As Alexander Kazhdan observed, Michael Attaleiates chose to use the label ‘Latins’ (Λατíνοι) rather than ‘Franks’ in his History when referring to a group of western Europeans, namely figures of Norman extraction.Footnote ¹ The use of this word in the eleventh century was unusual. Indeed, to our knowledge the label was hardly used in Byzantine (hereafter alternatively referred to as ‘Roman’ or ‘Byzantine Roman’) texts until Attaleiates did so, although in the long term, the label ‘Latin’ became common in Byzantine Roman writings with subsequent historians deploying the term to describe many western Europeans.Footnote ² Yet while twelfth- and thirteenth-century Roman texts generally used the term ‘Latin’ in a pejorative fashion, Attaleiates imbued the term with more positive connotations.

Why did Attaleiates specifically use the term ‘Latin,’ to describe an ethnic group on the empire's western borders, when other labels, such as ‘Franks’ (Φράγγοι) and ‘Celts’ (Κελτοί), were available?Footnote ³ And what explains his more positive use of the term in comparison to the Roman historians who succeeded him? I believe that any attempt to answer these questions requires both an examination of the role that the Normans played in Attaleiates’ History (and, of course, the context in which it was written) and of the connotations of the term ‘Latin’ in the ancient histories from which Attaleiates almost certainly derived it. Essentially, this article agrees with the suggestion that Attaleiates’ History casts the Normans in a positive light, proposing that their martial skills could serve as a solution to the troubled circumstances of the Roman Empire in the 1070s, provided that they were aptly channelled against foreign invaders. Attaleiates’ use of ‘Latins’ and even ‘Albans’, to describe the Normans evoked notions of inclusion, assimilation, and suggested that the Roman elite shared some, however vague, ancestry with the Norman warlords. After all, the term ‘Latin’ had rich associations for those familiar with ancient Roman histories (written in Greek), as the Latins were originally related to the Romans, alternated between functioning as Rome's allies and rivals, and ultimately became united with them, becoming fully Roman themselves. Thus, it is possible that Attaleiates was implicitly suggesting that the Norman interaction with the Byzantines could (or perhaps even should) lead to integration.

First, this article will briefly review the context in which Attaleiates wrote his text, and how the Normans factored into this state of affairs. Second, it looks at the role of the Normans in the History, building on Dimitris Krallis’ discussion of Attaleiates’ treatment of this particular group by adding a few more examples of the way in which our eleventh-century author provided positive depictions of them. Finally, and most importantly, I turn to the roles of the Latins in the ancient Roman histories that likely shaped Attaleiates’ historical persona, all the while emphasizing how such roles related to those of the Normans in the History.

During the 1070s, when Attaleiates wrote his text, Byzantium was at a critical juncture, beset by internal struggles that led to several violent imperial successions. All the while, Turks raided Anatolia, Pechenegs moved into the Balkans, and Norman war bands seized the empire's Italian possessions, or alternatively carved out their own rebel lordship in Anatolia. The Byzantine army seemed unable to respond to these incursions, and the empire's very survival was in question.

As a courtier and official, Attaleiates was well informed with regard to these developments, often witnessing them first-hand. A judge and advisor to both the emperors Romanos IV Diogenes and Nikephoros III Botaneiates, Attaleiates had been present in many of the major political and military events that shaped the empire's history between the 1050s and 1080s, and notably accompanied Byzantine armies that travelled east during the reign of Romanos IV.Footnote ⁴

The events of his life had left the historian with a negative opinion of the empire's handling of recent wars, and so throughout the History Attaleiates consistently reminds his audience of his overarching complaint: the Byzantine Romans had become ineffective defenders of their state. He even goes so far as to tell his readers that he hates the ‘cowardice, ineptitude, or wretchedness of the Romans (ὅσον τὴν τῶν Ῥωμαίων κατέγνων δειλίαν ἢ ἀπειροκαλίαν ἢ ταπεινότητα).’Footnote ⁵ More to the point, Attaleiates notes:

And then he adds: ‘When it comes to wars with foreigners we are cowardly and unmanly, and appear to turn our backs to the enemy even before the battle begins (ἐν τοῖς ἀλλοφύλοις πολέμοις δειλοὶ καὶ ἀνάλκιδες καὶ πρὸ πολέμου νῶτα διδοῦντες φαινόμεθα).’Footnote ⁷ By being indecisive, disorganized, and, most of all, cowardly, eleventh-century Romans seemed to be incapable of defending their borders.

