Nicolāus
(
Νικόλαος).
1.
Called
Damascēnus. A Greek historian
of Damascus. At the suggestion of the Jewish king, Herod the Great, whose intimate friend he
was, and who had recommended him to Augustus (B.C. 6), he wrote an autobiography, of which
fragments remain; a comprehensive history of the world down to his own times in 144 books,
which is partly preserved in fragments exhibiting an agreeable style. A portion of his
panegyrical biography of Augustus has come down to us. The remains of Nicolaüs are
edited by Dindorf in the
Hist. Graeci (1870). See
Steinmetz, Herod und Nicolaus (1861).
2.
Called Chalcocondyles, a Byzantine historian of the
fifteenth century A.D., who wrote a history of the Empire from 1298 to 1463, including the
capture of Constantinople
(1453). It is in ten books.