Byzantine Studies Conference Archives

Fourth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference
3-4 November, 1978
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS

The Byzantine Studies Conference is an annual forum for the presentation and discussion of papers embodying current research on all aspects of Byzantine history and culture. The Fourth Annual Conference is dedicated to Professor Paul J. Alexander (1910-1977), whose picture appears on the cover of these Abstracts. Professor Alexander, who taught most recently at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan, was for years one of the leading exponents of Byzantine Studies in North America. Professor Alexander left an admirable legacy, both as a scholar and as an individual, and it is a pleasure to dedicate this conference to him. The Abstracts of Papers is printed from camera-ready copy supplied by the speakers. Copies are presented to each registered participant, and they are available to libraries and other interested persons. A five year charter subscription to the Abstracts (covering the years 1975 to 1979) can be ordered for $10. Individual back copies may be purchased for $3. Because the Byzantine Studies Conference has no permanent staff, please prepay all orders (checks payable to the Byzantine Studies Conference) and send then to:

Byzantine Studies Conference
c/o Dumbarton Oaks
1703 32nd Street
N.W. Washington, D.C. 20007

Additions or corrections to the BSC mailing list should be sent to the same address.

Timothy E. Gregory
Ohio State University

CONTENTS

Byzantine Studies Conference.

Abstracts of papers--Byzantine Studies Conference. 1st-1975-
Madison, Wis. [etc.] Byzantine Studies Conference.
v. 22 cm. annual.
Key title: Abstracts of papers--Byzantine Studies Conference.
ISSN 0147-3387
1. Byzantine Empire--Congresses.
DF501.5.B9a 949.5 77-79346
MARC-S


I. ROME IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY

The Eighth-Century Papacy: Some Considerations of Political Theory

David Henry Miller, University of Oklahoma

While the political actions of Roman popes in the eighth century may be described as anti-Byzantine, the ultimate roots of papal political conceptions were Byzantine, and remained so through the eighth century. The hostilities between the popes and the emperors in Constantinople were clearly very deep-seated. The heavy-handed attitudes of some seventh century emperors, notably Constans II and Justinian II, had clearly eroded both Roman and Central Italian commitment to the continuing connection with the eastern state. Moreover, the quarrel over the status of holy icons, and the tax dispute between Leo III and Gregory II, pushed the papacy to the radical policy of secession from the Byzantine state. The demonstrated inability of the exarch in Ravenna to prevent or interrupt the Roman Synod of A.D. 731, at which iconoclasm and the emperor were formally condemned, and the failure of Constantine V to either prevent or disrupt the Franco-papal alliance of A.D. 754, effectively signified the permanization of the papal secession. The level of hostility felt towards the emperors was indeed high by the middle of the century, and, in the words of Pope Paul I, the Byzantines were "nefandissimi Graeci." But, though there is no doubting the genuineness of the papal rejection of imperial rule during the period, the papacy was still, in many respects, an institution which operated within a larger Byzantine cultural context. In especial, the popes thought about political and constitutional issues in a conceptual context determined by traditional Byzantine political and ecclesiological views. The near identity of state and church as elements of the respublica Christiana, presided over by an imperial officer designated by God, and responsible, through the clergy, for his conduct of the affairs of state in a manner consistent with the best interests of the Christian society, remained a fixed element of papal thought. While the papacy did refashion its political and ecclesiological convictions along the lines of Leonine and Gelasian conceptions of the papal office itself, its views remained largely Byzantine. This fundamentally Byzantine view of the state therefore determined papal reactions to new situations created by alliance with the Franks. The attempt to articulate a specific view of kingship as applied to Pepin the Short, was an attempt to place the Frankish king in a Byzantine, rather than a western, political framework. The attempt to recreate the imperial office in A.D. 800, was owing to the same motivation.

Papal Historiography and Papal Politics in Eighth-Century Rome

Jane Bishop, Columbia University

During the course of the eighth century the political situation altered drastically for Rom and the Papacy. Rome began the century under the administration of the Exarch of Ravenna and under the sovereignty of an Emperor at Constantinople who claimed the right to arrest the Pope or summon him on demand. It ended it as the capital of an independent state under the sovereignty of the Pope and the protect- ion of the Kings of the Franks. The Popes, during this process, at first assumed responsibility for their city and environs only involuntarily as the Emperors proved unable to do so; they continued to hope for an Imperial return to orthodoxy from Iconoclasm and Imperial aid against the threatening Lombards. But later, they began to adopt the policy of deliberately controlling their own political destinies by setting themselves up as de jure rulers of their State. The Papal claim to this temporal rule also involved a claim to authority over temporal rulers so that the latter would help and defend Rome at need. This in turn involved a policy of building up lapal prestige per se as a source of this authority. This policy is reflected in the Papal sources of the period.

The Liber Pontificalis, that ongoing series of Papal biographies, begins the century as a fairly outspoken commentary on its subjects' lives, and ends it as an entirely official source, ignoring the negative and emphasizing the miraculous, the heroic and the prestigious. Papal letters to the Frankish rulers emphasize, to a previously unheard-of extent, the Popes' Heaven-bestowed authority and their right to obedience and protection from the Franks. The Donation of Constantine, forged in Papal circles in the latter half of the century, splendidly justifies the principle of temporal rule by the Pope, with no less than Imperial trappings. The terms used for Papal accouterments in such sources as the Liber Pontificalis and the contempor- ary Ordines Romani change from those with neutral or ecclesiastical connotations to those implying temporal sovereignty. At length, in the reign of Hadrian I, the new idea of Papal independence and authority begins to be expressed even in regard to the Popes' former sovereigns, the Byzantines.

Thus, the eighth century sees the beginning of the tendency of Papal sources, which becomes very pronounced in the ninth century, deliberately to foster the image of the Pope as autonomous and powerful as a source of needed political strength. The success of this policy is seen at the very end of the century , when by an invocation of the Papal mystique Leo III turns aside the serious accusations of his enemies and then appears to the world as the creator of an Imperial title. The attitude of the Byzantine sources to the coronation of Charlemagne shows that they do not fully understand or accept the new Papal ideology but such people as the anonymous interpolator of the letters of Pope Gregory II to Leo III obviously place the Pope high in regard to rulers, showing that the Papacy's view of itself was making headway also in Byzantium.

The Gospels of St. Augustine and Painting in Rome in the Eighth Century

John Mitchell, University of East Anglia

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms. 286 is always thought to be an Italian book of the sixth century. A not very venerable tradition claims that it once belonged to St. Augustine, the Roman abbot whom Pope Gregory the Great sent to evangelize the south of England in 597; and although the evidence is nothing if not tenuous, most scholars accept this story. What is certain is that the book was in England early in the Anglo-Saxon period, when an insular scribe made many corrections to the text in an uncial which closely copies the original script, and in an Anglo-Saxon minuscule. In the first half of the ninth century it was probably at Canterbury, where the artist of the Canterbury Gospels, London, British Library, Royal Ms. I.E.VI., may have looked to it for the one evangelist symbol that survives in his book, St. Luke's calf. And it was certainly in Canterbury, at the abbey of St. Augustine, in the late tenth and in the eleventh centuries, when two documents recording grants to that house were written into it.

The manuscript is invariably dated by its script, which E.A. Lowe, in volume II of his C.L.A., characterized as Italian of the sixth century. But the style of its illuminations has received scant attention, and little attempt has been made to establish their artistic context.

The decoration of the codex --the portrait of the evangelist St. Luke flanked by tiny scenes from the Ministry of Christ, and the series of twelve small episodes from the Passion which are laid out on a preceding page--does not fall in with what we know of artistic developments in sixth-century Italy. But it does fit easily into the context of painting in Rome in the eighth century. A considerable number of works of this period have survived in Rome; and it is possible to chart the course of a tradition of painting there--probably strongly influenced by contemporary Byzantine art at its outset--from ca. 700 to the mid-ninth century. This tradition runs from the scenes in the presbytery and choir of S. Maria Antiqua, of the first decade of the eighth century; through a number of works dating from the middle of the century (in particular the paintings in the Chapel of Theodotus in S. Maria Antiqua, the Old Testament cycle on the north wall of that church, and some fragments from the crypt of S. Maria in Via Lata); and then on to the late, stiffened, almost moribund version of the style to be seen in the scenes of martyrdoms in the north transept of S. Prassede, of the time of Paschal I, and in a group of paintings in the lower church of S. Clemente, of the mid-ninth century. It is to this tradition that the sequence of little scenes in the Corpus Gospels belongs. The figure of St. Luke and certain details of his elaborate arched tabernacle also fit happily into an eighth-century context.

The paper concludes with a consideration of the problems of dating raised by the script of the manuscript.

Byzantine Influence on Roman Painting in the First Half of the Eighth Century

John Osborne, Courtauld Institute of Art

An examination of life in the city of Rome in the first half of the eighth century reveals the immense influence exerted by Byzantium not only in the spheres of political lif eand religious affairs but also on the more mundane aspects of popular culture. This is reflected to a large extent in painted church decorations which have survived from this period. Art depends largely on patronage, and the primary source of patronage in the city, namely the papacy, was dominated by Greek-speaking clerics. The Liber Pontificalis informs us that of the eight popes whose reigns span the first half of the eighth century, four were Syrian and three Greek. Wall paintings with Greek inscriptions in S. Maria Antiqua and San Saba testify to the patronage of this community.

The influence exerted on art by the Greek presence in the city may be divided into two categories: active and passive. With Constantinople providing the lead in cultural standards for the empire, it is only natural that Greeks in Rome would look to the east for artists to paint their churches and monasteries. It is possible that the John VII paintings in S. Maria Antiqua were produced in this fashion, and there is less doubt about the origin of the fresco painters of Castelseprio in northern Italy. Patronage also dictated the choice of subject matter. Thus it is no surprise to find the images of large numbers of eastern saints portrayed on the walls of S. Maria Antiqua and other churches, almost to the exclusion of indigenous Roman martyrs. The elaborate hagiographic cycle of saints Cyricus and Julitta in the Theodotus chapel is an excellent case in point. The period circa A.D. 700 witnessed the introduction to Rome of a number of iconographic innovations apparently imported from the east, for example the Anastasis which appears three times in the decorations commissioned by John VII. Also in this category are the direct attempts by centralized authority to control iconography, for example the well-known canon 82 of the Quinisext Council (A.D. 692), which insisted that Christ should only be represented in his human form. In this instance, however, the results for Roman painting were exactly the opposite of what had been intended.

Underlying the preference for things Byzantine was a cultural context again dominated by models coming from the east. The coins in daily use in the city, although produced in local mints, portrayed images designed in Constantinople. Thus the new iconographic type of Christ introduced on the coins from the second reign of Justinian II was put to use almost at once on the triumphal arch of S. Maria Antiqua. In a similar manner the tapestries and other textiles imported for the decoration of major churches influenced the designs of the imitation vela painted on the walls of less wealthy establishments. Much of the iconography used in Rome depended ultimately on eastern models, even if this origin was by now forgotten. There is evidence that even such characteristically Roman motifs as the iconography of the ÎMaria Reginaâ or the use of square Îhaloesâ on the portraits of living persons had entered the Roman vocabulary from the eastern Mediterranean.

The argument that in the first half of the eighth century Rome was an artistic province of Byzantium has far-reaching implications. Byzantine art historians have long been hampered by the almost total lack of material which may be securely dated to this period. Thus the painting which survives in Rome may provide a valuable reflection, however pale, of contemporary artistic production in Constantinople.

Roman Mosaics of the Eighth and Early Ninth Century: A Survey

Caecilia Davis-Weyer, Tulane University

The relatively large number of eighth century frescoes in Rome and their apparent stylistic homogeneity have encouraged the belief that there existed an unbroken, though declining tradition of Greek painting in Rome throughout the century. That there existed a parallel tradition of mosaic manufacture is a somewhat more tenuous hypothesis, since there are no extant mosaics from the years between 707 and 795 and literary references to them are rare.

Furthermore, Roman mosaics from the beginning of the century are quite incompatible with those from its end. This is true in spite of the fact that the large fragment from the Aula Leonina in the Vatican vaguely resembles the mosaics of John VII from the beginning of the century. It is so restored that it must be considered a remake of the 17th and 18th centuries and cannot serve as a link between the two groups of mosaics. Among the many differences which divide then one is particularly significant: the shift from new to reused materials. It indicates that the production of glasscubes for mosaics must have come to a halt in home at some point during the eighth century.

To assume such a fundamental break in the continuity of Roman mosaic manufacture during the eighth century unfortunately raises more problems than it solves. The workshops which produce mosaics for Leo III and Paschalis I maintain a nearly homogeneous style over a period of thirty years. This seems to imply that their art developed from a recent and rather narrow base. But where should one seek this base? The style of our mosaics defies comparison with that of any other contemporary or near contemporary work. AndrŽ Grabar and other scholars have pointed to possible links between them and the mosaic at Germigny-des-PrŽs. I do not think that such a connection exists. The mosaicists at Germigny-des- PrŽs relish the interplay of light and shadow on rippling fold- patterns. We find a similar preoccupation in the mss. of the Ada School and the underdrawings of the Aachen mosaics published by Clemen. The Roman mosaicists on the other hand relied on an economical and simplified system of double and single lines in order to represent the human figure. This system points to Byantine sources. It has its parallels not only in Greek mss. of the ninth century but also in the apse mosaic of the church of the uDormition in Nicea. What deters one from pursuing the Nicea parallel is the colouring of the Roman mosaics, which is high and ruddy and quite unlike the subdued tonality found in Greek mosaics. But this scruple in actually superfluous. It can be dismissed if we realize that the mosaicists of Leo III and Paschalis I worked with reused materials. The cubes at their disposal came in all likelihood from older western, and probably from late antique human mosaics. It is these materials with their high incidence of light red, orange and pink cubes which determine the strikingly "western" complexion of our mosaics. If one forgets about this colouring and looks instead at the setting patterns, the parallels between the earliest mosaics of our group and Nicea become persuasive.


