ABSTRACT
In his ‘De gloria Atheniensium’ Plutarch writes that events are narrated by painters through colour, while historians use words for the same reason. The aim in both cases is the same: to prove the historicity of the events described. He concludes: ‘the greatest historian is he who represents facts and characters similarly to a painting’.1 For Plutarch, vigorous narration in ancient Greece is equated with colourful paintings; but what about colourful narrative in Byzantium?