It appears that a key component of the History’s agenda was to correct these problems, offering suggestions to those leading the εmpire on how to handle the foreign invasions. After all, it was a common objective of Byzantine historians to influence imperial government, and Attaleiates’ preface to his own text emphasizes the importance of learning about the successes and failures of historical and contemporary figures, primarily for more effective future handling of government and military affairs.Footnote ⁸ With such purposes in mind, the History was addressed to the empire's leadership, including the emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, to whom the text was ultimately dedicated.Footnote ⁹ The text's audience also consisted of other members of the court and literati in the capital, such as Michael Psellos.Footnote ¹⁰

As Dimitris Krallis persuasively demonstrates in his work on Attaleiates, the History often presents capable military leaders as protagonists or role models, and these role models include Norman examples.Footnote ¹¹ Attaleiates even presented the most notable Norman exemplar, Roussel, as an effective agent for preventing Turkish incursions into Roman territory, claiming that the Norman did a better job of this defensive task than Michael VII Doukas and his incompetent minister Nikephoritzes. Krallis has already thoroughly treated Attaleiates’ positive portrayal of Roussel (and a handful of other Normans) and thus Roussel's case requires no further treatment here. However, I will add a few other examples to strengthen the claim that Attaleiates was approaching the Normans in general as a potential source of capable warriors that could assist the Roman Empire in its precarious position. For example, the History provides a positive treatment of the notable Norman mercenary leader, Robert Crispin, describing him thus:

Attaleiates presents this commentary despite the fact that Crispin had rebelled against the imperial authorities earlier in his career. The text's positive treatments of Roussel and Crispin extend to unnamed Normans such as one anonymous Latin warrior who drove Pecheneg raiders out of the Balkans and thus restored peace to the region.Footnote ¹³

Such accounts of Norman bravery are often presented in stark contrast to the Romans’ failings in the History.Footnote ¹⁴ Thus Attaleiates depicts Robert Crispin as a more just and pious figure than the Romans against whom he was rebelling. When discussing Crispin's revolt, the History states that the Roman forces attacked the Norman mercenary leader and his followers on Easter Sunday.Footnote ¹⁵ The Normans, allegedly using the day for rest, nevertheless handily defeated the attackers. According to Attaleiates, Crispin explained to the defeated Romans the impiety of their actions and noted that no Christian should commit violence on such a holy day. After lecturing them, the Norman released the Roman prisoners, except for their wounded whom he had attended to, thereby showing himself to be more pious and magnanimous than his Roman counterparts. This episode fits into the recurring pattern in the History: brave and decisive western European mercenaries are juxtaposed with cowardly, bickering, and indecisive contemporary Romans, the former winning battles while the latter remaining victims of foreign attackers.Footnote ¹⁶

Surprisingly, Attaleiates even portrays the Norman invasion of Byzantine Italy as the fault of Roman officials, not the Normans. He claims that Sicily was almost in Roman hands when members of the Byzantine court undermined the campaign by recalling Maniakes in 1040, and:

This excerpt demonstrates that unlike other Roman or Italian historians who provided accounts of the Norman invasion of Italy, Attaleiates treats the event as a rebellion by Roman allies, not as an invasion by foreigners from beyond the Alps. After all, he emphasizes that the Normans were formally part of an ‘isopoliteia’ (a vague arrangement of equality, or even a commonwealth) with the Byzantine Romans, and that they had inhabited the region for some time.Footnote ¹⁸ Such a statement conveniently omits that the Normans were newcomers to the area who violently seized much of Southern Italy from the Romans and Lombards who had been there for several hundred years. Instead, the History’s author attributes the Norman revolt to Roman incompetence, claiming that the Roman commander Dokeianos offended the Normans’ ‘ruler.’ This mention of an offended ‘ruler’ is probably a reference to a Byzantine official's beating of the Normans’ interpreter Arduin that occurred in 1040.

