Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/540

 518 APPENDIX origiual work was published b}' L. F. Tafel in a.d. 1832 (Eustathii Opuscula, i. p. ^67-307) and reprinted by Bekker at the end of the Bonn ed. of Leo Gram- maticus. There are also extant various speeches (e.c/. a funeral oration by the En'.peror Manuel) which have been published by Tafel either in his edition of the lesser works of Eustathius or in his treatise De Thessalonica ejusque agro (1839). A Collection of letters (some not by Eustathius but by Psellus) is also published bv Tafel (Eustathii Op. p. 507 sqq.) and some others by Regel, Font, rer. Byz. i. '(1892). George AcROPOLriES, born in 1217 at Constantinople, migrated to Nicaia at the age of eighteen, and studied there under the learned Nicephorus Blernmydes. He was appointed (1244) to the office of Grand Logothete, and instructed the young prince Theodore Lascaris who afterwards became Emperor. Unsuccessful as a general in the war with the Despot of Epirus (1257), he was made prisoner, and after his release he was employed by Michael Palceologus as a diplomatist. He represented the Greek Emperor at the Council of L3"ons, for the purpose of bringing about a reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches. He died in 1282. His historj' embraces the period from 1203 to the recovery of Constantinople in 1261, and is thus a continuation of Nicetas. For the second half of the period treated it is not only a contemporary work, but the work of one who was in a good posi- tion for observing political events. [The XpoviK^ ffvyypa<pi in its original form was published by Leo Allatius 1651, and is reprinted in the Venice and Bonn collections. An abridgment was published by Dousa in 1614. There is also, in a Ms. at Milan, a copy of the work with interpolations (designated as such) by a contemporarj- of Acropolites (see Krumbacher, Gesch, der byz. Litt., p. 287 ; A. Heisenberg, Studieu zur Textgeschichte des Georgios Akiopolites, 1894).] George Pachymkres (a.d. 1242-1310) carries us on from the point where Acropolites deserts us. He is the chief literary figm-e of the first fifty years of the restored Empire. His work in 13 Books begins at a. d. 1255 and comes do^vn to 1308. His chief interest was in the theological controversies of the day, and there is far too much theology and disputation about dogma in his history ; but this was what absorbed the attention of the men of his time. " Pachymeres, by his cultuie and literary activity, overtops his contemporaries, and may be designated as the greatest Byzantine Polyhistor of the 13th centmy. We see in him the liglits and shadows of the age of the Palseologi. He is not wanting in learning, originality, and wit. But he does not achieve the independence of view and expression, which distinguishes a Photius or a Psellus." Other works of Pachvmeres are extant, but only his autobiography in hexameter verses need be mentioned here (it was suggested by Gregory Nazianzen's Trcpi kavrov). It is worth j" of note — as a symptom of the approaching renaissance — that Pachymeres adopted the Attic, instead of the Roman, lutmes of the months. [The edition of Possiaus, used by Gibbon, was reprinted in the Bonn collection, 1835.] XiCEPHORiJs Grcooras (1295-c. 1359) of Heraclea in Pontus was educated at Constantinople, and enjoyed the teaching of Theodore Metochites, who was dis- tinguished not only as a trusted councillor of the Emperor Androuicus, but as a man of eucyclopredic learning.* Nicephorus won the favour of Andronicus, but on that Emperor's deposition in 1328 his property was confiscated and he had to live in retirement. He came forth from his retreat to do theological battle with the pugnacious Barlaam of Calabria, who was forming a sort of school in Constantinople (see above, c. Ixiii. p. 507) ; and his victory in this controversy was rewarded by reinstatement in his propert}' and offices. 8 His chief literary remains are a collection of Miscellaneous Essays, which has been edited by C. G. Muller and T. Kiessling, 1821 ; and a large number of rhetorical exercises and astronomical and scientific treatises. His occasional poems have not yet Leen com- pletely published.