Studies on Byzantine history of the 9th and 10th centuries 9780902089075

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Preface
I Constantine VII's Portrait of Michael III (page 71-77)
II The Date and Significance of the Tenth Homily of Photius (page 125-140)
III The Chronological Accuracy of the "Logothete" for the Years A.D. 867-913 (page 91-112)
IV The Classical Background of the Scriptores Post Theophanem (page 13-30)
V A Note on the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus (page 145-147)
VI Nine Orations of Arethas from Cod. Marc. Gr. 524 (page 1-40)
VII Eight Letters of Arethas on the Fourth Marriage of Leo the Wise (page 293-372)
VIII Three Documents Concerning the "Tetragamy" (page 231-241)
IX A Note on Nicetas David Paphlago and the Vita Ignatii (page 241-247)
X The Flight of Samonas (page 217-235)
XI Leo Choerosphactes and the Saracen Vizier (page 167-175)
XII The Supposed Russian Attack on Constantinople in 907: Evidence of the Pseudo-Symeon (page 403-406)
XIII The Date of Constantine VII's Coronation (page 133-138)
XIV The Date of Leo VI's Cretan Expedition (page 277-281)
XV The Emperor Alexander and the Saracen Prisoners (page 389-393)
XVI The Mission of St Demetrianus of Cyprus to Bagdad (page 267-275)
XVII A Note on the "Letter to the Emir" of Nicholas Mysticus (page 399-401)
XVIII Letter 101 of the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus (page 75-80)
XIX A "Consolatio" of the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus (page 159-166)
XX The Date of the Slav Revolt in Peloponnese Under Romanus I (page 204-211)
XXI The Peace with Bulgaria (927) Celebrated by Theodore Daphnopates (page 287-303)
XXII Cyprus Between Byzantium and Islam, A.D. 688-965 (page 1006-1014)
Index

Citation preview

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| Studies on Byzantine History of the 9th and 10th Centuries

Among other Variorum Reprints in the Collected Studies Series: NICOLAS SVORONOS

Etudes sur l’organisation intérieure, la société et l’économie de l’Empire Byzantin ANDRE GUILLOU

Studies on Byzantine Italy NIKOLAY ANDREYEV

Studies in Muscovy: Western influence and Byzantine inheritance HELENE AHRWEILER Etudes sur les structures administratives et sociales de Byzance DIMITRI OBOLENSKY

Byzantium and the Slavs: collected studies SPEROS VRYONIS JR. Byzantium: its internal history and relations with the Muslim world PETER CHARANIS

Studies on the Demography of the Byzantine Empire JEAN DARROUZES

Littérature et histoire des textes byzantins DIONYSIOS ZAKYTHINOS Byzance: Etat — Société — Economie

DONALD M. NICOL Byzantium: its ecclesiastical history and

relations with the western world

HANS-GEORG BECK | Ideen und Realitaeten in Byzanz MARIUS CANARD Miscellanea Orientalia MARIUS CANARD

Byzance et les musulmans du Proche Orient FRANCOIS HALKIN Saints moines d’Orient MANOLIS CHATZIDAKIS

Studies in Byzantine Art and Archaeology DAVID TALBOT RICE

Byzantine Art and its Influences

Romilly J.H.Jenkins

Studies on Byzantine History of the 9th and 10th Centuries

is i 2 or PIS ies

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VARIORUM REPRINTS , London 1970

SBN 902089 072 ©

Published in Great Britain by VARIORUM REPRINTS 21a, Pembridge Mews, London W.11.

Printed in Switzerland by REDA SA, 1225 Chéne-Bourg, Geneva.

VARIORUM REPRINT CS]

CONTENTS

Preface Pages

J Constantine VII’s Portrait of Michael IT] 71-77

Photius 125—140

IT The Date and Significance of the Tenth Homily of

Il] The Chronological Accuracy of the “‘Logothete”

for the Years A.D. 867—913 91-112

Theophanem 13—30

IV The Classical Background of the Scriptores Post

V A Note on the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus 145-147 VI Nine Orations of Arethas from Cod. Marc. Gr. 524 1—40

of Leo the Wise 20-372

VII Eight Letters of Arethas on the Fourth Marriage

Vill Three Documents Concerning the “Tetragamy” 231-241

Ignatit 241-247

IX A Note on Nicetas David Paphlago and the Vita

xX The Flight of Samonas 217—235

XI Leo Choerosphactes and the Saracen Vizier 167-175 XII The Supposed Russian Attack on Constantinople

in 907: Evidence of the Pseudo-Symeon 403406

Xl The Date of Constantine VII’s Coronation 133—138

XIV The Date of Leo VI’s Cretan Expedition 277-281 XV The Emperor Alexander and the Saracen Prisoners 289—293

Pages

Bagdad 267—275

XVI The Mission of St Demetrianus of Cyprus to

Mysticus 399—401

XVII A Note on the “Letter to the Emir” of Nicholas

XVIII Letter 101 of the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus 75—80 XIX A “Consolatio” of the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus 159-166

Romanus | 204—211

XX The Date of the Slav Revolt in Peloponnese Under

XX] The Peace with Bulgaria (927) Celebrated by

Theodore Daphnopates 287—303

965 1006—1014

XXII Cyprus Between Byzantium and Islam, A.D. 688— Index

PREFACE

Romilly James Heald Jenkins was a scholar distinguished by his contribution to three separate, though related, fields: the archaeology of classical Greece; modern Greek poetry; and the study of medieval Byzantium. He was born in 1907 at Hitchin in England, and was educated at the Leys School and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, graduating in 1929 as the Chancellor’s Classical Medallist. From 1930 to 1934 he was a student at the British School of Archaelogy in Athens, and took part in the excavations carried out under the School’s auspices at Isthmia and Perachora. His interest in modern Greek literature resulted in his appointment in 1936 as Lewis Gibson Lecturer in

Modern Greek at Cambridge University, a position he held for ten years. After serving in the Foreign Office during the war, he was elected in 1946 Koraés Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King’s College, London University. He combined his professorial duties with those of honorary Lecturer in Classical Archaeology, chairman of the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens, and president

of the British National Committee for Byzantine Studies. In 1960 Jenkins and his wife moved to the United States, where he became Professor of Byzantine History and Literature at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies (Harvard University) in Washington, D.C. He held this position until his death on 30 September 1969, serving also since 1967 as Director of Studies.

Jenkins’ scholarly output falls roughly into three phases. During the 1930s he published a number of archaeological works, including a book on Dorian

plastic art of the seventh century B.C., and a study of the terracottas of Perachora. Greek archaeology and ancient literature remained his principal

love, even when - owing partly to the dearth of University posts in the archaeological field in Britain at that time - he turned to more recent periods

of Greek culture and history. He had a deep appreciation of poetry, and wrote, mainly in the 1940s, a series of studies on two leading poets of modern Greece, Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857) and Kostis Palamas (1859-

1943). He was particularly interested in the art of translation, and his linguistic acumen, coupled with a gift for literary expression (both no doubt partly acquired from the study of the classics) enabled him to produce, with great enjoyment to himself, memorable English versions of several of their poems.

It was in the prime of his life that Jenkins turned to the study of the

Byzantine world, a field in which he was to make his most notable contribution to scholarship. As a Byzantinist he was remarkable for his mastery

of the technique of textual criticism, for the sense of detection which he displayed in unravelling complex problems of chronology and authorship, and for his powers of historical synthesis. The first of these qualities is

evident in his translation of Constantine Porphyrogenitus’ treatise De administrando imperio (1949) and in the commentary on this text which he edited in 1962. A similar work - nearly completed before his death - was the edition and translation of another important tenth-century document, the letters of the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus. His numerous articles, published between 1948 and 1967, where his critical insight and his delight in grappling with intricate puzzles were afforded full scope, are also mainly concerned

with the history of tenth-century Byzantium, on which he came to be recognized as one of the foremost living authorities. His willingness to incorporate the results of his research in works intended for the general

public is instanced in his book Byzantium: the Imperial Centuries, A.D. 610 to 1071 (1966), which displays several of his characteristics as a scholar and writer: a power of lucid compression, a vigour in controversy, a gift for the telling phrase, the use of mordant irony, an impatience with theological controversies, and a delightful vividness of style.

Though he became increasingly absorbed in the study of the Byzantine world, Jenkins retained a keen interest in modern and contemporary Greece. In view of the range of his scholarship, which comprehended the development of Hellenic civilisation from antiquity to the present day, and because he was a man of strong intellectual passions, he could hardly fail to become involved in the controversy, which has raged for the last century and a half, over the ethnic origin of the modern Greeks. His knowledge of Byzantine civilisation, his shrewd and never uncritical observation of the contemporary Greek scene, and his profound dislike of all forms of national vanity and racial mythology led him to reject the view that the Greeks of today are lineal descendants of the ancient Hellenes. This theory, espoused enthusiastically by Greeks and many West European philhellenes in the nineteenth century, and which is by no means dead today, Jenkins pilloried with savage irony in his book The Dilessi Murders (1961) and in his brilliant Cincinnati lectures, published under the title Byzantium and Byzantinism (1963). His mirthful exposure of the more absurd delusions of what he termed ‘ethnic truth’ or ‘ancestoritis’ may have led him on occasion to overstate his case; but most readers of these works will probably agree that their value is not diminished by the author’s emotional, though always clear-sighted, commitment to his theme, which reflects his complex and ambivalent attitude to modern Greece. The articles republished in this volume represent only a portion of Jenkins’ specialized writings on Byzantine history. They have been selected to form a

coherent group. They cover the central period of what is often termed the ‘Middle-Byzantine Empire’, a period which opens with. the accession of

Michael II] in 842 and closes with the death of Constantine VII in 959. In the history of Byzantium this was a crucial epoch. It witnessed a powerful revival

of the Empire’s foreign policy and missionary activity abroad; a prolonged and ultimately successful struggle with its aggressive northern neighbours; the Opening phases of the military offensive against Islam; the beginnings of a social and economic crisis, caused by the conflict between the central govern-

ment and the landowning aristocracy; the chequered relations between the Churches of Constantinople and Rome; and, at home, the further develop-

ment of imperial legislation, together with a remarkable renaissance of scholarship and art. Special emphasis is laid in this volume on the reign of

i

Leo VI (886-912). The studies here assembled will provide valuable material to the medievalist seeking to reconstruct the still partially obscure events of Byzantine history during one of its most significant periods.

