Johannes, of Constantinople, a celebrated statesman, general, and historian, was born in that city, and descended of a very ancient and noble family. He was bred to letters and to arms, and admitted to the highest offices in the state. The emperor Andronicus loaded him with wealth and honour, made him generalissimo of his forces, and was desirous of associating him in the government, but this he refused. Andronicus dying in 1341, left to Cantacuzenus the care of the empire till his son John Palaeologus, who was then but nine years of age, should be fit to take it upon himself. This trust he faithfully discharged, till the empress-dowager and her faction forming a party against him, declared him a traitor. On this the principal nobility and the army besought him to ascend the throne; and accordingly he was crowned on the 21st of May 1342. This was followed by a civil war, which lasted five years, when he admitted John as a partner with him in the empire, and their union was confirmed by his giving his daughter in marriage. Suspicions and enmities, however, soon arising, the war broke out again, and continued till John took Constantinople in 1355. A few days after, Cantacuzenus, unwilling to continue the effusion of blood, abdicated his share of the empire, and retiring to a monastery, took the habit of a monk, and the name of Joasaphus. His wife also retired to a nunnery, and changed her name of Irene for that of Eugenia. In this retirement he lived till the year 1411, when he was upwards of a hundred years of age. Here he wrote a history of his own times, a Latin translation of which, from the Greek manuscript, was published by Pontanus at Ingolstadt in 1603; and a splendid edition was printed at Paris in 1645, in three volumes folio, of the original Greek, and the Latin version of Pontanus. He also wrote an apology for the Christian religion against that of Mahommed, under the name of Christodulus.