Romaioi, latini e barbaroi a Bisanzio nel XII secolo : per una lettura del problema della sicurezza nella Chronikè Diéghesis di Niceta Coniata

The article deals with the political problems of identity and safety in the Komnenian Byzantine Empire as they appear in the Chronikè Diéghesis of the historian Niketas Choniates (1150/55-1217). Although he is not a political author in a strict sense, his activities as scholar and statesman make him one of the most relevant eyewitnesses of the history of the Byzantine Empire in the XII century. The political cornerstone of the Chronikè Diéghesis is the problem of safety whose lack, from the perspective both of the domestic and foreign politics, produces, in Niketas's opinion, the fall of Constantinople in 1204. The article focuses on the relations between the Byzantine people - the Romaioi - and foreign ones: throughout the XII century Komnenian emperors have to manage them in different ways in order to maintain the Empire out of dangers.

They have to control the Latini who live and work inside the imperial territories, to watch out from the expansive politics of Western Empire and to contrast the pressure of the Muslim peoples on the oriental boundaries. These problems as a whole produce a deep analysis in Niketas's work pertaining to the Byzantine identity as well as of the other peoples. Starting from this point, the article aims at highlighting some aspects of the Niketas's analysis on this topic underling how they fit with his idea of safety, in order to add some elements able to clarify the reason of the collapse of the 1204. [Publisher's text].