But he who undertakes the “role” of an historian must sink his personal likes and dislikes, and often award the highest praise to his enemies when their actions demand it, and often, too, blame his nearest relations if their errors require it. He must never shirk either blaming his friends or praising his enemies. I should counsel both parties, those attacked by us and our partisans alike, to take comfort from the fact that I have sought the evidence of the actual deeds themselves, and the testimony of those who have seen the actions, and the men and their actions—the fathers of some of the men now living, and the grandfathers of others were actual eye-witnesses.
The reason which finally determined me to write my father’s history was the following. My lawful husband was the Caesar Nicephorus, a scion of the clan of the Bryennii, a man who far outshone his contemporaries by his surpassing beauty, his superior intelligence, and his accurate speech. To look at him, or to listen to him, was a pure delight. But I must not let my tale wander from its path, so for the present let us keep to the main story. My husband, as I said, was most remarkable in every way; he accompanied my brother John, the Emperor, on several other expeditions against the barbarians … as well as on the one against . . . who held the city of Antioch.
As Nicephorus could not abide neglecting his literary work, he wrote several excellent monographs even during times of stress and trouble. But his task of predilection was that enjoyed by the Queen, to wit, a compilation of the history of the reign of Alexius, Emperor of the Romans, and my father, and to set out the doings of his reign in books whenever opportunity granted him a short respite from strife and warfare, and the chance of turning his mind to his history, and literary studies. Moreover, he approached this subject from an earlier period (for in this detail too he obeyed the will of our mistress), and starting from Diogenes, [*Romanus IV Diogenes] Emperor of the Romans, he worked down to the man about whom he had himself purposed to write.
At the accession of Diogenes my father had just entered upon his brilliant youth and before this was not even a full-grown boy, and had done nothing worthy of recording, unless, forsooth, the deeds of his childhood were made the theme of a panegyric.
Emperor Nicephorus Botaniates
Such then was the Caesar’s intention as his own writing shews; but his hopes were not fulfilled, and he did not complete his history. He brought it down to the Emperor Nicephorus Botaniates, and opportunity forbade his carrying it further, thus causing loss to the events he meant to describe, and depriving his readers of a great pleasure. For this reason, I myself undertook to chronicle my father’s doings, that the coming generations should not overlook deeds of such importance.
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