ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the classical allusions in Niketas’ work, which has often simply been described as a classicizing work. On closer inspection, however, this seems to be a distracting description. Niketas was not concerned to allude to the great historians of antiquity. His classical learning could be seen more as the grammar of the high register of his language, rather than a tool he consciously deployed. The classical allusions decorate the work, and the vocabulary owes much to the vastness of his education, but the main text that influenced the history is the Old Testament.