Attaleiates’ portrayal of this particular assault is different from other accounts of the event. This incident allegedly occurred when the Byzantine army, led by the general George Maniakes, won a major victory over a Muslim army outside the city of Troina in Sicily.Footnote ¹⁹ The Normans played a major part in this battle and accordingly demanded a large share of the spoils, sending their interpreter, a Lombard named Arduin, to complain to a Roman official about the distribution of the loot. The sources differ regarding the identity of this official who received the complaint. Geoffrey Malaterra claims this man was George Maniakes, whereas John Skylitzes and Michael Attaleiates claim that this figure was the Roman katepan (and replacement for Maniakes) Michael Dokeianos.Footnote ²⁰ What the sources agree on is that this particular official ordered Arduin beaten and flogged for what the former perceived as unreasonable demands, and that this act of violence was the catalyst for the Norman rebellion. Supposedly enraged by this incident, Arduin and the Normans abandoned the army in Sicily and returned to the Italian mainland, from which they began to raid Byzantine territory in the southern portion of the peninsula. Attaleiates’ treatment of this event demonstrates his efforts to make the Normans appear as former allies who had been wronged rather than foreign invaders. In addition, unlike his fellow Roman Skylitzes, Attaleiates makes the Normans appear to be from Italy and long-term allies of the Romans, whereas Skylitzes’ text describes these Normans as coming from Gaul.Footnote ²¹

So far, I have examined Attaleiates’ portrayal of various Normans throughout the History and have suggested that his casting of these foreigners in such a positive fashion, was an argument in favour of the use of the Normans’ martial expertise by an empire that was in a state of military collapse. Now I will demonstrate how Attaleiates’ use of classical Roman history, mainly through his application of the term ‘Latin’ as an ethnic label, subtly suggests the integration of the Normans into the Roman leadership. Whereas earlier Roman historians and courtiers used the term ‘Franks’ to describe the Normans and other Western Europeans, Attaleiates started interchanging ‘Franks’ (Φράγγοι) with ‘Latins’ (Λατῖνοι),’ a term used by ancient Romans writing in Greek.Footnote ²² Indeed, there is a pattern of deploying this term in his work, using it to label an unnamed Norman mercenary leader (possibly Hervé), and definitely using it to label Crispin and Roussel, in addition to the Normans more generally.Footnote ²³ The term ‘Latin’ had rich and ancient connotations, and their implications cannot be ignored here. That Attaleiates peppered the History with it suggests that he was making an effort to convince the Roman elite that they in fact shared a vague ancestry with the Normans. In order to demonstrate this claim, we must examine where the word Λατῖνοι was used in Byzantine Roman historiography before and in Attaleiates’ time.

The term Λατῖνοι was very rarely used in Byzantine Roman texts after the sixth century. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae contains very few entries for this word before the eleventh century (with some notable exceptions such as two entries in Constantine VII's vast de legationibus), a relative absence noted by Kazhdan some time ago. Generally speaking, if a Byzantine Roman writer wrote about western Europeans before the twelfth century, he usually used ‘Franks’ (Φράγγοι) as the ethnic label.Footnote ²⁴ Yet, in the eleventh century the term Λατῖνοι re-emerges, finding a place in the works of Michael Keroularios, Michael Psellos, and Michael Attaleiates, with the latter using this ethnic label six times in the History.Footnote ²⁵ Most likely, they were making use of a word that they had encountered in much older materials.