Special thanks are due to Professor Ivan Dujcév, who suggested the pub-

lication of this volume, and to Professor Cyril Mango, who selected the articles and gave valuable advice on editorial matters. The writer of the Preface wishes to express his warm gratitude to Mrs. Céline Jenkins for supplying him with information about her husband’s life and work. Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the original publishers of the studies for permission to reprint them in this volume.

DIMITRI OBOLENSKY

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I

Constantine VII's Portrait of Michael III

Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques Academie Royale de Belgique. 5e série XXXIV 1948

+

Constantine VII ’s Portrait of Michael III,

The character and achievements of Michael III have been rescued from the partial calumnies of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and his collaborators by the researches of Grégoire (1), Dvornik (?) and Vasiliev (3). The account of Michael given by Constantine in the Vita Basilii (4), of

which Genesius keeps to the tone and the Continuer of Theophanes repeats many of the incidents (8), is now seen

to be a tissue of slanders or half-truths, compiled without regard to historical fact and with the sole object of justifying to posterity Basil’s brutal murder of a benefactor and consequent elevation to the supreme power. Constantine’s suppressions and misrepresentations were successful : for even the Continuer of George the Monk (8) can find little good to say of Michael, though he introduces

several facts which redound to the discredit of Basil and had naturally been omitted by Basil’s grandson. It is therefore worth while to inquire into the sources of Constantine's artful composition, which had so wide

and lasting an influence upon contemporary and later chroniclers. It is obvious that the imperial historian, unable or unwilling to reproduce the truth, would have recourse to literary fiction, and would build up his ideal {*) Présenté par M. Henri GREGOIRE.

(4) Byzantion, V, pp. 327ff; VIII, pp. 515ff. (2) Byzantion, X, pp. 5ff. (*) The Russian Attack on C /ple in 860, Cambridge, Mass., 1946, pp. 152ff. (*) Theophanes Continuatus, ed. Bonn, pp. 242-255. (5) Cf. Bury in Byzantinische Zettschrift, XV, pp. 571-572. (*) Georgins Monachns, ed. Bonn, pp. 810-838.

— 71 —

ee | R.J.H. Jenkins. — Constantine VII ’s

monster out of elements culled from past history. What elements were these ? A clue is found in the literary genre which Constantine imposed upon his school of historio-

graphers : abandoning the unliterary and jejune narration of the chronographers, notably of his own great erand-uncle Theophanes, he reintroduced the fashion of treating history in Reigns, and of writing Lives of the emperors of the ninth century, and here his model was his favourite ancient historian, Plutarch. Plutarch, apart from his famous Parallel Lives, wrote also the lives of the

Roman emperors from Augustus to Vitellius ('), of which we possess in full only those of Galba and Otho but which were, of course, all available to Constantine. Constantine’s devotion to Plutarch is in one respect

an unmixed blessing to his readers: it taught him to write clear, simple Greek. Of Plutarch’s artistry he had

absolutely none, and his daubs of Michael and Basil bear as little resemblance to living men as do the conventional figures on a mediaeval ikon. But the merits of his perspicuousness and lucidity will not be underestimated by anyone who turns from a page of the Vita Bastlw or the De Imagine Edessena (?) to a page of Genesius or of the earlier books of the Continuation of Theophanes. The

Vita Basilit betrays the influence of Plutarch at every turn, in the vocabulary, the conjunctive phrases, the arrangement of material, the gnomic and often platitudinous asides (#). But this is no place to examine the (1) Plutarchi Galba et Otho, ed. Ziegler, Leipsic, 1935, pp. V-VI. (2) I do not of course mean that these works are written in spoken or demotic Greck (cf. Moravesik’s remarks in .4¢t: del V Congresso Internazionale degli Studi Bizantini, Rome, 1936, p. 520) ; but the style is a plain, unaffected literary Greek, as one would expect from one of the few Byzantine writers who really saw the

connexion between writing a simple style and conveying information ; cf. De Jdministrandy Imperio, p. 68, 8d xow?s Kat cabwyAnuévys amayyedias SidaEar.

(3) Constantine does not venture to avow his fondness for Plutarch, who was not mercly a Hellene but a Platonist as well. It was safer to make acknowledgments to St John Chrysostom (Theoph. Cont. p. 457).

—72 —

Portrait of Michael III | stylistic correspondence at full. Suffice it to say that where we find, as in the portrait of Michael III, an abvious-

ly fictional character, it is to Plutarch that we at once turn to find the model or models. And find them we do, without trouble. Constantine’s Michael is a conflation of the worst features of Plutarch’s Antony (‘) with a now unidentifiable part of Plutarch’s Nero.

The Michael of the Vita Basil is a quite unconvincing compound of vulgarity (#), reckless extravagance (°),

drunkenness (4), impiety (*), hippomania (*), and cruelty (7). [he illustrations of the first three of these qualities — can be shown to be borrowed, sometimes verbally, from

Plutarch’s Antony. Antony, says Plutarch, was hated and contemned for his taste for low company ; he was surrounded by pio. Kxat yedAwromowi (*). Michael, too, delights in the antics of pioe Kai yedotoz (*). Antony’s profusion is such that he gives a fortune to a friend and then casually and ostentatiously doubles it (1°); he gives a house to a cook who has served him a pleasant dinner("). Michael bestows a fortune on his jockey Cheilas (??), and another on Himerius as a reward for an unsavoury jest(**). Both become bankrupt and are forced to pillage the cof-

fers of the wealthy to restock their own :

(1) Plutarcht Vitae Parallelae, ed. Sintenis, Leipsic, 1875, -vol. IV, pp. 346428. Future references (cited as Antony) are to this edition. (*) Vita Basil, pp. 243, 254. (3) Jbid., p. 253. (*) Lbid., p. 251. (*) Ibtd., pp. 244ff. (°) Lbid., p. 243. (7) Ibtd., p. 251. 5) Antony, p. 354.

(°) Vita Basil, p. 243. (*°) Antony, pp. 349-350. (41) Ibid., p. 366.

(28) Ibtd., p. 254. : (12) Vita Basil, p. 253.

R. J. H. Jenkins. — Constantine VII ’s

bd a A! 9 ~ > +4 > 4 "A >

adynpetro yap evyeveis avayKn €mnpryTo Tous ev avOpusrous Ta GvTa paoTi- réAe Travras davepws azrocylais Kat KoAakt yapilopevos. darrecbar Kai dnueveobar

ITo\Adv dS€ Kat Cavrwy ws ras ovotas atrav, wa éexot TeOyynKdTwv aiTnodpevoi Ti- mopov 6 BaatAevs HvicxoLs Kat

ves ovotas €AaBov. qopvats Kati aoeAyéow avOpwmots xapilecbar

(Antony, p. 366) (Vita Basil, p. 253) Both are drunkards, and ape the god of wine (*) :

> 4 > 4 \ aA > 4 A

Aidvucov adrov (sc. tov ILTAjv od 70 pevdtyuov povov Avyrwvov) dvaxadoupévwy Kai Avaiov ... éxéxtnTo Tob xapirodoTnvy Kai petAtyiov. yapitoddrov Atovicou, Gv p-

*H. > 4 ~ ~ 4 s) > oN vy yap A apédAet rowtTos petofar weto Kat eomrovda2? a \ A . 2 \ ‘oe ’ ‘ eviois, Ttois d¢€ oAdois fev’ adda Kat ws wunorns

WEUNOTHS Kal aypiwveos. mdAw Kat avtov exeivov elye To epwua@des (*) TE Kat TLTAMEKOV...

(Antony, p. 366) (Vita Basil, p. 251). The charges of impiety could not, in the nature of the

case, be drawn from the histories of pagan worthies, but Antony’s delight in undignified practical joking and revelry is not without influence upon Michael’s blasphemous and sacrilegious exploits. Michael’s mock eccle-

siastics form a pagan thiasos, [Tavs kai Larvpucds oxiptavres (*): Antony is welcomed by avdpes 5€ xai rratdes els Latvpouvs cai ITdvas. .dveoxevacpevor (*). Michael (4) It is noteworthy that Michael’s insobriety is not stressed by Genesius, who was as hostile to Michael as was Constantine, and much better informed about him ; (cf. Hirscy, Byzantinische Studien, pp. 118ff.; and de Boor in Byzanttnische Zeitschrift, X, pp. 62-65.) If Michael really had been a sot, it is quite incredible that Genesius should not have said so. (*) Cf. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moraha, ed. Bernardakis, Leipsic, 1891, III, Pp. 192: 80 Kai rev Gedy tov Baowda perixuov .. Kadodar’ To 5é KoAagrucoy épivudSes ari.

