Michael Psellos

Michael Psellos (Constantinople, c. 1018–1078) was a Byzantine monk, philosopher, orator, historian and one of the most influential statesmen of his age. He is often called the Younger to distinguish him from a supposed ninth-century namesake, a figure now thought to be the invention of a later copyist's error. His writings range across theology, law, philology, medicine and much else, and his championing of the study of ancient Greek authors places him near the origins of what later scholars called the Hellenic revival.

He was probably born in Constantinople into a family whose ancestors had been members of the elite but which by his time lived modestly. As a child he had a speech impediment that gave him the nickname Psellos, meaning 'the stammerer'. His mother insisted that he keep studying, and by about the age of ten he could recite the Iliad from memory. He worked for a while as a secretary to a provincial judge before returning to the capital to study under John Mauropous. He later served as a judge in several provinces of Asia Minor, and around 1041 he entered the imperial court as a secretary.

Under Constantine IX Monomachos he rose to become secretary of state and grand chancellor, and he taught rhetoric and philosophy at the Academy of Constantinople, where his students included John Italos. When he fell out of favour with the emperor in 1054, he withdrew to a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, where he found monastic life disappointing. A year later the Empress Theodora recalled him to court. From then on he advised several emperors and played a decisive part in successive changes of power, which has earned him a reputation for opportunism.

Psellos admired Plato and the Neoplatonists. He read Homer and other Greek authors allegorically, much as scripture was read, and saw in them foreshadowings of Christianity. This brought suspicions of heresy, and he was obliged to defend his orthodoxy in writing.

His best-known work is the Chronographia, a history of the Byzantine emperors from Basil II to Michael VII, arranged largely as a series of biographies. Its strong autobiographical element and sharp portraits of character have led many readers to treat it as a political memoir, and some scholars detect a critical irony beneath its surface. It remains an essential source for the eleventh-century Byzantine Empire, and his advocacy of ancient philosophy left a lasting mark on Byzantine intellectual life.