II. BYZANTINE HISTORIOGRAPHY AND LITERATURE

Pre-Iconoclastic Monasteries in Three Regions of Asia Minor: A Preliminary Comparison Dorothy de F. Abrahamse, California State University, Long Beach

Although no figure is more characteristic of late ancient society than the ascetic, almost all our knowledge of monastic institutions is derived from the major centers of Syria, Egypt or Cappadocia, or from a handful of biographies of spectacular miracle workers. The material evidence of art and archeology has provided information for isolated monuments (as at Alahan) or for remote centers like the cave monasteries of Cappadocia. But the nature of more ordinary foundations in the Byzantine provinces, along with their role in local society, is still largely unexplored. Indeed, it is not yet clear to what extent monasticism may be considered a regular feature of provincial Byzantine society in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. Neither its development nor its ultimate fate at the hands of invaders has been carefully studied; the introduction of asceticism to most regions of Asia Minor is attributed, in most general studies, to fourth century saints, and its continued survival during the age of invasions is all too often assumed from late and unreliable references to provincial centers of monastic opposition to Iconoclasm. Although a real understanding of the institution will ultimately depend on regional and archeological investigation which has yet to be made for much of Asia Minor, the existing evidence, largely literary and documentary, can provide an initial insight into the varieties of local monasticism and their relation to major foundations. This paper will examine evidence for the development of ascetic foundations in three regions of Asia Minor which reflect differing local conditions--Bithynia, the area around Ancyra, and Amaseia and Euchaita in the Pontus.

In all three areas, ascetic foundations were extensive and played an important role in provincial life by the sixth century. However, differences based on the geographical and historical features of the region are clearly apparent in their development. Although no detailed history of a Bithynian foundation exists, its development was clearly dominated by proximity to Constantinople, as is evident in the records of imperial benefactions, aristocratic foundations on suburban estates, and the involvement of abbots in church politics. The region around Ancyra is chiefly known through the biography of Theodore of Sykeon, but it was also characterized by many other foundations in the cities and villages of Galatia and Paphlagonia. In contrast, monasticism in the more sparsely populated Pontus seems to have been concentrated in the city of Amaseia itself.

The evidence from these provinces reveals characteristics which may be compared to common generalizations about the asceticism of the period. Attempts to portray monks as "urban" or "rural" figures do not seem useful; it will be argued that, outside the sphere of the capital, these monasteries may better be described as it regional" in a countryside where concerns of small cities and villages were not essentially different. Foundations were consistently associated with secular church hierarchies; in almost all instances local bishops were the key figures in their establishment, promotion and protection. Although less evidence is available for relations with laymen, local patronage is frequently evident; the origins of members and abbots are only occasionally known, but their recruitment and training in Syria or Constantinople are a constant theme. Finally, the origins and fate of ascetic foundations in each area will be considered. Traditions of fourth century founders can rarely be sustained; evidence suggests that provincial expansion began in the fifth century and continued through the sixth and early seventh centuries. The disruption of the Persian and Arab invasions was of major proportions in all three provinces. With the exception of a single Bithynian foundation, none of these monasteries is known to have existed after the seventh century, and the removal of relics to the capital suggests an increased centralization of ascetic life in the late seventh century, and calls into question once again the image of the provincial monk as the target of early Iconoclasts.

Byzantium: the Norman View

Emily Albu Hanawalt, Boston University

The world of Dudo of Saint-Quentin, the first Norman historian (writing c. 1015-26) does not reach Byzantium. Fifty years later, William of Jumieges' central work, the Gesta Normannorum Ducum (c. 1070-71), still does not mention the Eastern Empire; his interpolators, the Monk of Caen, Ordericus Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, include only a few references, and these are usually spare and vague, though neutral or admiring. Documents focusing on the Norman Conquest of England (Carmen de Hastingae Proelio and the Bayeux Tapestry) ignore the destination of many English fighters forced to flee their homeland, while William of Poitiers' more ambitious Gesta Guillelmi contains but six references, all positive. Baudry of Bourgueilâs Carmen CXCVI (c. 1099-1102) honoring the Conqueror's daughter Adela neglects not only her husband's scandalous exploits in the East but also Guiscard's heroic ones, though the poem boasts of Norman successes elsewhere.

We must look beyond the historians of Normandy to find a genuine interest in Byzantine affairs. Among the Normans of the South, the hostility of Amatus (who can scarcely bear to mention the Greeks without adding the epithet "qui estoient autrosi coment fames") and Malaterra (who calls them "semper genus perfidissimum") is balanced by a more sympathetic view of closer observers, the very writers a Byzantinist might expect to be most hostile. Readers of the influential Crusading chronicle, the Gesta Francorum, have assumed that its author thoroughly loathed Alexius Comnenus. In fact, as the anonymous Norman knight became more and more disillusioned with his lord Bohemond, he ceased altogether from attacking the Emperor, whose occasional generosity and legitimate concerns in the face of Western brigandage he had always recognized. The Gesta Francorum also presents a complex and realistic picture of the native peoples of the East. Sometimes they are war profiteers, spies and suppliers for the enemy, or even treacherous heretics eager to join the Saracens in battle against the Crusaders; but sometimes too they are supportive fellow-Christians who succour Crusaders in distress.

The Anonymous' exact contemporary, William of Apulia, the historian of Bohemond's father Robert Guiscard, goes further in displaying pro-Byzantine sympathies. He likes to show off his considerable knowledge of the Empire's internal affairs; and when Guiscard initiates his Byzantine campaign, the Gesta's tone shifts dramatically and permanently from optimistic to foreboding. This may reflect the feelings of Guiscard's men, who wanted to enjoy the prosperity and relative tranquility they had won in Southern Italy, and of Pope Urban II, William's patron, who had long desired rapprochement with Byzantium.

The interconnections of Norman histories assure that these two examples are not isolated or insignificant. For its account of the First Crusade, the greatest of Norman histories, Ordericus Vitalis' Ecclesiastical History, closely follows the Gesta Francorum through an intermediate source, Baudry's Historia Ierosolimitana. Though Ordericus adds some powerful criticism of his own, he can also deviate from the Crusaders' position, for instance by repeatedly acknowledging the Emperor's rights to Antioch, despite the vigorous propaganda of her Norman princes.

Elegantissime: Greek Translation Style in the Late Fourth Century

Elizabeth A. Fisher, George Washington University

Among late Roman translations from Latin into Greek, two in particular share common features and invite comparison. The Greek versions of Eutropius' Breviarium and of St. Jerome's Vita Hilarionis (1) both survive complete, (2) are both usually attributed to the late fourth century, (3) were both transmitted separate from the Latin originals as independent works of Greek literature, and (4) are both expanded, free renditions of the original Latin texts. This "free" quality has led some scholars of the Vita Hilarionis to doubt that the surviving translation is the fourth-century one made by Jerome's friend Sophronios1 and commended by Jerome himself as "elegantissime."2 Detailed analysis of Paianios' "free" translation style in the Breviarium and a comparison between this style and that of the Vita Hilarionis translator will indicate that the two translations share a common technique representing acceptable fourth-century practice.

Comparing the first section of the Breviarium in Latin and in Greek reveals that the Greek version accurately conveys the sense of the Latin original, but with learned explanatory glosses intended for a Greek and Eastern audience. Moreover, the Greek text preserves stylistic and rhetorical features of the Latin original as well as introducing embellishments of its own.

The first section of the VII translation reveals a similar relationship to the original text. The Greek version expands upon the Latin in order to accommodate the literary and stylistic preferences of a Greek-speaking audience. Deviations from the original text are deliberate alterations and additions of the sort observed in the Greek Breviarium; they are neither a translator's incompetent fumblings nor a scribe's pious embroideries. Because Paianios used this "exegetic" technique in translating the Breviarium, it represents acceptable practice in the fourth century. Therefore, it is not impossible, that the surviving "exegetic" translation of Jerome's VH is indeed the translation made by his friend and contemporary Sophronios.

The Greek Breviarium of Paianios appeared very soon after the Latin original by Eutropius, and biographical evidence, although scanty, suggests that Latin author and Greek translator may have been acquainted; Jerome knew Sophronios and commended the translations of his own works. Translation into Greek occurred almost simultaneously in these two cases, perhaps with the author's approval, and the translations were, in effect, "Greek editions" designed to please Eastern tastes. The fact of their existence and the quality of their style acknowledges (1) that Greeks of literary sophistication generally could not (or did not) read Latin literature in the original language, (2) that in the Greek world there was, however, a demand for certain types of Latin literature (e.g., history and hagiography), and (3) that, then as now, translators and authors recognized that a completely literal translation is not necessarily an accurate and effective one.

1 Grundy Steiner in Studies in the Text Tradition of St. Jerome's Vitae Patrum, ed. William A. Oldfather (Urbana, Ill., 1943) 446-47.

2 De Viris Illustribus 134.

The De Aedificiis of Procopius as Panegyric

J.A.S. Evans, University of British Columbia

The aim of this paper is to look at the De Aedificiis of Procopius as a panegyric which was designed to show Justinian as an ideal emperor. The emphasis of the first book is on the emperor as the representative of God on earth. He builds to the glory of God, and receives superhuman wisdom (including technological knowledge) from God in return. In the succeeding books, the emphasis shifts rather to show Justinian as the protector of the empire, thanks to Whom it was secure, and safe from its enemies.

The picture of the emperor that is given in the De Aedificiis is diametrically opposed to that given in the Anekdota, and at times, the opposition is pointed.

A Byzantine Oak and its Classical Acorn: An Examination of Geometres, Progymnasmata 1

A.R. Littlewood, University of Western Ontario

The Byzantine eagerly embraced the doctrine of Longinos that imitation is a "path to sublimity". Modern critics are generally quick to belittle literature that subscribes to so degenerate a doctrine, and in this they are aided by the Byzantine's own modest belief in his capabilities: as Manuel II Palaiologos declares, "if someone were to legislate that the lesser should be silent because of the greater, no modern, I believe, would dare to open his mouth on account of the superiority of the ancients". Nevertheless, the Byzantine was a man of deeply rooted individualism--an individualism that he strove to express within the contours of the imitative tradition. "In the best works ... this is excellently done", as Professor Hunger observes in his sympathetic but all too brief discussion of Byzantine imitation (DOP 23, 17-38). A fine example is a prose encomium of the oak by the tenth-century poet Ioannes Geometres which was perhaps intended as a literary gift for a friend.

The little work fulfils all the requirements laid down by Hermogenes for an encomium of a plant, but it avoids the suggestion of an arid catalogue of virtues both by natural transitions, often with interlocking imagery, from subject to subject, and by the fact that it is pervaded by an atmosphere of personal enthusiasm, most noticeable in the section on the pleasures of wild boar hunting which rhetorically rises above the rest to the grand style symbolized by an apt epic parallel. The combative element in Geometres' enthusiasm, noticeable in other of his works, may be found in his introduction that attempts to place the work in the tradition of adoxography, a genre perhaps not as popular among the Byzantines as we tend to assume from the celebrated opuscula in which Michael Psellos champions the flea, the louse and the bug. In subject-matter Geometres wears his learning lightly, but shows an admirable knowledge of the classical material which in the case of the use of the acorn far excels that of a certain modern classicist, to whom were available all the exhaustive aids of modern scholarship. The most outstanding feature is, however, the way in which the cycle of the oak's life is worked into the over-all scheme. The oak is born from the loins of mother earth like a child; like a mistress she welcomes man who, charmed by her beauty, slumbers beneath her shade; before the discovery of cereals she nurtured mankind and is therefore a universal mother; now she saves mankind in time of starvation. Thus the oak is born, enjoys the love of man, becomes a mother with the responsibility of children and finally, when they are grown up, comes to the rescue whenever needed. A noteworthy feature throughout the cycle is a careful choice of words, both as one passage looks forward to the next and in the combination of human and non-human vocabulary. Particularly fine is the passage on the tree as mistress in which wholly arboreal beauties gradually and subtly give way to a wholly human erotic simile.


III. MANUSCRIPTS, MUSIC, AND MEDICINE

The Byzantine Holdings of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library

William F. Macomber, St. John's University, Minnesota

The Hill Monastic Manuscript Library of St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, is primarily a microfilm library dedicated to preserving manuscripts on microfilm and making them available to scholars. Microfilm operations until now have been concentrated in Austria, Malta, Spain and Ethiopia. Most of the 50,000 manuscripts that we now have on microfilm are in Latin and other western languages, or are in Ethiopian languages, but we have also microfilmed some collections of the first importance for Byzantine studies, plus a few others of marginal interest.

The biggest collections are those of the Austrian National Library in Vienna, where we have microfilmed 1160 or 99% out of a total of 1174 Byzantine manuscripts (910 Greek, 186 Slavonic, 33 Armenian, 5 Georgian, 15 Coptic and 11 Syriac). Also of possible interest to Byzantinists will be some of the 2700 Islamic manuscripts in Arabic, Turkish and Persian, especially the 259 manuscripts of Ottoman history. Even more important to Byzantinists are the papyrus fragments from Egypt that include some 40,000 Greek fragments and another 20,000 fragments in Coptic, Arabic and other languages. Almost all of the manuscripts have been catalogued and are easily accessible. We also have a published checklist that indicates precisely which manuscripts have been microfilmed. The same is not true of the papyrus fragments, but we do have now the means of locating particular numbered fragments, which was not the case a year ago.

The Armenian collection of the Mekhitarist monastery in Vienna has also been microfilmed--1193 or 91% out of a total of 1304 manuscripts. This collection has also been catalogued--in Armenian, however, but with a summary in German. Besides these, there are a few, scattered Greek manuscripts, especially from the cathedral of Toledo, an Armenian manuscript from Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon, a couple of Syriac manuscripts from Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and a collection of 23 Syriac and 23 Christian Arabic manuscripts from Monserrat.

Scholars are welcome to visit HMML and consult directly any microfilms they wish. The subsidia for Byzantine studies--catalogues, dictionaries, grammars, general works of consultation, etc.--leave much to be desired at present, but will hopefully be improved in the future. Scholars can also direct questions for research by our staff for an appropriate fee. Finally, with the consent of the owning library, they can obtain either copies of complete microfilms ($26 per reel) or printouts of individual pages or frames ($0.25 each). This consent is usually freely given by the Austrian National Library, but in the case of the Mekhitarist library there have been difficulties.

