Byzantine Greek Research Articles

11세기 비잔티움과 서방 라틴 세계 간의 접촉과 교류 : 문화적 소통과 협력관계를 중심으로

11세기 비잔티움과 서방 라틴 세계 간의 접촉과 교류 : 문화적 소통과 협력관계를 중심으로

Towards a Critical Anthology of Pre-Modern Bosom Serpent Folklore

We present a preview of our work for a critical anthology of medieval and pre-medieval fantastic folklore narratives about animals in the human body. These are generally referred to among English-speaking scholars as ‘bosom serpent’ legends. In particular, we provide here two of the most ancient texts from the section of the anthology on medieval Scandinavia. We also offer two little-known narratives, a medieval Latin saint’s life and one from the Byzantine Greek world.

When Did the Legend of the Last Emperor Originate? A New Look at the Textual Relationship between the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and the Tiburtine Sibyl

The legend of the Last Emperor was influential in medieval and early modern apocalyptic literature, and yet its origins are uncertain. Was it first developed in the late seventh-century Syriac Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, or in a lost fourth-century version of the Tiburtine Sibyl? Scholars have long been divided on this question, and yet the answer has implications for the understanding of the development of Christian apocalypticism, as well as the degree to which Islam was influenced by Christian eschatological beliefs. This article marshals a variety of evidence to prove the origin of the Last Emperor legend in Pseudo-Methodius in the seventh century. It argues that details of the description of the Last Emperor show a distinctive development from Syriac literary themes, and that the Last Emperor in the Tiburtine Sibyl is an early eleventh-century interpolation based on the ideas popularized by the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, likely having passed through a Byzantine Greek intermediary.

Barley flour (áleuron kríthinon) in ancient and early Byzantine medicine (I – VII c. AD)

The following article attempts to address two issues. The first one concerns dietetic characteristic of barley flour, which was a very popular product used both in Graeco-Roman and Byzantine culinary art and medicine. The second one deals with the therapeutic role of this product: different forms of remedies made from it, its effects on the human body, and various health problems cured by an application of medicines containing aleuron krithinon. To address these questions we study ancient and Byzantine Greek medical sources written between the 1st and 7th century AD by Dioscurides, Galen, Oribasius, Aetius of Amida, Alexander of Tralles, Paul of Aegina, and the anonymous author of the treatise entitled De cibis.

Forty years on: the political ideology of the Byzantine empire

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies was launched in the middle of a decade that saw many landmark events in Byzantine scholarship. I remember them well, because this was the decade when I became a Byzantinist, and attended my first two international congresses of Byzantine Studies, the 14th in Ceauşescu's Bucharest (1971), and the 15th, in post-Junta Athens (1976). Apart from the acts of these congresses, the 1970s produced many memorable publications that shaped our field. It would take too long to list them all, and it would be invidious to make, and justify, a small selection. I have chosen to focus my retrospective look on one small monograph of 1975 that makes a comprehensive statement about Byzantium and is therefore a representative illustration of where Byzantine studies were forty years ago and how far they have come, or not come, since then. My book of the decade is L’idéologie politique de l’Empire byzantin by Hélène Ahrweiler (Paris 1975).

On σκορδαψός: gut-knot or eyesore? A tribute toBMGS

Forty years ago, I contributed my first independent article to Volume 1 ofByzantine and Modern Greek Studies, ‘The lament of the Virgin in Byzantine literature and modern Greek folksong’. For this fortieth anniversary issue, dedicated to A. A. M. Bryer, I have, as in the closing words of Theodore Prodromos’ seventh letter to Aristenos (Πεϱὶ Γλώττης), nothing to offer but μικϱαῖς ἀντιδεξιοῦσα σταγόσι, καὶ ταύταις θολεϱαῖς (‘meagre and murky drops’),1further sullied with speculation on possible meanings of a single rare word:skordapsos. Does it mean ‘gut-knot’ or ‘eyesore’? Is it a vulgar form ofchordapsos, an affliction of the intestines (attested in early medical texts)? Or is it a later vernacular term for ‘eye disease’, for which garlic (skordo) was, and remains, a known curative? And does it matter?

