Nicetas Choniates (Nikitas Choniatis) (c. 1155-1215/1216), sometimes called Acominatus, was a historian like his brother Michael whom he accompanied from their birthplace Chonae to Constantinople.

He initially took up politics as a career and held several appointments under the Angelus emperors (amongst them that of Grand Logothete or chancellor) and was governor of the theme of Philippopolis at a critical period.

After the capture of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he fled to Nicaea, where he settled at the court of the Nicaean emperor Theodoras Lascaris, and devoted himself to literature. He died c. 1215-16. His chief work is his History, in 21 books, of the period from 1118 to 1207.

In spite of its florid and bombastic style, it is of considerable value as a record (on the whole impartial) of events of which he was either an eyewitness or had heard of first hand. Its most interesting portion is the description of the capture of Constantinople, which should be read with Villehardouin's and Paolo Rannusio's works on the same subject. The little treatise On the Statues destroyed by the Latins (perhaps, as we have it, altered by a later writer) is of special interest to the archaeologist. His dogmatic work (Thesaurus Orthodoxae Fidei), although it is extant in a complete form in manuscripts, has only been published in part. It is one of the chief authorities for the heresies and heretical writers of the 12th century.

References

• Brand, Charles M. Byzantium Confronts the West, 1968, ISBN 0751200530
  
• Choniates, Nicetas. The Sack of Constantinople
  
• Harris, Jonathan. 'Distortion, divine providence and genre in Nicetas Choniates' account of the collapse of Byzantium 1180-1204', Journal of Medieval History, vol. 16 (2000) 19-31
  
• Magoulias, Harry J. (transl.). O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, 1984, ISBN 0814317642
  

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.