Byzantine scholar (1110-1180) from Constantinople. A prolific writer, he worked initially as a secretary in Berea and later as secretary and grammarian in Constantinople. His numerous treatises and commentaries on ancient authors are a valuable source for (now) lost works of Ancient Greek literature. His most important work, which remained popular throughout the Middle Ages, is the Chiliades (Thousands), a long collection of mythical and historical tales composed in the non-rhyming fifteen-syllable iambic lines called “political” verse. The work’s conventional name derives from the later arbitrary division of its 12,764 lines into 1000-line books by its first editor (N. Gerbel, 1546).