Subsiciva Byzantina nova

Abstract

I Ἐπερώτησις – In his proem to the Eisagoge of the year 886 the patriarch of Constantinople Photios uses the word ‘eperotesis’, the Greek equivalent to the Latin terminus tech­nicus ‘stipulatio’. The author examines the application of the term in the text of the law book and establishes that Photios himself (or a collaborator on his behalf) introduced some chapters containing this word. They show that Photios didn’t understand the juristic meaning of the term. Also the chapters were not integrated in the Basilika and the Prochiron, because their sources couldn’t be traced in the Corpus iuris civilis. II Κεντουκλάδοι – Chapter 34.6 of the Eisagoge of the year 886 consists of a long extract from Justinian’s novel 115 (3,14), but there is an interpolation concerning the therein mentioned heretics. One of these five heterodox groups are the enigmatic ‘Kendouklades’. The author suggests that their real name was ‘Kentoukladoi’ (‘branches of centum [= hundred]’) and that the patriarch Photios invented this name in order to designate his enemies, the followers of the Roman Pope, alluding to the 100th and last heresy in John Damascene’s Treatise on heretics. III Εὐσεβεῖς πιστοὶ αὔγουστοι – In the Intitulatio of the Prochiron the three emperors Basil, Constantine and Leo bear among others the triumphal titles ‘eusebeis pistoi augoustoi’ (‘pious, devouts Augusti’). The use of the two synonyms ‘eusebeis’ and ‘pistoi” is noteworthy and a peculiarity of the later period of Leo VI’s reign (886–912). This fact is one of many indications for a dating of the Prochiron to the year 907 and not in the reign of Basil i (867–886).