The paper analyses the prevailing modes of description of Pechenegs and mentalities reflected in the Byzantine tradition about the “Scythian” war of Alexius I Comnenus (1081–1118). The first part examines the excursus on Pechenegs (“Scythians”) in ceremonial oration by Theophylact of Ochrid in comparison with similar account of his teacher Michael Psellus. Despite these writers were contemporaries to the first Pecheneg incursions into Byzantium, they used not relevant information about Pechenegs, but literary image “invading nomads” to describe their temper and mode of life. A reconsideration of these sources clearly shows that modern scholars who accept such views as relevant descriptions of real ethnical Pechenegs or any other nomads simply ignore the rhetorical elements in the Byzantine literature. These views corresponded to enmity function in cultivation of Byzantine identity and Kaiseridee, and were rather rhetorical and propagandistic conventionalities symbolizing a pagan nomadic people, hostile to the Christian Empire of Romans. The second and third parts concern with Anna Comnena’s view on Pechenegs, which in retrospect describes their military tactics in 1080’s through the prism of the last “Scythian” war of John II Comnenus (1118–1143).
Byzantinoslavica. Revue internationale des études byzantines. 2013. Vol. 72/1–2. С. 145–161 (EID:2-s2.0-84903526108).