Reflections on the Medical History of the Kidney: From Alcmaeon of Croton to Richard Bright - Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Although renal disease has been present for over 200 millennia of Homo sapiens' existence, knowledge of the causes and management of these disorders has only emerged during the last 4000 years. Brilliant insights into human disease probably emerged from time to time over the long period of human existence, but observations could only be advanced after writing began in 3200 BC. Humans could then make observations, record these thoughts, and have others in their present and future critique them leading to improvement in this information. This discussion selectively considers some of the medical giants who led the way to clinical nephrology of the 21st century. It reflects on who taught us basic principles of renal disease that led to our current knowledge. Attention is given to the ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Galen of Pergamon, the Byzantine Greeks of the 5th-9th centuries, the Arab/Persian Physicians of the 9th-12th centuries, Moses Maimonides of the 12th century, selective Renaissance Physicians, and the father of modern nephrology - Richard Bright MD. This reflection celebrates au courant renal sagacity by celebrating the past clinicians who led the way from their eras to ours.

The rise of the Byzantine Greek kingdoms in 1204- 1261 AD and its impact on the Byzantine Empire

After the fall of Constantinople to the crusaders in 1204 AD, Boniface of Montferrat, the leader of the crusade, was expected by both the Crusaders and the defeated Byzantines to become the new emperor. However, the Venetians felt that Boniface was too closely tied to the Byzantine Empire, as his brother Conrad had married into the Byzantine royal family. The Venetians wanted an emperor whom they could control more easily, and with their influence, Baldwin of Flanders was elected as emperor of the new Latin Empire.The capture of Constantinople is the Fourth Crusade's 'success', and Latin emperors are established in the city. The Byzantines withdraw to Nicæa in Anatolia, but rival claimants also established holdings in Trebizond and Epirus so that, at one point, there are four claimants to the Byzantine throne, as well as the Bulgar and Serb states.Claimants to the Byzantine throne set up rival powerbases, including this one in the Pontic Greek cities of Trebizond, Sinope and Paphlagonia. Trebizond was the last of the Byzantine territories to fall to the Ottoman Empire, earning it the occasional title of the last Greek empire.

The Decline of the Aorist Infinitive in Ancient Greek Declarative Infinitive Clauses

It seems established that infinitives used in declarative infinitive clauses (DeclarInfCl) convey relative temporality in Classical Greek, with the aorist infinitive referring to anteriority, the present infinitive to simultaneity, and the future infinitive to posteriority. In Hellenistic/Roman Greek and in Early Byzantine Greek, by comparison, DeclarInfCl do not display the same variety of infinitive forms. These periods appear to avoid the aorist infinitive while manifesting a very common use of perfect infinitives and stative present infinitives in DeclarInfCl. These tendencies stand in a complex relation to other developments in the post-Classical period. This paper accounts for what appears to be the decline of the aorist infinitive in DeclarInfCl, claiming that this phenomenon is most likely related to the perfect infinitive adopting the function of conveying anteriority in DeclarInfCl.

Karl Krumbacher and the history of Byzantine literature

AbstractThe paper (structured in five parts) examines how Karl Krumbacher (1856-1909) formulated his major concepts about Byzantine literature and its history. After a brief look at Krumbacher’s formation as scholar, the main part of the paper examines the “history” of the writing of the Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur in its two editions, as well as the now forgotten Die griechische Litteratur des Mittelalters (1905), a chapter written for a popularizing volume on Greek and Latin literature. The main aim of the paper is to show which exactly were Krumbacher’s concepts on periodization, literature, language and culture in Byzantine times, and how these concepts influenced the way in which Byzantine and Early Modern Greek was viewed and studied until very recently.

