Byzantine Scholars Research Articles

History and Religion as Sources of Hellenic Identity in Late Byzantium and the Post-Byzantine Era

Recently, seminal publications highlighted the Romanitas of the Byzantines. However, it is not without importance that from the 12th century onwards the ethnonym Hellene (Ἓλλην) became progressively more popular. A number of influential intellectuals and political actors preferred the term Hellene to identify themselves, instead of the formal Roman (Ρωμαῖος) and the common Greek (Γραικός). While I do not intend to challenge the prevalence of the Romanitas during the long Byzantine era, I suggest that we should reevaluate the emerging importance of Hellenitas in the shaping of collective and individual identities after the 12th century. From the 13th to the 16th century, Byzantine scholars attempted to recreate a collective identity based on cultural and historical continuity and otherness. In this paper, I will seek to explore the ways Byzantine scholars of the Late Byzantine and Post Byzantine era, who lived in the territories of the Byzantine Empire and/or in Italy, perceived national identity, and to show that the shift towards Hellenitas started in the Greek-speaking East.

ВАРВАРСЬКА ПЕРИФЕРІЯ ВІЗАНТІЙСЬКОЇ ІМПЕРІЇ (ДО ПИТАННЯ ПРО ЕТНОГЕНЕЗ ТЮРКСЬКИХ НАРОДІВ РАННЬОГО СЕРЕДНЬОВІЧЧЯ)

This article describes some of barbarians in the northern periphery of the Byzantine Empire. The barbaric periphery of Byzantium in the early Middle Ages was quite diverse. World historiography is rich in research on Western European barbarians. There are still many questions about the nomadic peoples that appeared at different times on the territory of the Dnieper, the Black Sea and the Danube, and their relations with the Byzantine Empire in the early Middle Ages. Oriental scholars research the northeastern nomads separately, while the medieval Byzantine scholars focus on problems related to the inner life of the Empire. The foreign policy focus is mainly directed at the closer barbarians who established themselves in the territory of the West. However, there are many questions about cooperation between the Turkic nomads and romans during the period of their active contacts. Official diplomatic missions between two civilized worlds, thanks to the sources that describe embassies, allow us to see not only relations between empires, but also some ways of life, social structure and political organization in nomad’s states. In the context of the analysis of active contacts between the romans and the nomads, we turn to the problem of the origin of «barbarians»and their contacts with the Byzantines. The ethnogenesis of some Turkic peoples and their migration from northeast to southwest still raises more questions in the world historiography than answers. Our attempt to understand this situation is based mainly on Roman-Byzantine written evidence. A deliberately chosen analysis of the subjective Byzantine view of the origin of Turkic nomads clarifies some confusing situations regarding the researching of intercivilizational processes in Europe during the last period of the Great Migration.

