The Chronographia: The Lives of Fourteen Byzantine Emperors (100 Copy Collector's Edition)

The Chronographia is a history of the reigns of fourteen emperors and empresses, beginning with the almost 50-year-long reign of Basil II, the "Bulgar-Slayer" (976-1025), and ending some time during the reign of Michael VII Doukas (1071-1078). It is structured mainly as a series of biographies. Unlike most other historiographical works of the period, it places much more emphasis on the description of characters than on details of political and military events. The Chronographia includes very extensive autobiographical elements about Michael Psellos' political and intellectual development, and it gives far greater weight to those periods when Psellos held an active position in politics (especially the reign of Constantine IX), giving the whole work almost the character of political memoirs. It is believed to have been written in two parts. The first covers the emperors up to Isaac I Komnenos. The second, which has a much more strongly apologetic tone, is in large parts an encomium on Psellus' current protectors, the emperors of the Doukas dynasty. This cloth-bound book includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket, and is limited to 100 copies.

About the Author :
Michael Psellus (1017/1018 to 1078) was a Byzantine Greek monk, savant, writer, philosopher, politician and historian. The main source of information about Psellos' life comes from his own works, which contain extensive autobiographical passages. Michael Psellos was probably born in Constantinople. His family hailed from Nicomedia and, according to his own testimony, counted members of the consular and patrician elite among its ancestors. His baptismal name was Constantine; Michael was the monastic name he chose when he entered a monastery later in life. Psellos ('the stammerer') probably was a personal by-name referring to a speech defect. Michael Psellos was educated in Constantinople. At around the age of ten, he was sent to work outside the capital as a secretary of a provincial judge, in order to help his family raise the dowry for his sister. When his sister died, he gave up that position and returned to Constantinople to resume his studies. While studying under John Mauropus, he met the later Patriarchs Constantine Leichoudes and John Xiphilinos, and the later emperor Constantine X Doukas. For some time, he worked in the provinces again, now serving as a judge himself. Some time before 1042 he returned again to Constantinople, where he got a junior position at court as a secretary in the imperial chancellery. From there he began a rapid court career. He became an influential political advisor to emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (reigned 1042-1055). During the same time, he became the leading professor at the University of Constantinople, bearing the honorary title of "Chief of the Philosophers."