Leo'ntius
6. Of BYZANTIUM.
Works
According to Labbe (
De Byzantinae Historiae Scriptoribus Protrepticon; Catalogus Scriptorum, 100.28; and
Delineatio Apparatus, Pars II., all prefixed to the Paris edition of the Byzantine historians), the name of Leontius has been given, but with very doubtful correctness, to the otherwise anonymous continuator of the
Chronographia of Theophanes.
This writer, whatever his name may have been, lived in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus [CONSTANTINUS VII.], with whom he was intimate, and who desired him to undertake the work, and supplied him with the materials.
The continuation, in its present form, comes down to the second year of Romanus, son and successor of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and probably reached, or was designed to reach, to a later period, for it is imperfect, and breaks off abruptly.
But the latter part of the history is an addition by a later hand.
In fact the work which is entitled
Χρονογραφία,
Chronographia, is composed of three parts, by three distinct writers:
1. The History of the Emperors Leo V. the Armenian, Michael II. of Amorium, Theophilus the son of Michael, and Michael III. and Theodora, the son and widow of Theophilus, by the so-called Leontius,from the materials supplied by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.
2. The Life of Basil the Macedonian, by Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself (though Labbe and Cave would assign this also to Leontius).
3. The Lives of Leo VI. and Alexander, the sons of Basil, and of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and the commencement of the reign of Romanus II., by an unknown later hand.
This third part is more succinct than the former parts, and is in a great degree borrowed, with little variation, from known and existing sources.
Editions
The first edition of the Chronographia was in the Paris edition of the Byzantine historians.
It was prepared for publication by Combéfis, and a Latin version was made by him; but the work was not actually published till 1685, some years after the editor's death. It forms part of the volume entitled
Οἱ μετὰ Θεοφάνην,
Scriptores post Theophanem, and is in folio.
It was again published in the Venetian reprint of that series, fol. A. D. 1729, and
again under the editorial care of Bekker, 8vo. Bonn, 1838, with the Latin version of Combéfis.
The life of Basil, by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, was printed separately as early as 1653, in the Συμμικτὰ of Allatius, 8vo. Cologn. [CONSTANTINUS VII.]
Further Information
Theophan. Continuat.
Prooem; Labbe,
ll. cc.; Vossius,
De Historicis Graecis, lib. 4. c.21; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. p. 681, vol. viii. p. 318; Cave,
Hist. Litt. vol. ii. p. 90.
