Leo’s history and the reigns of Basil II, Constantine VIII, and Romanos III. Leo’s history may have provided a cover for Psellos’ anonymous, low-key beginning of the Chronographia, but is unlike it in ethos and direction. Basil’s reign is tightly shaped, fired by his growing addiction to sole power. He takes hold of his role by stages; studies his mentor to eliminate him; makes his army an extension of his will; receives Skleros’ submission in a formal skene; performs his imperial self to audiences; and fortifies the treasury. He is an emperor in formation and a paradigm for the Body Politic. Psellos uses him to create a basic mimetic style. Constantine VIII is Basil’s creation and his anti-type. The role he performs is Not The Emperor. His successor, Romanos III, forcibly married to Constantine’s daughter Zoe, loses himself in fantasy; he wanders on the field and so alienates Zoe at home that she becomes a destructive force. There is a marked development of narrative techniques in imagining internal states and semiotic body language, shifting deftly between competing dramatis personae and points of view. The moribund Body Politic presages Romanos’ death.