Manikophagos 1 was called Manikophagos in Leo Gramm. and Georg. Mon. Cont.; Manikophanes in Ps.-Symeon; and is unnamed in Theoph. Cont. and Zonaras. On the name, cf. Winkelmann, Quellenstudien, p. 217. A pupil of Leo the philosopher (Leo 19) (μαθητὴς δέ τις Λέοντος τοῦ φιλοσόφου), he was present in Amorion during the siege by the Arabs in 838 and was responsible, with Boiditzes 1, for betraying the city: Leo Gramm. 224, Ps.-Symeon 638, Georg. Mon. Cont. 805. He returned with the Arabs and later attracted attention by his learning; he was questioned by the caliph (al-Ma'mun 1, but see below) and explained that his teacher was Leo 19, whereupon the caliph wrote to Leo 19 inviting him to visit; the emperor at the time was still Theophilos 5: Theoph. Cont. IV 27 (pp. 186ff.), Leo Gramm. 225, Ps.-Symeon 640, Georg. Mon. Cont. 806. The chroniclers based on Symeon the Logothete explicitly identify him with the man who betrayed Amorion. Theophanes Continuatus does not mention this connection, but his account could be thought to imply it and perhaps deliberately to evade mention of it; according to him, a young man, one of Leo 19's pupils, completed a course of studies in geometry (τῆς γεωμετρικῆς ἐπιστήμης ἄρτι τὸ πέρας κατειληφότα: Theoph. Cont. IV 27, p. 186), and then took up a post as secretary with a strategos (ὑπογραφέα γενέσθαι τινὸς στρατηγίδα τάξιν διέποντος, i.e. a military commander, not necessarily the strategos of a theme) and followed him in order to promote his career; while accompanying him he was taken captive by the Arabs (the writer explicitly says that he does not know in what circumstances (οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως) and because of his youth was given as a slave to one of the Arab notables; this man secured him a meeting with the caliph Mamoun (al-Ma'mun 1) who was interested in geometry, and he displayed such understanding as to amaze the caliph and his experts, especially when he declared that in Constantinople he was a mere pupil, not a teacher; he named Leo 19 as his teacher, and the caliph al-Ma'mun 1 then wrote inviting Leo 19 to visit him, sending the letter via the student with gifts and the promise of more gifts and high honours if he succeeded; the young man returned to Constantinople and delivered the letter to Leo 19, who showed it first to Theoktistos 3 and then to the emperor, who thus, it is said, learned for the first time about Leo 19: Theoph. Cont. IV 27 (pp. 186ff.), Zon. XVI 4. 13-22. The caliph al-Ma'mun 1 died in 833, so, if he is correctly named, the dates make it impossible to identify the student of Leo 19 with the betrayer of Amorion. The whole story of the student may however be a fiction, a romantic story, which has become attached to the capture of Amorion to give it a semblance of historical reality.

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