Description: Leo's firsthand experience of the campaigns and courts of two Byzantine emperors provides vivid descriptions of sieges, pitched battles, and ambushes. His account of the conspiracy against Nikephoros II Phokas, murdered as he slept on the floor in front of his icons, is one of the most dramatic in Byzantine narrative histories.
Brief description: Alice-Mary Talbot was Director of Byzantine Studies, Emerita, at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and the inaugural editor of the medieval Greek series of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.
Review Quotes: This is the first English translation of the History of Leo the Deacon (born circa 950), a lively but little-known author intimately familiar with the palace politics of Constantinople.