The Influence of Byzantine Law on Serbian Medieval Law

Serbian law from the early 13th century developed under the direct influence of Byzantine law. Serbian jurists adopted Byzantine law through translations of Byzantine legal compilations. The first such translation was the Nomokanon of St. Sabba of 1219. St. Sabba’s Nomokanon contained ecclesiastical rules together with the canonist’s glosses, a translation of part of Justinian’s Novels, and the whole of the Procheiron of Basil I. Between 1349 and 1354, Serbian lawyers created a special Codex Tripartitus, codifying both Serbian and Byzantine law. The Russian scholar T. Florinsky noticed this as long ago as 1888, pointing out that in the oldest manuscripts, Dušan’s Code is always accompanied by two other compilations of Byzantine law: the abbreviated Syntagma of Matthew Blastares and the so-called Code of Justinian. In addition to translations of Byzantine legal miscellanies, Serbian lawyers also adopted a great number of the institutions of Roman law. However, Serbian jurists were not educated in Bologna so, as a consequence, Roman law was adopted in an indirect way, i.e., through Greek (Byzantine) translations and not from original Latin texts. Dušan’s Code, as the most important legal source of medieval Serbian law, took about sixty articles directly from the Basilica: the most important are articles 171 and 172.

Rola Nikei jako centrum bizatyńskiego świata po 1204 roku

After the turbulent events of 1204 and after gaining the power by the Latins in Constantinople, Nicaea was supposed to become the center of post-Byzantine world as the capital of a country newly created by Theodore I Laskaris. It definitely fulfilled all the conditions to become the most significant town in the north-west­ern part of Asia Minor. The sovereigns from the Laskaris dynasty supported its development as well, although it must be emphasized that it was not the only cen­ter of their country. Next to Nicaea both Magnesia and Nymphaion need to be mentioned. Nicaea became an important cultural and scientific center of the new empire. Nevertheless, it was not an exceptional place as the distinguished represen­tatives of Byzantine scientific and cultural world lived also permanently in other towns (also in those towns which were under the Latins’ rule). What is more, the educational system of Nicaea was criticized (e.g. George – Gregory II of Cyprus). The last but one emperor, Theodore II Laskaris (1254-1258), tried to make Nicaea the only center of Byzantine Greeks country. Nevertheless, as early as three years after his death the Byzantine Greeks regained Constantinople, the real capital of the world, and Nicaea again became the center of secondary importance.

A Comparative Study of Pigments from the Wall Paintings of Two Greek Byzantine Churches

The goal of this study was to characterize pigments used in the murals of two Byzantine churches, from Kastoria, northern Greece. The identification of the iconographer was also investigated by comparing the pigments applied in the wall paintings of the churches. Pigment microsamples of various colors were collected and analyzed by environmental scanning electron microscopy coupled with an energy dispersive system to characterize the elemental composition. Raman spectroscopy was employed to collect molecular spectra for characterization of mineralogical phases. Hematite, cinnabar, and minium were identified in red surfaces. Brown and yellow colors were assigned to mixtures of iron oxides, iron hydroxides, and calcite. Mixtures of iron, lead, and mercury compounds were used to produce different hues in the murals. Black tones were prepared primarily using charcoal and bone black. Grey colors were produced by a mixture of black carbon with calcite; blue hues, by a mixture of iron oxides, calcite, and black carbon. The minerals used were similar for both churches. However, the green color was prepared either by green earth or mixtures of iron oxides and calcite. A modern pigment, lithopone, was also determined, demonstrating restoration or overpainting and thus complicating possible correlations. Based on these preliminary results, the wall paintings could not be ascribed to a specific iconographer.

Evidence of childhood scurvy in a Middle Byzantine Greek population from Crete, Greece (11th–12th centuries A.D.)

Archaeological evidence of scurvy in Greece has previously included only a few cases. Recently, during the study of a Middle Byzantine (11th–12th centuries A.D.) Greek population from Crete, Greece, four non-adult skeletons were found to exhibit abnormal porosity and reactive new bone formation, mainly on the cranial and post-cranial bones, which vary in extent and severity. These lesions are similar to those reported in previous studies of juvenile scurvy, suggesting that most likely the individuals suffered from this condition at the time of death. Further, a biocultural approach is applied here in order to contextualize these findings, as well as to explore the reasons for the sporadic appearance of the disease. It is proposed that these cases are indicative of undernutrition and that the development of scurvy in this Middle Byzantine Greek population might be associated with weaning and the type/quality of solid foods introduced after cessation of breastfeeding. The reported cases are important because archaeological evidence of scurvy in this geographical area is relatively rare, and they contribute to the broader global understandings of the cultural variables that mediate the expression of skeletal manifestations of juvenile scurvy.