(3) Vita Basilis, p. 245. . : (*) Antony, p. 366.

Portrast of Mschael ITI

perpetrates a hoax on Theodora (?); Antony a hoax on Fulvia (*?). Both indulge in guffaws: dvaxayydoavros (3),

avakayyalwy (4). Finally, God deserts both for their crimes and follies: 6 @eos tiv yetpa avrod adeiAero amo cov (*), azroXetrew 6 Deds tov >Avrawunov (8).

So much for the first model. But Antony, whatever his faults, was not addicted either to cruelty or to horseracing. Another model had to be found for these vices,

and there is every reason to believe that Plutarch’s Nero served the turn. The Nevo is now lost(?), so that we

are to some extent thrown back on conjecture. But in this very section of the Vita Basil Constantine tells, or refers to, an anecdote of Nero which is found in no ancient author whose work has come down to us, and we are on fairly safe ground in assuming that he culled it from Plutarch (8). For Nero’s love of horse-racing and chariot-driving we may refer to Suetonius’ Nero, ch. 22, and to Tacitus, Annals, book XIV, ch. 14. For cruelty, it is scarcely necessary to cite instances in reference to one whom all subsequent ages have held up as a proverbial example of this odious vice ; but with Vita Baszlz p. 25I we may compare ch. 37 of Suetonius. These Latin sources were of course not at Constantine's disposal, but

are indications of the kind of material that Plutarch’s study must have contained. One further parallel may be (1) Vita Basilii, p. 246. (7) Antony, p. 355. (3) Vita Basil, p. 247. . (4) Antony, p. 363.

(5) Vita Bastlit, p. 247. (*) Antony, p. 415. (7) Plutarchi Galba et Otho, ed. Ziegler, Leipsic, 1935, p. V. But Z. is wrong in saying that the fragment surviving in the Vita Galbae is ‘adhuc non observatum’: see J. and W. LanGuorn, Plutarch’s Lives, London, 1868, p. 718. (8) ... dye: re adrdv (sc. rov Baowktoxivov) mpos tiv atyKxAnroy Tis yewpos dua

Kparav Kai troupydv aur@, ws 6 Népwv éxetvos warat rov morAvbpvAnrov "Epwraxra. (Vita Basit, p. 250). Eros, otherwise unknown, was no doubt of the same kidney as Sporus.

R. J. H. Jenkins. — Constantine VIT ’s

quoted to prove that Plutarch’s Nero was in Constantine’s mind as he wrote. After the profuse Nero came the

mical Basil: |

parsimonious Galba : after the profuse Michael the econo-

BovAdpevos d€ .. azrodetk- wmomep evoetxvupevov Geot vivat weydAnv peraBoAny,.... THY éml Ta KpeiTTW TOV

ek TOV idtwy, odK ex TaV “Pwyaixdv mpayparwv pe-

Synuociwy, yapilecGar. TaBoAnv ...... ovK eK TOV Snuooiwy .. aA’ é€x TaV

, OlKElwY.. |

(Galba, p. 19.) (Vita Basil, p. 256). It is notable that almost the only vice which Constantine does not emphasize in his portrait of Michael is that of sexual excess or perversion although ample material

of this nature was discoverable in the lives of Antony and Nero. The omission is suggestive. Michael’s Poppaea was Constantine’s grandmother, Eudocia (*) ; his Pythagoras and his Sporus were — dare one suggest it ? —Basil and Basiliscinus !

But this is not the only illuminating omission. The choice of Nero, that notorious monster of vice, as a model for an unfavourable portrait, needs no explanation. But

Antony is in a different category. Plutarch’s sketch is by no means unsympathetic : Antony is handsome, generous, popular, brave, and a skilful if unsuccessful soldier. Of course, all these qualities are ignored by Constantine, but why choose Antony in the first place ? No doubt, the opposition between the fundamentally unworthy Antony and the sage, austere and statesmanlike Octavian struck

Constantine as parallel to that between Michael and Basil. But this, perhaps, is not the sole reason. Is it not also probable that Constantine realized, though naturally

(4) Geo. Mon., p. 816. | om 76 —

Portrait of Michael III

he was not going to say so, that Michael strikingly resembled Antony in his good qualities, his generosity, his popularity, his personal courage, as well as in his bad ? This consideration may. help us to form a clearer picture of Michael, whose character has, from purely political motives. suffered cruelly at the hands of his chroniclers. Mapripua S€ rob peyébovs adt@ Kai 8 a Kakds axove: (').

(1) Antony, p. 425.

aw 77 ommame

II

The Date and Significance of the Tenth Homily of Photius

| With Cyril A. Mango

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 9-10 1955-56

Fy va + >—

MONG the Homilies of the Patriarch Photius, the one best known to art-historians is commonly thought to have been delivered at the encaenia, on May 1, 880,’ of the New Church, built in or near the Great Palace by the emperor Basil I.? This Homily is cast in the form of an ekphrasis, or rhetorical description, and contains some highly significant data on church decoration in the ninth century, a period of particular importance in the elaboration of the iconographic layout of Byzantine churches. The purpose of this paper is to prove that, contrary to accepted opinion, the Homily of Photius has no connection with the New Church (or Nea), that it was delivered at the encaenia, in 864, of the Palace church of Our Lady of the Pharos, and that the description is of that church.* We add some notes

on the bearing which this revised interpretation has on problems of ninthcentury Byzantine art history. Eighteen Homilies of Photius survive, including the two published in 1954 by Messrs. Kournoutos and Laourdas from a ms. now in the National Library of Greece.* These Homilies seem to form a special collection in which the one under consideration occupies the tenth place. All the remaining Homilies, insofar as they can be dated on internal evidence, belong to the period of Photius’ first patriarchate (858-867 ). It was not quite impossible that there should be a single exception to this rule; but at least the balance of probability seemed to incline to the hypothesis that no. 10 also was datable before 867. This consideration drew our attention more closely to its title and text. Homily no. 10 has been accessible to Western scholarship for exactly three centuries. It was first published by Peter Lambeck (Lambecius) in

his notes on (Pseudo-) Codinus under the title ®wriov warpidpyov Kwvoravrwovrddews Exdaors (sic) THs év tots Baordios (Sic) véas éxxAnoias 1 Actually, most authorities place this event in 881 on the basis of the long discredited chronology of Pseudo-Symeon (Scriptores post Theophanem [Bonn] p. 692). A Vogt (Basile 1°” [Paris, 1908], p. 398, n. 4) has shown that May 1, 880 is the correct date. * Photit Orationes et Homiliae LXXXIII, ed. St. D’Aristarchis, II (Constantinople, 1900) pp. 428-439; Georgius Codinus (Bonn) pp. 194-202; PG, 102, coll. 564-573. *We are happy to learn that Prof. St. Kyriakidis of the University of Thessalonica’has independently reached a similar conclusion. At the moment when this study was going to press, we received an article by B. Laourdas, ‘O rarpuipyys Patios xai 7} éroxy Tov, in Tpyydpws

& Iadapas, XXXVIII (Thessalonica, 1955) pp. 152-160. The author, who has worked in collaboration with Prof. Kyriakidis, states (p. 159) that Homily no. 10 was delivered at the encaenia of the famous church of the Theotokos “inside the palace of the Magnaura,” and that “this church . . . is known to us from the descriptions of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and Nicholas Mesarites.” Also ‘EAAnvxa, XIV (1955) pp. 168-170. (Last item added in proof.) | ‘ @eodoyla, XXV (1954) pp. 188-200. On the manuscript (no, 2756) see also J. Darrouzés in Revue des ét. byz., XII (1954) pp. 183-186.

126 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO Ths wrepayias BeordKov, U7d Bacdelov Tov Maxeddvos oixodounbeions.” It was

reprinted, under the same title, with Latin translation and notes, by Combefis * who comments: edidit Graecé Lambecius é Regid Lupard.’ This does not mean, as would appear on first sight, that the ms. used by Lambeck was in the Louvre, but simply that the text was published in the Louvre Corpus

of Byzantine historians.* Neither editor indicates from what ms. the text was taken. A few decades later Banduri reprinted the Homily under the same title ° and added in his Praefatio: Hanc autem Ecphrasin seu Descriptionem primus edidit Graecé tantum Lambecius ex nescio quo MS. Codice, in Notis ad Codinum.” Nothing, therefore, is known of the ms. used by

Lambeck, either as to the rest of its contents or as to its whereabouts. Banduri'’s words ex nescio quo MS. Codice seem to suggest that by 1711 it had already disappeared. It may have been in Paris or in Rome, in both of which cities Lambeck was working during the relevant period.”

It was natural that Combefis, taking the title at its face value, should have concluded that the Homily referred to the Nea Ekklesia of Basil I, and that the Caesar addressed in the final paragraph * was Basil's eldest surviving son and heir Leo VI. Yet even so he was able to lay his finger on an important discrepancy, namely, that the Nea Ekklesia, on the unimpeachable evidence of the Vita Basilii,"* was dedicated to Christ, the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Elijah, the Virgin and St. Nicholas, and not to the Virgin alone: fuit illa dicata, he says," non uni Sanctae Mariae, ut Photiani huius Tractatus titulus praefert; at nec forté primo, principaliusque. Banduri ** accepted the identification of emperor and Caesar with Basil I and Leo VI; but very justly cited ** the words of Liutprand: fabricavit [sc. imperator Basilius] .. . iuxta palatium orientem versus ecclesiam, quam Nean, hoc est novam, vocant, in honore summi et caelestis militiae principis, archangeli Michahelis, qui Grece archistratigos appellatur.” We may note, ° Georgii Codini Excerpta de antiquitatibus Constantinopolitanis (Paris, 1655) pp. 187-189. * Originum rerumque Constantinopolitanarum, variis auctoribus, manipulus (Paris, 1664) pp. 296-308. * Ibid., p. 304.

