DUCAS (15th cent.), Byzantine historian, flourished under Constantine XIII. (XI.) Dragases, the last emperor of the East, about 145o. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. He was the grandson of Michael Ducas (see above). After the fall of Constantinople, he was employed in various diplomatic missions by Dorino and Domenico Gateluzzi, princes of Lesbos, where he had taken refuge. He survived the annexation of Lesbos in 1462, but no more is known of him. He was the author of a history of the period 1341-1462. Although barbarous in style, it is both judicious and trustworthy, and it is the most valuable source for the closing years of the Greek empire and the capture of Constantinople, Ducas was a strong supporter of the union of the Greek and Latin churches, and is very bitter against those who rejected even the idea of appealing to the West for assistance against the Turks.
The history, preserved (without a title) in a single Paris MS., was first edited by I. Bullialdus (Bulliaud) (Paris, 1649) ; later editions are in the Bonn Corpus scriptorum Hist. Byz., by I. Bekker (1834) and Migne, Patrologia Graeca, clvii. The Bonn edition contains a 15th century Italian translation by an unknown author, found by L. Ranke in one of the libraries of Venice, and sent by him to Bekker.