A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

13. DIACONUS or the DEACON, a Byzantine historian of the tenth century. What little is known of his personal history is to be gleaned from incidental notices in his principal work, and has been collected by C. B. Hose in the Praefatio to his edition of Leo. Leo was born at Caloe, a town of Asia, beautifully situated on the side or at the foot of Mount Tmolus, near the sources of the Cäystrus, in Asia Minor. He was the son of Basilius, but his father's condition or calling is not known. (Leo Diac. Historiae, 1.1.) The young Leo was at Constantinople, pursuing his studies, A. D. 966, when he was an admiring spectator of the firmness of the emperor, Nicephorus II. Phocas, in the midst of a popular tumult (4.7.) As he describes himself as a youth (μειρόκιον) at the time of this incident, Hase places his birth in or about A. D. 950. He was in Asia about the time of the deposition of Basilius I., patriarch of Constantinople, and the election of his successor Antonius III., A. D. 973 or 974, and relates that at that time he frequently saw two Cappadocians, twins, of thirty years old, whose bodies were united from the armpits to the flanks (10.3). Having been ordained deacon, he accompanied the emperor Basilius II. in his unfortunate campaign against the Bulgarians, A. D. 981; and when the emperor raised the siege of Tralitza or Triaditza (the ancient Sardica), Leo narrowly escaped death or captivity in the headlong flight of his countrymen (10.8). Of his history after this nothing is known; but Hase observes that he must have written his history after A. D. 989, as he adverts to the rebellion and death of Phocas Bardas (10.9), which occurred in that year. Both this event and the Bulgarian campaign are noticed by him by anticipation, in a digression respecting the evils which he supposed were portended by a comet which appeared just before the death of Joannes I. Tzimisces. He must have lived later than Hase has remarked, and at least till A. D. 993, as he notices (10.10) that the emperor Basilius II. restored "in six years" the cupola of the great church (St. Sophia) at Constantinople which had been overthrown by the earthquake (comp. Cedren. Compend. vol. ii. p. 438, ed. Bonn) of A. D. 987.