ACOMINATUS (PcomINATos), MICHAEL (c. 1140 1220), Byzantine writer and ecclesiastic, was born at Chonae (the ancient Colossae). He studied at Constantinople, and about 1175 was appointed archbishop of Athens. After the capture of Con stantinople by the Franks and the establishment of the Latin empire (1204), he retired to the island of Ceos, where he died. He wrote homilies, speeches and poems which, with his corre spondence, throw considerable light upon the miserable condition of Attica and Athens at the time. His memorial to Alexis III. Angelus on the abuses of Byzantine administration, the poetical lament over the degeneracy of Athens, and the monodes on his brother Nicetas and Eustathius, archbishop • of Thessalonica, deserve special mention.
His younger brother, NICETAS (Niketas), sometimes called CHONIATES, who accompanied him to Constantinople, held several appointments under the Angelus emperors (amongst them that of "great logothete" or chancellor) and was governor of the "theme" of Philippopolis at a critical period. After the fall of Constantinople he fled to Nicaea, where he settled at the court of the emperor Theodorus Lascaris, and devoted himself to litera ture. He died between 1210 and 1220. His chief work is his History, in 21 books, of the period from 1180 to 1206. In spite of its florid style, it is of considerable value as a record (on the whole impartial) of events of which he was either an eye-witness or had heard at first hand. Its most interesting portion is the description of the capture of Constantinople. 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 archaeolo gist. His dogmatic work (Ono•avp6e 'Op0o6oVas, Thesaurus Or thodoxae Fidei), extant in a complete form in ms., is one of the chief authorities for the heresies of the 12th century.