*Cf. Catalogus librorum quos Petrus Lambecius Hamburgensis . . . composuit et in lucem edidit (Vienna, 1673) p. 2: “Syntagma Originum . . . ex Typographid Regid Luparaed, Regiis sumptibus, in lucem editum.” The Greek manuscripts were not in the Louvre at the time. ° Imperium Orientale, I (Paris, 1711) pp. 117-121. » Ibid., p. ix. * Cf. Catalogus librorum, etc. loc. cit. # Aristarchis, II, p. 438. * Script. post Theoph., pp. 319, 325. “ Op. cit., p. 304. * Op. cit., I, p. 807. * Ibid., p. 804. " Antapodosis, I, 10.

THE TENTH HOMILY OF PHOTIUS 127 though Banduri did not, that iuxta palatium is not the same thing as in palatio. However, the evidence of Lambeck’s title and the interpretation of Combefis and Banduri have been accepted by all subsequent researchers. But even in Combefis’ day other evidence existed for forming a more correct interpretation. Paisios Ligarides, bishop of Gaza, who lived in Mos-

cow during the 1660’s possessed a ms. containing sixteen Homilies and several letters of Photius. Whether this ms. was identical with one of our two principal codices, namely the Iviron 684 and the Metochion Panagiou Taphou 529, or whether it was their archetype (in which case it has now disappeared ), cannot be discussed here. At any rate, in 1670 Paisios made copious extracts of the Homilies from his ms. and presented them, together

with a complete copy of the titles, to Heinsius, the Dutch scholar and diplomat, who was then in Moscow. Heinsius passed this document on to Emeric Bigot, who in turn gave it to Combefis.” Later it was acquired by

Montfaucon and has finally come to rest in the Bibliothéque Nationale (Suppl. gr. 286). Combefis, in his Bibliothecae graecorum Patrum auctarium novissimum,” printed without comment the titles as given by Paisios, and among them that of Homily no. 10, with which we are concerned. The version of Paisios, however, differs widely from that given by Lambeck. It runs: rot avrotd adywrdrov Pwriov apymoxérov KwvorartivovToews Opthia pnbeioa ws ev exppace Tov ev Tots Bacrdelors TEpiwvijpou vaod.

This version, which re-appears in almost identical form in the Iviron and Metochion mss., and in a truncated form in the ms. of the National Library of Greece,” has at least equal prima facie authority with that of Lambeck; and is, as internal evidence will prove, undoubtedly the correct one. It refers merely to the “renowned church in the palace,” and has no reference at all to the Nea Ekklesia or to Basil the Macedonian.

When we turn next to the text of the Homily, it becomes at once clear that the government of the day consists of two persons, and two only: a single emperor and a newly appointed Caesar. At the beginning of the Homily Photius inserts a brief eulogy of the emperor whom he urges to explain, in his own words, the cause of the celebration.” In the final peroration he addresses both the emperor and the Caesar in the following terms:

“Rejoice, therefore, among emperors most blest and beloved of God; and be thou renewed in thy bodily and mental prime that bears fruit in good * See Kunik in Mém. Acad. Imp. de St.-Pétersbourg, VIII série, cl. hist.-phil., VII, 8 (1906) pp. 54-73. * (Paris, 1672) pp. 548-552. ” Aristarchis, II, p. 428; @coAoyia, XXV (1954) p. 178. * Aristarchis, II, pp. 429-430.

128 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO works. As thou celebratest the inauguration both of the Renowned Church and of the works of thy wisdom and thy hand, do thou ‘bend thy bow and prosper and rule because of truth and meekness and righteousness’ [Ps. 44:5]; for thou art guided, as is plain to see, and shalt be guided by the right hand of the Most High, who formed thee and anointed thee from the cradle itself to be king of His own peculiar people. Rejoice with him and be with him renewed thou also, pride of all Caesars whom the sun has looked upon, who surpassest thy predecessors in wisdom and intelligence and in the fact that thou hast received this high office by divine ordinance and not through ambition nor the canvassing of men. Join, therefore, in rejoicing and renewing thy spirits with him who has taken thee as partner and sharer in the kingship for the common salvation of the subjects and as befits thy affection and most sincere love for him. For it is through you twain [8:a yap rijs dpuerépas Suddos] that the Trinity, piously worshipped and revered, while spreading

and conveying to all Her providence, steers wisely and governs the subjects.” ”

The emperor and the Caesar are, therefore, the Pair, or Dyad, through whom the Trinity has chosen to rule.” At no time during the reign of Basil I were these conditions in force. None of Basil’s sons was ever Caesar. At the

time of the encaenia of Basil's Nea Ekklesia (May 1, 880) there were not two emperors, but three: Basil himself, Leo and Alexander. There is no reason whatever to believe that Photius could in 880 have described Leo VI,

already crowned basileus in 870,” as Caesar merely because he was heirapparent.”” And there is ample reason to think that, even had the term been applicable, Photius would have avoided it, since the word would have had painful and embarrassing associations for Basil himself.

Who then are the persons referred to? The emperor is Michael III and the Caesar is his uncle Bardas. All difficulties vanish on this hypothesis. The = Ibid., pp. 487-438. “In the Homily delivered after the Council of 867 (Aristarchis, II, p. 826) Photius calls Michael and Basil an “admirable Dyad.” Had there been three emperors at the time when Homily no. 10 was spoken, as was the case in 880, Photius would not have missed a bon mot about the imperial Trinity reflecting the celestial Trinity. In an after-dinner speech delivered

in 901 or 902, Arethas says that after Leo’s reconciliation with his father Basil (in 886), imperial processions were adorned with the splendour and unity of a Trinity (Basil, Leo and Alexander) instead of a Dyad which denotes division (B.Z., XLVII [1934] p. 40, line 81). Similarly, when some people urged Constantine IV to crown his two brothers, they cried, “We believe in the Trinity; let us crown the three!” (Theophanes, ed. De Boor, p. 352). “ Cf. Fischer in B.Z., V (1896) pp. 137-139. _~ Anastasius Bibliothecarius in Mansi, XVI, col. 143 A. Cf. Hirsch, Byzantinische Studien (Leipzig, 1876) p. 167, n. 3. * For the rank of Caesar, see Guilland in Orientalia Christiana periodica, XIII (1947) pp. 169-177; Bury, Imperial Administrative System (London, 1911) p. 36. For Caesars in the ninth and tenth centuries, see Ostrogorsky-Stein in Byzantion, VII (1932) pp. 226-227.

THE TENTH HOMILY OF PHOTIUS 129 tenth Homily takes its place with the other seventeen in Photius’ first patri-

archate, and the two rulers are seen to be in fact what they are called: a single emperor and a Caesar. Once this is realized, it is instructive to turn back to a note appended by Paisios Ligarides to his excerpt from this Homily,

which has been printed both by Aristarchis” and by Jernstedt;” here Paisios at first identifies the emperor with Michael III and the Caesar with Bardas, although his final conclusion is that Michael and Basil, whom he wrongly states to have been proclaimed Caesar, are the persons described. But he was so right, or so nearly right, that it is strange his note should not have been more seriously considered by later generations. The Homily provides much additional evidence that Michael III is the emperor of whom Photius is speaking. Take, for instance, the following passage: “Tell us then, most Christ-loving and pious of emperors, who both surpassest all thy predecessors and honourest them splendidly by sharing in the office, tell an audience which, as thou seest, is eager to listen, for what reason thou hast called us together. Show in words what thou hast already shown in deeds. Hast thou again won victories and trophies over the barbarians, with which time and time again thou hast graciously greeted us, and is this why thou hast convoked us, to gladden us and at the same time to send up in common our universal thanks to Him who has granted the victory? Or, having received new tributaries and humbled the bold and insolent mind of the foreigner, is it to ascribe with pious intent all thy achievements

to God's strong hand? Or hast thou re-erected subject cities which have long lain low, and built others from the foundation, and repopulated others,

and consolidated the boundaries of the empire?” Here Photius is applying to the emperor several of the conventional cate-

gories of the classical enkomion, but each of them has a topical and contemporary relevance. The emperor has won a series of victories over one set of barbarians; others he has brought under his sway by treaty, and: has humbled their pride. This no doubt refers to the two great victories over the eastern Saracens in September and October of 863;*° and to the humbling of Bulgaria, without fighting, in the spring of 864," which was, as we shall see in a moment, the year in which this Homily was delivered. We are also told

that the emperor has re-erected cities which had long been cast down; the “II, pp. 422-424, * Mém., Acad. Imp. de St. Pétersbourg, VIII* série, cl. hist.-phil., VII, 8 (1906) pp. 24-25. * Aristarchis, II, pp. 429-430. ” Cf. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, I (Brussels, 1935) pp. 251-256.

* Cf. Zlatarski, Ist. na Blgarskata Drzava, I, 2 (Sofia, 1927) pp. 19-22; Vaillant and Lascaris in Rev. des ét. slaves, XIII (1933) pp. 13-14.