The Asmatikos Orthros

Diane Touliatos-Banker, Ohio State University

This paper presents previously unpublished and unresearched material on the Morning Office of the Hagia Sophia, which was known in the Byzantine rite as the Asnatikos or "Chanted" Orthros. This archaic matinal service was transferred to Constantinople in the 9th-10th century from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Palestine.

This service was purely a cathedral rite that had the unique characteristic of being sung throughout, with no words except for the prayers and supplications of the priests and deacons. This was in direct opposition to the Monastic Orthros, which was normally performed without singing, or at least with a minimal amount, and was often recited by one monk.

The duration of this cathedral rite in Byzantium was limited and by 1204 its usage began to wane. The reason for this disintegration has been blamed on the capture of Constantinople by the Latin conquerors of the Fourth Crusade. With the arrival of the Crusaders, the large body of priests and singers needed to perform this "chanted" service had left Constantinople and had become dispersed throughout the empire. Even though the "chanted" rite was no longer in regular use in Constantinople after 1204, the ordo remained in practice for more than two centuries at the Hagia Sophia of Thessaloniki. Only when Thessaloniki fell to the Turks on March 29, 1430 was this cathedral rite brought to a sudden and final termination.

The primary source of information about this "chanted" office is found in the treatise On Divine Prayer (De sacra precatione) by Symeon, Archbishop of Thessaloniki from 1410 to 1429. It is from this treatise that the liturgical scheme of the Asmatikos Orthros will be reconstructed and analyzed to demonstrate the complexity of this service.

Music for this office has been found in two manuscripts: Athens MS. 2062 and Athens MS. 2061. The former is the earlier manuscript (dated "not later than 1385") and has one version of the Asmatikos Orthros; while the latter (dated between 1391-1425) contains four versions. Because of the complexity and quantity of music chanted in this service, only one selection will be discussed in this paper: Psalm 118, which is sung only in the Sunday service.

From a comparison of the settings of this psalm in the five sources, certain conclusions can be reached. The most important discovery is that two basic families of melodies exist for the Asmatikos Orthros. These families are distinguished by identical or related modes and melodies. The music found in Athens MS. 2062 and the first version in Athens MS. 2061 comprise one family of chant that is basically simple in character, without much melodic ornamentation. The remaining three versions in Athens MS. 2061 are members of a second family that is very melismatic in nature and is characterized by ornamental devices. A possible interpretation explaining the two families of chant and their modal dichotomy is that they were two versions illustrating the difference in practice in two localities, such as Constantinople and Thessaloniki.

Western Views of Byzantine Music in the Eighteenth Century

Despina-Emvorfia Kavadas, Columbia, South Carolina

The migration of Greek scholars to the West following the fall of Constantinople in 1453 gave rise to a body of Western writings on Byzantine chant. Important for their contemporary accounts of actual performances of chant as well as explanations of Byzantine musical theories in Western terms, these sources have been virtually ignored by modern scholars.

It is the purpose of this paper to introduce to modern scholars the types of information on Byzantine chant contained in Western sources. A close examination of the Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik and the Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik, two works by the eighteenth century scholar Johann Nicolaus Forkel, will serve to illustrate one of the more concise and methodical presentations of this information.

In the Ailgemeine Litteratur der Musik Forkel lists Western references to Byzantine chant in chronological order. Two of these works, Guys' Voyage litteraire de la Grece and Sulzer's Geschichte des transalpinischen Daciens, provide the primary source material for Forkel's discussion of Byzantine musical theory, the main points of which are discussed in the body of this paper. In addition to the theoretical discussion, Forkel includes in the Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik biographical and legendary information on the most famous of the Byzantine melodists.

Some Sources and Problems in Byzantine Medicine

John Scarborough, University of Kentucky

In general treatments of medical history, Byzantine medicine normally receives a few hurried paragraphs as the author proceeds to a consideration of either the medieval West or Islam. When one does look up Byzantine medicine, in a history that gives the subject full scope, he finds a rich, complicated collection of sources that includes the complete range of medicine: general practice, hospitals, veterinary medicine, pharmacology, medical philosophy, surgery, etc. One major problem, however, is the state of the medical texts that emerge from the Byzantine period. We are, for example, well informed on the textual history of Dioscorides (fl. c. A.D. 60), and are grateful for the marvellous Byzantine illustrations accompanying the Materia Medica that have come down through the famous 6th century Anicia Juliana (which also contains Eutecnius' paraphrases of Nicander's Theriaca and Alexipharmaca, likewise with illustrations). But most other sources remain in a state of chaos. Oribasius (fl. 360) was well edited (by Raeder) as recently as the 1930's, Paul of Aegina (fl. 640) by Heiberg in the 1920's, but such major figures as Theophilus Protospatharius (fl. under Heraclius, 610-641), Stephen of Athens (fl. c. 635), Aaron of Alexandria (?fl. 640), and John of Alexandria (c. 627-640) remain shadowy. Furthermore, the state of medical compilation, characteristic of many earlier "Galenic" treatises, as well as of the Geoponica and the Corpus hippiatricorum Graecorum (both of the 9th or 10th centuries) makes understanding of particular periods rather murky, given our present texts. Kollesch has shown, for example, that several treatises in the KŸhn edition of Galen are Byzantine, and there may be dozens more.

The paper has modest objectives: to examine briefly the contents of Oribasiust "summary" of medical information, available in the 4th century; to compare botanical, agricultural, and veterinary matter in the Geoponica and Corpus hippiatricorum with earlier materials in Theophrastus, Nicander, and Vegetius, as well as the Mulomedicina Chironis and Pelagonius; to note something of Byzantine medical education via John of Alexandria; and to suggest something of the changing, adaptive nature of Byzantine medicine.

Greek Fragments of John of Alexandria

John Duffy, Dumbarton Oaks

Vaticanus gr. 300 is a codex of just over three hundred folia, written sometime in the eleventh or twelfth century by two scribes in strikingly neat handwriting. The main text of the manuscript is an anonymous Greek translation of a well-known Arabic medical handbook, Zād al-Musāfir ("Provisions for the Traveller"), composed by Abū Ğa Îfar ibn al-Ğazzār (d. 1004); the Greek is usually known by the title Ephodia.1 In the margins of this work there is written, by the same two scribes and with equal care, another text which has no indication of authorship; still, the acute eye of Cardinal Giovanni Mercati, who was preparing the catalog description,2 was able to recognize it as extracts from a commentary on Hippocrates, and from none other than the lectures on Epidemics VI by John of Alexandria, which until then had been known only through a medieval Latin translation. Mercati went on to publish a detailed and first-rate codicological account of the manuscript, in which he identified each extract with its equivalent in the Latin version, quoting the opening and final words;3 but the edition and study of the fragments he left, as he put it (p. 20), "a chi n'abbia tempo e voglia."

His discovery, however, appears to have gone unnoticed, and when the first critical edition of the Latin was published in 1975 there was no mention of Greek fragments.4 The present writer is now preparing the edition of these fifty excerpts which amount to about forty typed pages or roughly ten percent of the whole. Half of the excerpts are also transmitted by the more than twenty other manuscripts of the Ephodia; in these the pieces of John's work are no longer in the margins, but have been intruded into the body of the main text.

John of Alexandria is one of the five or six known medical teachers (iatrosophists) who lectured on Hippocrates and Galen at Alexandria in the sixth and seventh centuries. He is mentioned by some Arab writers, who generally confuse him with John Philoponus. His other surviving works are the remains of lectures on Hippocrates' De natura pueri and a commentary on Galen's De sectis, the latter extant only in a Latin version. The commentary on Epidemics VI, apart from being a good illustration of Alexandrian teaching activity, has a certain interest for the history and interpretation of the Hippocratic text, especially since the last quarter of Galen's commentary has not survived in Greek and the lecture notes of Palladius also are incomplete. In the matter of the Latin translation, the Greek remains should help to decide which of the several witnesses is the more reliable and they will provide a basis for testing the theory that it was prepared by Bartholomew of Messina.

1 The Viaticum of Constantine the African is a Latin version of Abū Ga Îfar's book.

2 J. Mercati-P. Franchi De' Cavalieri, Codices Vaticani Graeci I (Rome, 1923), pp. 430-37.

3 In Studi e Testi 31 (1917), pp. 9-33. 4 C. D. Pritchet, Johannis Alexandrini Commentaria in Sextum Librum Hippocratis Epidemiarum (Leiden, 1975).

IV. HILANDAR MONASTERY ON MT. ATHOS

The Architectural Significance of the Hilander Kathotikon

Slobodan Ćurčić, University of Illinois

The present Katholikon of the Serbian monastery Hilandar on Mount Athos was built for King Milutin around 1303. It has long been recognized as representing the turning point in the stylistic development of Serbian Medieval architecture, reflecting the general cultural shift toward Byzantium which prevailed in Serbia after 1300. Despite its importance for the development of Serbian architecture, full understanding of this monument cannot be sought properly in that context alone. The architectural significance of the Hilandar Katholikon can be appreciated only within the broader framework of Byzantine architecture.

Aside from its spacious twin-domed narthex, which belongs to the mainstream of contemporary Palaeologan architectural developments, other aspects of the architecture of the Hilandar Katholikon are more closely related to the older Byzantine building tradition. The plan, as has been shown on numerous occasions, depends directly on the oldest Athonite building tradition. Other aspects of the Hilandar Katholikon can be linked to the Constantinopolitan tradition: the internally scalloped domes and drums, the four free-standing columns supporting the main dome, the floor, the general articulation of facades, the building technique, and the use of friezes consisting of pendant triangles. The closest parallels, however, are not found among the contemporary buildings, but among the eleventh and twelfth century churches of Constantinople.

The most characteristic conservative aspects of the Hilandar Katholikon is the manner of articulation of its walls. Especially instructive are the lateral walls of the eastern part of the naos and those of the narthex. Externally, these reveal tall arcades framed by double recessed pilaster strips and corresponding archivolts. Such a rigorous system of facade articulation was being displaced by decorative, often structurally irrational, systems in Constantinopolitan architecture of the early fourteenth century (Parekklesion of the Chora, Tekfur Saray). Equally conservative at the Hilandar Katholikon is the presence of interior pilasters-responds--which relate in placement to the exterior pilaster strips. Remnants of the classical building tradition, such responds were standard components of eleventh and twelfth-century architecture in Constantinople, but became virtually exceptional at the outset of the fourteenth century.

Despite its apparent general similarity with the architecture of Constantinople, the Katholikon of Hilandar was not directly related to the contemporary architectural developments in the Byzantine capital. The conservative character of its architecture, instead, finds its closest parallels among the churches of Mistra. Relevant are comparisons with the Metropolis and the Aphendico. Similarities with the architecture of Mistra should by no means be interpreted as having resulted from the same workshop. Instead, they lead us to conclude that the pre-1204 constantinopolitan building tradition was preserved in centers such as Mount Athos and Mistra. Such centers could have welcomed displaced constantinopolitan builders and artisans during the thirteenth century, where their legacy would have lived uninterrupted into the fourteenth century.

In conclusion, I propose that the implicit "revolutionary" role of the Hilandar Katholikon must be understood solely in the context of architecture built under the patronage of King Milutin. The architecture of the Hilandar Katholikon in a broader sense was basically a conservative achievement, dependent not on the contemporary Palaeologan architecture of Constantinople but on the superseded Comnenian building tradition.

The Trapeza of Chilanderi

George Stričević, University of Cincinnati

The trapeza of Chilandari is quite typical of the Byzantine monastic refectory. It has the form of an elongated apsed hall, oriented north-south, situated opposite, and a short distance away, from the western fa?ade of the katholikon. The interior of the Chilandary trapeza has been altered: a part of the fresco decoration was destroyed in the early years of the 19 c. and most of its original furnishings replaced by modern pieces at an even later date. The medieval appearance of the trapeza can, however, be reconstructed. Behind the 17 c. ceiling, some remains of an earlier fresco decoration, dating, apparently, to the time ca. 1300, have been recently discovered. They seem to support the hypothesis that zograf Georgie Mitrofanović, who in 1621 painted the frescoes in the trapeza, depended in the selection of subject matter and in iconography on an earlier, medieval decoration. Of the original furnishings there is left in its original position--in the center of the apse--only the table of the Abbot: a circular, lobed stone mensa with a molded raised frame, resting on a hexagonal masonry base. Several of some fourteen other stone tables which were still inside the trapeza just over a century ago, are to be found lying around in the courtyard of the Monastery. Some of them are of the so-called sigma type, which is quite well known from other Athos refectories.

The major interest of the Chilandari trapeza lies in the fact that its architecture and furnishings, as well as its interior decoration, enable us to recognize the origin of the Byzantine monastic refectory in the triclinium which sometimes--certainly more often than it has been thought so far--accompanied an Early Christian church building. These triclinia were furnished with a number of sigma-shaped marble tables from which the typical athonite trapeza table derived its peculiar shape. The Abbot's table in the trapeza of the Great Lavra, built, apparently, by St. Athanasius himself (A.D. 963), is, in fact, a re-used Early Christian sigma table. The great many of such tables have been found in Early Christian monasteries in Egypt. The refectories in these monasteries strikingly resemble the later Athonite trapeza both in architectural type and physical relationship to the main church of the monastery, as well as in their liturgical functions. These Early Christian predecessors of the Byzantine monastic refectories show quite clearly that the trapeza should be seen as an extension of the church and that its main liturgical function was to serve as the place in which were held commemorative repasts in honor of the patron and the founder of the monastery, the practice which is well documented in the Early Christian and Medieval sources. These commemorative agape feasts seem to have been originally a direct continuation of the liturgical celebration and somewhat later-- but still in Early Christian times--divorced from the eucharistic service and transferred to the adjoining triclinium which to this separation probably owes its very appearance. The fact that in post-medieval times, i.e. when Chilandari replaced its original coenobitic rule by idiorrhythmic, its trapeza has been used only few times a year (for the commemorative feasts in honor of the Virgin-- who also happens to be the patron of the Monastery, and on the anniversary of the death of its founders, Sts Sava and Symeon) brings into focus the connection between the Byzantine trapeza and the Early Christian church triclinium. The iconographic program of the fresco decoration of the Chilandari trapeza appears to be the most appropriate background for these commemorative repasts: except for the scene of the Last Supper, a common and most natural theme in the decoration of a dining hall, everything else in the murals painted there (repeating an older scheme ?) by Georgie Mitrofanović, is connected either with the holy founders of the Monastery (an extensive cycle illustrates the life of St Sava who is, then, together with other founders of the Monastery, represented in the first zone of the frescoes, in the company of the most distinguished Byzantine holy hermits) or with the Virgin (the Akkathystos hymn, the sticheron of Christmas, the Tabernacle and the Jacob's vision of the ladder, both of them represented here as prefigurations of the Virgin).

