1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glycas, Michael

GLYCAS, MICHAEL, Byzantine historian (according to some a Sicilian, according to others a Corfiote), flourished during the 12th century A.D. His chief work is his Chronicle of events from the creation of the world to the death of Alexius I. Comnenus (1118). It is extremely brief and written in a popular style, but too much space is devoted to theological and scientific matters. Glycas was also the author of a theological treatise and a number of letters on theological questions. A poem of some 600 “political” verses, written during his imprisonment on a charge of slandering a neighbour and containing an appeal to the emperor Manuel, is still extant. The exact nature of his offence is not known, but the answer to his appeal was that he was deprived of his eyesight by the emperor’s orders.

Editions: “Chronicle and Letters,” in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, clviii.; poem in E. Legrand, Bibliothèque grecque vulgaire, i.; see also F. Hirsch, Byzantinische Studien (1876); C. Krumbacher in Sitzungsberichte bayer. Acad., 1894; C. F. Bähr in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyklopädie.