Niketas Choniates


Niketas or Nicetas Choniates, whose actual surname was Akominatos, was a Greek Byzantine government official and historian – like his brother Michael Akominatos, whom he accompanied to Constantinople from their birthplace Chonae. Nicetas wrote a history of the Eastern Roman Empire from 1118 to 1207.

Life

Niketas Akominatos was born to wealthy parents around or after 1150 in Phrygia in the city of Chonae. 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 to Constantinople 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 and was governor of the theme of Philippopolis at a critical period. After the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he fled to Nicaea, where he settled at the court of the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Lascaris, and devoted himself to literature. He died c. 1215–16.
His chief work is his History, in twenty-one books, of the period from 1118 to 1207. In spite of its florid style, it is of value as a record of events to which he was either an eyewitness or which he had heard of first hand. Its most interesting portion is the description of the occupation of Constantinople in 1204, which may be read with Geoffroi de Villehardouin's and Paolo Rannusio's works on the same subject.
His little treatise On the Statues destroyed by the Latins is of special interest to the archaeologist and art historian.
His theological work,, 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

's novel Baudolino 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.

Editions and translations