Indeed, the term ‘Latin’ is found in many of the ancient Roman histories that were written in Greek, including the works of Polybios, Appian, Plutarch, Cassius Dio, and Dionysios of Halikarnassos. Attaleiates is believed to have read both Cassius Dio's and Appian's works,Footnote ²⁶ and Dimitris Krallis has discussed the strong likelihood that Attaleiates actively engaged with the works of Polybios.Footnote ²⁷ It is also possible that he read Dionysios of Halikarnassos, although the common material may have come via Leo the Deacon.Footnote ²⁸

In these ancient Roman histories, the word ‘Latin’ was used to describe a group of peoples who had at one time inhabited central Italy. It is with this meaning that Psellos employed Λατῖνοι in his Historia Syntomos, referring to the population of Latins in ancient Italy shortly after the time of Romulus.Footnote ²⁹ Unlike Attaleiates, Psellos never used this label to describe contemporaries of Norman extraction (or any western European for that matter) in the Chronographia, instead opting for ‘Italians’ (Ἰταλοί) when referring to a group of mercenaries that were almost certainly Normans.Footnote ³⁰ Thus, Attaleiates’ use of the term to describe a contemporary ethnic group appears somewhat unusual. This choice, I believe, is closely linked with connotations that the Latins had in ancient historical works.

Ancient authors writing Roman histories in Greek provided material that indicated that the Romans were somehow related to the Latins. For example, in Cassius Dio's text, the Latins are first discussed in an encounter with Aeneas, who had just fled the sack of Troy. Aeneas struggles with them, but ultimately makes peace and marries Lavinia, the daughter of the Latins’ king, Latinus.Footnote ³¹ The descendants of Aeneas and Lavinia allegedly created and populated the town of Lavinium, from whom the Romans were supposedly descended.Footnote ³² Appian and Dionysios of Halikarnassos state that the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia produced the Romans, adding the claim that the Latins received their name from Aeneas, who named the indigenous Italians of the region after their king.Footnote ³³ In other words, the Romans were descended, partially, from Latin stock, and this Latin stock owed its name to the Romans’ progenitor. By calling the Normans ‘Latins’ Attaleiates was furnishing them with a label that indicated that this ethnic group from the west shared a common ancestry with the Romans, an indication that readers could grasp provided they had read ancient Roman histories written in Greek.

Another parallel between the Roman-Latin relationship of the ancient world and the Byzantine Roman-Norman one of Attaleiates’ era was the theme of rivalry between them. The ancient Roman-Latin interaction, as presented in the ancient Roman histories written in Greek, included both alliances and open conflict. According to Plutarch's Life of Romulus, the Latins established friendship with the early Roman king and alleged founder of the city, thereby allying themselves to Rome at the time of its creation.Footnote ³⁴ Yet later, conflict erupted between the Romans and the Latins, at least Cassius Dio presents Rome's struggles with the Latins as recurrent throughout the early centuries of the republic.Footnote ³⁵ Appian treats these conflicts in more detail, informing the reader that the Latins made war on the Romans because they ‘accused the Romans of despising them, although they were allied to them, and of the same blood (οἱ δὲ Λατῖνοι ἐγκλήματα εἰς Ῥωμαίους ἐποιοῦντο τὴν τε πάρεσιν αὐτῶν τὴν ἐπὶ σφᾶς ὄντας ἐνσπόνδους καὶ συγγενεῖς).’Footnote ³⁶ Indeed, the at times violent ancient Roman-Latin interaction nicely parallels Attaleiates’ portrayal of the Byzantine-Norman relationship in the period in which he wrote his text. After all, Attaleiates, by means of his treatment of the revolts of Roussel and Crispin, admits throughout the History that the Latins (the Normans of his day) often struggle with the Romans (the Romans of his day).