The commemorative repasts in honor of the Virgin culminate in the rite which is called the Elevation of the Panaghia and known to have been--as it still is celebrated in Chilandari, as well as in other Athos monasteries. The liturgical texts of the rite which are preserved in Chilandari do not seem to be of any great antiquity, but the oldest of several panaghiaria (the patens which are used for transferring from the church to the trapeza of the bread which is used in the rite of the Elevation) which are kept in the treasury of the Monastery, has been dated to the 10-11 c. The inscription which on this panaghiarion accompanies the representation of the Virgin, is the same which, according to the earliest preserved text of the rite (Cod. Cryptoferr. G.b.VII, 10th c.), was recited during the Elevation. Another valuable source for the study of the early history of the Byzantine monastic trapeza is the Abbot's table in Chilandari which finds its close parallel in a large lobed terracotta dish which was discovered in the 10 c. Coptic monastery at Ghazali, and through which the origin of the lobed frame which appears on many Early Christian and medieval refectory and altar tables (sigma-shaped, rectangular and circular), as well as on some medieval patens, could be linked with the Late Antique platters of the so-called gradale type which were, apparently, also used as portable table-tops.

The Hilandar Cameos: The Problems of Style and Dating of Late Byzantine Glyptic Works Ljubica D. Popović, Vanderbilt University

The Hilandar cameos, compared to those in the great cameo collections, appear modest in variety and aesthetic appeal.1 Seen as a group in their own right, however, they gain in significance. The six glyptic pieces examined here apparently range from the early twelfth through the first decades of the fourteenth century.

Possibly the oldest cameo, of the Virgin Blanchernitissa with Child, may belong to the early twelfth century. Even in its damaged state, it preserves traces of the elegance found in the glyptic art of the Middle Byzantine period. The youngest example, which I identified as the cameo representing Saint John the Theologian, may testify stylistically to the as yet little known revival of carving in semi-precious stones during the early fourteenth century.

However, the most interesting group of Hilandar cameos are those four, which I ascribe, on the basis of their style, to the late twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, thus postdating the classical period of Byzantine carving in semi- precious stones. The standing Christ in lapis-lazuli could be the last known image of the Chalkites type in the glyptic technique. I suggest, based on comparison with material other than cameos, that it was probably carved during the late thirteenth century. The best possibility of dating the Hilandar green jasper cameo of Christ in half figure is, on the strength of visual evidence, the dated cameo from the Cini collection in Venice (1204).2 There is also an indirect indication that this cameo of Christ was in Hilandar at least by the mid-thirteenth century. Stylistic analysis suggests that this cameo was a prototype for several other cameos with the same subject: red jasper Christ at Hilandar, green jasper Christ at the Muzej za Primenjenu Umetnost,3 Belgrade, and another example now in Novgorod. Furthermore, the Hilandar cameo with the Virgin Orans in green jasper shows stylistic affinities with the Belgrade cameo of Christ, and may be related to other cameos representing the Virgin in collections of London, Paris, Rostov and Pskov.

As to the origin of the Hilandar cameos, without written documentation one can only offer an hypothesis: some of the glyptic pieces were imported, possibly from Constantinople, the presumed center of Byzantine production of such works. In addition to the cameo with the Virgin Blachernitissa, the pieces most likely of metropolitan origin are the Christ Pantocrator in green jasper, the carving of Saint John the Theologian, and the standing Christ in lapis lazuli. Two other pieces discussed, the cameo with Christ Pantocrator in red and the Virgin Orans in green jasper, because of their stylistic properties, indicate origin in a regional workshop. Although the locality cannot be established with certainty, the possibility that it was in Hilandar is strong.

When comprehensive studies of Byzantine glyptic art are completed, the Hilandar cameos will hold an important place in the closing chapter of the history of this medium. Specifically, they can help elucidate the problem of regional and local production in contrast to that which was centralized, metropolitan, and imperial.

1 Svetozar Radojčić, "Umetnički Spomenici Manastira Hilandara," Zbornik Radova Vizantoloûkog Instituta (Beograd, 1955), 182-183; figs 43-45. 2 Hans Wentzel, "Datierte und datierbare byzantinische Kameen," Festschrift Friedrich Winkler (Berlin, 1959), 10-11. 3 Bojana Radojković, "Kameja sa Hristom Pantokratorom," Zbornik Radova Vizantoloûkog Instituta (Beograd, 1969), 283-286, fig.1.

The Hilandar Project to Date

David F. Robinson, Ohio State University

The Ohio State University has established a microfilm archive of all the Slavic manuscripts and several rare printed books held by the Hilandar Monastery, Mount Athos. The collection consists of some one thousand codices and hundreds of Bulgarian, Byzantine, Russian, Serbian, Turkish and Wallachian edicts and characters dating from 1009 through the nineteenth century. These have been supplemented by Slavic and Greek codices from other Athonite monasteries, Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, and major libraries in Greece and Bulgaria.

The microfilming project was initiated and carried out by Prof. Matejic of Ohio State, largely by his personal efforts in the monasteries concerned in the years 1970, 1971 and 1975. Cumulative check lists have been published in 1971, 1972 and 1976. Present plans include completing the furnishing of the Hilandar Room, Main Library, and a detailed survey of the contents of the approximately 80 codices containing miscellaneous material, now simply labeled "Collections" in the checklists; a survey of the Liturgies in the Collection; and a survey of original literary works in the codices.

To date several North American and European scholars and students have made use of the Collection. In 1977 a conference of twenty American and Canadian scholars was held at the University to discuss the achievements and prospects of the Hilandar Project. Financial aid to the Project has been provided by the Serb National Federation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Ohio State University.

Hilandar Codex 292: An Unusual Martyrologion

Mateja Matejić, Ohio State University

The author presents a factual and literary analysis of the Hilander Codex #292 (360), dated 1816. By its title and the content of the first three folia, it is indeed a martyrologion. However, the larger part of the I+16+I folia 19th century paper manuscript, contains biographical, or probably, autobiographical data on Daniil, the author of this work, and, possibly, also the scribe of this manuscript. Further, there is, as an integral part of his biography, an episode entitled "Daniil's Vision" which is a publicistic and anti-Turkish statement presented in the form of a vision of Christ, the Theotokos and scores of saints. The obvious tendency or "ideology" of this religious in content yet publicistic in spirit literary work is to reinforce the hope of Christians in their imminent liberations from the Turks.

Unusual characteristics of this martyrologion lie in the author's deviation from the norms and rules of the genre of martyrolgoia, as well as in his use of the genre of religious literature to propagate the idea of an imminent liberation of Christians. As such this work deserves a closer analysis and that is the object of this paper.

"Daniel's Vision" is of particular interest to the present author, as a literary document reflecting the spirit among Christians enslaved by the Turks and their increased hopes in the liberation at the beginning of the 19th century. These hopes were strengthened by some more or less successful uprisings against the Turks which took place at the beginning of that century. Thus, in 1804, Karadjordje led the First Serbian uprising against the Turks. The hopes of the Christians, the monks of the Holy Mount among them, were greatly strengthened by the temporary success of this uprising, although it collapsed already in 1813. However, shortly thereafter, in 1815, the Second Serbian uprising against the Turks took place under the leadership of Miloû Obrenović. The news about its success could have reached the monks of the Holy Mount. One may wonder whether this successful uprising of the Christian Serbs could have inspired Daniil to write down the record of his own vision in which the liberation of Christians was promised by Christ Himself. It certainly echoes the optimism of Christians of that period and their hope of liberation. It is therefore contended here that "Daniil's Vision", no matter whether it was an actual experience or the artistic imagination of Daniil, is the most important part of the Hilandar Codex #292 (360), because it is not only a depiction of the vision of an individual, but a reflection of the cherished dream of all Christians enslaved by Turks. Its value as a religious document may be minimal; its value as a literary and historical document is outstanding.

Journey of Our Father Agapius to Paradise

Richard Pope, York University

A manuscript in the Hilandar collection contains a Slavonic translation of the "Journey of our Father Agapius to Paradise," otherwise known only from a single Greek manuscript. The Slavonic text, however, contains significant details missing from the Greek version. This paper describes the Slavonic text, discusses its linguistic and hagiographical significance, and places it in its wider historical context.


V. HISTORY OF ART

An Openwork Gold Cup

Christine Kondoleon, Harvard University

This paper is concerned with establishing the authenticity of an unpublished openwork gold cup in a private European collection. If proven authentic, this uniquely decorated cup is an important contribution to our limited knowledge of gold works from Late Antiquity.

The subject of the cup's decoration is a Dionysiac thiasos and putti harvesting the vine. Both the iconography and ornamental motifs have ample parallels in Late Antique art. The presentation of several key analogies demonstrates a familiarity with uncommon motifs which suggests an artist fluent in Late Classical art. When one considers the great number of motifs presented with an internal consistency and a historical accuracy, it is difficult to imagine a forger's hand.

The more controversial aspect of the cup is its technique. The openwork cup was discovered along with a plain gold cup but the relationship between these two cups is unclear. There is no evidence to indicate that the two cups were ever physically connected. Yet, since they have traveled together the question of their relation- ship must be addressed. An examination of the comparable openwork vessels, that is, the diatreta or glass cage-cups (e.g. Cagnola Cup and Lycurgus Cup), the metal openwork with glass bowl (e.g. the Varpelev Cup from Copenhagen), and the metal-on-metal vessels (e.g. the Antioch Chalice), illustrate the popularity of this technique in the Late Antique period. In all the above vessels the two-unit ensemble creates a two-color effect. For instance, the Antioch Chalice has a gilded outer bowl with a silver inner bowl. Openwork seems by nature to require a "foil" to offset the design. Thus the design can be "read" easily and is aesthetically attractive. The persistence of the two-color effect throughout this openwork group militates against accepting the plain cup as the inner bowl because the gold openwork design would not stand out well against a gold ground. It is possible, however, that the plain cup came from the same workshop or hoard since its gold composition is similar to the decorated cup. One would then assume that the original inner bowl was lost and would either have been made of metal other than gold or of glass. If the cups are assumed to have been intended as a unit, then the authenticity of the openwork cup should be questioned.

The typological relationship of the decorated cup to the Antioch Chalice immediately recalls the controversial history attached to the latter. This comparison raises the question, "Should the argument of 'uniqueness' be used for or against authenticity?"

Hunting Ivories and Hunting Mosaics: Notes on Relative Chronology

Anthony Cutler, Pennsylvania State University

Among the difficulties that attend the study of Late Antique ivories are the absence of dated examples (other than consular diptychs) and the lack of certainty regarding their place of origin. On the rare occasions when find- spots are known, these may obscure the possibility of movement through trade and booty. On the other hand, while scarcely more than half a dozen contemporary floor mosaics are precisely dated, the research of the last forty years has produced a sort of consensus regarding the relative chronology of hundreds of pavements. Even for those that have been moved, their place of origin is usually well-known.

Considering only hunting subjects and such analogous scenes as the circus and the amphitheater, striking resemblances can be observed between ivories and mosaics. In addition to obviously common motifs, these include overall composition, similar relationships between men, animals and landscape, and the formal rapport of one scene to another in "compound" works in both media. Outstanding examples are the late fourth-century Djemila and Cherchel Hunts in which scenes evolve alternately to right and left as in the Liverpool Venatio, panel (V.59). The same ivory's elimination of circumstantial detail (in contrast to the dense consular diptychs of the early sixth century) recalls the austerity of the gladiatorial mosaic from Torre Nuova (early fourth century). The artificial breaking of the long-established register scheme by means of oblique axes in the pavement at Khanguet el-Hajaj (dating after the Vandal conquest?) is closely paralleled in the Leningrad Lion Hunt (V.60). In almost every case, the stylistic features which characterize such mosaics can be found in more exaggerated fashion on the hunting ivories (as well as in metalwork, textiles etc.) where they appear as solutions to formal problems first worked out in monumental painting and now appropriated for use in spatially more constrained media.

The ivory workers, then, followed the lead of mosaicists. This relationship is supported by the investigations of C. Dauphin (1976) who has shown that the setting of a large floor mosaic was a much more piecemeal operation than had previously been supposed. The technical division of a pavement into compositional units rehearses or, rather, as I show, anticipates the basic elements that, in combination, constitute the hunting ivories. Diptychs and panels on the one hand and mosaic "figure carpets" on the other depend upon paradeigmata that were employed in a variety of media, adapted to different conditions and--most important of all--traveled. Compositional schemes and tricks seem to have journeyed, along with "pattern books" and technical knowledge, over fairly clearly defined routes. Thus our ivories have a bearing on the geographical controversy that surrounds the progressive substitution of the figure carpet for the emblema.

The high degree of probability of a Western (and most likely Roman) origin for the Liverpool Venatio established by Salomonson and van der Werff (1973), and its similarity to North African pavements of the late fourth century show that schemes worked out for mosaics affected other media in the West before they shaped the Eastern Mediterranean hunts in the second half of the fifth century.

A New Identification of the Orant Figures in the Rotunda Mosaics at Thessaloniki

W. Eugene Kleinbauer, Indiana University

Ever since they were first published by Texier and Pullan in 1864, the standing male figures in the mosaic frieze in the dome of the Rotunda at Thessaloniki have been identified as martyr saints. The orant gesture of these figures and the inscriptions placed near their heads have led scholars to accept this identification without question. Edmund Weigand (1939) even went so far as to forward the hypothesis that these figures illustrate a universal church calendar of martyr saints. After re-examining this aspect of the iconography of the mosaics, I want to suggest that these figures are not saints but images of either the founders of the monument when it was converted from pagan to Christian use in the middle of the fifth century or the donors who contributed to the decoration of this new cult building.

