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 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 st ...
– 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 autho ...
(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 empir ...
in the city of
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 autho ...
(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 and ...
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 (" ...
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 emperors (among them that of
Grand Logothete or Chancellor) and was governor of the
theme 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 ...
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 s ...
, 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 Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley, C. M. Woodhouse ...
Theodore I Lascaris, 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 and heretical writers of the 12th century.
Choniates in fiction
Umberto Eco's novel ''
Baudolino''
[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, 1557, in Greek with parallel Latin translation.
PDF of 1593 reprint
* ''Nicetæ Choniatæ Historia'', ed. J.P. Migne (
Patrologia Graeca vol. 140) reproduces Wolf's text (in more modern type) and translation (in standardized spelling).
PDF
* ''Nicetae Choniatae Historia'', ed.
Immanuel Bekker, 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 #11), 1975 ().
* ''O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates'', trans. Harry J. Magoulias, 1984 ().
PDF
References
Further reading
*
* Harris, Jonathan, ''Byzantium and the Crusades'', Bloomsbury, 2nd ed., 2014.
* Harris, Jonathan. 'Distortion, divine providence and genre in Nicetas Choniates' account of the collapse of Byzantium 1180–1204', ''
Journal of Medieval History'', vol. 26 (2000) 19–31.
* Simpson & Efthymiadis (edd.).
Niketas Choniates: A Historian and a Writer', 2009,
* A seminal work on Choniates' use of
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
.
External links
Excerpt in Englishon 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 ...
in 1204.
A longer excerpton 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