Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople, Short HistoryDumbarton Oaks
translated by Cyril Mango
ISBN: 088402184X
price: $30.00
The Short History or Breviarium of Nikephoros, patriarch of
Constantinople (d. 828), covers the period 602--769 and is one of
the two Greek historical texts that relate the fortunes of the
Byzantine Empire and its neighbors during the Dark Ages. Despite
its brevity it is, therefore, a source of primary importance for
the medieval history of eastern Europe and the Near East,
including the dramatic reign of Emperor Herakleios (610--641),
the Arab conquests, the establishment of the Bulgarian state, and
Byzantine iconoclasm. Not being an eyewitness of the events he
describes, Nikephoros had to rely on earlier sources, now lost to
us, which he paraphrased into ancient Greek so as to attain the
stylistic elegance that was expected of a "history."
The reconstruction and evaluation of these sources have been the
subject of continuing debate among scholars and will, no doubt,
generate further hypotheses in the future.
The only critical edition of the Short History heretofore
available was published in 1880 and was based on a single
manuscript in the Vatican Library. The subsequent discovery of a
second, unfortunately incomplete, manuscript in the British
Library has allowed some improvement of the Greek text. An
English translation is here offered for the first time along with
a succinct commentary that sets out the basic problems posed by
the Short History and provides essential guidance for the reader.
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