The most striking characteristic of the standing figures when viewed as a group is the variety of their head types. This pantheon of types raises the possibility that these are portrait likenesses of living individuals, a suggestion which is further strengthened by the lack of any earlier or contemporary parallel for such a matrix of head types in Christian religious art.

The surviving thirteen inscriptions accompanying the figures provide the name of each figure, the name of a month according to the Julian calendar, and, with one exception, an occupation. Agios or sanctus is nowhere present.

While many of the preserved names are those of saints recorded in pre-Iconoclastic sources, some, like Therinos or Eukarpios or even a soldier saint named Onesiphoros, go unmentioned in any extant Greek calendar of saints. But these are also the names of actual living persons in the fifth century. For example, the minutes of the sessions of the Council of Chalcedon record bishops named Romanos, Onesiphoros, Leontios, Philippos, Damianos, and Kyrillos. Porphrios was the name not only of the famous bishop of Gaza (ca. 395-420), who was born at Thessaloniki ca. 352, but also of a subdeacon and monk who attended the synod of monks which convened at Ephesos in 449. Or we can cite Priskos, a name mentioned in an inscription in mosaic belonging to a structure underlying the large octagonal building, at Phillippi. Let it be recalled that in the fifth century every Christian had a patron saint after whom he was named either at birth or at baptism, a practice stemming from the third century.

The occupations listed in the Rotunda inscriptions are likewise those of actual persons as well as of saints. These include episkopoi, presbyteroi, stratiotai, an iatros, and a choraulos. Since as many as seven inscriptions are now lost, additional occupations may have been recorded. Thus Damianos iatrou identified in the mosaics may represent either the famed anargyros of the third century or an actual physician practicing medicine at a later period.

The presence of the name of a month without an accompanying day in each mosaic inscription is more difficult to account for. Weigand faced the same difficulty when he attempted to interpret the mosaic frieze as an illustrated church calendar, because all church calendars list the day of the month on which the feast of a saint is to be celebrated. Nor is Mrs. Soteriou's explanation (1972) satisfactory: these figures represent not saints whose feasts were commemorated on specific days, but the martyrs of all months of the Christian year -- in other words, the figures stand for all classes of martyr saints. Neither interpretation explains why the names of the months are not arranged in chronological order; the names of some months recur, those of others are absent. Hence we cannot safely assume that the names of all twelve months were originally recorded. Let me propose that the presence of these names refers to an equal share of the total benefaction which each donor contributed to the building. Such an explanation is suggested by dedicatory inscriptions in the floor mosaics of other churches which identify the names of numerous donors, their occupations, and the exact number of square feet of pavement mosaic paid for by each donor.

These floor mosaics also provide parallels for large numbers of donors giving benefactions to a single church. We also possess accounts of soldiers both building churches and giving benefactions to them.

The fact that none of the orants is nimbed, which in itself is inconclusive about identification, leaves open the possibility that they do not represent saints. They all are garbed in belted tunics with tight-fitting sleeves, over which they wear either the chlamys or the paenula (or phelonion). Although the outer garments belong to one of only two types, they are distinguished by different colors and by tablia. Sewn on the right shoulder of the chlamydati are tablia which enclose portrayals of an unnimbed standing figure in a gesture of address, which may represent an emperor rather than Christ or a saint. In this case the identity of the orant wearing the tablion as a saint seems unlikely.

An association of donor with chancel screen furnished an explanation for the architectural facades shown behind the figures in the mosaic frieze. The two panels representing Onesiphoros and Porphyrios and Basiliskos and Priskos show each pair of figures flanking a hexagonal ciborium which shelters a large bejeweled cross and is enclosed by chancel slabs, while the panel representing Damianos and his companion shows the figures standing on either side of a circular ciborium sheltering an altar. In the western panel with three figures Romanos stands inside or outside a low chancel barrier. If the panels permit a literal reading, then the facades with their chancel enclosures and other liturgical furnishings represent the actual benefactions of the donors themselves.

Furthermore, this proposed identification of the orants is supported by other visual evidence provided by the mosaics themselves. The frieze is clearly distinguished from the upper and lower zones by a simulated entablature above, a simulated console frieze below, and especially by its architectural character, rendered in shimmering gold, and hence conceived as a kind of dado. In addition, the diagonal axes created by the four winged angels supporting the Christ medallion in the apex of the dome do not coincide with the placement of the eight orant panels below. The surviving precious fragments of the figures in the second zone of the dome represented figures, possibly angels, clad in white garments, in a variety of poses and lively action on green ground, in contrast to the motionless orants below, and these figures are related iconographically to the Christ figure in the apex: together they represent the Second Coming of Christ. That this specific iconography also includes the frieze of orants has never been demonstrated before.

The Trier Ivory, Adventus Iconography, and the Relics of St. Stephen

Kenneth G. Holum, University of Maryland and Gary Vikan, Dumbarton Oaks

At the 1977 Byzantine Studies Conference Suzanne Spain presented a paper which generated new interest in the so-called translation of the relics ivory in the Trier Cathedral treasury. This year, we would like to offer a completely new interpretation of that much-discussed piece based on the following methodological precepts: 1. That the event portrayed on the plaque is at once historical and ceremonial-liturgical, and therefore need not be tied to the dating of the object (cf. the Menologion of Basil II); and 2. That a proper analysis of its iconography (and therefore correct identification of its specific historical setting) can only proceed from an accurate understanding of the broader "relic adventus ceremonial" to which it bears witness. Moreover, since contemporary visual documents of this ceremonial are few, that analysis must be based primarily on the (many) surviving textual accounts of such events.

A systematic examination of those accounts reveals a three-part ceremonial rhythm around which the reception of holy relics was customarily organized. It consisted of a festive, extra-mural synantesis of relics and polis, a more solemn and organized propompē through the city's streets, and finally, a quasi-liturgical apothesis beneath the altar in a church. Applying this typology to the Trier ivory we find that the moment portrayed is one near the end of the procession, just before the apothesis or deposition. More significantly, however, we find that the iconography of the plaque includes several unusual features which distinguish it from an ordinary relic adventus and thereby provide important clues to its specific historical identification. They are: 1. The central role afforded an empress, who alone acts as recipient of the relics; 2. The emphasis on a church which is being completed for their deposition; 3. The pervasive court atmosphere evoked by the makeup and behavior of the crowd; and 4. The distinctly imperial setting indicated by the tetrapylon (Chalke) gate at the left and the three-story arcade in the background.

Once isolated, these distinctive features invite identification of the event portrayed with a very important (but little-known) relic adventus of 421, when Pulcheria Augusta brought the right hand of St. Stephen from Jerusalem to the imperial palace of Constantinople and deposited the relic in a chapel which she founded for the occasion. To our knowledge this is the only translation which meets the requirements of the ivory's iconographic idiosyncrasies, while the adventus of 421 was so unusual in character that the possibility of an unrecorded event is small indeed. We therefore conclude that we have at last given the Trier ivory its correct interpretation.

The piece then becomes a visual document of first importance for research into early Byzantine imperial ideology, especially into the ideological foundations of the power of the empresses. It may be shown that Pucheria translated the relics of St. Stephen as part of a coherent ideological program, which included introduction to a "Cross of Constantine" into the imperial palace and initiation of a new coin type, the Long-Cross Solidi. The program as a whole must be associated with the Persian War of 421- 22 and with political intrigue in the court of Theodosius II.

The Ekphrasis of Spring in Byzantine Art

Henry Maguire, Dumbarton Oaks

As Hermogenes explains in his second century handbook on the rhetorical exercises, an ekphrasis could describe a person, an action, a time, a place, a season, or a thing, such as a building or a work of art. Because of their value as evidence for the reconstruction of lost Byzantine monuments, descriptions of buildings and works of art are today the best known category of ekphrasis. But, in a different way, other types of ekphrasis are no less relevant to an understanding of Byzantine art, both with respect to iconography and to style. This paper shows how descriptions of the season of spring provided Byzantine artists with a treasury of images which could be applied to portrayals of the Annunciation.

The most famous model of an ekphrasis of spring was written by the fourth century sophist Libanius. In the pagan orator's description we can recognize nearly all of the motifs which were later to adorn the Christian homilies. It was a well known sermon on the New Sunday by Gregory of Nazianzus which gave the ekphrasis of spring a place of respectability in Christian literature. Like Libanius, Gregory observed that: "now the streams flow more transparently, the rivers more abundantly, released from the bonds of winter." The homilist also was moved by the luxuriant growth of the plants and he noted that: "the bird is just now building itself a nest, and one bird returns, while the other remains; another flutters around, fills the grove with song, and chatters to man." Similar descriptions of spring are scattered through the sermons and letters of later Byzantine writers.

Illuminators were called upon to illustrate Gregory's ekphrasis in editions of his liturgical homilies. Byzantine artists also portrayed the clichŽs of literary springtime in the context of the feast of the Annunciation. The primary association of the feast with the season arose from the date of its celebration, on the 25th. of March. For Byzantine writers there was a divine logic lying behind the coincidence of the Annunciation with the renewal of nature; spring and renewal became constant themes in the Greek literature on this feast. In several sermons an entire ekphrasis of spring became an elaborate metaphor for the Annunciation. In the tenth century, for example, John Kyriotes described the flowering land, the singing birds, the leafing trees, the gentle streams, and the birds, the fishes and the animals bringing forth their young.

Among surviving Byzantine paintings of the Annunciation the most striking portrayal of spring is to be found in an icon of the late twelfth century at Mount Sinai. The iconography of this Annunciation scene is extremely unusual. In front of the Virgin and the Angel runs a stream with an irregular, indented bank. An extraordinary variety of sea creatures can be observed in the water. There are herons and ducks in the river, while on land other birds flap their wings or bend their necks to preen themselves. Behind the Virgin rises a tall ethereal building which supports a little roof garden with trees. One of the trees affords a perch to two birds in its upper branches. Above this garden, at the top of the building, two more birds sit in a nest which is balanced on the ridge of the gabled roof.

The wealth of images in this Annunciation scene is unique in Byzantine art, and has not hitherto been explained. Although there was a recognized iconography of the Virgin at the well or fountain, it is unprecedented for her to sit enthroned in a landscape traversed by a river--a river, moreover, which is teeming with all kinds of creatures. In portraying Mary in such a setting the artist appears to have revived a device of ancient illusionism which had been exploited by Early Christian artists. Among the closest parallels to the Byzantine icon are the mid-fourth century dome mosaics of Santa Costanza in Rome which are now only known through water color copies. Here the Old Testament scenes were arranged on a receding stage whose front edge was created by the jagged bank of a river in the fore- ground, in which various sea creatures and river birds disported themselves, just as an the icon.

Both the iconographic peculiarities and the stylistic references of the Sinai icon can be explained by the literary tradition. For the artist has evidently attempted, like John Kyriotes, to embellish his portrayal of the Annunciation with an ekphrasis of spring. It is possible that the artist of the icon was partially guided in his portrayal of the ekphrasis by the earlier miniatures of St. Gregory's New Sunday sermon. But it is difficult to imagine that the Sinai icon could have been created without additional recourse to a more ancient model similar to the Santa Costanza mosaic. In order to illustrate the classical conventions of the ekphrasis, the Byzantine artist made use of an illusionistic river setting characteristic of Late Antique and Early Christian painting. The result was a curious division in his style, which combined elements of illusionistic landscape from Antiquity with the abstract gold background of a middle Byzantine Annunciation scene. The icon is an example of selective naturalism inspired by a rhetorical text, a phenomenon which can be found in other works of Byzantine art.

A New Basilica with Trefoil Sanctuary

A.H.S. Megaw, British School of Archaeology, Athens/Dumbarton Oaks

A basilica discovered this year at Knossos should be taken into account in discussing the significance of tri-conch plans in Early Byzantine architecture. Its plan was recovered when the site chosen for the Medical Faculty of the University of Crete was tested for archaeological remains; unfortunately, only small areas of stone paving and a few stretches of foundation wall were found in situ.

The sanctuary prolonging the nave of a normal three-aisle naos was of the simplest trefoil plan, an arrangement exceptional in Greece but closely matched in the fifth century at Cherson; it is also akin to that of Paulinus' basilica at Cimitile-Nola (before 402). Unlike the martyrium previously found at Knossos, the new basilica contained no burials. Instead, its isolated position, the attachment of ancillary buildings to its small atrium and the presence of an enclosure wall are all suggestive of a monastery.

If such it be, the prevalence of the tri-conch sanctuary in fifth-century Egyptian monasteries may not be irrelevant in the light of the early dispersal of Egyptian monks.

The new Knossos basilica could support the view that the sanctuary of an Early Christian church was conceived as an architectural evocation of the tomb and resurrection of Christ; but a liturgical function for the lateral apses should not be ruled out. In any case, we now have a notable, if embryonic forerunner on Cretan soil for the crucial seventh-century church of St. Titus at Gortyna, where, in conjunction with lateral niches in the sanctuary, major apses close the North and South arms of the inscribed-cross naos. It may be significant that where such major lateral apses reappear in Middle Byzantine monastic churches their function as architectural receptacles for antiphonal choirs is not in doubt.


VI. MIDDLE BYZANTINE HISTORY

The Hiatus in the Creation of the Balkan Themes

Frank E. Wozniak, University of New Mexico

Of the several questions which could be raised with regard to the development of the theme system in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, the problem of the chronological gap in the establishment of new themes in the Balkans is one which does not seem to have been satisfactorily examined. A consideration of this question is directly related to two other areas where there has been considerable discussion and, in fact, substantial agreements first, the proximate dates for the foundation of the several Balkan themes; second, the generally accepted thesis of Ostrogorsky, Pertusi, Ferluga, Lemerle and others that the seventh century themes were the result of a severe military threat from the Bulgars and Slavs and that the late eighth and ninth century foundations reflect the consolidation and resurgence of the Byzantine state in the Balkans and possibly reflect the process of rehellenization in parts of the southern Balkans.

