A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

3. Michael Constantinus Psellus the younger, a far more celebrated person, flourished in the 11th century of our era. He was born at Constantinople, of a consular and patrician family, A. D. 1020. When five years old he was placed in the hands of a tutor, to whom, however, he is said to have been far less indebted than to his own prodigious industry and talent. He afterwards studied at Athens, and excelled in all the learning of the age; so that he was a proficient at once in theology, jurisprudence, physics, mathematics, philosophy, and history. He taught philosophy, rhetoric, and dialectics, at Constantinople, where he stood forth as almost the last upholder of the falling cause of learning. The emperors honoured him with the title of Prince of the Philosophers (Φιλοσόφων ὕπατος), and did not disdain to use his counsels, and in effecting their elevation he even had a share. The period during which he thus flourished at Constantinople extends over the reigns of Constantinus Monomachus (A. D. 1042-1054), his empress Theodora (to A. D. 1056), and Michael Stratonicus, who succeeded Theodora, and who entrusted Psellus with a conciliatory mission to Isaac Comnenus, whom the soldiers had saluted emperor in A. D. 1057. He still remained in favour with both these emperors, and with Constantinus Ducas, who succeeded Comnenus in A.D. 1060, and also with his successor Eudocia, and her three sons. When Romanus Diogenes, whom Eudocia had married, was also declared emperor (A. D. 1068), Psellus was one of his counsellors ; but three years afterwards he was the chief adviser, among the senators, of the measure by which Diogenes was deposed, and Michael VII. Ducas, the son of Constantinus Ducas, elected in his place, A. D. 1071. Michael was the pupil of Psellus himself, by whom he had been so thoroughly imbued with the love of letters, that, in spite of the remonstrances of Psellus, he devoted himself to study and writing poetry, to the neglect of his imperial duties. To this folly Michael added the ingratitude of permitting his tutor to be supplanted in his favour by Joannes Italus, a man of far less talent, but an eloquent sophist, and a great favourite with the nobles, in discussions with whom the emperor spent his time. The deposition of Michael Ducas (A. D. 1078) was followed by the fall of Psellus, who was compelled by the new emperor, Nicephorns Botanias, to retire into a monastery; and in his dishonoured old age he witnessed the elevation of his rival to the title of Prince of the Philosophers, which he imself had so long held, and which the next emperor, Alexius Comnenus, conferred upon Joannes, in A. D. 1081. Psellus appears to have lived at least till A. D. 1105; some suppose that he was still alive in 1110, the thirtieth year of Alexius Comnenus.