Despite the violence between ancient Romans and Latins, the parallel with the Romans and Normans of the eleventh century might have been useful because it was suggestive of how the Romans could ultimately interact with the Normans in the post-Manzikert era. According to the ancient histories that Attaleiates had access to, the Latins were eventually united with the Romans. By calling the Normans ‘Latins’ Attaleiates was possibly hinting that the Byzantine Romans could in time be united with the Normans.Footnote ³⁷ After all, in the ancient Roman histories that have been mentioned, the Romans defeated the Latins but subsequently integrated them into the emerging Roman polity. For example, Cassius Dio claims that when the Romans conquered the Latins, they granted all Latins equal citizenship despite the previous struggles between them.Footnote ³⁸ In a similar statement, Appian states that after the Romans conquered the Latins, the Romans granted them partial rights. Later in the text, he discusses the famous Republican Romans, the Gracchi brothers, who argued for Rome's inclusion of the Latins by means of granting them full Roman citizenship. Appian writes: ‘since the senate could not with decency refuse this privilege to men of the same race (ὡς οὐκ εὐπρεπῶς συγγενέσι τῆς βουλῆς ἀντιστῆναι δυναμένης).’Footnote ³⁹ This statement underscores not only the absorption of the Latins into Rome but also the presumed common ancestry of the two groups.

By drawing a parallel between ancient Romans and Latins, and his contemporary Romans and the Normans he called ‘Latins,’ Attaleiates offered a suggestion to integrate their Norman rivals. This parallel is present in another example in the History, where Attaleiates uses the ancient ethnic label ‘Alban’ (Ἀλβανοὶ) to describe a contingent in Maniakes’ army during the empire's attempt to retake Sicily between 1038 and 1040 and for a group of warriors who partook in Maniakes’ rebellion of 1043, in which Attaleiates claimed that Maniakes led an army of ‘Romans and Albans’ (Ῥωμαίων καὶ Ἀλβανῶν).Footnote ⁴⁰ It is entirely possible, indeed probable, that in the case of the Sicilian campaign these ‘Albans’ were Normans on account of their allegedly sharing a leader with the ‘Latins.’ It is also worth noting that Maniakes’ recruited Franks from Italy, using these soldiers to form a unit called the Maniakatoi.Footnote ⁴¹ However, it is possible that these ‘Albans’ were not Normans, given that Varangians, Rus, and Scandinavians also accompanied the Roman army in Sicily, but such a possibility might be irrelevant for this article's purposes.Footnote ⁴² As for the ‘Albans’ in Maniakes’ rebel army, that group's identity is less clear. Despite the paucity of information about this contingent's ethnic identity, it is almost certain that the ‘Albans’ were at least northern Europeans of some description, and, given that the possibilities seem to be Normans, Varangians, or Scandinavians, that they were good in a melee. Such characteristics overlap closely with the Normans, and we cannot be sure if Attaleiates and his audience were even aware of, or concerned with, any distinctions between these ethnic groups. What does matter for this article is that Attaleiates used an ancient ethnic label to describe a group of warriors (maybe Norman, or at least northern European), a label that implied an old relationship of semi-equality and common ancestry.

Like the Latins, the Albans appeared in the works of ancient Roman historians who wrote in Greek. Similar to their treatment of the Latins, these historians claim that the Albans shared ancestry with the Romans. Indeed, Appian claimed that Alba was originally a military colony founded by the Romans,Footnote ⁴³ and Plutarch claimed that the Albans were descended from Numitor, who was the grandfather of Romulus.Footnote ⁴⁴

But just as in the case of the Latins, the significance of the Albans to Attaleiates’ argument goes beyond ancestry, extending to the realms of military utility and political co-optation. Appian writes that in the third century B.C.E., when Hannibal threatened Rome, two thousand Albans went to the city of Rome in order to help guard it.Footnote ⁴⁵ Later in the text, when discussing the prelude to the Third Punic War, the Roman senator Censorinus tells the Roman army and Carthaginian ambassadors:

Drawn from Roman history, this example demonstrates an effective method for the Roman government with which to handle foreign groups that possessed martial competence, namely via integration. The parallel was also useful for Attaleiates in the 1070s: if the Romans treated the Normans as equals, the result would be beneficial for the Roman polity.