180 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO reference may well be to the rebuilding of Nicaea and Ancyra, which we know from inscriptions to have taken place in 858 and 859.” Lastly, at the very end of the Homily * Photius refers to the emperor as muor@ kai peyddrw

Baornei, a title which occurs on coins of Michael III (but not on coins of Basil I), and which seems to have been peculiarly affected by Michael.* It is of course not disputed that the Nea Ekklesia was built by Basil I, and that its encaenia took place very probably on May 1, 880. Photius, who officiated,*“* may well have delivered a Homily on that occasion. But this cannot be our Homily no. 10 since no. 10, as we shall see, was delivered before 866, and the Nea Ekklesia was not begun before 875 at the very earliest.** What church then is the subject of Homily no. 10? It is a church built by Michael in the very midst of the palace (év pécrous abrots avaxrépots);*°

and it is a church of the Virgin.*’ It must be, therefore, the Church of the

Virgin of the Pharos, the Capella Palatina of the Great Palace, which Michael III either wholly rebuilt or in great part restored.*®

The date of the Homily can be established within narrow limits. The termini post and ante are, of course, the dates on which Bardas was created Caesar (Wednesday, April 12, 864),®° and on which he was murdered (Sunday, April 21, 866).*° But we may say with some certainty that the Homily was delivered nearer to the first than to the second of these fixed points. The

reference to Bardas’ undertaking his high office,“’ seems to imply that he had been created Caesar in the recent past. Taking this piece of evidence together with the references to Michael’s military and political successes

which have been discussed above, we shall not be wrong in dating the Homily between April 12 and the end of the year 864. This conclusion is * Cf. Grégoire in Byzantion, V (1929-30) p. 328; Vasiliev, op. cit., p. 236. For the inscrip-

tions of Nicaea, see A. M. Schneider and W. Karnapp, Die Stadtmauer von Iznik (Berlin, 1938) (Istanbuler Forschungen, 9), pp. 51-52. * Aristarchis, II, pp. 436, 438. “ Cf. Grégoire in Byzantion, IV (1927-28) pp. 441-442; Aristarchis, II, p. 320, line 18. *“* Pseudo-Symeon, p. 692.

* If credence is given to the story that in 876 king Ashot of Armenia sent a donation of 10,000 silver pieces to the new church. See J. Muyldermans, La domination arabe en Arménie,

Extrait de [Histoire universelle de Vardan (Louvain-Paris, 1927) pp. 139-140; Adontz in Byzantion, IX (1934) p. 246. Byzantine sources indicate that construction was under way in 877, since we are told that while the fleet was helping with the work of excavation and other building activities, news was received that Syracuse was being besieged by the Arabs, and before the fleet could arrive on the spot the city fell (May 21, 878). * Aristarchis, II, p. 430. " Ibid., pp. 480, 438. * See below, n. 67. ” Cf. Stein in Mélanges Bidez, II (Brussels, 1934) p. 899, note 2. “ Script. post Theoph., p. 206.

“ See above, p. 128. |

THE TENTH HOMILY OF PHOTIUS 131 reinforced by a strong argumentum ex silentio. One of the formal categories

of the classical enkomion, as reinterpreted by Christian encomiasts, was that of converting the heathen.“ Photius has mentioned the humbling of the Bulgars; but he makes no mention of their conversion, from which it is a fair inference that this had not yet taken place. Now, Vaillant and Lascaris “ have shown good reasons to think that the baptism of Boris-Michael of Bulgaria had already taken place in the year 864. If they are right, our Homily was delivered in that year, after the successful demonstration against Bul-

garia and before the actual baptism of Boris. The month and day of the Homily cannot be determined. Photius himself states that the day was not one of the ordinary feast-days, but a new occasion altogether.** Neither the

Synaxarion nor the De Cerimoniis gives any special day for the feast of Our Lady of the Pharos,** which may have been deliberately suppressed by the emperors of the Macedonian dynasty. It may be added that the restoration of Homily no. 10 to its proper place opens up the possibility that all the surviving eighteen Homilies of Photius are arranged according to chronological order in our manuscripts, a consideration which cannot, however, be treated here.

The re-interpretation of Homily no. 10 calls for certain adjustments in our concepts of ninth century Byzantine art. To begin with, we may review the descriptive elements of the ekphrasis. Photius mentions first the atrium ( rpord\aia, mporepevia ) whose beauty, he says, left the spectator petrified with wonder. The whole facade (apdcoyus), i.e. presumably the western facade of the church,** was covered with a revetment of white marble, so perfectly joined together that it seemed to be monolithic. Upon entering the church one was immediately struck by the profusion of gold and silver. Gold was lavished on mosaic tesserae, on plaques, capitals, cornices (zepilepara), and chains. The holy table was made of a composition more costly than gold, probably incrustations of precious stones and possibly enamels.“ The pyram“ Cf. Vita Basilii (Script. post Theoph.), pp. 341-344. “ Op. cit., pp. 5-15. “ Aristarchis, II, p. 429.

“Cf. R. Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de [Empire byzantin, 1, 3 (Paris, 1953) 7 - The west facade of St. Sophia had a revetment of Proconnesian marble, traces of which still remain. Cf. E. H. Swift, Hagia Sophia (New York, 1940) p. 173. Even if the use of rpocoyrs in the sense of “architectural facade” is attested only in rather recent texts, Ebersolt can hardly be right in supposing that Photius is referring to the marble pavement of the atrium (Le grand palais de Constantinople [Paris, 1910] pp. 131-132). ‘In the Nea, the chancel-screen, the holy tables and the synthronon in the apse were of silver gilded over and set with precious stones and pearls (Vita Basilii, p. 326). On the great altar of St. Sophia, see Paulus Silentiarius, vss. 720 sq. (P. Friedlander, Johannes von Gaza

132 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO idal ciborium over the holy table as well as the chancel screen with its doors and “peristyle” were sheathed with silver. The walls of the church, ie. up to the springing of the vaults, were covered, as usual, with a revetment of polychrome marble. The tessellated pavement, a favorite subject in Byzantine ekphraseis,** was enlivened with animal and other figures surpassing, says Photius, the art of a Pheidias or a Parrhasios. Photius proceeds next to a description of the mosaics, which is perhaps

the most interesting part of the Homily. In the centre of the dome was a man-like (dv8peixehos ) image of Christ, who seemed to supervise from above

the orderly government of the earth. It has often been said, starting with Kondakov,® that this was a half-length Pantokrator image, in fact the earliest instance of a Pantokrator medallion in the dome of a church.” This assertion is subject to the greatest caution, since Photius does not specify that the figure was half-length, much less that it was of the usual bust Pantokrator type. Photius’ description of the Christ figure calls to mind a similar passage in a sermon delivered by Leo VI at the consecration of the Kauleas monastery. There again there was a Christ in the dome who seemed

to oversee and govern the universe,” but in this case too there is no proof that it was a bust. Setting aside the vault mosaic of the Capella S. Zeno (817-824) with its bust of Christ in a medallion supported by four angels, the earliest clear instance of a bust Pantokrator in a dome occurs towards the end of the ninth century in the church built by Stylianos Zaoutzes. In his

description of the latter, Leo VI takes some pains to explain that the halflength figure, by excluding the lower part of the body, laid emphasis on the divine or higher nature of Christ which He retained even among the vicissitudes of this earthly life.” The Pantokrator in the central dome of the church of the Holy Apostles, as described by Mesarites,* was probably of the twelfth century.* While, therefore, the type of Christ in the church of Our Lady of the Pharos cannot at present be ascertained, the possibility of und Paulus Silentiarius [Leipzig-Berlin, 1912] pp. 247 sq.); according to popular tradition, it was made of an amalgam of fused gold, silver, copper, electrum, lead, iron, tin, glass and

rs) stones (Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed. Preger, I [Leipzig, 1901] e “ Cf. A. Frolow in Etudes byzantines, III (1946) pp. 55-58. ” Vizantijskija Cerkvi i pamjatniki Konstantinopolja (Odessa, 1886) p. 62.

So N. Bees in Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft, XXXIX (1916) pp. 250-251, and many others. : * Akakios, Adovros rod Sood mavryupixot Adyor (Athens, 1868) p. 245; Frolow, op. cit., p. 61. ™ Akakios, op. cit., p. 275; Frolow, op. cit., p. 60.

™ A. Heisenberg, Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, II (Leipzig, 1908) pp. 28-30. “ Malickij in Byzantion, III (1926) pp. 128-129.

THE TENTH HOMILY OF PHOTIUS 133 its being a full seated figure rather than a bust Pantokrator, as was perhaps the case in the dome of St. Sophia,” should not be ignored. Around the figure of Christ, “in the concave segments next to the summit of the dome” (rots 5€ zpés airy rH 6pody Tob Hywodaipiov runpacw éyKoiXots )

was a throng of angels (ahnOvs ayyédwy) escorting the Lord. The presence of “concave segments” ** proves that the dome was either ribbed or gored, thereby reducing the area available for figure decoration. Taking also into

account the rather modest dimensions of the church (as we shall see in a moment), we shall not be wrong in assuming that there was only one row of angels and not several angelic choirs, as was true in the church of Stylianos described by Leo VI.

