MICHAEL PSELLOS.

II. Both had already passed the prime of youth, but were of differing character. For Basil, who was also the elder in age, showed himself to be always wakeful and contemplative, while Constantine was seen to be relaxed in all things, living a life of leisure 5 and being devoted to a life of luxury. Therefore, they did not both choose to be absolute rulers Autokrator: A title for the senior Byzantine emperor, signifying one who rules with independent and absolute authority.; instead, because Basil was the elder of the two, he girded himself with the full extent of power, while his brother was allotted a share in only the title of the emperorship. Indeed, the government 10 of the empire could not have been steered otherwise, unless the supreme administration had been allotted to the one who was foremost and most disciplined original: "akribestato" - suggesting a high degree of rigor or precision in management.. And one might wonder here at Constantine, because although it was possible for him to divide the leadership—I mean the ancestral inheritance—into equal shares with his brother, he yielded the greater part to him. He did this despite being very young, 15 at the age when the zeal for the love of power is most easily ignited, and despite seeing that his brother was not yet of mature age, but was already just reaching manhood and growing his first beard, as the saying goes. For such reasons, Constantine should be deemed worthy of praise from the very beginning of this account.

III. Now Basil, having already 20 girded himself with the leadership of the Romans The "Romans" (Rhomaioi) is the term the Byzantines used to refer to themselves., wished to have no partner in his anxieties, nor any counselor regarding the public administration. 322* Yet he did not have full confidence in himself, | having not yet gained experience in either the military registers or the civil laws; because of this, he looked toward the Grand Chamberlain Parakoimomenos: Literally 'the one who sleeps beside' the imperial bedchamber; the highest-ranking eunuch at court, often acting as a prime minister. Basil. 25 This man happened to have become a figure of the greatest dignity in the Roman empire, possessing a majestic intellect, a tall stature, and a physical form befitting a ruler. | Being born from the p. 5 same father as the father of Basil and Constantine This refers to the Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos, making this Basil the illegitimate half-brother of the current emperors' father, Romanos II., he differed only on his mother’s side. Because of this, he had been castrated 30 immediately from his first youth, so that a son of such a half-marriage might not carry off the first prize of rule from the most legitimate heirs. This man, therefore, was content with what fortune had given him and was devoted to the imperial family; he was especially attached to his nephew Basil and embraced him as a close kinsman, nurturing him as a loyal foster-father. Because 35 of these things, Basil entrusted the weight of the government to him,