ABSTRACT
The Chronographia of Michael Psellos is the most aĴractive literary work of the Byzantine eleventh century. One may hear even non-Byzantinists discuss the character of Constantine Monomachos or the efforts of Romanos Diogenes to resurrect the Byzantine army. They will have read a translation in a modern language, probably that in English in the Penguin Classics series.1 By making the Chronographia so readable, Psellos has given its version of the history of the period a dominant position in all subsequent historiography. It influenced Skylitzes and AĴaleiates, his contemporaries, in both positive and negative ways.2 It has eclipsed, as we shall see, everything else that Psellos himself wrote. Since first publication in 1874, it has been edited several times and widely translated, dominating both primary and secondary bibliography for the mid-eleventh century. So powerful a text must be analyzed with special rigour, read against the grain, and deconstructed. I offer a contribution in this spirit.
