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- Title
Working with Roman history: Attaleiates’ portrayal of the Normans.
- Authors
Olson, Alexander
- Abstract
This paper suggests that Michael Attaleiates, the eleventh-century Byzantine historian, purposefully changed the ethnic label for his contemporary Norman mercenaries from ‘Frank’ to ‘Latin’ in order to portray these figures as ethnically close to the Byzantines of his own day. In addition, it suggests that Attaleiates’ motives for such a portrayal lay in his argument that Norman mercenaries were a potential solution to the empire's challenges with the Seljuks. This article examines the ways in which Attaleiates positively portrayed Norman mercenaries in Byzantium, and how he crafted historical parallels between them and the Latins of Byzantium's Roman past.
- Subjects
BYZANTINE Empire; ATTALEIATES, Michael; NORMANS; SELJUKS; PSELLOS, Michael; HISTORY
- Publication
Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 2017, Vol 41, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
0307-0131
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/byz.2016.25