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This paper takes a fresh look at the sources of Leo the Deacon and comments on what has been written about them by other Byzantinists. It will also study Leo the Deacon’s style of writing, which is certainly innovative, since the History he authored stands apart from the historiographical works that preceded it, as it seeks to meld the new historiography that had emerged from the circle of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos with the classical tradition. And Leo blazes new trails by praising specific individuals, the vast majority of them military men, around whose actions and achievements - on the field of battle, in the main - his narrative near exclusively revolves. The paper then goes on to indicate that one of the most important texts that has been identified as a source of Leo’s History is the Pophyrogennetos’ vast collection conventionally labelled the Excerpta Constantiniana; the Excerpta are then re-evaluated, particularly in terms of their links to Leo, which turn out to be close, as a number of examples illustrate.

This study aims to present and critically investigate the development of the socalled ‘higher education’ in the Byzantine Empire. Some institutions will be examined, such as the teaching with public funding (the case of Themistios), the well-known Pandidakterion of the fifth century, Magnaura in a much subsequent age, and, finally, the re-organization of education during the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos in the eleventh century, when, for the last time in its history, a case can be made for a higher education institution in Byzantium.