Chronographia
Michael Psellusc. AD 1060–1078
A history of the Byzantine emperors from Basil II to Michael VII by a courtier and scholar. Its first book, on Basil II, was written two generations after the events from what older men had told him.
Psellus was born after Basil II’s great wars and wrote about him from what he had heard. On the civil war of 987–989 he notes that a picked force of “Scythians” from the Taurus had lately come to the emperor’s aid and was used against the rebels (1.13). He does not say how the emperor obtained them; that is supplied by History.
Cited in
- AD 988/989, estimated date