Art and Archaeology

‘And verily so excellent he was in this perspective, that a man would say, his even, plaine, and flat picture were embossed and raised work.’ Philemon Holland's endearing 1601 translation of Pliny's Natural History (35.50) is one of the earliest documented references in English to ‘perspective’, understood as ‘the art of delineating solid objects upon a plane surface so that the drawing produces the same impression of apparent relative positions and magnitudes, or of distance, as do the actual objects when viewed from a particular point’ (OED). The passage relates to a Sicyonian painter called Pausias, whose penchant for representing oxen front-on, and yet conveying all their bulk and size, clearly impresses Pliny. But in a sour footnote, the Loeb edition comments: ‘there is no proof that perspective is meant’. It is true that the established text of Pliny does not support Holland's claim that Pausias ‘had a singular gift to work by perspective’. With the benefit of Renaissance expositions, Holland presumably knew what perspective was. But did Pliny know – or indeed did any other ancient writer or artist understand the basic principle of a vanishing point? Modern scholarship has been frustratingly incapable of answering that question, with authorities such as Panofsky and Richter concluding that the geometrical know-how existed, but was not applied, and others (e.g. John White) content to accept that artists understood the principle without needing its formal articulation. Given this aporia, one seizes Rocco Sinisgalli's monograph, Perspective in the Visual Culture of Classical Antiquity, with an eager hope that we may resolve the issue. It is a slim volume, and promises that ‘key concepts…are clarified and enhanced by detailed illustrations’ (cover). Alas, the diagrams rarely clarify or enhance the somewhat staccato text; and the central claim of the book, that ‘ancient theories of perspective were based primarily on the study of objects in mirrors, rather than on the study of optics and the workings of the human eye’ (cover), remains (appropriately, it may be) speculative. If read in a certain way, texts of Euclid and Ptolemy imply the use of mirrors by painters. But one has only to glance at the surviving text of Ptolemy's Optics, as translated from Arabic into Latin by a twelfth-century Sicilian admiral (sic) of Byzantine Greek origin, to see that it is the stuff of a very sadistic Latin Unseen; and that even if Ptolemy's terms meta (‘destination’) or nutus (‘sign’) be sympathetically understood as ‘principal vanishing point’, we could wish that Ptolemy – and indeed the other authors deployed by Sinisgalli, such as Lucretius and Vitruvius – had expatiated upon the utilization of a vanishing point by artists. The trompe-l'oeil trick of linear recession is played often enough in Roman wall-paintings – but that is not quite the same thing, and painters seem not to have been concerned about creating a complete illusion. Sinisgalli imagines Augustus at home on the Palatine, in the Room of the Masks: it is proposed that if the emperor was wearing slippers, with an eye-level at 1.48 metres, and in shadowy light, he would share in a unified ‘perspective’. But I fear we are still unsure.

HAVE-perfects in Post-classical and Early Byzantine Greek

In this article, I analyze the use and development of periphrastic perfect constructions with the Ancient Greek verb «have» (ἔχω) in Post-classical and Early Byzantine Greek. To be more specific, I discuss the following four constructions: (a) ἔχω with active/middle aorist participle (anterior); (b) ἔχω with passive perfect participle (resultative); (c) ἔχω with passive aorist or present participle (resultative) and (d) ἔχω with active/middle aorist or present participle and a temporal adjunct (anterior). My analysis is based on a register-balanced corpus of texts, whereby I distinguish between works of a «low», «middle» and «high» register.

