History
Leo the Deaconc. AD 995
A history of the Byzantine emperors from 959 to 976, with later notes, by a deacon of the palace clergy who witnessed part of what he describes. It mentions the capture of Cherson by the Rus’ among the disasters of 989.
Leo wrote in Constantinople in the 990s. In a digression in his last book he lists the portents and calamities that followed the death of the rebel Bardas Phokas: pillars of fire in the northern sky, which foretold the taking of Cherson by the “Tauroscythians” (his name for the Rus’), a comet, and the earthquake that damaged Hagia Sophia. He says nothing of a baptism. His value for the Baptism of Rus’ is the sequence, which places the fall of Chersonesus after Phokas’s death and so helps to date it.
Cited in
- AD 988/989, estimated date