Evan JonesLater Emperors

occupation of Gaza caused Aliya’s tragedy. Walls defend those boundaries, disfiguring the Holy Land and filling the angry rhetoric of America’s new president. Disturbed by these controls, Joseph draws a “naked map,” without borders. Boundaries, meanwhile, often signal violence and exile, a status Joseph and his family share. Benjamin left Poland, then Brooklyn; Flint abandoned Brooklyn; Rachel the reservation and her family; Aliya a refugee camp. Exiled from his Palestinian roots, Joseph leaves his mountain home to reclaim them. Its voices authentic, its scenes and settings vivid, the novel takes us down Alice’s rabbit hole or through her looking glass— among Joe’s favorite texts. The sharp vision of his single eye beholds a world where reality and magic converge, where the secular Judaism and Christianity of his parents coexist with Rachel’s Cherokee spirituality, where Gaza and Israel have become surrealities, deformed by walls and borders in a barren landscape both physical and symbolic. Finally, Mahmutović’s beautiful novel shows how love can bridge difference and level artificial walls, opening us to the world. As Joseph plants a mountain seed beside Aliya’s desert grave, he imagines his newfound half-siblings in the mountains playing “with Rachel’s ghost.” Having lain “at the foot” of both mothers and reconciled his roots, he can now construct his own identity. Michele Levy North Carolina A&T State University Evan Jones Later Emperors Manchester, UK. Carcanet. 2020. 73 pages. IN LATER EMPERORS, Evan Jones’s learning is clearly displayed in his engagement with Roman history and in the breadth of his allusions, but it is more deeply and subtly manifested in his deft exploration of such classical topoi as the ruins of time and the vanity of human desire. Jones’s spare, evocative, and imagistic verse offers, through half-glimpsed narratives of ambition and loss, a rumination on the transience of things in this world. The book is divided into four distinct yet thematically related sections. The first part of the book covers some of the later western emperors from “the year of the six emperors” in 238 to the reign of Diocletian. Typical among them is the fate of Aemilian as Jones tells it in “Aemilianus the Moor”: “He stepped out of his tent one night / woken by what he thought were goats / and his soldiers sacrificed him.” This part of the book especially brings to mind such Renaissance works as The Mirror for Magistrates and The Ruins of Time as well as the broad tradition of memento mori. The next two sections of the book turn to the Eastern Empire, giving voice to the Byzantine scholar Michael Psellos and to Anna Komnene, a Byzantine princess, scholar, and physician who was exiled for her failed attempt to usurp the throne. In the voices of these figures, Jones explores the relationship between political power and the life of the mind, evoking the classical debate of the active versus the contemplative life. Yet he also acknowledges that scholar and emperor share a common fate. “All glories to dust, yes, like / the library at Alexandria, / the Serapeum,” the scholar muses in “After Something Else.” Jones offers these meditations in delicate verse and in glimpses and fragments of these fascinating lives. The final section of the book reflects more directly on personal loss through a longer poem, which is an imagined first draft of Plutarch’s Consolatio ad Uxorem, the famed ancient historian’s response to news of his small daughter’s death. The elegiac tone of this section makes it a fitting and poignant finale for the book, as Jones imagines Plutarch writing to his wife: “Life is made thin / and there is so much in the grave past / and graver future.” Later Emperors is a lyrical book, somber yet lovely. Rare among works of poetry today, it offers not only beauty but also a wisdom rooted in time and timelessness. Benjamin Myers Oklahoma Baptist University Poupeh Missaghi trans(re)lating house one Minneapolis. Coffee House Press. 2020. 296 pages. POUPEH MISSAGHI’S debut, trans(re)lating house one, is a hybrid novel set in the aftermath of Iran’s 2009 election. Missaghi ’s narrator searches for statues that are disappearing from Tehran...

Evgeny Chernousov – Byzantine Scholar (by the 150th Anniversary of his Birth)

In December 2019 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Yevgen Olexandrovich Chernousov (1869–?), a well-known representative of Kharkov Byzantine studies and Antiquity, a privat-docent (1909–1917), and a full-docent (1917–1918) at the Department of General History of Kharkiv University. The main subject of the historian’s research was the Byzantine cultural, political, legal phenomena and the socio-economic development of the Roman Empire. His scientific heritage consists of more than twenty articles published in leading Western European and Russian Byzantine journals. Y. O. Chernousov was one of the first in the Russian Empire who teached the course of the History of Byzantium at Kharkiv University, and was also the main candidate for the replacement of the Byzantine studies department, the opening of which was planned in accordance with the unrealized plan of University charter of 1906. The scientific heritage of Y. O. Chernousov demonstrates his high professional level as a byzantinist. His research method evolved on Byzantine material from a simple description of historical events by retelling evidence from sources that took place in his monograph on the history of Ancient Rome, to a deep theoretical understanding of the complex issues of the economic, political, cultural, legal development of Byzantium. In addition to Roman history and the Byzantine parties of the circus, the subject of his study was the history of the Byzantine capital and provincial culture and education, historical thought and literary tradition, the influence of Byzantine law on Old Rus. Unfortunately, due to the revolutionary events of 1917, the scientist was forced to leave Kharkov, continuing his teaching work in Poltava and in Rostov-on-Don. In 1930 he was arrested, in 1931–1934 he was in exile in the city of Kalach, Lower Volga region. His further fate and exact date of death is unknown.

