Michael was metropolitan of Athens from 1182 to 1204, and his letters and speeches are the only inside view of a Greek provincial city about 1200: the poverty of Attica, piracy in the Saronic Gulf, the exactions of tax officials and governors, his memorandum (hypomnestikon) to Alexios III asking relief for Athens, and the rise of Leo Sgouros of Nauplia, whom he describes seizing Argos and Corinth and attacking Athens in 1203. His correspondents include his brother Niketas, the patriarch and provincial officials. The letters are rarely dated and their order is reconstructed; use them for conditions rather than for dated events.
About this source
- Title
- Ta sozomena (letters, orations and poems)
- Author
- Michael Choniates (Akominatos)
- Author's dates
- about 1138 to about 1222
- Written
- about 1182 to 1217
- Language
- Greek
- Covers
- about 1175 to 1217
- Kind
- Letters
Only volume 1 of Lampros was located online in this check; volume 2 (1880, the letters) exists but was not found. Kolovou's edition of the letters is in copyright. There is no complete English translation; Ellissen's Michael Akominatos (1846) gives selections with German.
Where to read it
Editions
- S. P. Lampros (ed.), Michael Akominatou tou Choniatou ta sozomena, vol. 1 (Athens, 1879), orations and the hypomnestikon; vol. 2 (1880) holds the letters
- F. Kolovou (ed.), Michaelis Choniatae Epistulae, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 41 (Berlin, 2001), the critical edition of the letters (not freely online)