(), cubuclesius, or bearer of the
crosier, to the archbishop of Thessalonica, was an eye-witness of the capture of that town by
the Arabs in A. D. 904A. H. 189. Leo, a Syrian renegade, who held a command under the
Arabs, made a descent in that year near Thessalonica, with a fleet of fifty-four ships chiefly
manned with negro slaves, surprised, took, and plundered the town, then the second in the
Greek empire, and sailed off with a great number of captives. Among these were Cameniata and
several of his family, who would have been put to death by the Arabs, had not Cameniata saved
his and their lives by shewing the victors a spot where the inhabitants had buried part of
their riches. The Arabs, however, did not restore him to liberty, but carried
him to Tarsus in Cilicia for the purpose of exchanging him for Arab prisoners who had been
taken by the Greeks.
Works
At Tarsus, Cameniata wrote a description of the capture of Thessalonica, entitled
Ἰωάννου κλερικοῦ καὶ κουβουκλεισίου τοῦ Καμενιάτου εἰς τὴν
ἅλωσιν τῆς Θεσσαλονίκης, which is commonly called by its Latin title "De
Excidio Thessalonicensi." It is divided into seventy-nine chapters, and is as important for
the plunder of Thessalonica by the Arabs as the work of Joannes Anagnosta for the sack of the
same town by the Turks in 1430.
Editions
The Greek text of this elegant work was first published, with a Latin translation,
by Leo Allatius in his Σύμμικτα, 1653-1658, where it is
divided into forty-five sections. The second edition is by Combefisius, who
published it with an improved Latin translation in his "Historiae Byzantinae Scriptores
post Theophanem," Paris, 1685, fol., which forms part of the Parisian " Corpus Script.
Hist. Byzant." Combefisius divided it into seventy-nine chapters. The third
and last edition, in the Bonn Collection, was published by Em. Bekker together with
Theophanes (continuatus), Symon Magister, and Georgius Monachus, Bonn, 1838,
8vo.
Further Information
Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vii. p. 683; Hanckius, De Script.
Hist. Byzant. p. 403, &c.; the Ἅλωσις of
Ioannes Cameniata.