The theme of equality that one finds in the ancient references to the Albans and the Romans is actually repeated in Attaleiates’ treatment of the Normans who conquered formerly Roman territory in southern Italy. In the same passage in which Attaleiates uses the terms ‘Albans,’ and ‘Latins’ for the first time in the text, he makes use of the term isopoliteia to place the Normans on an equal footing with the Byzantine Romans.Footnote ⁴⁷ This passage's location in the History is prominent, as it occurs in the first chapter of the text (aside from the proem). The word isopoliteia, literally ‘equal citizenship,’ does not translate easily into English. One could render it as ‘commonwealth,’ but this term potentially brings forth modern connotations that would probably be out of place here. What we can confidently say about the term is that it denotes a level of equality. In other words, the Albans and Romans were equals, a far cry from the separation of ‘barbarians’ and ‘Romans.’ Interestingly, as Paul Magdalino noted, Attaleiates never actually calls the Normans ‘barbarians’ in his text.Footnote ⁴⁸ The only exception to this statement is Roussell, whom Attaleiates (in one instance) calls a ‘barbarian’ for burning Chrysopolis. Despite this one example, it appears that Albans and Latins of Attaleiates’ text are not barbarians and share a degree of equality with his fellow Romans.

Finally, there is one odd and intriguing example in the History that seems to fit the notion that Attaleiates was calling for an integration of Romans and Normans, or, at the very least, was lessening the perceived separation between Romans and western European barbarians. Essentially, Attaleiates did not simply try to convince his patron and fellow courtiers that the Normans were closely related to the Romans by labelling the former ‘Latins’ and ‘Albans.’ He took an additional step, claiming that members of the Roman elite (including their emperor) were partially descended from western barbarians, specifically the Celtiberians. Attaleiates makes this claim in his digression concerning the ancestry of the emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates. The History proclaims that Botaneiates issued from the Phokades, a family of military aristocrats from Asia Minor who had been of central importance in the empire's eleventh-century internal politics.Footnote ⁴⁹ In turn, Attaleiates claims that the Phokades were descended from the Fabii, from whom the famous and important republican Roman families of the Scipiones and Aemilius Paulus were also allegedly descended.Footnote ⁵⁰ By connecting his patron with Scipio Africanus, Scipio Asiaticus, and Aemilius Paulus, all of whom were individually mentioned in the History, Attaleiates associated Botaneiates with a venerable family tree that would have given him an impressive Roman pedigree.

However, Attaleiates also included another group of people in this family tree: the Celtiberians. This inclusion is odd because the Celtiberians were people from Spain who had fought against the Romans for a long time in the republican period and were regarded by Roman sources as ‘barbarians.’ Attaleiates claims that after the Romans subjugated Spain, a ‘great mixing of populations occurred (ἀναμὶξ σύνθεσιν ἐξ ἐπιγαμβρείας καὶ μετοικιῶν πρὸς ἀλλήλους),’Footnote ⁵¹ and that ultimately Constantine I transferred several of these mixed descendants to the east.Footnote ⁵² Attaleiates then discusses the offspring of this union between Celtiberians and the descendants of the Fabii:

Thus, Attaleiates asserts that the family of the Phokades possessed a ‘barbaric’ element in their background. Yet in no way does Attaleiates imply that such an element was negative. Instead he claimed that this mixture was between two noble and courageous groups.Footnote ⁵⁴ Where did Attaleiates find this information? The works of Appian and Cassius Dio discuss ‘Celtiberians’ and the wars between them and the Romans in Spain, with the latter author writing that the Roman general Scipio Africanus co-opted the Celtiberians in the Second Punic War, and managed to obtain their loyalty through kind acts.Footnote ⁵⁵ But he made no explicit mention of mixing the Roman population with the Celtiberian one, at least not in the fragmentary material that has come down to us. Given the absence of this ‘mixing’ in the sources, it seems that Attaleiates either made it up, or perhaps assumed it was the inevitable result of Scipio's actions. However, when contemplating Attaleiates’ access to material from Cassius Dio, we must constantly bear in mind the distinct possibility that he had access to textual fragments that we are missing and in which such an outcome was described. Even with access to such material, Attaleiates’ emphasis on this ancestry represents an authorial choice, one that makes an important statement regarding both the empire's ruler at the time, Nikephoros III Botaneiates, and ideas about Roman and barbarian categories.

