Byzantine Literature

The world of Byzantium, or the East Roman Empire, centred on Constantinople, offers a rich variety of writings in prose and verse. Some of these are cast in forms that will be familiar to classicists, like the histories of Procopius or Niketas Choniates. Others, like the kontakia (a type of hymn) of Romanos, will seem rather strange. In its more than a thousand years of existence Byzantium drew on its heritage from the classical world of Greece and Rome, blended it with the developing Christian tradition, and produced a unique culture to which this course is intended to be an introduction. The texts chosen for study come, for the most part, from those written in the learned form of the language, which corresponds very closely to Ancient Greek. Particular attention will be paid to the sixth century and the Age of Justinian, and to the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries and the Age of the Komnenoi, both of which were periods of exciting literary activity. Prose authors who will be studied include the historians Procopius and Agathias from the sixth century and Anna Komnene and Niketas Choniates from the twelfth. Verse to be studied covers a wide range of styles from the hymns of Romanos, the epigrams of Agathias to the court poetry of the versatile Theodore Prodromos and the enigmatic epic of Digenis Akritis.

Compulsory passages for translation and comment will be set; candidates will be required to take all the passages they offer either from (i) below or from (ii). In their essays, candidates will be expected to show knowledge of both (i) and (ii). Texts will be available in a dossier from the Classics Office, Classics Centre, 65-67 St Giles.

(i) [sixth century A.D.]. Romanos the Melodist, Kontakia 1, 17 and 54, from Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica: Cantica Genuina, ed. C.A. Trypanis and P. Maas (Oxford, 1963); Procopius, Persian Wars 1.24, 2.22-23, Gothic Wars 4.20, Secret History 6-12, from Opera omnia, ed. J. Haury, rev. P. Wirth (Leipzig, 1962-64); Agathias, Book 1, from Historiarum libri quinque, ed. R. Keydell (Berlin, 1967); Agathias, Epigrams 1-24, 66-75, from G. Viansino, Epigrammi (Milan, 1967).

(ii) [twelfth century A.D.]. Anna Komnene, Alexias, Book 1, ed. D.-R. Reinsch (Berlin, 2001); Niketas Choniates, Historia, Book 4, ed. J.-L. van Dieten (Berlin, 1975); Digenis Akritis, Grottaferrata version Book 4, from Digenis Akritis, ed. E.M. Jeffreys (Cambridge, 1998); Theodore Prodromos, Poems 3, 4 and 6, from Historische Gedichte, ed. W. Hörandner (Vienna, 1974).