In the apse was a Virgin with arms outstretched, i.e. the standing orans type (usually called Blachernitissa ), as in the apse of St. Sophia at Kiev ” or that of Nea Moni on the island of Chios.” The Virgin appeared as a protector, “winning safety for the emperor and exploits against the foe,” for had not the Theotokos Blachernitissa averted the fury of the Russian invaders a few years earlier (860)? The rest of the church was decorated with individual images of martyrs, apostles, prophets and patriarchs, among whom David and Jacob are expressly mentioned. It may be surmised that some of them carried inscribed scrolls, since David, in the words of Photius, was crying out, “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth,

yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord” (Ps. 83:2-3); while Jacob, “How wonderful is this place; this is none other but the house of God” (Gen. 28: 17) Had Balaam been represented also (which, of course, he was not), he too would have exclaimed, “How goodly are thy houses, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the gardens are they by the river’s side, and as the

tents which the Lord hath planted” (Num. 24: 5-6). This is suggested by an inscription on the north tympanum. See S. G. Mercati in Bessarione, XXVI (1922) p. 211. Cf. Du Cange, Constantinopolis Christiana, lib. III (Paris, 1680) p. 30: In interiore Tholi, seu, ut vocant, Trulli, centro ac testudine, Justinianus apere musivo Christum in iride sedentem, orbem judicantis effigie, describi curavit, ut airérra testantur (which eyewitnesses?) . ® All the extant mss. read rynpacw éyxotAass, i.e. “hollow segments.” Lambeck read éyxvxAous

= “circular,” but his transcription is full of mistakes, as a glance at Combefis’ and Banduri’s corrections will show.

"See Ajnalov and Redin, “Kievskij Sofijskij Sobor” in Zapiski Imper. Russk. Arxeol. ObStestva, IV (1890) pp. 268-274. These authors make the interesting suggestion that the composition in the dome and apse of St. Sophia, which originally consisted of a Pantokrator, four archangels, twelve apostles and Virgin orans, is a variation on the Ascension theme. The same remark could perhaps apply to Our Lady of the Pharos. On the similarity of theological content in the Ascension and Pantokrator schemes, see O. Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decoration

(London, 1948) pp. 19-20. .

* On the iconographic type, see Kondakov, Ikonografija Bogomateri, II (Petrograd, 1915) pp. 71 sq.

134 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO The above descriptive data given by Photius should now be divorced from the Nea and appended to the church of Our Lady of the Pharos. It is remarkable that in his account of the former Constantine Porphyrogenitus should say nothing about the pictorial decoration of the interior. He tells us only that a barrel-vaulted gallery which extended eastward from the north door of the Nea was decorated with scenes depicting the martyrdom of various saints.” We can add from the Book of Ceremonies that in the north aisle

of the Nea was a portrait of the founder, Basil I. As for the pictorial programme of the interior, we have no information whatsoever. The church of Our Lady of the Pharos stood in very close proximity to the throne room (the Chrysotriklinos) and to the imperial apartments,” and among the thirty or so churches and chapels situated in the Great Palace, it was the emperor's chapel par excellence, the capella imperatoris, as West-

ern pilgrims called it. As its name implies, it adjoined the Pharos, or lighthouse of the palace, which also served as the reception post of the fire signals

sent from hill-top to hill-top across Anatolia whenever the Cilician border was threatened by foreign invaders.” As far as we can tell from the sources, the Pharos was a beacon or lantern (¢avds) placed on an elevated terrace, and was not a tower.” The church of Our Lady is first mentioned under the year 769, for it was in it that Leo IV was betrothed to Irene the Athenian.™ It was there that in 813 Michael I took refuge with his family when he was ousted from power by Leo V;* and there that the same Leo was brutally assassinated on Christmas day 820." ° Vita Basilii, p. 328.

De Cerimoniis (Bonn) pp. 118, 121. Antony of Novgorod (ed. Loparev, Pravoslavnyj Palestinskij Sbornik, XVII, 3 [St. Petersburg, 1899] p. 20) also mentions a mosaic of Christ by the lateral door of the narthex. Antony's editor believes, however, that this mosaic belonged to St. Sophia and that the account of it has been misplaced (ibid., pp. XLVH, LXXV).

* On the church of Our Lady, see esp. Ebersolt, Le grand palais, pp. 104-109; Janin, Géographie ecclésiastique, pp. 241-245. The exact localization of the church poses difficult problems which need not concern us here. The situation suggested by the St. Andrews excava-

tors (The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors (Oxford, 1947] p. 19) has not been generally accepted. “ De Cerimoniis, pp. 492-38; Theoph. Cont., pp. 197-8. @ Aside from the vague mention of a speculum inmensurabilis magnitudinis in Buondelmonti (Studi bizantini e neoell., IIT [1931] p. 272), not a single source says anything about

a tower. On the contrary, it is repeatedly stated that the watchmen (dietarii) appointed to observe the fire signals were stationed on the Heliakon of the Pharos, and upon the receipt of a message they lit their beacon in the evening (De Cerim., p. 492; Theoph. Cont., pp. 197-8; Pseudo-Symeon, p. 682, etc.) A. Vogt is wrong in placing the Pharos directly on the seashore

(Le Livre des Cérémonies, I, Commentaire [Paris, 1985] p. 182). The mistake has been repeated by Janin (Constantinople byzantine [Paris, 1950] p. 377). “ Theophanes, ed. De Boor, p. 444. “ Theoph. Cont., p. 19; Genesius (Bonn) p. 7. “ Vita Ignatii, PG, 105, col. 493.

THE TENTH HOMILY OF PHOTIUS 135 The reconstruction of the church by Michael III is recorded by the chroniclers in the briefest of terms, which is yet another example of the. deliberate hushing-up of that emperor's works. The numerous adaptations of Symeon Logothete, which go under the names of Theodosius of Melitene, Leo Grammaticus, the Continuator of Georgius Hamartolus and PseudoSymeon, relate in almost identical words that Michael III exhumed the re-

mains of Constantine V whose magnificent sarcophagus, made of verd antique, he ordered to be sawn up and made into parapets (or7jfea) for the church of the Pharos which he had built (ia abrot nro bév7t).*" This incident is placed in the year 866, after Basil’s coronation. It is immaterial for our purpose whether the date is right or wrong, since a parapet could have been added after the official consecration of the church. What is more important is the word «rio évr. which presupposes a radical.reconstruction,” a fact that is borne out by the Homily under consideration. Photius says explicitly that the church had been built by Michael (70d viv éEotxodopunfévros vaov ), and, whereas his reference to “this renowned church” (rod repwvipov reuevous ) may hint at its previous existence and fame, the whole tenor of the ekphrasis points to a new building. Since, therefore, the church of the Pharos was completely reconstructed by Michael III, we may expect it to have conformed to the architectural style of the mid-ninth century.

The architectural features of the Pharos church have not so far been sufficiently elucidated. On the latest reconstruction of the Great Palace, that of A. Vogt,” it is represented as a basilica, although on the previous reconstruction by Ebersolt it had been shown as a four-column domed building. We know from Antony of Novgorod that it was a small church.” It had a narthex ” in which on Holy Thursday the emperor distributed apples and cinnamon to the patricians, magisters and other dignitaries.” The narthex communicated with the nave by the “royal doors” (Baotdtxat rvdar).* The right-hand (south) side or aisle of the church is also mentioned, for it was “ Theodosius Melitenus, ed. Tafel (Monumenta Saccularia, UI Cl. 1 [Munich, 1859]) p. 174; Leo Grammaticus (Bonn) pp. 248-9; Continuator of Georgius Hamartolus, ed. Muralt (St. Petersburg, 1859) p. 746; Id. after Cod. Vat. 153 in Istrin, Xronika Georgija Amartola, II (Petrograd, 1922) p. 15; Script. post Theoph., pp. 834-5; Pseudo-Symeon, p. 681. The Slavonic version of Georgius Hamartolus adds, “in the church built by Michael” (Istrin, op. cit., I [1920] p. 516, line 16). See also De Cerimoniés, p. 645. ®*Ebersolt (Le grand palais, p. 104) seems to have misconstrued this passage, which accounts for his statement that the church was built by Constantine V. © Aristarchis, II, p. 436. ™ Le Livre des Cérémonies, I, Commentaire. % Ed. Loparev, p. 19. De Cerimoniis, p. 257, lines 16-17. ™ De Cerimoniis, pp. 119, 187; there was also a side narthex (apavap6n€; p. 257). ™ Ibid., p. 178. * Tbid., p. 120. Cf. also the mention of a “middle portal” (ibid., p. 257).

136 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO at the east end of it (é& 7@ deft wpds avarodds . . . péper) that the Holy Face of Edessa was ceremonially deposited in 944. That may not have been the first major relic to have accrued to the Pharos church, for in the tenth century the True Cross * and the Holy Lance ™” were already there. The treasure of the church was further enriched in 968 by the Holy Keramion “ and in 975 by the sandals of Christ.” By the middle of the eleventh century the principal relics of the Passion were in the Pharos church.” About the year 1200 the sacristan of the church was Nicholas Mesarites who had to defend the relics from the rapacity of foreign mercenaries during the coup d état of John Comnenus the “Fat.” His account of this incident, though obscured by.an uncommonly bombastic style, adds considerably to our knowledge of the church. The outer door, he tells us, i.e. the one leading

from. the atrium into the narthex, was a double door, made of silver and perforated (aodvordv Sibupov, Suxrverdv).** The south wall of the church faced a bath (Aourpav) at a spot where the lantern of the Pharos (d¢avds) was to be seen.” This south wall was lighted by glass windows set in a wooden lattice.” Several bands of assailants tried to hoist themselves up through the windows (presumably the easternmost ones) and could look right into the sanctuary, where a dazzling array of precious objects met their eyes. The pyramidal roof of the ciborium was of silver, while the four supporting columns were sheathed in silver and gold. The “life-giving” crosses

were completely covered with gold, set with precious stones and pearls. ™ Narratio de imagine Edessena, § 64 in Dobschiitz, Christusbilder (Texte u. Untersuchungen, N.F. III [1899]) p. 85°°.

