A BARTIMAEUS CHRONOLOGY

Bartimaeus the djinni, known also as Bartimaeus of Uruk, Sakhr al-Jinni, N’gorso the Mighty, Rekhyt of Egypt (and many other titles) has had one of the longest and most varied careers of all spirits, great or small. As a djinni of the fourth level, he is powerful enough to be extremely useful, while not being as dangerous to summon as many of the great afrits and marids. For this reason magicians have made use of his talents throughout history; the fact that he’s nevertheless managed to survive to the present day is testimony to either (a) his sheer panache and intelligence (Bartimaeus’s opinion) or (b) his low cunning and outright luck (everyone else’s).

No complete account of his career exists. What we do know comes mainly from Bartimaeus himself. Since he boasts long and hard about his triumphs, while keeping quiet about the worst bits, quite a lot of gaps remain.