ABSTRACT
George Akropolites is not the first name that springs to mind when considering the role of rhetoric in Byzantine writing. Certainly, like all Byzantine writers, Akropolites had been educated in the rules and forms of rhetoric. If it could be claimed that historical writing in general is not an area of rhetorical development, then this is especially so for Akropolites' History. Akropolites' knowledge of the elements of deliberative and judicial oratory is evident in the carefully constructed arguments of the speeches he creates for certain people. Akropolites also uses well-placed and well-chosen anecdotes to create a picture of a person's character. If the trial scene is the longest passage devoted to a single incident up to that point in the narrative, then the exchange between Akropolites and the emperor Theodore II is the pendant to it. Indeed, Akropolites is not unusual in writing a work favourable to the reigning emperor.
