Introduction

Abstract The principal task of the historian is to gather and sort out data about the past. Without narrative histories (and the evidence of physical geography), it would be impossible to make sense of archaeological and documentary material. Byzantium, an unusual entity which acts as a platform for viewing eastern Europe, Caucasia, and the Middle East in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, is relatively well covered by histories, some probing the deep past, most focused on recent events. A discussion of the discreet presence of documentary material in classical and Byzantine histories is followed by two general surveys of Byzantine historical writing up to 1200, the second dealing specifically with chronicles. Attention then turns to the analysis of important texts, written by Procopius, Theophanes, the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Logothete, and Anna Komnene.