alan Gordon's murder mystery ''A Death in the Venetian Quarter'' (New York: St. Martin's Minotaru, 2002).

Editions and translations

* ''Imperii Graeci Historia'', ed.

Hieronymus Wolf Hieronymus Wolf (13 August 1516 – 8 October 1580) was a sixteenth-century German historian and humanist, most famous for introducing a system of Roman historiography that eventually became the standard in works of medieval Greek history. Lif ...

, 1557, in Greek with parallel Latin translation.
PDF of 1593 reprint
* ''Nicetæ Choniatæ Historia'', ed. J.P. Migne (

Patrologia Graeca The ''Patrologia Graeca'' (or ''Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca'') is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers and various secular writers, in the Greek language. It consists of 161 volumes produced in 1857– ...

vol. 140) reproduces Wolf's text (in more modern type) and translation (in standardized spelling).
PDF
* ''Nicetae Choniatae Historia'', ed.

Immanuel Bekker August Immanuel Bekker (21 May 17857 June 1871) was a German philologist and critic. Biography Born in Berlin, Bekker completed his classical education at the University of Halle under Friedrich August Wolf, who considered him as his most promi ...

, Bonn (

CSHB The ''Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae'' (CSHB; en, text corpus, Corpus of Byzantine history writers, italic=yes), also referred to as the Bonn Corpus, is a monumental fifty-volume series of primary sources for the study of Byzantine hist ...

), 1835, with Wolf's translation at the bottom of the page.
at the Internet Archive
* ''Nicetae Choniatae Historia'', ed. Jan Louis van Dieten, Berlin (

CFHB {{Italic title The ''Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae'' (Latin: "Corpus of Byzantine history sources") or CFHB is an international project aiming to collect, edit and provide textual criticism on the historical sources from the time of the Byzant ...

#11), 1975 (). * ''O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates'', trans. Harry J. Magoulias, 1984 ().
PDF

References

External links

Excerpt in English
on the

Sack of Constantinople The sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the c ...

in 1204.
A longer excerpt
on the same. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Niketas Choniates People from Colossae 1150s births 1210s deaths 13th-century Byzantine historians Byzantine officials Christian anti-Gnosticism 12th-century Byzantine historians People of the Empire of Nicaea

Life

Choniates in fiction

Editions and translations

References

Further reading

External links