Leontius of Byzantium (2)

Leontius Of Byzantium (2), the author of a part of the Χρονογραφία, lived in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. A second portion, bringing the work down to the second year of Romanus, son and successor of Porphyrogenitus, and probably only reaching or designed to reach a later period, is an addition by another hand. In fact, the work which is entitled Χρονογραφία, Chronographia, is composed of three parts, by three distinct writers:

(1.) The history of the emperor Leo V, the Armeniar, Michael It of Aurorium, 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 himself (though Labbe and Cave would assign this also to Leontius); and

(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. The first edition of the Chronographia prepared for publication with a Latin version was by Combefis, and was published in the Paris edition of the Byzantine historians, forming a part of the volume entitled Οἱ μετὰ θεοφάνην, Scriptores post Theophanem (1685, folio); again published in the Venetian reprint (1729, folio), and again, edited by Bekker (Bonn, 1838, tvo). The life of Basil by Constantine Porphyrogenitus was printed separately as early as 1653, in the Συμμικτά of Allatius (Cologne, 8vo). See Fabricius, Bibl. Graeca, 7:681; 8:318; Cave, Hist. Litt. 2:90. — Smith. Dict. of Greek and Roman Biography, 2:757 sq.