™ De Cerimoniis, pp. 161, 162, 538-40, 549. :

" Ibid., pp. 179-180. ™ Leo Diaconus, p. 71. ” Ibid., p. 166.

” See Ebersolt, Sanctuaires de Byzance (Paris, 1921) pp. 17-29.

"A, Heisenberg, Die Palastrevolution des Johannes Komnenos, Progr. d. K. alten Gymnasiums zu Wiirzburg (1907) p. 29. * Ibid., p. 33: dvepricavtes yap twes dia Tod wepi Tov AovTpova Toixov, Grou wep EwpaTat 6

paves, ua tov huriotixav éreyeipovv eigSiva eri ra ddura. Ebersolt (Le grand palais, p. 107, n. 8) offers a different explanation: “Par 6 epi rév Aovtpava rotxos, Yauteur désigne l’atrium entouré de murs, au milieu duquel se dressait la fontaine, la phiale. Le mot Aourpwy est synonyme

de dourjp.” The controversial sentence is, however, picked up again lower down: ézi yap ro peonpBpwwov éxelvo KAiros aktopdyous avticatactycas bia Sopdrwv rots éri ra advta Sia Tov duriorixay eiorndjoat rpobvpovpévors, etc. Besides, the word dévra can mean only the sanctuary, i.e. the space behind the chancel screen which, as specified by Mesarites (p. 35), was accessible through the windows (naturally the easternmost ones) of the south wall; whereas the windows facing the atrium could have given access only to the narthex. If our interpretation of this diffi-

cult passage is correct, two important inferences may be drawn: 1) the Pharos was to the southeast of the church, and 2) the south wall of the church faced a bath, which is surely the big bath built by Basil I on the site of the Phiale of the Blue faction (Vita Basilii, p. 336) and therefore south of the Chrysotriklinos complex. “ Heisenberg, Palastrevolution, p. 34.

THE TENTH HOMILY OF PHOTIUS 137 Over the holy table hovered golden doves. Their wings were decorated with green stones, while in their beaks they held little crosses made of pearls.* It will be noticed that the costly composition of the ciborium, though a common feature in palatine churches, agrees with Photius’ description. Mesarites further mentions the diakonikon, which had a pillared partition (dudorvda.), possibly to separate it from the south aisle. Leaning against this

partition, Mesarites strove to ward off the attack on the south side of the church.*’ The presence of a diakonikon requires a prothesis on the corresponding north side, and it may safely be surmised that the church had two lateral apses flanking the one in the centre. By combining the architectural data given in Photius’ tenth Homily with the testimony of other sources, we obtain the following picture of the Pharos

church: a building of moderate size, with a ribbed dome, narthex, three apses and probably three aisles. This picture, though admittedly of very wide application, fits in very well with the style of the period, and it may be suggested that the church of Our Lady looked something like the one, now unfortunately destroyed, of St. Clement at Ancyra.** The latter has been

dated on stylistic grounds between the seventh and the ninth centuries,” but the character of its brickwork points to the later rather than the earlier date.** Its dome, shown on old photographs, consisted of twelve concave segments separated by ribs.® The restoration of Ancyra by Michael III offers a likely context for the construction of St. Clement's, and if that were so, it would be natural to expect some architectural resemblance to the church of

the Pharos. But even if St. Clement's is somewhat earlier, the comparison may still hold good. In Constantinople itself we probably have two surviving ninth century churches, Hoca Atik Mustafa Camii and Kalender Camii (St. Saviour Akataleptos), both of which, however, were originally of the five-aisled, or perambulatory, type usually linked with the Nea Ekklesia;® both, moreover, have lost their original dome. To return to the decoration of the church of Our Lady, mention should be made of a puzzling passage in Mesarites which has been held to indicate

* Ibid., p. 35. ,

* Ibid., pp. 85-6. ® On this church see G. de Jerphanion, Mélanges d'archéologie anatolienne (Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph, XIII) (Beirut, 1928) pp. 113-143 and pls. LXII-LXXX. “ F, Weigand in BZ, XXXII (1982) p. 872. * The mortar joints in the church of St. Clement are slanted (“weathered”), a feature that first appears in Constantinople in the second half of the ninth century. Cf. A. M. Schneider, Byzanz (Berlin, 1936) p. 18. “ Reproduced in O. Wulff, Die Koimesiskirche in Nicéa und ihre Mosaiken (Strassburg, 1903) pl. IV. ” See Brunov in Vizant. Vremennik, IT (1949) pp. 150 sq.

138 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO the presence in that church of a pictorial Gospel cycle. After enumerating the ten major relics of the Passion (the “decalogue”) that were kept in the church, plus the Mandylion and the Keramion, Mesarites proceeds as follows:

“Why should I tell everything at length? This is a church, this place is another Sinai, a Bethlehem, a Jordan, a Jerusalem, a Nazareth, a Bethany,

a Galilee, a Tiberias, the Washing of the feet, the Last Supper, mount Thabor, Pilate’s praetorium and the place of the Skull which, being interpreted in Hebrew, is called Golgotha. Here He is born, here He is baptized, walks on the sea, goes on foot, works miracles, and is again humbled before the woman who washed Him [razewotras madw émi rHv wdrvvdv].” The woman bows down within [évdofev],°’ she [?] who raises from the dead not one, nor two, nor many an evil-smelling Lazarus, but numberless bodies in the grip of death, and even before death, and every day and every hour she brings up from the tomb and restores to good health souls laden with sin, showing us herein the importance of prayer, and when we ought to weep and how much to pray. Here He is crucified, and let the spectator behold the foot-rest. Here He is buried and the stone that has been rolled away from the tomb is in this church as proof of the story. Here too He rises and the napkin together with the winding-sheets are evidence thereof.” * Heisenberg suggested rather cautiously that Mesarites may be describing a pictorial cycle,” a suggestion which was adopted by Ebersolt as an established fact.” If it was indeed a cycle of pictures, it was one of considerable complexity. The subjects (if such they are) are listed twice with some overlapping between the two lists; besides, the order has been somewhat confused. The first sentence refers to Sinai, which cannot be connected with

any New Testament scene, Bethlehem (= Nativity), the Jordan (= Baptism), Jerusalem (= Passion scenes?), Nazareth (= Annunciation? boyhood and early ministry?), Bethany ( = raising of Lazarus?), Galilee (= miracles), Tiberias (= St. Peter submerged? Miraculous draught of fishes? ), the Washing of the Feet, the Last Supper, mount Thabor ( = Trans-

figuration), Pilate’s praetorium (= Christ before Pilate) and Golgotha (= Crucifixion). The second enumeration includes the Nativity, Baptism, Christ walking on water (= St. Peter submerged), Christ going on foot * Mary, the sister of Lazarus, usually identified with Mary Magdalen. See Heisenberg, Palastrevolution, p. 66. * Te. inside the house of Simon the Leper where the scene took place. * The footrest (isromddiov), the stone of the Tomb and the winding-sheets, which Mesarites quotes as material proof of the Gospel story, were all preserved in the church. “ Op. cit., p. 66. * Le grand palais, pp. 108-109.

THE TENTH HOMILY OF PHOTIUS 139 (= miracles? ), the miracles, Christ annointed by Mary Magdalen, perhaps

the raising of Lazarus, the Crucifixion, the Burial and the Resurrection. Speaking generally, a cycle of such complexity in the post-Iconoclastic period is apt to date from Comnenian rather than from Macedonian times. This conjecture is supported by the presence of such subjects as Christ walking on water, which is not found in the monumental art of the Macedonian period,*® and Mary Magdalen anointing Christ's feet (cf. Sant’ Angelo in

Formis and Monreale). Taking also into consideration other instances of the redecoration of older churches in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (St. Sophia ca. 1070," the Holy Apostles and the Baptistery of St. Sophia ** in the twelfth century ), it may be surmised that the cycle alluded to by Mesarites, if it actually refers to wall pictures, is of Comnenian date and replaced or supplemented the figures described by Photius. The need for a cycle illustrating the Gospel narrative may also have been suggested by the continued concentration in the Pharos church of relics pertaining to Christ, a concentration that reached its peak ca. 1150.”

