From Pseudo-Libanius to Nicodemos Hagioreites: The Evolution of an Early Byzantine Letter-Writing Manual

Abstract

Pseudo-Libanius’s (Pseudo-Proclus’s) Characteres epistolici is an early Byzantine manual, an anonymous theoretical treatise on letter-writing, presumably created in the 5 th century. The treatise contains a theoretical introduction, a list of 41 letter types, and definitions and samples of each type. The treatise remained an influential source for over a thousand years: the text was repeatedly copied, commented on, corrected, and considerably supplemented. If the original version has been studied properly enough, the later ones have not been paid attention to. The purpose of this article is to characterise the evolution of the treatise of Pseudo-Libanius, highlight its main versions, and characterise them from the point of view of their content, style, date of creation, and function. It is possible to identify four basic versions: the first is the original text of the treatise, created in the 5 th century; in the 2 nd version (7 th –10 th c.), the original text is supplemented by new samples; in the 3 rd version (12 th –15 th c.) samples of the first and second editions are replaced with new ones; the 4 th version (18 th c.), written by Nicodemos Hagioreites, derives from the 3 rd version. The distinctive features of each version are determined by the example of one of the epistolary types represented in all four versions, that of the “contemptuous letter”. The author demonstrates that the main purpose of creating new versions was to update samples, to adapt them to the current standards of epistolary etiquette and to make them appropriate for the use in the educational process. The letter-writing manual of Nicodemos Hagioreites differs from the other versions, being a combination of a practical letter-writing guide and a didactic treatise.