On the Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court

the triumphs of the Macedonian, in the appendix of the first book; likewise concerning the expedition of Himerius against the Cretan Saracens under the one called Leo the Wise; furthermore, concerning the embassy of Romanus Lecapenus to Hugo, king of Italy, and the gifts sent to him with the Protospatharius a high court rank Paschalius to that end, that he might bring into order the rebellious Longobards—Landulfus and Athenulfus, brothers, and another pair of brothers, Gaimarius and Gaiferius, the former the petty kings of Capua and Benevento, the latter of Salerno. Also shining in this first volume, in chapter 96, page 253, is that anxious and, as it were, daily account of the sedition that arose in the royal city in the year 963 AD after the death of Romanus the Younger, through which Nicephorus Phocas seized the empire. Even though Cedrenus has narrated this matter not without care, it nevertheless does not reach the diligence, skill, and trustworthiness of the man from whom that ninety-sixth chapter originated. It is clear that the writer was present at the events when they were taking place. Those who love oriental history will find in the second volume a certain mentioned Dilemicus, Emir of Amida, a man and envoy of Abu Chamdan sent to our Constantine. Whether this Abu Chamdan (for so he is called, according to the custom of those times, although not quite correctly, instead of Ibn Chamdan) was Naseroddaulah or his brother Saifoddaulah—both of them powerful princes through Syria and Mesopotamia, and famous in oriental history—I will investigate in the commentaries. Not to mention those lesser things, in the second book, among other inscriptions of letters sent by the Byzantines to other kings and lords of the lands, there are also the inscriptions of letters, or golden bulls as they were called, to the Protosymbolus chief official/representative of the Agareni, who is the Caliph of Baghdad, as well as to the lord of India (which inscription strikes me as very strange indeed: for I do not see what the Byzantine emperors, our Constantine certainly, had in common with the king of India, that is, of Arabia Felix, as I myself think): there appear in the same place inscriptions of letters to the obscure petty kings of Iberia, Albania, and Abasgia; whence an addition is made to the geographical knowledge of the region verging toward Asiatic Scythia. Also mentioned are some Bulgarian princes, whom I have sought in vain in every history until now. I likewise am still asking who they were, and by whom to our...