This article is about the historian. For the bishop and biblical commentator of the same name, see
Theophylact of Ohrid.
Theophylact Simocatta (
Byzantine Greek: Θεοφύλακτος Σιμοκάτ(τ)ης Theophýlaktos Simokát(t)ēs;
Latin: Theophylactus Simocatta)[1] was an early seventh-century
Byzantine historiographer, arguably ranking as the last historian of
Late Antiquity, writing in the time of
Heraclius (c. 630) about the late
Emperor Maurice (582–602).[2]
Life
Simocatta is best known as the author of History, a work split into eight books, about the reign of the emperor
Maurice (582–602), for which period he is the best and oldest authority. Though his work is of lesser stature than that of
Procopius and his self-consciously classicizing style is pompous, he is an important source of information concerning the seventh-century
Slavs, the
Avars and the
Persians, and the emperor's tragic end.[3] He mentions the
war of
Heraclius against the Persians (610–628), but not
that against the Arabs (beginning 629), so it is likely that he was writing around 630. Among his sources he used the history of
John of Epiphania.
His want of judgement renders him diffuse in trifles and concise in the most interesting facts.[4]
This notwithstanding, Simocatta's general trustworthiness is admitted. The history contains an introduction in the form of a dialogue between
History and
Philosophy.
Nicolaus Copernicus translated Greek verses by Theophylact into
Latin prose and had his translation, dedicated to his uncle
Lucas Watzenrode, published in
Kraków in 1509 by
Johann Haller. It was the only book that Copernicus ever brought out on his own account.[5]
Simocatta was also the author of Physical Problems, a work on
natural history,[6] and of a collection of 85 essays in epistolary form.[7]
^"Snub-nosed cat". Other forms of the name are Simocattos and Simocatos.
^J.D.C. Frendo, "History and Panegyric in the Age of Heraclius: The Literary Background to the Composition of the 'Histories' of Theophylact Simocatta", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 1988.
^E. Gibbon, The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, The Folio Society (1997), s.v. "Simocatta".
^Angus Armitage, The World of Copernicus, pp. 75–77.
^Cf. ed. J. Ideler in Physici et medici Graeci minores, i. 1841.
^The best edition is published in the prestigious Bibliotheca Teubneriana: Zanetto, Ioseph [Giuseppe] (1985). "Theophylacti Simocatae epistulae" [The Letters of Theophylactus Simocata]. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (in Greek and Latin). Leipzig: BSB B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft.
ISSN0233-1160. The letters were translated into
Latin by
Copernicus in 1509, reprinted in 1873 by F. Hipler in Spicilegium Copernicanum. See also Zanetto, Giuseppe (2013). "Romanzo greco ed epistolografia: il caso di Teofilatto Simocatta". Lettere, mimesi, retorica: studi sull'epistolografia letteraria greca di età imperiale e tardoantica. Lecce–Brescia: Pensa Multimedia. pp. 469–491.
ISBN978-88-6760-097-7.