Theophylactus Simocattes

Theophylactus Simocattes (born, Egypt—died after 640, probably Constantinople [now Istanbul, Turkey]) was a Byzantine historian whose chronicles of the Eastern Roman Empire provide a unique source for the Greek relations with the Slavs and Persians during the 6th and 7th centuries.

Descended from a family of high-ranking civil servants in Egypt, Simocattes held the position of prefect and imperial secretary at Constantinople under the emperor Heraclius (ruled 610–641). A protégé of Patriarch Sergius I, he gained a reputation for classical Byzantine literary style. His principal work is an eight-book history of the reign of Emperor Maurice (582–602), written between 628 and 638 (modern edition by C. de Boor, 1887). Treating principally of the Byzantine war in the East against Persia, the chronicle was supplemented by accounts of the Persian king Khosrow II (ruled 590–628); it also recorded the war in the Balkans against the Slavs and the Avars, including important data on various Turkish leaders. The “History” reveals the use of excellent eyewitnesses acquainted with Persian and Byzantine authorities and contains archives and ambassadorial testimony accessible to Simocattes in his official position of prefect.

Because of its extravagant allegorical form, however, Simocattes’ writing makes for difficult reading. His ornate literary structure and vocabulary exemplified the Byzantine aesthetic principle of mimēsis, or imitation of what was considered the pure form of the Attic (classical Greek) historians. This method emphasized the preservation and transmission of the irreplaceable Greek tradition of learning and culture of which the Byzantines claimed to be the divinely chosen custodians. Simocattes’ “History,” moreover, follows the Byzantine technique of covering a carefully defined period of events, which resumes where the previous historian left off and closes at a point to be taken up by his successor. The consequent historical records are superior to any chronicle produced by the West during this time.

Of a rhetorical and sophistical nature is Simocattes’ Peri diaphorōn physikōn aporēmatōn kai epilyseōn autōn (“On the Explanation and Solution of Physical Problems”), composed in dialogue form. A Latin edition, Quaestiones Physicae (“Questions in Physics”) was edited in 1953 by L.M. Positano. Simocattes also wrote an exotic collection of letters, the Epistolai ethikai, agroichikai, hetairikai (“Ethical, Bucolic, and Love Letters”). This correspondence was edited by Rudolph Hercher as Epistolographi Graeci (1873; “Greek Epistolary”).