Nikephoros II Phokas - Contemporary Descriptions

Contemporary Descriptions

In Bishop Liutprand's description of Nikephoros, a clearly biased source, he is described as:

...a monstrosity of a man, a pygmy, fat-headed and like a mole as to the smallness of his eyes; disgusting with his short, broad, thick, and half hoary beard; disgraced by a neck an inch long; very bristly through the length and thickness of his hair; in color an Ethiopian; one whom it would not be pleasant to meet in the middle of the night; with extensive belly, lean of loin, very long of hip considering his short stature, small of shank, proportionate as to his heels and feet; clad in a garment costly but too old, and foul-smelling and faded through age; shod with Sicyonian shoes; bold of tongue, a fox by nature, in perjury, and lying a Ulysses.

Whereas Bishop Liutprand describes the emperor's hair as being bristly, Leo The Deacon says it was black with "tight curls" and "unusually long".