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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ancient coin hunter, post: 3571913, member: 87200&quot;]Great coin. Of Nicephorus II the Bishop Liutprand, who was trying to negotiate with Constantinople, said after his audience with the emperor:</p><p><br /></p><p>...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.</p><p>Whereas Bishop Liutprand describes the emperor&#039;s hair as being bristly, Leo The Deacon says it was black with &quot;tight curls&quot; and &quot;unusually long&quot;. Anthony Kaldellis calls Liutprand&#039;s description a &quot;racist satire&quot;. John Julius Norwich called him &quot;the White Death of the Saracens, hero of Syria and Crete, saintly and hideous, magnificent and insufferable[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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