The Source of Nicholas Rhabdas’ Letter to Khatzykes: An Anonymous Arithmetical Treatise in Vat. Barb. gr. 4

The article presents the edition and a detailed discussion of an anonymous treatise of elementary arithmetic that served as the source of the so-called Letter to Khatzykes authored by the Byzantine scholar Nicholas Artabasdos Rhabdas. An updated survey of the extant evidence about the logistic treatises composed in the Nicaean period and in the early Palaiologan era, and a discussion of the prima facie surprisingly widespread phenomenon of appropriation of scientific treatises written by other contemporaries in late Byzantine times will also be provided.

Statystyczno-porównawcza analiza XXIII Międzynarodowego Kongresu Bizantynologicznego (Belgrad, 22-27 VIII 2016)

The 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies took place in the hospita­ble capital of Serbia from Monday (22 August) to Saturday (27 August 2016). Ac­cording to official data in the congress took part 1,260 byzantine scholars from 48 countries of the world. The largest number of scientist represented Greece (212), Serbia (122), France (103), Russia (87), the United Kingdom (79) and Italy (78). Numerous scholars came to Belgrade also from Germany (72), the USA (64), Bul­garia (57), Turkey (40) and Austria (39). Poland was represented officially by 26 byzantine scholars. To this number must be added two Poles affiliated to foreign universities. Most Polish researchers, as many as 11, represented the University of Lodz – today the most important Polish center for research on the history and culture of Byzantium. During the congress 1148 scholars presented 1329 papers and communications. According the official data 1057 papers (= 79,533%) were in English, 165 in French (= 12,415%), 30 in Greek (= 2,257%), 28 in German (= 2,106%), 28 in Russian (= 2,106%) and 21 (= 1,580%) in Italian. Twenty-six Poles representing the Polish research centers presented a total of 29 communica­tions (26 in English, 1 in French, 1 in German and 1 in Russian). Furthermore, one Pole affiliated to the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, delivered his com­munication in French. According the official data, the congress was divided into several program blocks. The first block was the solemn opening session. Part of this session was the inaugural lecture of professor John F. Haldon from Princeton University. On the other hand, during the six plenary sessions were delivered 20 papers. The third block of the congress were the round table sessions. These ses­sions were a total 49 (= 382 communications). There have also been 116 sessions of free communications, during which 843 papers were read. Furthermore, during the six special sessions the participants delivered 64 presentations. Finally, a sepa­rate block were two poster sessions. In these sessions attended 19 authors. The sessions of the congress were held either at the Faculty of Philology (3 Studentski trg) or at the building of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (35 Knez Mihailova St.). It was agreed that the 24rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies will be held in 2021 in Istanbul.

The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-First Century Perspectives by Bettina Bildhauer and Chris Jones