An examination of the historical works of Theophanes and Nikephoros, the relevant hagiographical and ecclesiastical sources, and the discussion of extant and reported architectural structures in the Balkans seem to indicate that a reinterpretation of the circumstances and conditions contributing to the development of the several Balkan themes is required. In large part, the failure to recognize the potential importance of the chronological gap in thematic foundations appears to have played an important part in the less than satisfactory aspects of previous explanations of the origins of the Balkan themes.

In particular, this paper will suggest that the causes for the establishment of themes during the two separate periods of foundation were largely similar in character; the Balkan themes were emergency foundations intended to stave off further encroachments on the tenuous Byzantine position in the Balkans. Secondly, the resurgence of Byzantine military power in the Balkans during the reigns of Leo III and Constantine V produced the hiatus in the creation of themes. They did not create any Balkan themes because theirs was a period of military strength. On the other hand, military weakness and administrative disarray are consistently characteristic of the periods of thematic foundations. Finally, rehellenization necessarily followed the creation of the themes and did not precede it.

Some Reconsiderations on the Eunuchs during the Middle Byzantine Period

Spyros Stavrakas, University of Chicago

The eunuchs of the ninth and tenth centuries were a diverse group; many of them were native born Byzantines. This latter circumstance was a crucial change from the fourth and fifth centuries when most eunuchs were foreigners. Native Byzantine eunuchs were in a better position vis- a-vis the rest of society. They maintained ties with their families and were no longer social outcasts. The sources were generous to them. Eunuchs appear as good warriors, churchmen and imperial officials. They often perform notable deeds and show kindness and love for their fellow Byzantines. Society slowly changed its attitude towards them. It no longer looked at all eunuchs with scorn, instead while deploring their physical infirmity and pitying their fate, it accepted many eunuchs as valuable individuals. Society began to judge each eunuch according to his own qualities.

The relationship between many eunuchs and members of the provincial elite illustrate these changing social attitudes. Elite members bought and recruited eunuchs for their own personal coteries. These men were armed and trained and probably served their leaders just as their non-eunuch comrades. Enough examples exist to prove that many of these eunuchs remained physically vigorous after their castrations. Some of these eunuchs remained with their patrons and eventually reached high rank in the government and army. The elite also made efforts to enlist eunuchs serving the state, and especially in the palace, to their causes. It was not considered demeaning for an elite member to deal with eunuchs. In its own way, therefore, the relationship of the provincial elite with the various eunuchs in society often enhanced the elite's power and extended their influence.

Legends of Nicephorus I's Bulgarian Expedition of 811

John Wortley, University of Manitoba

Legends tend to occur in clusters in Byzantine literature, usually around some distinguished event or person, nearly always one of propitious significance. There is one small group of legends however which is remarkable in that it relates to a highly unpropitious event: the defeat and death of the Emperor Nicephorus I in 811. These legends also have the rare distinction that in three, if not all four cases certain clues are to be found as to how the legend came into existence. This paper is about one of those legends.

The first of the four is the Legend of the Martyrs of 811. It alleges that not ail of the Romans perished in or after the battle (as Theophanes claims,) for Krum took certain live prisoners back in to the hinterland, and that these subsequently died terrible deaths at his hands rather than save their lives by denying their faith. In spite of its inherent credibility and likeliness, there are several reasons for suspecting the veracity of this Legend of the Martyrs of 811, not the least of which is that there is no mention of it by Theophanes, nor was there in the extant fragment of the Scriptor Incertus de Leone Armenio until an interpolator working post 864 inserted one.

Research amongst the Synaxaria reveals certain disparities between the various entries concerning the martyrs of 811, whilst the earliest manuscripts of the older Typicon of the Great Church contain a very different and untypical. kind of entry at one of the relevant dates (26 July), an entry which is little more than a blunt condemnation of the incompetence of Nicephorus that brought about the catastrophe of 811. In subsequent Synaxaria this may have been gradually softened into a bland "commemoration of our Christian brethren who fell in Bul- garia," and this in turn, perhaps in the time of Nicephorus Phocas when the matter became crucial, may have raised the question of whether all, or merely some, of the fallen of 811 were to be understood as here being commemorated. It is suggested that the Legend of the Martyrs of 811 may have been the response to this question of the Patriarch Polyeuctus and of a Church anxious to repel the idea that all who fell in battle were to be numbered amongst the martyrs.

The Chronological Accuracy of Symeon the Logothete for the Years A.D. 813-845

Warren T. Treadgold, Seattle, Washington

It has long been the consensus of Byzantinists that no reliable narrative source exists for the second period of iconoclasm (815-843). The history of this period has therefore been written by choosing among the different accounts of four chroniclers of the mid-tenth century, none of whom is considered wholly reliable: Symeon the Logothete, Joseph Genesius, Theophanes Continuatus, and the Pseudo-Symeon. My thesis, on the contrary, is that for the years 813-845 Symeon the Logothete based his Chronicle exclusively on two highly reliable sources which were composed in the mid-ninth century, one covering the years 813-829 (Source A) and the other covering 829-845 (Source B). Because these sources were chronologically arranged, their accuracy can be demonstrated by checking the dates of their entries.

My case is modeled on that made by the late Romilly Jenkins (DOP 19 [1965], 91-112) to show that Symeon's account of the years 867-913 was exclusively based on contemporary annals. Jenkins demonstrated that for these years the Logothete records events in perfectly accurate chronological order. Symeon's chronology de- monstrably breaks down between 845 and 867. But from 813 to 845 it seems to be accurate again, as appears when its main entries are summarized and dated in the following table.

Entries from Source A:

Reign of Leo V.

  1. Leo is crowned July 11, 813
  2. Bulgarians besiege Constantinople July 16, 813
  3. Bulgarians sack Hadrianople early fall 813
  4. Leo exiles Patriarch Nicephorus April 1, 815
  5. Leo persecutes iconophiles 815-820
  6. Leo is assassinated December 25, 820 Reign of Michael II.
  7. Michael relaxes persecution of iconophiles early 821
  8. Michael confirms ecclesiastical legislation of Leo early 821
  9. Michael crowns son Theophilus (May 12?) 821*
  10. Thomas the Slav marches on Constantinople Oct./Nov. 821
  11. Thomas besieges Constantinople for one year Dec. 821-Nov. 822
  12. Thomas abandons siege and plunders Thrace November 822
  13. Michael defeats and kills Thomas mid-October 823
  14. Arabs make conquests in Crete, Sicily, and Cyclades 826-828
  15. Michael dies and Theophilus and Euphrosyne succeedOctober 2, 829 Entries from Source B: Reign of Theophilus.
  16. Theophilus marries Theodora June 5, 830
  17. Euphrosyne retires to convent June 830
  18. Theophilus executes assassins of Leo V summer 830
  19. Theophilus begins persecution of iconophiles late 832/early 833
  20. Theophobus deserts from Arabs to Byzantinesbeginning of 834
  21. Theophilus redecorates Palace 834/836* 22. Theophilus punishes Petronas 834/836*
  22. Theophilus betroths daughter Maria to Alexius Musele836
  23. Theophilus and Manuel take Zapetra and SamosataMarch-April 837
  24. Theophilus orders construction of Bryas Palacelate spring 837
  25. Theophilus celebrates triumph late spring 837
  26. Theophilus makes John the Grammarian Patriarch April 21, 838**
  27. Arabs defeat Theophilus and kill Manuel [at Anzen] July 22, 838
  28. Theophilus pays compensation for misappropriated horselate July/early Aug. 838*
  29. Caliph sacks Amorium August 12, 838
  30. Caliph returns to Syria with captives from Amorium late Aug./Sept. 838
  31. Theophilus founds school under Leo the Mathematician late 838**
  32. Theophilus builds Triconch, Phiale, and Mysterium late 838/early 839*
  33. Theophilus brands Sts. Theophanes and Theodore Grapti July 18, 839**
  34. Helmet of statue of Justinian falls and is replaced late 839/early 840*
  35. Theophilus crowns son Michael (May 16?) 840
  36. Theophilus founds hospice late 840/841*
  37. Theophilus executes Theophobus and dies January 20, 842 Reign of Michael III.
  38. Theodora deposes Patriarch John March 4, 843
  39. Theodora restores icons March 11, 843
  40. Theoctistus makes expedition against Crete March 18-later 843
  41. Arabs defeat Theoctistus at Mauropotamum mid-843/844
  42. Theoctistus forces Bardas into exile mid-843/844
  43. Theoctistus builds himself Apsis Palace ca. 844 *Otherwise uncertain date **Controversial date (to be discussed when paper is presented)

(on the text of Symeon's Chronicle, see Gyula Moravcsik in DOP 15 [1961], 110-122.)

Source A is evidently the same as the so-called "Epitome" postulated by several scholars (cf. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica2 1, 515-518, though he believes that the "Epitome" ended in 842, not 829). It paraphrased, interpolated, and continued the Chronographia of Theophanes (ended 813) and was also a source of George the Monk, who wrote during the reign of Michael III (842-867). Source A must have been composed soon after the death of the former Emperor Michael I in 845, which it mentioned. It was quite concise, and largely interested in ecclesiastical affairs from an iconophile point of view.

Source B was probably a continuation of Source A. It seems to have been composed after the downfall in 855 of Theoctistus, whom it criticized sharply. Because it noted that the Trullus Palace of John the Grammarian remained uninhabited, Source B must have been composed before 865/866, when the palace was converted into the Monastery of St. Phocas. Source B is therefore to be dated to about 860. It was considerably more detailed than Source A and appears to have been written by a man familiar with court circles.

Therefore the Chronicle of Symeon has practically the value of a contemporary source for 813-845, and should be adopted as our principal guide in writing the history of the second iconoclastic period.


VII. HISTORY OF ART

The Knotted Column

Ioli Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, University of California, Los Angeles

Any scholar who studies Byzantine art--and manuscript illumination in particular--is familiar with the pairs of knotted columns that frame canon tables and support architectural structures. The earliest datable examples of such columns occur on steatite plaques of the mid to late tenth century and in the Menologion of Basil II (ca. 1000). Thereafter representations of knotted columns occur frequently as do the columns themselves as an architectural motif of church decoration. Yet despite the wide-spread distribution of these columns, their origin and meaning have never been explained.

The shape of the knot, it is true, has long been recognized as that of the so-called Herculean knot. In the late antique period this knot is a motif found regularly in mosaics and jewelry, but it disappears thereafter until its unexpected appearance on mid-Byzantine columns, where the knot doubtless has maintained some of its apotropaic qualities.

It has been suggested that the knots on the columns were derived from antique representations of drapery tied around columns, but this cannot account for the formation of the knot out of the shafts of the column: the column is formed by multiples of two or more clustered shafts; the knot is carved or depicted to give the impression that it was tied out of malleable column shafts. It is curious to observe that the knots do not appear in representations of material that can be tied naturally, such as ropes or cords, but only as part of architectural frameworks where they contradict the actual function of a support.

Knotted columns occur in only a few places: for example, within the church they appear on the iconostasis and as part of altars and baldachins; in manuscripts they appear in representations of those structures and as the columns of arches of canon tables. That is, knotted columns are connected with the sanctuary and generally open the way to or frame a holy place. More than that, they allude to the holiest sanctuary of ancient Israel: the knotted columns derive through the vagaries of philology from Jachin and Boaz, the famous columns that flanked the entrance to the Solomonic temple. While it is unlikely that the actual Solomonic columns were knotted, they were frequently considered so in Byzantine tradition. In many texts these columns are described as having "pomegranates" down their shafts, but the word used can also be interpreted as "knotted" or "intertwined." It is in the interpretation of the texts referring to the Solomonic temple that the origin of the knotted column should be located. Romanesque art provides supplementary evidence.

A Re-evaluation of the Sources of the "Archaic Group" of Wall Paintings in Cappadocia

Judith A. Cave, Pennsylvania State University

The so-called "archaic group" of wall paintings in Cappadocia has been attributed to the period between the late ninth and the middle of the tenth century. Apart from these monuments, this period is poorly represented in terms of the amount of material which has survived, either in the capital or in provincial areas. They thus provide necessary material for an understanding of the crucial period of Byzantine art immediately following Iconoclasm and preceding the Macedonian Renaissance. It has been recognized that not all of the paintings in Cappadocia are purely provincial works executed by local artists, but in certain cases are related to contemporary Constantinopolitan art. Thus, for example, Kiliclar Kilise in the Goreme Valley has been related both in terms of style and of iconography to metropolitan products such as the copy of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus in Paris, cod. gr. 510. Such relations between Cappadocian wall paintings and contemporary art of the capital provide evidence for a more adequate evaluation of post-Iconoclastic Byzantine art but can only be precisely determined on the basis of a more complete understanding of the chronological and artistic relationships between the various "archaic group" programs.

There are only two inscriptions associated with these decorative programs which provide evidence for dating. One of these belongs to the program of Tavsanli Kilise. On the basis of this inscription there are two possible periods during which the paintings could have been executed; 913 to 920 or 945 to 948. The second inscription accompanies the paintings in Chapel 4 in the Gullu Dere Valley, now referred to as Ayvali Kilise. It permits the same alternatives for dating as the first inscription, and, in both cases, the earlier time period has most often been accepted.

Stylistic differences between these two Cappadocian programs have led scholars to attribute them to two different trends or stylistic modes operating simultaneously in the region. The Tavsanli mode is defined as a local version of the Constantinopolitan-inspired style of Ayvali. Other members of the "archaic group" have been associated with each of these styles such as Kiliclar Kilise with Ayvali and St. Eustace with Tavsanli. Their dating is dependent on degrees of stylistic similarity with the two dated monuments. Thus, greater degrees of stylization or abstraction are equated with chronological posteriority.

This interpretation is, however, inadequate as it ignores certain iconographic and stylistic differences which suggest the use of different models by their artists. Certain elements are best understood as deriving from a source which existed independently of the capital. This source, provincial in origin, was introduced into Cappadocia with the late ninth century program of Kizil Cukur and continued to be influential throughout the early tenth century, although its popularity was secondary to that of the predominately Constantinopolitan-inspired mode of Kiliclar and Ayvali. A complete definition of its characteristics is obscured by the fact that both sources were often combined in a single program and the two became tightly interwoven. It can be partially reconstructed, however, on the basis of western painting which is believed to contain reflections of Italian art of the eighth and ninth centuries. Both sources must be taken into account for an accurate understanding of the relations between various programs of the "archaic group" and of the relation between metropolitan and provincial traditions of this period.

