Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/157

Rh besn held by Clement of Alexandria, by Justin Martyr, or by Origen. There was now a Christian Greek literature, and a Christian Greek eloquence of extraordinary power. The laity became more and more estranged from the Greek literature however intrinsically pure and noble of the pagan past. At the same time the Greek language which had maintained its purity in Italian seats was becoming corrupted in the new Greek Home of the East. In 529 A.D. Justinian put forth an edict by which the schools of heathen philosophy were formally closed. The act had at least a symbolical meaning. It is necessary to guard against the supposition that such assumed landmarks in political or literary history always mark a definite transition from one order of things to another. But it is practically convenient, or necessary, to use such landmarks. And, in this case, if a line is to be drawn at any one point between the Old and the Byzantine- literature, it may be said that the edict of Justinian was the official record of the fact that the old literature of Greece was dead. Then came the Byzantine age, with its massive but formless erudition, its comment aries, annals, and lexicons, represented by such works as those of Eustathius, Photius, and Suidas. The golden time of the Byzantine literature was from about 850 to 1200 A.I). Just as this was drawing to an end, a poetry at first satirical arose in the popular dialect, which had now decidedly diverged from the literary ; and thus the link was made which connects the Byzantine period with the Greek litera ture of to-day. The Greek language has never died, and the continuity of Greek literature has never been broken.

1em (R. C. J.)

 

The literature of the Byzantine period, from the death of Justinian to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, is singularly destitute of interest for the general reader. There is not a single work of intense human passion. Not one man appeared gifted with anything like genius. The story, most notable books are books of history written by those who were themselves actors in the scenes, or at the least were contemporaries or nearly contemporaries of the events recorded. There is always a sense of reality about such works, however hazy our general conception of the times may be. Of these historians a full account is given in the article. Some of these writers discussed other subjects. Remarkable amongst these is Constantino VII., Porphyrogenitus, who wrote or caused to be written a whole series of books, treating of the administration of the empire, the ceremonies of the court, war, and jurisprudence. He got up a cyclopaedia of his tory and politics, of agricultural science, of the veterinary art, and of medicine, and ordered the preparation of an epitome of Aristotle s work on animals, of a collection of Greek epigrams, and a collection of the histories of saints. Constantino s works do not give so much an insight into what he could do as into what he wished to do. Some of the historians were really men of wide culture. .Nicephorus Gregoras (born 1295) received a liberal education in rhetoric, astronomy, and other subjects, and his literary- activity ranged over the entire field of human knowledge. Others again combined the study of rhetoric or philosophy with that of history. Pachymeres, for instance, wrote declamations of a pedantic and frigid nature on historical subjects, blending imagination with what he gathered from history.

The character of the Byzantine period is seen in the kind Poetrj of poetry that it produced. There were some good epigram writers in the reign of Justinian, but after his time the anthology received very few additions. The first versifier of importance that we meet in the progress of time is Georgius of Pisidia, who was deacon of the church of St Sophia in the reign of the emperor Heraclius (610-641). His muse celebrates various wars in iambic verse, such as the war against the Persians, the Avaric war, and the ex ploits of Heraclius. He also wrote several Christian pieces. Leo VI., called the Wise, who was emperor from 886 to 912, versified astronomical and ecclesiastical subjects, and wrote some prose works besides, most of which, if not all, deserve to lie in oblivion. Theodosius, deacon in the church of Si Sophia towards the end of the 10th century, used the iambic trimeter to narrate the capture of Crete, a work which derives all its value from the historical matter con tained in it. Theodoras Prodromus is perhaps of all the Byzantine writers the one that comes nearest to the rank of a poet, yet even this approach is made only in some of his poems in the popular dialect, which have a strong satiric turn and a vein of humour. His more ambitious efforts have no claim to the title of poetry. The subjects are of wide range and various furm epistles, congratulatory addresses, historical and didactic poems. Some of them are in a dramatic form, such as the Catamyomackia, recently edited by Hercher in the Teulner Bibliotheca, iu which besides the ordinary characters Prodromus introduces a chorus and semi-chorus, and the Krjpv and ayyeXos so common in ancient plays. His largest poem is a romance called TO. Kara. PoSdvOrjv Kal AcxriKAe a, consisting of nine books in iambic trimeter. It is entirely destitute of origin ality, and overladen with rhetorical and unpoetic passages, It is given by Hercher in his Scriptores Erotici. Prodromus flourished in the reign of Manuel I, Comnenus(l 143-1180). Another Byzantine, Nicetas Eugenianus, apparently of the I same age, wrote a fictitious poem, TO. KOTO. Apoo-tAAav Kal Xapt/cXea, which bears traces on every page of a close con nexion with the similar work of Prodromus. Constantino I Manasses also lived during the reign of Manuel I., I characterized by absurdity and poverty of thought and expression. Both of these romances are given in Hercher s I Scriptores Erotici. Verse was during this period used for I the most prosaic purposes. Michael Psellus the younger, i about 1018 A.D., employed it to give a synopsis of laws, Tzetzes to give an exposition of history. The work of Tzetzes is now called Chiliades, from its being divided into books of a thousand lines. It is written in the versus politicus, and is a very heterogeneous mixture of fact and fiction, but occasionally contains references to customs and incidents which are not handed down to us elsewhere. Another critic,. Joannes Pediasimus, wrote iambic verses, -Trepl yvvaiKos Kaxrjs Kal ayaOrjs 17 IIo$o?. Such were the subjects which the Byzantine muse treated, and as we have given a rather full catalogue of the poetical works produced in the Byzantine period in the ancient language, nothing re quires to be said of the sterile nature of the poets and their poetry.
 * Comnenus, and wrote a fiction in the versus politicus,

Dramatic poetry was also neglected, but enough was produced to keep up the continuity in the tradition of the drama. Sathas has tried to show that dramas were acted up to the latest period of the Byzantine empire, and though the notices are not numerous nor very conclusive, he seems to us to have proved his point (K. N. ^0.60. IcrropiKov So/a/xiov Trepl TOV 6earpov KOL T^S Moi cri/ojs TWV Bv^avrtVaii, Venice, 1878). We have already seen that Prodromus composed dramas. The most voluminous writer in this department is Manuel Philes of Ephesus, who flourished from about 1280 to 1330, and who himself probably acted on 