Reviewed by: The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-First Century Perspectives by Bettina Bildhauer and Chris Jones Marina Gerzić Bildhauer, Bettina, and Chris Jones, The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-First Century Perspectives (Proceedings of the British Academy, 208), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017; hardback; pp. xx, 346; 21 b/w, 16 colour illustrations; R.R.P. US$135.00, £85.00; ISBN 9780197266144. The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-First Century Perspectives offers a fascinating array of international and multidisciplinary reflections on medievalism. The introduction by Bettina Bildhauer and Chris Jones presents a broad history of the continuing evolution of the idea of ‘the Middle Ages’ from the fourteenth century to the present day. The collection is then divided into three themed sections, with various genres and areas, such as film, literature, politics, and Byzantinism, discussed across all the sections. One of the major strengths of this wide-ranging collection is its diversity of voices and of subject matter, with topics ranging from how Old Norse sagas are used as evidence by climate change deniers, to the way that Lady Gaga employs medieval iconography in her music videos. Part I of the collection looks at medievalism in politics and histories. Bruce Holsinger’s chapter traces the origin of the idea of the ‘medieval Warm Period’ to a naïve reading of Landnámabók, highlighting the afterlife of the idea of the ‘Warm Period’ in political discourse regarding climate change in order to argue for a more engaged relationship between natural sciences and the humanities. Eamon Byers, Stephen Kelly, and Kath Stevenson examine the connection between cultural nationalism and the figures of Cú Chulainn and Saint Patrick in their chapter, showing how these figures were used to give legitimacy to political affiliations during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Patrick Geary argues that nineteenth-century scholars such as Alexandre Herculano, Jules Michelet, and Felix Dahn served as proto-celebrities, whose writings reflect a time when medieval origin myths were used to bolster European nations. Andrew Lynch’s chapter analyses the attitudes towards and representation of the Middle Ages in a selection of children’s histories from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, arguing that these works often feature the beginning of the British nation, war, and religion as ‘the chief signifiers of the Middle Ages’ (p. 90). [End Page 194] Part II of the collection looks at practising medievalism. Celebrated German author Felicitas Hoppe reflects on her experience in adapting Hartmann von Aue’s verse romance Iwein into the young-adult novel genre, highlighting the importance of female characters Laudine and Lunette, both in von Aue’s original and in her adaptation. Museum curator James Robinson’s chapter draws on his experience of curating the Treasures of Heaven exhibition at the British Museum to outline the parallels between the medieval cult of saints and contemporary celebrity culture. Composer and musician Graham Coatman’s chapter analyses the way that medieval music is used by British composers such as Benjamin Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Judith Weir, arguing for their role as examples of a broader trend of medievalism in twentieth- and twenty-first-century avant-garde music. Archivist Fani Gargova demonstrates that ‘the political dimension of medievalism […] can only be understood through an investigation of archival material’ (p. 152), examining previously unknown photographs that prove the sustained contact of three early twentieth-century Byzantine scholars. Chris Jones’s chapter provides a rich overview of medievalism in recent British and Irish poetry, highlighting the renewed turn to the medieval in contemporary verse, and offering insightful reflections of his own involvement with two projects: the translation of Seamus Heaney’s versions of Robert Henryson’s Fables into a digital app; and the creation of poetic riddles capable of being published on Twitter. The joint chapter between Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri and Lila Yawn focuses on the medieval revival festival Calendimaggio held in Assisi, and Pasolini’s left-wing medievalist Trilogy of Life, and provides insight not only into the nostalgia for, and a selective reevocation of, the medieval past, but also the importance of medievalism in Italian culture and politics. Part III of the collection centres on medievalism...

Eustathe de Thessalonique: les élements païens de certaines citations homériques du Chant VI de l’Iliade et le commentateur chrétien

El presente trabajo muestra la forma en la que el comentarista bizantino del siglo XII, Eustacio de Tesalónica, incluye en su Comentario a la Ilíada algunas citas de Homero. Precisamente, nuestra intención es mostrar cómo el comentarista cristiano trata los elementos paganos y las expresiones politeístas de Homero. A través de una lectura comparativa de las citas homéricas en el texto poético de la obra de Eustacio, pretendemos demostrar las modificaciones cristianas hechas por Eustacio en Homero, el comentario anti-pagano que inventa, el reemplazo de las expresiones politeístas del texto de Homero por una versión monoteísta y el “método” de Eustacio para modernizar el texto homérico en su época.

Cameron, Averil. Byzantine Matters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. xiv+164 pp. $22.95 (cloth).

Cameron, Averil. <i>Byzantine Matters</i>. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. xiv+164 pp. $22.95 (cloth).

