Laudator Temporis Acti

Michael Psellus, Chronographia 7.51 (on Isaac Comnenus; tr. E.R.A. Sewter):

But Isaac wanted to revolutionize everything. He was eager to lose no time in cutting out the dead wood which had long been accumulating in the Roman Empire. We can liken it to a monstrous body, a body with a multitude of heads, an ugly bull-neck, hands so many that they were beyond counting, and just as many feet; its entrails were festering and diseased, in some parts swollen, in others wasting away, here afflicted with dropsy, there diminishing with consumption. Now Isaac tried to remedy this by wholesale surgery. He attempted to get rid of the bulges and restore the body to a normal shape, to take away this and build up that, to heal the intestines and breathe into this monster some life-giving breath...

ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνος μεταποιῆσαι πάντα βουλόμενος· καὶ χρόνοις πολλοῖς τὴν ῥωμαϊκὴν βασιλείαν ὑλομανήσασαν σπεύδων εὐθὺς ἐκτεμεῖν· ἢ καθαπερεὶ σῶμα τερατείας πάσης μεστὸν, κεφαλαῖς μὲν διαμεμερισμένον πολλαῖς· δυστράχηλόν τε καὶ πολυτράχηλον· χερσί τε οὐκ εὐαριθμήτοις διαπεπλασμένον· καὶ ποσὶν ἰσαρίθμοις χρώμενον· εἶτα δὴ καὶ τὰ ἔνδον ὕπουλον καὶ κακόηθες· καὶ τὰ μὲν διεξῳδηκὸς· τὰ δὲ φθίνον· καὶ τοῦτο μὲν ὑδεριοῦν· τοῦτο δὲ φθινάδι νόσῳ διαρρυὲν, ἐπιχειρήσας ἀποτεμεῖν ἀθρόον· καὶ ὑπεξελεῖν μὲν τὰς περιττότητας· ἐπαγαγεῖν δὲ τὰς ἰσότητας· καὶ τὰ μὲν καθελεῖν· τὰ δ’ ἐπαυξῆσαι· τά τε σπλάγχνα ἰάσασθαι· ἐμπνεῦσαί τε τούτῳ πνεῦμα φυσίζῳον...