Nonnosus the Historian (Νόννοσος ὁ Ἱστορικός) was a 6th-century Byzantine historian and diplomat during the reign of Emperor Justinian I. He was the son of the diplomat Abraham and undertook his own embassy around 530 CE, traveling to the Himyarite Kingdom in southern Arabia, the Aksumites in Ethiopia, and various Arab tribes. The Byzantine patriarch Photius, who preserved the only summary of Nonnosus’s lost work in his Bibliotheca, is the primary source for these details, noting Nonnosus wrote in a clear style.

Works His sole known work, the History (Ἱστορία), described this diplomatic mission. Photius’s summary indicates it contained valuable ethnographic and geographical observations on the regions and peoples of the Red Sea and Arabia.

Significance Nonnosus provides a crucial, though fragmentary, Byzantine perspective on the political and cultural landscape of South Arabia and the Horn of Africa on the eve of the Islamic conquests. His account is a significant source for understanding 6th-century Byzantine diplomacy and the interactions between the empires and tribes of the region.

Sources 1. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics (Oxford University Press): https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-4457 2. ToposText (Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation): https://topostext.org/people/1430