Attaleiates was not the only member of the empire's governing elite who employed Roman history to address the situation of the 1070s. His fellow courtier and historian, Michael Psellos, also constructed a fictive genealogy in that decade, using historical writing to link Romans and barbarians in the distant past. In his less popular (in the modern era) Historia Syntomos (Short History), a compilation of brief biographies of Roman kings, consuls, and emperors written as a Mirror of Princes for the emperor Michael VII Doukas (r.1071-1078), Psellos provides an unusual account of the second-century Roman emperor Trajan. While it is not surprising that he describes the emperor's career and character in glowing terms, Psellos mentions something unusual, noting that the emperor Trajan ‘was a Celt and a barbarian’ (Κελτὸς μὲν καὶ βάρβαρος ὁ βασιλεὺς).Footnote ⁵⁶ Similar to Attaleiates’ reference to the alleged mixing of Celtiberian and Roman populations in Spain, the claim is unattested in the older Roman histories he was using, at least as far as we can tell today. Thus, Psellos’ claim could also be grounded in material that has since disappeared, or the eleventh-century author could have invented this detail regarding Trajan's ancestry. Regardless of which fragments Psellos or Attaleiates did or did not have access to, it is notable that these Byzantine historians made use of the idea of a mixing of populations and a partially barbaric ancestry of their contemporary Roman leaders.

Psellos’ authorial choice regarding Trajan's ancestry may lie in the context in which the empire found itself when he wrote the text. Given that as early as 1071, Psellos took part in the Doukai's negotiation for a marriage alliance with the principal leader of the Normans in Italy, the duke Robert Guiscard, the Historia Syntomos’ author was clearly aware that a possible solution to the empire's strategic predicament was closely linked with the Normans.Footnote ⁵⁷ The negotiation culminated in a promised marriage between the son of Michael VII and Robert Guiscard's daughter Helena, but also in a promise for Norman manpower that could be placed at the empire's disposal.Footnote ⁵⁸ Interestingly, Psellos claimed to have used historical works during the negotiations.Footnote ⁵⁹ In effect, Psellos’ claim that Trajan had Celtic ancestry may have been an attempt to convince other members of the court that the proposed marriage with Guiscard's daughter was not a bad thing given that a ‘Celt’ and ‘Barbarian’ had once been a very effective Roman emperor. In light of this detail, Attaleiates’ use of the term ‘Latin’ makes even more sense.

Attaleiates’ text was written during a particularly turbulent period in Byzantine history. Having witnessed Turkish nomads defeat Roman armies and overrun Anatolia, Attaleiates wrote a history in which he suggested that Norman warriors would be a useful counter to the Turks. Thus, throughout the History he demonstrated to his audience the effectiveness of the Normans, particularly in combat, often contrasting them to the ineffective Byzantine Romans of the mid-to-late eleventh century. In addition, his portrayal of the Norman mercenary leaders was consistently positive, including a portrait of Roussel's rebellion in which the Norman was presented as a protagonist. Along with a favourable portrayal, Attaleiates frequently called the Normans ‘Latins,’ and even, at some points, ‘Albans.’ These labels had important connotations because they were examples of peoples who had been closely related to the ancient Romans. Most significantly, in the classical sources both the Latins and the Albans ultimately became Romans themselves. The parallel may have been one that Attaleiates wanted his audience to make: he in fact subtly claimed that the Normans were of an equal status with the Byzantine Romans when he used the term ἰσοπολιτεία. Another way of convincing courtiers that the Normans should be integrated into the Byzantine Roman elite was to claim that Botaneiates, the emperor, was somehow partly descended from western European barbarians, like the Normans themselves. These literary strategies demonstrate how Attaleiates’ use of ancient Roman history was creative, but perhaps also politically motivated. Indeed, Attaleiates’ text represents the principal source for understanding how Roman officials of the court fit the Normans into Roman history. His text should also serve as a reminder that Byzantine Roman courtiers were considering some unprecedented strategies during those critical years around 1080 when the empire's future was uncertain.