Istanbul

His face is rounded into a perfect circle, the eyes grey, very big, and most serene, with the eyebrows forming an absolutely straight line slightly separated at the base of the nose and gently...

It would be superfluous to praise the empress because of her family, although its wealth and antiquity cannot fail to confer lustre on the highest offices: her own pre-eminence, not only in virtue, but...

Here I must mention something that I feel is beyond praise the most remarkable fact about Michael’s reign. At a time when our affairs, no less in the east than in the west, were...

5. In appearance he resembles an old man somewhat, with something about him of the thinker or pedagogue. His eyes are intent, his brow neither haughty nor beetling, like that of a man who...

He knew all about the mint, the exact weight of a stater, how a touchstone functioned, what proportion of precious metal was included in every gold coin. In short, his information on the whole...

And I would ask my readers not to distrust my account, nor to regard with suspicion the words that I shall presently write here, because they are penned during this emperor’s lifetime. The very...

42. So far the story has proceeded without a hitch: I have taken you along ‘the royal, smooth highway’, as the Holy Scripture has it. To pass on to what happened thereafter is a...

40. Diogenes’s army was broken and routed. Andronicus, meanwhile, returned in triumph with Crispinus to the tent which had been prepared for him. Later, one of the knights came up, bringing to the general...

His second object was to escape Diogenes’s notice when he drew near the passes into Cilicia, to make his way quietly through the tortuous mountain defiles, and after traversing all the difficult parts, to...

34. As a matter of fact this defeat marked the beginning of Diogenes’s downfall. With a handful of his followers, he took refuge in a minor fortress,**276 and he would very soon have fallen...