Painted Pictures of Pictures: The Imitations of Icons in Fresco

Ellen C. Schwartz, Eastern Michigan University

This paper will treat the imitation of icons in fresco painting which appear in Comnenian and Paleologan art from Constantinople to the Slavic lands but which have, until now, attracted scant notice in the scholarly literature. These frescoed depictions of icons are surprisingly true to life, including inscriptions, frames, and hanging rings. Occasionally even the nails or hooks "attaching" these "icons" to the wall are carefully indicated as well. After presenting a compendium of these examples, the paper will treat the appearance of the form, its extent in time and location, and its significance within fresco programs of the later Byzantine era.

The earliest depictions of these frescoed icons occur in the eleventh century at the church of Hagia Sofia in Ohrid, painted around the year 1050. Several examples occur in the twelfth century, at Asinou on Cyprus (1103), Djurdjevi Stupovi in Serbia (1168), the double church at Bačkovo in Byzantine- controlled Bulgaria (mid twelfth century layer), and Samari in Messina (last years of the twelfth century). A number of frescoed icons appear in the churches in the Serbian state of Raûka during the thirteenth century: the Virgin's church at Studenica (1209), Úiča (1219-1234), and the Holy Apostles church at Peć (ca. 1240-60). One framed icon also appears in the Metropolitan church of St. Demetrius in Mistra from the year 1291. The form continues into fresco programs of the fourteenth century; Agios Nikolaos in Mani from the second quarter of the century, Taxiarchos in Kastoria (1359-60), Psača in Macedonia (1365-71), and the church at Ramača from the end of the century all include frescoed depictions of icons in their decorative programs. One example of the frescoed icon form has come to light in Constantinople, as part of an undated layer in the Kalenderhane Camii, and similar imitation icons are found in mosaics in Italy from various centuries, done under strong artistic influence from Byzantium.

Despite their wide extension in time and location, certain features of the frescoed icons remain fairly uniform. The icons depict primarily busts or halflength portraits of men dressed as bishops in polystavrion and omophorion, though they range in rank from the great church fathers to locally venerated churchmen. The icon forms seem to be favored for certain locations within the church decor, primarily the lower zones of the apse. The examples cited above will be examined to ascertain reasons for these uniformities. The men depicted will be grouped to see whether or not a certain set were favored for this type of representation. The location of these depictions in the church will be discussed, and an origin in liturgical practice suggested. Finally, provincial poverty will be offered as another reason for the appearance of the fresco icon form, a substitution of an economical painted imitation for a costly painted and gilded original.

The Palace of the Lascarids at Nymphaeum

Joby Patterson, La Grande, Oregon

As contemporary historians sort through the sources, the significance of the site of Nymphaeum for the Emperors of Nicaea is being increasingly realized.

The palace was apparently built by John Vatatzes about 1222. The fact that it is one of only four remaining Byzantine imperial palaces built after 1204 is enough to make it important. It was probably the first displaying Western influences not heretofore seen in imperial Byzantine audience-halls. Since at least two subsequent imperial audience-halls were built on basically the same plan and design as that found at Nymphaeum, the Nymphaeum palace either set a precedent, or all the audience-halls following the design and plan of Nymphaeum form a class whose predecessors are now gone. In any case, the significance of the palace at Nymphaeum has been underestimated.

The remains consist of an imposing, rectangular, hollow shell standing in isolation on a plain. An ashlar masonry ground level was topped by two levels of mortared rubble separated by bands of flat brick stringcourses. Centered in each of the long walls of the ground level and flanked by pairs of loopholes were openings, allowing for passage through the building. A crossvault probably spanned the center area, linking the openings, and probably had barrel vaults on either side. At the middle level, the long facades were identical, containing six windows each. This story was covered by a longitudinal barrel vault intersected in the center by a crossvault. The top level of the long west facade contained pairs of windows flanking a centralized element which was contained within an arch the same size as the crossvault located directly below. The east facade was almost certainly identical, except that the center element probably differed. Like the audience-hall at Mistra and probably the Tekfur Saray, the Nymphaeum audience-hall must have had a semi-domed throne apse in one of its long facades. The opposing void must have been filled by a full-length open element--such as a loggia--very possibly incorporating an arcade, and serving as a place of appearances. Stairways were contained in the north wall. Internal evidence, and the structure's semi-fortified nature suggest a flat, crenelated roof.

There are apparently no specific extant prototypes for the palace within Byzantine or western European architecture. The palace is an interesting fusion of motifs from both traditions. It probably combined both the architectural constructs and motifs necessary for Byzantine ceremony and essential for symbolizing divine royalty with the Western rectangular audience- hall plan, elevated over vaulted foundations. It must also be connected to the audience-hall gatehouse form, known not only in Byzantium, but well-known in the West. The origins of its sober, multi-tiered monumentality and vaulting system tightly integrated with the facade design must be sought in Romano- Italian tradition, and may be specifically derived from mediaeval Italian fortresses and towers, or palazzi through colonial houses of Galata.

Finally, information from Nymphaeum has implications in the question of the date of the Tekfur Saray: it was built under Michael VIII. Also, the niche at the Tekfur Saray was probably intended for a throne.

Amalfi's Byzantine Connection: Art in Context

Robert P. Bergman, Harvard University

From the middle of the ninth through the eleventh century the independent maritime duchy of Amalfi flourished as the most international and cosmopolitan of the Italian trading communities. By 1100, Venice and Genoa more than rivaled her status as a pivotal link between the Byzantine and Islamic East on the one hand and western Europe on the other but, even so, Amalfi continued to prosper--now as part of grander empires rather than independently--well into the fourteenth century. Although the notion that Amalfi's prosperity was solely the result of a special and favored position granted to her merchants by the Byzantine emperors has had to be revised with recognition of her important Islamic connections, it nevertheless remains true that association with the Byzantine Empire was a crucial factor in maintaining Amalfi's commercial vitality and in defining her cultural/artistic character.

Amalfi first appears in written records in the last decade of the sixth century; at this time, as part of the Duchy of Naples, the city was formally a dependency of the Empire. Even after her "declaration of independence" in 839 Amalfi continued to recognize at least nominal Byzantine suzerainity. Amalfitan political leaders and members of the nobility from the ninth through the eleventh centuries often were the recipients of titles or dignities bestowed by the Byzantine emperor, among which that of Patricius appears to have ranked highest.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries the Amalfitans must have maintained quite an establishment in the Byzantine capital. Pantaleone, son of Maurus of Amalfi, had a very large house there where hospitality was offered to Gisulf of Salerno and his party during their visit in 1062. There were two monastic foundations in Constantinople belonging to the Amalfitans: Sta. Maria de Latina and St. Saviour, located in the midst of the traders' quarter near the Golden Horn, ministered to the spiritual needs of a sizeable merchant community. It was only after the conquest of Amalfi by the Normans, hated enemy of the Eastern Empire, that the Amalfitans began to lose their privileged position in Byzantium. This is born out by the famous bull of Emperor Alexis I Comnenus (1082) that demanded payment of an annual fee to the church of San Marco in Venice by the Amalfitans resident in the Empire. Yet, well after this date significant contacts between Amalfi and the Byzantines continued to exist.

With this general historical background in mind, I intend to examine a series of buildings and works of art -- both Amalfitan products and Byzantine imports, ranging in date from c. 1060 to c. 1200 -- that make tangible the relationship between the two spheres. Several pertinent texts will also be discussed.


VIII. LATE ANTIQUITY: HISTORY AND THEOLOGY

Eusebius and Constantine

T.D. Barnes, University of Toronto

Eusebius of Caesarea has traditionally been presented as a close adviser of the emperor Constantine, as a courtier-bishop able effectively to influence imperial policy in ecclesiastical matters. This view of the relationship between the bishop and the emperor, however, is principally deduced from Eusebius' Life of Constantine, whose explicit picture of Constantine has often been discussed, but whose implicit picture of Eusebius has usually been taken on trust. A review of the known facts about the contacts between the two men in fact suggests a very different estimate of Eusebius' standing among his contemporaries.

Eusebius, born c. 262, was more than sixty when he became a subject of Constantine, who never, as emperor, visited Palestine. After 324, as before, Eusebius devoted himself to scholarship and to his duties as bishop of Caesarea. He lived far from the imperial court, and was, therefore, normally unable to participate in political decisions. Eusebius met Constantine only rarely (probably on no more than four separate occasions after 324), so that he was no more than an occasional visitor at court, with no greater standing than many other bishops. When the Life of Constantine (left unfinished on its author's death in 339) consistently depicts Eusebius as a close confidant of Constantine, a distortion of the truth, whether deliberate or unconscious, must be suspected. Hence Eusebius' interpretation of Constantine in the Life should be assessed as the product of a provincial academic who could not resist the temptation to glorify himself, not as the product of a politician who knew the emperor intimately.

Germanus at Antioch

William N. Bayless, Rutgers University

Germanus had an important assignment in connection with the Second Persian War (540-545). Chosroes' invasion of Syria threatened Antioch. Justinian sent Germanus to the city with 300 soldiers as an escort to organize the defense of the city.1 Justinian promised that a large army would follow.

Germanus' first act was an inspection of the walls of Antioch.2 Although in most areas they were in satisfactory condition, Germanus noticed from Mt. Orocasias that a large, broad rock offered an easy vantage point to assailants. To remedy this problem he proposed either that a trench should be dug between the walls and the rock, or that a tower be constructed on the rock connected with the city walls. The engineers in Antioch replied that there was insufficient time for either of these projects and that to begin either without completing it would only point out to the enemy a favorable spot for an assault.

Downey has criticized Procopius' account. He believes that Germanus acted discreditably at Antioch and that Procopius has tried to conceal this fact.3 Downey calls attention to a transaction discussed by Malalas but not mentioned by Procopius.4 Malalas states that while at Antioch Germanus purchased silver from fleeing residents at one-fourth to one-sixth its value. Downey interprets this to mean that Germanus took advantage of the misfortune of the Antiochenes to enrich himself.

Yet there is another much more plausible reason for this incident which Downey has completely overlooked. The army which Justinian had promised failed to arrive.5 This fact together with the weakness of the walls meant that, if the city was to be saved, it had to be done by diplomatic means. Germanus and the leaders of Antioch immediately perceived this. Accordingly they dispatched Megas, the bishop of Beroea, to Chosroes in the hope of buying him off.6 There was some reason for believing this might be successful. Chosroes had abandoned his siege of Hierapolis for a payment of 2,000 pounds of silver, it should be noticed. Chosroes was also willing to leave Beroea alone in return for 4,000 pounds of silver.7 But the city was sacked when the inhabitants could produce only 2,000 pounds.

If Antioch was to be spared, there was obviously a need for an even larger sun. This is the probable explanation for the transaction recorded by Malalas. It offered advantages to each side. The wealthy who were fleeing would be able to save some of their money since it would be in a much lighter, easier to carry form. Germanus would have the larger sum that was badly needed if Megas' embassy was successful. Malalas does not say that this was a private transaction by Germanus. If we assume that it was a public transaction, it fits perfectly into Procopius' account of the decision made by Germanus and the leaders of Antioch.

1 Procopius BP 2.6.9.

2 Procopius BP 2.6.10-13. I am convinced that Glanville Downey, "The Persian Campaign in Syria in A.D. 540," Speculum, XXVIII (1953), 347 is mistaken in saying that this rock did not exist. Apart from the fact that Procopius could hardly lie about the topography of one of the largest cities in the Empire, this feature is also mentioned in an entirely different context where there is no mention of Germanus (De Aed. 2.10.9).

3 Glanville Downey, op. cit., p. 346.

4 Malalas 480.1-5.

5 Procopius BP 2.6.15.

6 Procopius BP 2.6.22-24.

7 Procopius BP 2.7.5-13.

Avitus, Marcian and Diplomacy in A.D. 455-456

Ralph W. Mathisen, University of Wisconsin

In June, 455 the Vandal Geiseric sacked Rome and carried off to Carthage Eudoxia, the wife of Va1entinian III and daughter of Theodosius II, and her daughters Placidia and Eudocia. With the western throne vacant, the Gallic aristocrat Epar- chius Avitus was declared Augustus at Arles in July, and in early October he arrived at Rome. There he was faced with several potential sources of opposition: 1) the Vandals, 2) Marcian, the legitimate emperor in Constantinople, 3) Majorian and Ricimer, the commanders of the Italian army, and 4) the Italian senators, who were accustomed to control the high offices of state in Rome.

Avitus immediately took steps to deal with these possible enemies: he obtained recognition from the Roman senate (Hyd.163,166); he used his Gothic allies to hold Ricimer and Majorian in check (Joh.Ant.fr.202); and he sent embassies to Marcian requesting recognition (Hyd.166) and to Geiseric demanding that he adhere to the old foedus and threatening him with war if he did not (Priscus fr.24).

The outcomes of the diplomatic efforts of Avitus at Carthage and Constantinople seem to have been contingent to a great deal upon the policy of Marcian towards the Vandals. If at all possible, Marcian wished to maintain peace with Geiseric (e.g. Procop.Vand.1.4), and this could deter him from treating with Avitus, who had an aggressive Vandal policy. Marcian, attempting to achieve a peaceful settlement, sent two embassies to Carthage, but his initially conciliatory gestures were rebuffed by Geiseric, who sent a fleet to attack Sicily and Italy and who refused to return the captive women (Priscus fr.24), the one point upon which Marcian could not compromise. For Marcian, whose hand had been forced, cooperation with Avitus now became attractive.

Avitus, however, although he was successful in forestalling Vandal raiding in 456, had failed to conciliate the Italian senators, and by the early summer of 456, when Marcian was probably prepared to come to terms with him, he had been expelled from Rome by the senators amidst civil disorder (Joh.Ant.fr.202, Greg.Tur.H.F.2.11).