A Brief History of Self-Reference Notion Implementation in Byzantium

The article presents an overview of implementation of self-referential notions in the logical and theological texts of Byzantine scholars up to the 12th century. The commentaries on Porphyry’s and Aristotle’s theory of definition by John of Damascus, John Italus, and Theodore Prodromos are discussed. It is argued that the Byzantine scholars performed different original implementations of basic logical notions and discovered their self-referential property. The attention is paid to the five predicabilia notions of Porphyry and Aristotelian categories applications in logical, philosophical, and theological Byzantine texts. The authors conclude that the Byzantine solutions resemble some of the modern logical ideas of 20th century.

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).

The reform of Byzantine military and territorial organization under Justinian II

This paper offers a contribution to the research of the initial stages in the evolution of the thematic system. It focuses on the role of Emperor Justinian II in the formation of the new imperial military and territorial organization. Byzantine scholars have determined a long time ago that it is Justinian II who should be credited with the founding of new military districts (themes) in Hellas and Sicily. This paper, however, suggests that the formation of the themes in Thrace and Kibyrrhaiotai could also be considered a part of Justinian?s policy. In addition, the paper aims to highlight Justinian?s role in the formation of the frontier military and administrative system (the kleisourai of Strymon and Cappadocia), as well as in the reform of military and territorial organization in the Aegean basin. By creating new army units which were not based on the Late Roman heritage, Justinian essentially abandoned the principles that the Byzantine army had previously functioned on. Finally, the paper highlights the fact that the establishment of new thematic units under Emperor Justinian II was coupled with his extensive colonization measures.

Instytucja rodziny w teologii Pawłowej i Bizancjum w opiniach sądów cerkiewnych Despotatu Epiru

St Paul teaches that family life is founded on the union of a man and woman, which symbolises the relation between Christ and His Church. A second guideline to family life is the education and upbringing of children “in Christ.” The Apostle Paul, in his letters provides parents with advice on how they should raise their children, and children on how they should behave in relation to their parents. In this advice, although limited in number and extend, one can distinguish the basic elements of Christian education for children. For the Apostle Paul, the cultivation of healthy relations is indispensable, not only in the relations between husbands and wives, but also in the relationship between parents and children. Parents have the main responsibility for the creation of pedagogic relation with their children and they can contribute to their education, by providing them social stimuli. The institution of the family has long attracted the interest of Byzantine scholars. Influenced by, among other things, the social sciences, the focus has expanded in recent years to include the function of the family as a social and economic unit in Byzantine society. Since marriage is the basis for the formation of a family, the field of study embraces the rules governing the contracting of a marriage (age, criteria for the selection of a spouse), betrothal, impediments to marriage, the institution of marriage portions and bridal gifts, the status of the wife and children, divorce and so on. Under the Romans, marriage was a civil act. As Christianity spread, the Church gradually came to intervene and acquire a role in the institution. The purpose of marriage is procreation and the perpetuation of the human race, and in this sense, it is of interest to both church and state. A turning-point was reached with the promulgation by Leo VI the Wise (886-912) of Novella 89, which laid down that only marriages blessed by the Church were legal. Later statues, beginning with the Tome (997) of Patriarch Sisinnius, codified the impediments to marriage by reason of kinship or affinity. Among the most illuminating sources for the study of the family and the legal relations deriving from marriage are the decisions and opinions of the ecclesiastical courts of the principality of Epirus and specifically those of the Metropolitan, John Apokaukos, and the Archdiocese of Ochrid, under Demetrios Chomatenos. It is interesting to note that these two prelates considered the cases brought before them not only in the light of the secular law and Church rules, but also with a certain broadness of mind and social sensitivity.

Migration and culture.