Nursing mothers and feeding bottles: reconstructing breastfeeding and weaning patterns in Greek Byzantine populations (6th–15th centuries AD) using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios

Traditionally, documentary evidence (mainly medical works and the vitae and miracles of saints) served as the primary source of information for perinatal nutrition in the Byzantine era. In the last decade, however, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratio analysis has also been applied for the reconstruction of Byzantine breastfeeding and weaning practices. This paper reviews the documentary evidence for Byzantine weaning and compares it to isotopic data for eight Greek Byzantine skeletal samples from the sites of Eleutherna, Kastella, Messene, Sourtara, Stylos, Nemea, Petras and Servia (6th–15th centuries AD). The documentary evidence suggests that Byzantine children were weaned at a relatively late age. The age patterning of the stable isotope data is not as clear as normally seen at single sites. However, the presence of a higher proportion of elevated values in juveniles aged three years or less suggests that weaning was completed by the fourth year—a pattern consistent with the written sources. The data available from this study allow us to make some tentative suggestions about cultural and temporal differences in weaning, and to recommend directions for further research. A comparison of the Byzantine data presented here to data published for Roman-era sites from the Mediterranean and Western Europe suggests that the Byzantines maintained a Roman-era practice of relatively late weaning. In contrast, medieval data for Western Europe and the few measurements made on post-Byzantine Greek material suggest more variation, with some groups weaning late and others weaning earlier, by two years of age.

Owies w greckich traktatach medycznych starożytności i Bizancjum (V w. prz. Chr. - XI w. po Chr.)

The common oat (Avena sativa) is a kind of cereal which is fairly well attested in the ancient and Byzantine Greek sources. It is to be noted that medical litera­ture of the abovementioned periods is especially informative as far as the subject in question is concerned. The body of evidence shows that both in Antiquity as well as over the Byzantine period (i.e. between the Vth and the XIth centuries) oats belonged to the crops which did not enjoy much appreciation nor special attention on the part of both mass consumers as well as medical specialists. Generally the cereal was thought to be worse than other crops and therefore lending itself to being animal fodder. It was made use of almost exclusively as an emergency food in case of shortages of other cereals. Though there are very few recipes that refer directly to the ways of preparing oats as food, some guidelines can be formulated on the basis of information per­taining to other cereals. The analyzed sources appear to suggest that it was used to prepare thin soups (on the basis of oats cooking liquor). Moreover, the cereal was also cooked into gruel-like soups. Having been finely ground, it could also be utilized to prepare bread, which, however, was not highly appreciated for its taste nor dietetic value. Medical sources characterize oats in reasonable detail. The cereal is said to be not very appealing in its flavour (which reveals unbalanced humours), characteris­tic of limited wholesomeness, slightly astringent (and therefore slowing down the work of the alimentary tract), hard to digest, delicately desiccating, heating and cooling at the same time. The same material suggests that oats were used for therapeutic purposes. Mainly they were profited from to treat diarrhea, stomach problems, liver ail­ments, prepare cataplasms to stimulate diaphoresis, help remove mucus from the bronchi and feed the feverish.

Globale Untersuchung zum Sondervokabular des Thomas von Aquin

This contribution studies the vocabulary of scholasticism – exemplified in St. Thomas Aquinas – from a global, linguistic point of view. His digitised opera and the Thomas-Lexikon by Ludwig Schütz in comparison with works from St. Augustin and Cicero serve to determine the formation of words not yet present in these latter authors and changes in the frequencies of prefixes, suffixes, compounds and prepositions. This procedure makes it evident that nominalisation – especially through suffixation – is the main source of new words (although not so much with the «prime suspect » -tas) whereas prefixes and compounds play only a minor rôle. But on the whole it is the amount of prepositions that differs most strikingly in St. Thomas from Augustin and Cicero. They seem to be of special importance to guarantee the perspicuitas needed in scientific university discourse. A concluding glance at Byzantine Greek seems to indicate that there composition took the rôle suffixation plays in Latin scholasticism.

Register and the diachrony of Post-classical and Early Byzantine Greek

This article consists of three main parts. In the first part, I critically discuss two approaches to the diachronic study of Ancient Greek. I argue for the importance of not confining ourselves to spoken-like, ‘ authentic’ texts, but applying a comparative, register-based perspective. This perspective is illustrated in the second part, where I explore the relevance of Markopoulos’ (2009) ‘ sociolinguistic parameter of grammaticalization’ to the diachrony of periphrastic constructions with εἰμί “ I am” in Post-classical and Early Byzantine Greek. I close the article by discussing some of the difficulties and prospects associated with this approach, in the light of further research.