The antipathy of the Italian senators would have been largely based upon Avitus' preference for Gauls in the high offices of state, a practice which probably applied to his embassy to Constantinople, since it is likely that his ambassador was his cura palatii, the Narbonese aristocrat Consentius, who as tribunus et notarius under Valentinian III had served on several legations to the East (Sid.Carm. 23.228-240,428-432).

The potential of an Avitus-Marcian combination eventually may have influenced the policy of Geiseric. The persistent tradition that the imperial captives were returned at the end of the reign of Marcian may reflect a re- opening of negotiations on the part of Geiseric. But Avitus' inability to maintain himself in the West and the resulting ascendency of Ricimer destroyed the possibility of a coalition, and one of the best opportunities ever for joint action against the Vandals had been lost.

Marcian and Attila: A Reassessment of Imperial Policy

Robert L. Hohlfelder, University of Colorado

On 25 August, A.D. 450, Marcian, a retired military officer and candidate for the imperial office of Pulcheria Augusta and Aspar the Alan, assumed the Byzantine throne, following an accident and the subsequent death of Theodosius Il during the previous month. While all transitions of power within the Byzantine state might be judged momentous events, particularly when the succession was not obvious, as in this case, few coronations had taken place or would occur against such an ominous backdrop. Beyond the frontiers of empire, but very much a factor in affairs of state, was Attila, sole king of the Huns and recent conqueror of the imperial armies. At the time of Marcian's elevation, however, belligerency between the East Romans and the Huns had nominally ended.

Although the threat of Attila would seem to have afforded a most inauspicious circumstance for new initiatives, Marcian chose to implement a dramatic change of foreign policy very early in his reign. The new emperor unilaterally repudiated the treaty, negotiated during the last years of the reign of Theodosius by his ministers, Nomus and Anatolius, which had ended the hostilities that had commenced in A.D. 447. With militant resolve, Marcian declared that the tribute fixed by this settlement would no longer be paid. His decision to end imperial acquiescence to Attila's extortion provided another occasion for war, if either side had wished to renew the conflict. In A.D. 450, neither party moved. Marcian had calculated correctly. Attila's attentions and energies had been committed to his forthcoming military campaign against West Rome.

While Marcian's sudden reversal of his predecessor's Hunnic policy of negotiations for survival has been variously interpreted, the standard monographic treatment of this period condemns Marcian's actions as untimely and characterized by folly.1 It is possible, however, to present a far more favorable assessment of Marcian's policy from the facts as they are known.

Marcian's abrogation of Theodosius' treaty with Attila can be seen as the opening salvo of a daring, multi dimensional strategy conceived and enacted with the highest stakes in mind. Imperial actions and diplomatic encounters aimed to end or significantly reduce the Hunnic danger, to secure recognition from Valentinian III, emperor of West Rome, to strengthen the new emperor's internal position, and to provide assistance to the West at a time of ultimate crisis. Moreover, it seems that such initiatives could have been undertaken with the assumption that even total failure would not have weakened Byzantium more than the continuance of Theodosius' policy of appeasement. Attila's unexpected, but fortuitous, death clouds any final evaluation of the outcome of Marcian's actions. But in scope and execution, Marcian's diplomatic and military maneuvers at a moment of utmost peril should be recognized as an outstanding example of Byzantine statecraft.

1 E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (Oxford, 1948) 135 and 199.

476 Before 476

Frank Clover, University of Wisconsin

Speculations about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire are almost as old as the Empire itself. Polybius chronicled the rise of Rome's overseas empire, and wondered about its eventual demise. One of the Senecas termed the agony of the late Republic the "prima senectus" of the Roman state. Some contemporaries of the crisis of the third century A.D. saw the Empire's end at hand. Alaric's sack of Rome and related events of the early fifth century sparked a heated debate between Christians and pagans over the collapse of civilization.

With the benefit of hindsight some historians have seen later events - those occurring around A.D. 476 -- as crucial to the future of the Roman Empire. Of late they have sought support for their interpretation in the sources, only to gather a meager harvest. In his Chronicle Count Marcellinus related the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476, and then proclaimed the "Hesperium regnum" at an end. Later Jordanes adopted Marcellinus' interpretation, quoting it verbatim in his Getica and Romana. Recent critics have seen not Symmachus' Historia Romana, but eastern writings -- perhaps Eustathius of Epiphaneia's Epitome or the fasti of Constantinople -- as Marcellinus' source.

Despite recent improvements in the understanding of the sources for the events around 476, there remains a flaw to the present approach to events of the late fifth century. Historians have not paid enough attention to the fifth- and sixth-century sources' understandings of the events of the period. Viewed on its own terms, Count Marcellinus' proclamation of the end of the Hesperium regnum in 476 is one of several interpretations of Roman doom developed in light of events occurring after Alaric's sack of Rome. Interestingly enough, several fifth- and sixth- century authors saw events occurring after 410 and before 476 as harmful to the well-being of the Roman Empire. In the interest of brevity I propose to discuss the interpretations of two of the following authors (one from each category):

(1) Authors writing before 476 and hence viewing preceding events as crucial: (a) the Donatist compiler of the fourth and fifth editions of the Liber genealogus (A.D. 455 and 463) (b) Sidonius Apollinaris (Panegyric to Avitus) (c) a Persian interpolator of Nestorius' Bazaar of Heracleides (d) Priscus of Panium (e) Hydatius

(2) Authors writing after 476 but seeing preceding events as crucial:

(a) Count Marcellinus (whose proclamation of the end of the Western Empire in 476 is a restatement of an entry under the year 454!) (b) Damascius of Damascus (Vita Isidori) (c) Procopius of Caesarea.


IX. THEMES IN LATE BYZANTINE HISTORY AND THOUGHT

The Posthumous Cult of the Patriarch Anasthasius I of Constantinople

Alice-Mary Talbot, Dumbarton Oaks

Athanasius I of Constantinople was a controversial figure during his two patriarchates (1289-1293; 1303-1309). Twice appointed by the pious Andronicus II, and twice forced to resign by hostile elements within the Church, he had both detractors and supporters in the Byzantine capital. He was hated by bishops, Arsenites, Uniates, some monks and the clergy of Haghia Sophia, but popular with the common people, for whose welfare he had a vital concern. He was also venerated by the monks and nuns of the double monastery of Xerolophos which he had founded in Constantinople, and where he retired after both his abdications from the patriarchal throne.

Using as a primary source the unpublished oration of Theoctistus the Studite on The Translation of the Relics of the Patriarch Athanasius1, this paper will describe the popular cult of Athanasius which developed in Constantinople after his death (sometime between 1310 and 1323). When the beloved founder of their monastery passed away, the monks of Xerolophos buried him in very damp earth within the precincts of the monastery. Three years later his disciples decided to build a chapel on the grave site, and, in the course of their excavations, discovered the former patriarch's body, miraculously preserved. Joyfully they took his remains and placed them in a sarcophagus in the monastic church, dedicated to Christ the Savior. The marvelous healing power of the patriarch's relics soon became evident, and people flocked to the church to be relieved of psychiatric and physical disorders.

The Oration on the Relics describes the miraculous cures of 32 individuals who were healed by visiting the relics; some patients were cured merely by touching the holy sarcophagus, others drank water which had been blessed by contact with the rel- ics, yet others drank or anointed themselves with oil from the vigil lamp which hung above the sarcophagus. A few people were relieved of their symptoms by incubation, or by inhaling the fumes from burning pieces of Athanasius' garments. The afflic- tions of the visitors were varied, including cancer, blindness, deafness, incontin- ency, possession by evil spirits, paralysis, abscesses and hemorrhage.

New evidence2 will be presented for the actual canonization of Athanasius by the synod in Constantinople, as a result of the numerous miracles at his tomb attested by eyewitnesses. By the 1330's he was commemorated in holy icons, and his feast day was celebrated in the cathedral of Haghia Sophia.

Athanasius' cult certainly continued until the end of the 14th c. when the Russian pilgrim Ignatius of Smolensk visited his tomb, and his relics were still preserved at Xerolophos at the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Soon after, due to the erroneous belief that his remains were those of the 4th c. Patriarch of Alexandria, they were transported to Venice, where they stayed for half a millennium. Most recently, the relics were transfer-ed to Alexandria as a gift to the Coptic Orthodox Church!

1 Logos eis tēn anakomidēn tou leipsanou tou en hagiois patros hēmōn Athanasiou patriarchou Kōnstantinoupoleōs, in cod. Const. Chalc. mon. 64 [= Istanbul Patriarchate Library, nunc 57, olim 64J, fols. 157r-199r. 2 Philotheus, Tomus Synodicus II contra Prochorum Cydonium, PG 151, col. 712.

Dogma and Humanism: The Fate of Philosophy and Theology in Byzantium

Lowell M. Clucas, University of Washington

It is a peculiar fact of history that, although the Byzantine Empire inherited the greater part of the corpus of classical Greek philosophy, it failed to produce a major new synthesis of philosophy and instead confined itself, by and large, to commentaries and eclectic. adaptations. While philosophical developments in the West demonstrate little dynamism or momentum of creativity until the later eleventh century, the development of philosophy in the West in the High Middle Ages rapidly becomes revolutionary: a powerful and increasingly original as well as ongoing movement, certainly by comparison with the still quite conservative use of classical philosophy in Byzantium. Historians have had something of a tradition of waxing eloquent on the supposed entropy of the classical heritage in Byzantium, in the domain of philosophy as well as in other intellectual fields whose starting point lies in Antiquity; some elements of forward momentum are nowadays usually conceded, but on the whole the conservatism and retrospective mentality of Byzantine authors and their productions are still seen as having suffered from a lack of creative originality. Voilˆ la dŽcadence! That this model of intellectual history, with its Janus face of alarming decay on the one hand and charm of fin de sicle on the other does not work for the history of the visual arts in Byzantium, has not deflected any historian or observer of the period who is under the spell of the metaphor of biological exhaustion. The frequent fixation, however sublimated, in modern historiography, on Byzantium's apparent lack of creative response to the classical heritage, has blinded some scholars to the question of the causes of cultural and intellectual change in East and West. Indeed, the seemingly inadequate response of Byzantium to what was, after all, its very major share in the inheritance of the Ancient World has been represented, all too often, as a phenomenon which somehow explains itself! That is, Byzantium was just not that creative. The slightly ludicrous circularity of this reasoning has, unfortunately, rarely troubled its exponents very much.

However, Zeitgeist or no, the intellectual representatives of a society cannot be separated from the values, problems, and, above all the necessities involved in the totality of circumstances obtaining at any given time in their society as a whole. It is within this inevitably limiting context that whatever possibilities there are emerge. And when we apply such a criterion as a heuristic tool to the question of the fate of philosophy in Byzantium, very different answers emerge from those with which a part of the learned public is still, too often, conventionally titillated, while it is swept on to the grand fallacy of an impression of some originally and innately superior quality to be glimpsed in the West. This paper, then, attempts to focus on the intellectual history of Byzantium, especially in the domain of philosophy, in the context of the overall structure of Byzantine society as it itself developed from the sixth through the twelfth century out of the pressure of internal changes and external forces and, indeed, their interaction. Hopefully, this examination will show that, however unreasonable was the behavior of individuals, the outcome of the history of philosophy in Byzantium was not, somehow, paradoxical, and, therefore, if one likes, not unreasonable. That is, there were reasons, and very good ones, for the course of events in Byzantium's intellectual history, inasmuch as this course of events was significantly connected to dominating political and social structures as well as certain crystallized attitudes which, taken together, dictated, to a very large extent, what opportunities could be seized and which avenues would be closed.

1453 in Jewish Tradition

Steven Bowman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The fall of Constantinople signaled the end of an era for the Greek- speaking peoples of the Balkans. For the Byzantine Orthodox, Tuesday 29, 1453 became the first "Black Tuesday." For the Armenians and Jews, l453 had its own meaning. Several Armenian elegies have survived to give substance to the sense of loss experienced by that community. On the other hand, the Armenians succeeded in receiving total autonomy within the successor state of the Ottomans which included independence from Orthodox interference in their social and religious affairs.

For the Greek-speaking Jews of the Byzantine Empire, the year 1453 had immense consequences. An unpublished dirge from Crete, written immediately after word of the disaster reached the island, bears witness to the first impression that the news made. Subsequent interpretations of the event place it within the messianic literature of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. To the Greek-speaking Jews the fall of Constantinople was the first stage in the imminent redemption of the people Israel in the ongoing battle of log and Magog that disrupted the Islamic and Christian worlds of the fifteenth century. Constantinople in traditional literature was known as Roma rabbati--Roma magna, heir to Rome's traditional policies and attitudes toward the Jews. The sack of New Rome, then, in l453 was interpreted as the first half of the messianic vision; the second half was completed with the sack of Rome herself in 1527. Together the two meant the end of Rome's domination and contributed to the messianic interpretation of the rise of the Islamic Empire of the Ottomans. Needless to say Islamic messianism interpreted the conquest of Constantinople in the light of its own rich tradition.

There were more practical consequences of the Islamic conquest for the Jews. The history of the Greek-speaking or Romaniote communities was completely changed. All of the Greek Jews of Thrace and Macedonia were uprooted from their homes and resettled by Mehmet II in Constantinople as part of his policy of rebuilding the vacant city. A central Jewish authority was established under the leadership of Moses Capsali, the first haham basi of the Ottoman Empire. Both Capsali and his successor Elijah Mizrahi were Cretans. Their new-found independence from Byzantine and Orthodox control allowed the Greek Jews to establish the basic patterns for subsequent Ottoman Jewish history. With the arrival of large numbers of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking immigrants at the end of the fifteenth century, the tensions between the newcomers and older settlers increased until, with the death of Mizrahi, the central Jewish authority broke down due to a number of internal factors. The institution itself lost most of its authority until the nineteenth century. Moreover, the Greek-speaking community in Istanbul was nearly totally Sephardaized. Only in Epirus, Crete, and in scattered places in the Peloponnesus and occasional islands did Greek Jewish traditions survive. Still the story of Greek-speaking Ottoman Jewry remains to the present an untold story. Were importantly its history during the two transitional generations from 1453-1527 has an impact upon the history of the Greek Orthodox community during this period, in particular the attempts of Gennadius Scholarius to establish a now and viable identity for the defeated and disillusioned Orthodox community.

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