Both science and the arts provide a particular perspective on one of the significant facets of human history: migration of people. From time immemorial, artists traveled around to find a creative environment, sponsors, and commissions. A critical mass formed in the cities that did provide artistic exposure: it was Florence and Venice in the Renaissance, then Paris, and now New York, to name only a few. Analogically, migration of talented and ambitious investigators to the best centers of research has been a longstanding feature of science. Scholars commonly traveled around European universities, like William Harvey (1578–1657), a native of Folkestone England, who studied in Padua before moving to London. Arts and science communities never really felt confined to the concept of anthropologically defined locations, embodied by the nation-states that emerged in the early 19th century (1). In addition to such “habitual” movements, there are times, sparked by political crises, wars, and ensuing poverty, which create larger waves of migration. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Byzantine scholars migrated to Italy bringing with them the Greek tradition and culture, which subsequently played a key role in shaping the culture of the Renaissance. Later, when the network of the Renaissance city-states started …

En búsqueda del paraíso caldaico

By drawing on what the ancient Greeks understood by παράδeισος, and reviewing different conceptions of the biblical paradise as portrayed in the New Testament, the Old and New Testament Apocrypha, the Nag Hammadi Library, the Manichean literature, the Koran, and other mystical sources of Islam, this paper seeks to determine the nature of the ‘paradise’ mentioned in the Chaldean Oracles (frs. 107 and 165). Particular attention is paid to the Christianized reading by the Byzantine scholar Michael Psellus, who arranged Greek traditional themes, motives of Genesis concerning the Garden of Eden, the allegorical exegesis by Philo ofAlexandria, and Neoplatonic doctrines, all together in his Commentary of the Chaldean Oracles.

Classicisation or representation? Mimesis in Byzantine pictorial arts as a derivative of style

The idea of mimesis in art theory has been neglected by Byzantine scholars. Reasons for this may lie in the fact that the understanding of the term in Byzantium was very complex and that it changed over time. In the Early Byzantine period and the so-called Macedonian Renaissance, a tendency to use tonal modelling, which was inherited from ancient Greco-Roman art, can still be observed. Starting in the late tenth century they give way to a more linear style. Simultaneously, a change in the understanding of mimesis in theological writings can also be observed. The aim of this paper is to introduce the problem of a mimetic approach in visual arts as a phenomenon in Byzantine culture.

Church and State, Religion and Power in Late Antique and Byzantine Scholarship of the Last Five Decades

Tackling issues of church and state is a tall order under any circumstances. Taking the metahistorical view and summarizing the scholarship on church and state makes it positively daunting, especially when the half-century under consideration spans the entire lifetime of the author. This task is made even more challenging when the societies and cultures under investigation are late antiquity and medieval Byzantium, the former (c.300–c.800, encompassing the entire Mediterranean) a paradigmatic period of religious change, the latter (330–1453, focusing on the Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman empire and its subsequent history) emblematic of ‘otherness’ when compared to the Christian tradition in the West that has shaped our worldview to the present day.

23. Women’s Authority in Death : The Patronage of Aristocratic Laywomen in Late Byzantium

Open Access23. Women’s Authority in Death : The Patronage of Aristocratic Laywomen in Late ByzantiumSarah BrooksSarah BrooksSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:Jan 2019https://doi.org/10.7767/wjk-2012-0127SectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail About Previous article Next article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Download book cover ISSN: 0083-9981eISSN: 2307-2962HistoryPublished online:January 2019 Information© 2014 by Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Co.KGThis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.PDF download

