Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/524

482 N I C N I C attacked in force by night, and Nicephorus, along with six patricians, many officers of high military rank, and a large number of rank and file, was put to the sword. Crumn is recorded to have made a drinking cup of the emperor s skull. After a brief reign of two months, Stauracius, who had been proclaimed emperor by the soldiers, was deposed by his brother-in-law, Michael Rhangabe. Nicephorus, who "though a brave soldier was essentially a statesman," gave considerable attention to the finance department of the empire, but did not escape the imputation of avarice and oppression. Ecclesiastically his reign is noted for the comparative success with which he asserted the supremacy of the civil power, and gave effective preponderance to imperial over monkish opinion. NICEPHORUS II. (Phocas), emperor of Constantinople from 963 to 969, was member of a brave Cappadocian family which had previously furnished more than one distinguished general to the empire. He was born about 912, joined the army at an early age, and under Constantine VII., Porphyrogenitus, attained the high rank of magnus domesticus, or general of the East (954). In the almost continual struggle with the Saracens which this post implied he sustained severe defeat in 956, but retrieved his fame in 958 and again in 959 in Syria ; and in July 960 he led the expedition against Crete which compelled Candia to surrender after a siege of ten months, and again brought the whole island under Byzantine rule. The long extinct honours of a triumph were revived to reward him on his return to Constantinople. In 962 he again set out with a large army against Syria ; after forcing his way through the narrow passes of Mount Amanus, and compel ling the principal cities to open their gates, he was pushing on towards the Euphrates when intelligence reached him in 963 that the emperor Romanus II. had died, leaving the empress Theophano regent for her infant sons. Justly fearing the intrigues of the able minister Joseph Bringas, he returned to Constantinople, after having previously obtained from Theophano and the patriarch Polyeuctes a guarantee for his personal safety ; he then, with the help of the patriarch, procured for himself the supreme com mand of the army during the minority of the princes, and, after gaining over the officers and soldiers to his interest, consented to allow himself to be proclaimed emperor. He was crowned on August 16, and soon afterwards married Theophano, though the union was discountenanced by the patriarch on the alleged ground of a spiritual affinity. In 964 he resumed the war against the Saracens, and, though compelled to raise the siege of Tarsus, was successful in capturing Adana and Mopsuestia; in the following year Tarsus also was forced to surrender to himself, while Cyprus was reconquered for him by the patrician Nicetas. In 966 and 967 the internal affairs of the empire and threatening troubles in Hungary and Bulgaria detained him in Constantinople; but the spring of 968 saw him once more in the field against the caliph, and Laodicea, Hierapolis, Aleppo, Area, and Emesa were added to his conquests. In the following year Antioch also fell, in the emperor s absence, into the hands of the patricians Burtzes and Peter, but Nicetas was less successful against Sicily. Meanwhile Nicephorus had not made himself so popular on the throne as in the camp. The heavy imposts he found necessary for the support of his expeditions more than counterbalanced, in public estimation, the glory he gained by them. His retrenchment of court largesses and pensions naturally made him many enemies, and he incurred just odium by employing debased coinage to meet the public debts while continuing to exact money of the old standard in payment of the taxes. An accidental tumult in the hippodrome, which had resulted in the loss of many lives, further increased his unpopularity, and, last of all, his fickle wife joined the number of his enemies and began to plot his death. He was assassinated in his sleeping apartment on the night of December 10, 969. At the head of the conspirators was his nephew John Zimisces, who immediately succeeded him. NICEPHORUS III. (Botaniates), emperor of Con stantinople from 1078 to 1081, belonged to a family which claimed descent from the Roman Fabii. He served in the army, and rose to be commander of the forces in Asia. In 1078 he assumed the purple at Nicaea, almost simultaneously with Nicephorus Bryennius (father or uncle of the historian of that name), who had revolted against Michael VII. at Adrianople ; the aristocracy and clergy of the capital supported the claims of Botaniates, who was crowned on March 25, 1078. With the able help of Alexius Comnenus, the recalcitrant generals Ursel, Bryennius, and Basilacius were successively driven from the field, but soon afterwards the wakeful jealousy of the emperor was turned upon their conqueror, who was com pelled to flee the court. Alexius, however, had hold of the army, and on April 1, 1081, ascended the throne, Nicephorus being forced to abdicate and become a monk of St Basil. He died in obscurity. NICEPHORUS BRYENNIUS. See BYZANTINE HIS TORIANS, vol. iv. p. 613. NICEPHORUS, surnamed CALLISTI, the last of the Greek ecclesiastical historians, lived at Constantinople, perhaps as a monk in connexion with the church of St Sophia. He was born about the close of the 13th century, and died not later than 1356. His Historia Ecclesiastica, in eighteen books, brings the narrative down to the death of Phocas in 610 ; for the first four centuries the author is largely dependent on his predecessors, Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius, his additions showing very little critical faculty ; in the later period his labours, based on documents now no longer extant, to which he had free access, though he used them also with small dis crimination, are much more valuable. A table of contents of other five books, continuing the history to the death of Leo the Philosopher in 911, also exists, but whether the books were ever actually written is doubtful. A Latin translation of the Historia of Nicephorus, by Lange, appeared at Basel in 1553; the Greek text was edited for the first time by Fronton le Due (2 vols. fol., Paris, 1630). NICEPHORUS GREGORAS. See BYZANTINE His- TOEIANS, vol. iv. p. 613. NICEPHORUS, one of the Byzantine historians (see vol. iv. p. 614), surnamed PATRIARCHA, was patriarch of Constantinople from 806 to 815. He was born about 758 ; from his father Theodoras, one of the secretaries of the emperor Constantine Copronymus, who for his zeal as an image-worshipper had been scourged and dismissed into exile, he inherited literary talent as well as strong religious convictions. He was present as secretary to the imperial commissaries at that second council of Nice in 787 which witnessed the triumph of his opinions; but court vicissitudes soon afterwards drove him again into private life. In 806 he was suddenly raised by the emperor Nicephorus I. from the condition of a monk to the patriarchate of Constantinople, and this office he held until 815, when he accepted deposition rather than assent to the iconoclastic edict promulgated by Leo the Armenian in the previous year. He retired to the cloister of St Theodore, which he himself had founded, and died there in 828. Nicephorus is the author of a valuable and well- written compendium (Breviarium Historicum) of Byzantine history from 602 to 770, first printed at Paris in 1616, of a much less important Chronologia compendiaria, and of one or two controversial writings against iconoclasm.