A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Συμεὼν ὁ Μεταφράστης), a celebrated Byzantine writer, lived in the ninth and tenth centuries. He was descended from a noble family of great distinction in Constantinople, and, owing to his birth, his talents, and his great learning, he was raised to the highest dignities in the state; and we find that he successively held the offices of proto-secretarius, logotheta dromi, and perhaps magnus logotheta, and at least that of magister, whose office resembled much that of our president of the privy council. The title of Patricius was likewise conferred upon him. The circumstance of his having held the post of magister caused him to be frequently called Symeon Magister, especially when he is referred to as the author of the Annales quoted below, but his most common appellation is Symeon Metaphrastes, or simply Metaphrastes, a surname which was given to him on account of his having composed a celebrated paraphrase of the lives of the saints. There are many conflicting hypotheses as to the time when he lived, which the reader will find in the sources below. We shall only mention, that it appears from different passages in works of which the authorship of this Symeon (Metaphrastes) is pretty well established, that he lived in the time of the emperor Leo VI. Philosophus; that in 902 he was sent as ambassador to the Arabs in Crete, and in 904 to those Arabs who had conquered Thessalonica, whom he persuaded to desist from their plan of destroying that opulent city; and that he was still alive in the time of the emperor Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus. Michael Psellus wrote an Encomium of Metaphrastes, which is given by Leo Allatius, quoted below.

[W.P]