A Fourteenth Century Reworking of Odyssean Recognition

Byzantine scholarship (represented by, e.g., Eustathius or Triclinius) is crucial for our discipline, but Byzantine literature generally (original poems, novels, etc., by authors such as Theodoros rodromos or Niketas Eugenianos) may seem outside the pale. Actually, though, many Byzantine works with a more or less specifically literary bent can contribute to our understanding of Classical literature. An example is the fourteenth century verse novel Kallimachos and Chysorrhoe (possibly, as developed by Michel Picard, Le roman de Callimaque et de [1956], the work of Andronikos Palaiologos, a member of the imperial family). In this, the title hero comes upon the beautiful imprisoned by a dragon. In good medieval style, Kallimachos rescues fair maiden, and for a while, Kallimachos and live happily together. Eventually, though, a neighboring king falls in love with Chrysorrhoe. Through a sorceress' charm, Kallimachos dies. By a reversal of the charm, though, he returns to life – only to find that is under the power of the King or Suitor. Much of this roughly parallels the Odyssey, especially if one views Book 11 as a real encounter with death. I.e., Odysseus dies, but he also survives the ordeal unscathed. Moreover, both the voyage to Hades and the return are associated with instructions provided by the sorceress Kirke. The patterning of the Byzantine novel with the Odyssey is also relevant to the much debated question of early in the Odyssey, viz., the view, first proposed in print by Philip W. Harsh in AJPh 71: 1-21 (1950), that in Book 19 Penelope proposes the contest of the bow with knowledge of the Stranger's true identity. Following Harsh in broad outline, John B. Vlahos in College Literature 34: 107-131 (2007) refers to Eustathius, along with, presumably, other Byzantine scholars, as having read Homer too narrowly, and so being responsible for subsequent scholars' missing an important aspect of the Odyssey. In contrast to Eustathius' narrower treatment, I suggest that early may be reflected in another Byzantine work, Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe. After his return to the land of the living, Kallimachos puts a ring, which had once given him, on a tree. He then observes (line 1824) joyfully seeing in the ring some indication that her dear Kallimachos must somehow be alive. This parallels Od. 18.281-283, in which Odysseus observes Penelope's seemingly cordial interaction with the Suitors, but rejoices, inasmuch as he knows that she has something else in mind. There is also a complement to this, viz., the fact that later, when Kallimachos, disguised as a gardener, brings roses to Chrysorrhoe, their mutual recognition is obvious enough, as she and the gardener kiss and embrace (lines 1902-1935). It is not, however, spelled out as Chrysorrhoe recognizes Kallimachos. As far as any explicit statement of recognition is concerned, then, the pattern parallels the Odyssey, in which Book 19 likewise contains no explicit statement of Penelope's recognizing Odysseus.

Ο βυζαντινός λόγιος και ο αναγεννησιακός αστρονόμος: Η μετάφραση των "Ἐπιστολῶν" του Θεοφύλακτου Σιμοκάττη από τον Νικόλαο Κοπέρνικο

&lt;p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"&gt;&lt;span style="line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 7.5pt"&gt;THE BYZANTINE SCHOLAR AND THE RENAISSANCE ASTRONOMER: THE TRANSLATION OF THEOPHYLAKTOS SIMOKATTES&amp;rsquo; &lt;em&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'"&gt;LETTERS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt; BY NICOLAUS COPERNICUS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Latin translation of the Byzantine writer Theophylaktos Simocattes&amp;rsquo; &lt;em&gt;Letters&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Ἐ&amp;pi;&amp;iota;&amp;sigma;&amp;tau;&amp;omicron;&amp;lambda;&amp;alpha;ὶ ἠ&amp;theta;&amp;iota;&amp;kappa;&amp;alpha;ί, ἀ&amp;gamma;&amp;rho;&amp;omicron;&amp;iota;&amp;kappa;&amp;iota;&amp;kappa;&amp;alpha;ί, ἑ&amp;tau;&amp;alpha;&amp;iota;&amp;rho;&amp;iota;&amp;kappa;&amp;alpha;ί&lt;/em&gt;) by the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in 1509 is a work that has been neglected. This translation was Copernicus&amp;rsquo; first publication, thirty four years before his celebrated &lt;em&gt;De revolutionibus orbium coelestium&lt;/em&gt; was published (1543). In this paper, our aim is to discuss the reasons that led Copernicus to the translation of this particular Greek literary work. We argue that his choice was pertinent on one hand to his astronomical interests and his need to learn Greek, and on the other hand to his intention to participate in the emerging Humanist movement in early sixteenth-century Poland.&lt;/p&gt;