MANASSES, CONSTANTINE

died 1187 Byzantine chronicler, metropolitan of Naupactus, and the author of a verse chronicle (Synopsis historike) from the Creation to 1081. Written at the request of Emperor Manuel I's sister-in-law, Irene, the poem is in the so-called political (i.e., 15-syllable) metre. His romance on Aristander and Calithea, also in political verse, survives in fragments only. He wrote a variety of other poems, as well as descriptive pieces in prose (some on works of art), and a number of orations, including an address to Manuel I and a funeral eulogy of Nicephorus Comnenus. Much of his work is unedited.