Theophylaktos Simokatès (or Simocatta , Simocates , Latinized in Theophylactus Simocatta ) is a Byzantine historian of the beginning of the VIIe century. The nickname “simokatès” ( muzzle of cat ) is generally allotted to its physical appearance.

Théophylacte, which one can regard as the last historian of the ancient world, was originating in the Roman Province of Egypt. Beside minor works, it composed under the reign of the emperor Héraclius a collection of “ Histoires ”. Théophylacte, which perhaps exerted the high positions of urban prefect of Constantinople, wrote the history of its own time while borrowing from the historian Ménandre Protector. It makes the account of the reign of the emperor of the East Maurice Ier (582-602) and in particular of the wars that this last carried out against Persians Sassanides and the Slaves. The contents of the work let think that it was entirely finished into 630: the last war of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius against Persians (602-628) is apparently well finished, whereas the Arab conquest (which starts into 634) did not start yet, or at least no allusion is made there.

The work of Théophylacte, though much lower than the plan of the language and the style to those of the historians of the Lower Empire (in particular Ammien Marcellin and Procope de Césarée) constitutes however an essential information source on Persians and the Slavic ones. It still writes in Greek old, but its prose contains a great number of forms which announce already the medieval Greek. The decline of the ancient culture in the Byzantine Empire even after the Arab invasions did not allow a literary changing of Théophylacte. The tradition of the historiographers of Antiquity thus finishes with him, and the historical writings of the Byzantines have nothing any more but one very indirect bond with its work.

References

Editions

• Theophylaktes Simokates: Geschichte (1985), German transl. of the Stories by Peter Schreiner, Stuttgart.

Tests

• John Martindale: The Prosopography off the Later Roman Worsens IIIb . Cambridge 1992,1311 p.
• Michael Whitby: The emperor Maurice and his Historian. Theophylact Simocatta one Persian and Balkan Warfare . Oxford 1988.
• Michael and Mary Whitby: The History off Theophylact Simocatta. Translation in English with an introduction and notes. Oxford 1986.

External bonds

• Extracted the '' Histoires '' transl. into Engl. (pdf)
• Théophylacte according to Photios