The Literary, Cultural And Political Context For The Twelfth-Century Commentary On The Nicomachean Ethics

Abstract

This chapter provides a context for the commissioning of Eustratios of Nicaea's commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics , or, to be more precise, his commentaries on a part of that work. It seeks to provide a literary, cultural and political context for the observations on Aristotle's work, which proved enormously influential not least in Western Europe and to Western European political thought. Texts such as the Timarion , Digenis Akritis and even the Alexiad itself are but a small number of writings from the twelfth century which are (rightly) perceived as doing something new in Byzantine literature and Byzantine thought. It is in the context of Hellenic and indeed Hellenistic inspiration behind works such as those of Theodore Prodromos and Constantine Manasses on Rodanthe and Dosikles and Aristandros and Kallithea respectively, that we should place Anna Komnene's patronage of Eustratios of Nicaea. Keywords: Anna Komnene; Aristotle; Eustratios of Nicaea; Nicomachean Ethics