Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1212

Rh 1200 TZETZES. Irene Augusta, the wife of Manuel Comnenus, who died ^. D. 1158. The father of Joannes Tzetzes was Michael Tzetzes, His mother's name was Eudocia {Chil. v. 611). He was himself named after his paternal grandfather, a native of Byzan- tium, a man of some wealth, who, though not a learned man, showed groat respect for scholars {ib. 615). His maternal grandmother was of a Basque or Iberian family. The earlier part of his life he spent with his brother Isaac at home, where they received various wholesome precepts from their father, urging them to prefer learning to riches, power, or precedence. {Chil. iii. 157, iv. 56Q^ &c.) At the age of fifteen he was placed under the in- struction of tutors, who not only carried him through the usual routine of study, but taught him Hebrew and Syriac (comp. Chil. vi, 282). His writings bear evident traces of the extent of his acquirements in literature, science, and philosophy, and not less of the inordinate self-conceit with which they had filled him. He boasts of having the best memory of any living man. {Chil. i. 275, 645.) He styles himself a second Cato or Pala- medes (iii. 160); and says that he knows whole books off by heart (x. 681, comp. vi. 407, 475, viii. 182, ix. 752, x. 340, 364, xii. 13, 118, koL Haa &a eVepa i6eui ris ixauOdveiv, et airh aTTjOovs o'idaiJ.ev Acyeiv ircipda-dco). Another sub- ject on which he glorifies himself is the rapidity with which he could write, comparing it to the speed of lightning (xii. 119, viii. 269, 526, Koi vofi rh oivraTov ttjs T^e'r^bu ^lavoias). He talks of T^er^JKas ipevuas, as models of investigation, eV aTo-Trep ri aXijdeia e/c xctous avarp^x^'- (^ii- 75, 126). It is not much to be wondered at that others had not so exalted an opinion of him as he had of himself (xii. 97). The neglect of his fellow- countrymen even excites in him the fear that Con- stantinople would be given up to the barbarians, and become itself barbarous (xii. 993, &c.). He complains with bitterness that the princes and great incn of his age did not appreciate his merits, but left him to get a livelihood by transcribing and selling his writings, of which they nevertheless expected copies to be sent them gratis (v. 941, comp. ix. 369). He speaks of Irene Augusta as the only person of high station from whom he had received any thing (xi. 48), and even in this in- stance he complains that the sums promised him for his Homeric Allegories were kept back by those who should have paid him (ix. 282, ^c). Further biographical particulars have not come down to us. A large part of the voluminous writings of Tzetzes is still extant. The following have been published. 1. 'lAm/cci. This consists properly of three poems, collected in one imder the titles To irph 'Ofxijpov, ra 'OjUTjpou, /cat to. fieff "Ofxripov. The first contains the whole Iliac cyclus, from the birth of Paris to the tenth year of the siege, when the Iliad begins. The second consists of an abridg- ment of the Iliad. The third, like the work of Quintus Sraymaeus, is devoted to the occurrences which took place between the death of Hector and the return of the Greeks. The whole amounts to 1 676 lines, and is written in hexameter metre. It is a very dull composition, all the merits that are to be found in which should be ascribed to the earlier poets from whom Tzetzes derived his mate- rials. Our knowledge of this composition is of conjparatively recent date. A fragment of one hun- TZETZES. dred and forty-eight lines, from the Antehomerica, was published by F. Morel, under the title Iliucum carmen Poetae Graeci cujtis nomen ignoratur. A fragment of twenty lines from the Posthomerica wns published by Dodwell in his Dissertationes de veterihus Graecis et liomanis Ci/clis, p. 802. In 1770 G. B. von Schirach published from a manu- script formerly at Augsburg, now at Munich, the whole of the Antehomerica, with the exception of about one hundred and seventy lines, a portion of the Homerica, and the fragment of the Postho- merica which had been published by Dodwell. The missing portion of the Antehomerica, together with the whole of the Posthomerica, was found in a manuscript at Vienna by T. C. Tychsen, whc sent a copy of it to F. Jacobs. A copy of a manu- script of the Homerica was obtained from England, and. a complete edition of the three poems was published by Jacobs in 1793, with a commentary. A more correct edition is that of Immanuel Bekker (Berlin, 1816). 2. Another extensive work of Tzetzes is that known by the name of Chiliades, consisting in its present form of 12,661 lines. The name Chiliades was given to it by the first editor, Nic. Gerbelius, who divided it, without reference to the contents, into thirteen divisions of 1000 lines, the last being incomplete. Tzetzes himself called it jSi'gAos iVropt/crj, and divided it into three TTiVafces, as he termed them ; the first of which contains one hundred and forty-one narrations, and ends at Chil. iv. 1. 466. Hereupon follows an epistle to one Joannes Lachanes, in which the contents of the first table are repeated and accom- panied with moral observations. The second TTiVal extends from ChiL iv. 1. 781 to Chil. v. 192, and contains twenty-three narratives. The third contains four hundred aud ninetj'-six stories. It consists of six hundred and sixty chapters or divi- sions, sp'-.arated into three masses. Its subject- matt'-r .y of the most miscellaneous kind, but em- braces chiefly mythological and historical narra- tives, arranged under separate titles, and without any further connection. The following are a few of them, as they occur: Croesus, Midas, Gyges,_ Codrus, Alcmaeon, the sons of Boreas, Euphorbua Narcissus, Nireus, Hyacinthus, Orpheus, Amphioi the Sirens, Marsyas, Terpander, Arion, the goldei lamb of Atreus, the bull of Minos, the dog o| Cephalus, Megacles, Cimon, Aristopatira, the victories of Simonides, Stesichorus, Tyrtaeus, Han- nibal, Bucephalus, the clothes of the Sybarite Ant tisthenes, Xerxes, Cleopatra, the Pharos at Alex- andria, Trajanus and his bridge over the Danube^ Archimedes, Hercules, &c. It is an uncritical gossiping book, written in ba( Greek in that abominable make-believe of a metr called political verse {rffxa^eviJieuoi crrixot, Chil. ix»j 283), of which the following is a sample : — olSas 5e ttolvtus aKpi§c5s irws iracrav ol5a fiiSXov 4k (XT7]6ous re koI arS/jLaros ovtws ctoiVws Keyeiy^ ov5h yap fiur^fiovea-repou rod T^er^ou ^ehs &oif &vdpa T(av irpiv re Koi twu vvv i^€(pr)vev iv fii(f. {Chit. i. 275.) It is followed by an appendix, in iambics, and somd prose epistles. It contains, however, a great dea of curious and valuable information, though, Heyne has shown, the bulk of it was obtained bj Tzetzes at second hand. Fabricius {Dibl. Grae xi. p. 243, &c.) has a list of above 400 writer quoted by Tzetzes in this work. The author aj