The final defeat of Iconoclasm in 843 was not immediately followed by the redecoration of all the major churches.” From the few instances which are known to us, it would seem that the process of anastelosis was rather surprisingly slow. The delay may have been partly due to technical reasons, such as the scarcity of competent artists after a prolonged interruption in the tradition of sacred painting. A more cogent reason seems to have been the strength of the Iconoclasts, towards whom at first a conciliatory attitude was adopted. At any rate, iconoclasm remained a live issue at least until 870. The revised dating of Photius’ Homily no. 10 provides a new element for the study of the restoration of sacred images. We can now give the following list of churches and secular buildings that received a sacred decoration at this time: Our Lady of the Pharos (864), the Chrysotriklinos between 856 and 867, and another hall in the palace before

867.°° The new mosaics of St. Sophia were not started until 867*” and * Mesarites describes this scene in the church of the Holy Apostles (Heisenberg, Grabes-

kirche u. Apostelkirche, II, pp. 49-52), but it is not found in the account of Constantine Rhodius. " Cf. BZ, XLVII (1954) p. 402. * Antony of Novgorod, ed. Loparev, p. 17. * There are at least eight descriptions of these relics, all dating from ca. 1150 to 1204. The

last addition to the collection, albeit a temporary one, was the red stone on which Christ was laid after His descent from the cross. It was brought from Ephesus by Manuel I (1143-1180). Cf. Janin, Géographie ecclésiastique, pp. 242, 244. 1 Cf, F. Dvornik, “The Patriarch Photius and Iconoclasm” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 7 (1953) pp. 69-97. ™ Script. post Theoph., pp. 145-146. ™ Cf. BZ, XLVII (1954) pp. 395-402.

140 R. J. H. JENKINS AND C. A. MANGO probably not completed until the end of the century. The important church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus was re-decorated at the instigation of the Patriarch Ignatius between 867 and 877.’* The church of the Holy Apostles may have received a new set of mosaics in connection with the consolidation of the building by Basil I. It is not perhaps entirely coincidental that our three earliest examples should all be in the palace, in a place that was not accessible to the general public, and therefore not apt to arouse any Iconoclast demonstrations. The decoration of the Chrysotriklinos, described in an epigram of the Palatine Anthology (I. 106), was made after the expulsion of Theodora (856) ,** and consisted of single figures: Christ in the apse, the Virgin over the west door, flanked by Michael III, the patriarch (Photius ?) and their collabora-

tors in the victory over Iconoclasm, while all around the building were angels, apostles, martyrs and priests. It has been pointed out that the pictorial layout of the Chrysotriklinos, consisting as it did of single figures in a

hierarchical order, is closely related to the one described in Photius’ Homily.*”° That there should have been a resemblance between the two monuments is only natural: for not only were they contemporary, or nearly so, but they were also situated within a few yards of each other, so that the redecoration of the Chrysotriklinos and the reconstruction of the Pharos church probably formed part of the same programme. The single-figure hier-

archy, which now emerges as the formula adopted during the reign of Michael III, was also applied to the nave of St. Sophia, the decoration of which must have been conceived and laid out in Michael’s last years. We find the same scheme somewhat later in the monastery of Kauleas, but by that time the narrative Gospel cycle was already gaining ascendency.™ Just as the political and military exploits of Michael III have been obscured by the efforts of the Macedonian propagandists, so has his role in the “care of sacred buildings.” It is fitting to restore to his reign an accomplish-

ment which, in the eyes of a Byzantine panegyrist, ranked equal to his political successes. ™ Cedrenus, II (Bonn) p. 238. ™ Cf, P. Waltz in Byzantion, II (1926) pp. 320-323. H. Grégoire has drawn attention to the resemblance of this epigram to the inscriptions of Ancyra dating from 859 (Byzantion, IV

[1929] p. 448). * Cf. S. Der Nersessian in Actes du VI° Congrés intern. d'études byzantines, II (Paris, 1951) pp. 821-830. ** Cf. the Gospel scenes in the church of the Virgin rs rpyjs put up by Basil I before 879 (Anthologia Palatina, I, 109-117).

[il

The Chronological Accuracy of the“Logothete” for the Years A.D. 867-913

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 19 1965

UCH useful work has been done during recent decades on the absolute

chronology of the reigns of Basil I and his son Leo VI.! Pride o: place among workers in this field must be awarded to Father V. Grumel, who has written a whole series of studies distinguished by deep learn-

ing, clear exposition, and an intuitive grasp of the subject. Especially in an article which, for its acumen and cogency of reasoning, must rank as one of the most remarkable works on this scale to be produced during the present century, he has totally revolutionized and clarified our knowledge of the absolute chronology of the reign of Leo VI.2 Even so, many points still remain open to doubt or dispute. We are therefore justified in exploring one further avenue of approach to the problem, which is the hypothesis put forward and defended in the present article. It may briefly be stated thus: in writing his accounts of the reigns of Basil I, Leo VI, and Alexander, Symeon the “Logothete,’’? who was a contemporary and admirer of Romanus I, relied for this chronology on a series of Annals; and that, when the basic data are disinterred from his text, these constitute absolute chronological criteria from which there can be no appeal. We must be clear at the outset on the distinction between Annals and Chronicles. The annalist merely sets down what he believes to be the most significant events of the current, or immediately past, year. In the mediaeval west, these events were often noted down on Paschal tables, that is, on blank spaces between the dates calculated for coming Easters. This method of recording cannot of course be called history, since the events are necessarily recorded in isolation, and no connected narrative can be written of any event, or series of events, which covers two or more years. On the other hand, annals have this priceless advantage, that they record events in their true chronological sequence. They neither tell nor explain a story; but they preserve, in the 1 Adontz, Canard, Grégoire, Halkin, KaZdan, Kolias, Oikonomidés, Ohnsorge, Stein, Vasiliev, and

Vogt are among the authors whose several works are cited infra.

2 V. Grumel, ‘‘La chronologie des événements du régne de Léon VI,” Echos d’Orient, 35 (1936),

6-42. This article is cited simply as “‘Grumel.” '

8 For short bibliography of ‘‘Symeon Logotheta,’’ see G. Ostrogorsky, GBS’, 123 and also Gy. Moravesik in DOP, 15 (1961), 110-122. The printed versions of the Logothete’s Chronicle which are closest to his own composition are those of the Continuator of George the Monk (CSHB, 32, 763-924) and Theodosius Melitenus (ed. by T. L. F. Tafel [Munich, 1859]). The former is the more readily available to scholars, and I refer mainly to it (as CGM). The MS Vindobon. hist. gr. 37 preserves some excellent variants, which are nearly always right and hence of capital importance: see S. Sestakov, “O Rukopisjakh Simeona Logotheta,” Vizantijshkij Vremennik, 5 (1898), 19-62, and infra, pp. 102-108. The versions of the Continuator of Theophanes and of Pseudo-Symeon are separate recensions of the original Chronicle, and do not concern us here except when they draw unwarranted conclusions from their source. It may here be remarked, once for all, that Pseudo-Symeon’s allocation of events among regnal years is altogether arbitrary and misleading. His chronology is wrong nine times out of ten, and if he is right the tenth time, he is so by mere accident. No date given by him should be accepted

without independent confirmation; and I leave his version out of account as evidence for this article.

91

92 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS right order, the essential elements around which the connected story must be written. The Chromicle 1s such a story. It is a coherent account of the disjecta membra

of the annalist. Most often the chronicler will wait until the story ends, and then write it down connectedly from the beginning, so that all of it appears in his narrative at the chronological stage of its last significant event. The Byzantine formula for this method of compilation 1s uixpdv t1 &vaAaBdvtes, or, “to go back a little.’’ Here, says the chronicler, in the -year so-and-so, we find

such-and-such an event; but, in order to explain this event, we have to “go back a little’ and trace its antecedents. This is necessary, and indeed inevitable, if coherence is to be achieved and causation explained. Innumerable instances of this method will occur to the reader of chronicles. An instance of dating.a series of events to the year of its last recorded event has been noted by M. Canard* in the Arab chronicle of Tabari. Tabari places the revolt of Andronicus Ducas, his resistance at Kabala, and his subsequent defection to Tarsus and Bagdad, all in A.H. 294, that is, October 22, 906 to October 11, 907. It can, however, be shown® that the revolt of Andronicus began as early as October g05, and that he did not arrive in Bagdad until more than a twelvemonth later. Tabari finds this last event correctly dated to A.H. 294, and concludes that the whole series of events is datable to that year. As we shall see,® a similar, but perfectly understandable, distortion is found in

the Byzantine account of the same transaction. The Logothete, in compiling his chronicle, finds the escape of Constantine Ducas from Bagdad and his return to Constantinople, an event which naturally made some stir, dated by his annals to the winter of go7-908. But obviously he cannot repeat the annalist’s notice and leave it at that: he has to tell how and why Constantine Ducas ever came to be at Bagdad in the first place. This necessitates a “cast back”’ to the initial revolt of Constantine’s father Andronicus, in 905; but it does not invalidate the chronicler’s accuracy. It is merely a question of determining, in each case, which event the chronicler has chosen as the chronological

peg on which to hang his connected narrative; and this, most often, it 1s easy enough to do. One more brief example must suffice to illustrate the principle. At CGM,

841/1-8 the Logothete records the deposition of Photius by Basil I in the period between the earthquake of January 869 and the birth of Alexander in November 870. This at first sight is a blunder, since we know that Photius was deposed in September 867. But we read on and find that the Logothete’s point of reference is the anti-Photian Council of October 869, which requires a brief ‘“‘cast back’’ to 867 to explain it. Once more the Logothete’s chronological accuracy is irreproachable.

In other cases, though these are less frequent, the “‘cast’”’ is made, not backwards, but forwards, in order to round off and finish a story whose chief «M. Canard, ‘‘Deux épisodes des relations diplomatiques arabo-byzantines au Xe siécle,’’ Bulletin d'études orientales, Damas, 13 (1949-51), 60-1, note 4. : §R. J. H. Jenkins, ‘‘Leo Choerosphactes and the Saracen Vizier,’’ ZRVI, 8 (1963), 167-75. & Infra, p. 110.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE’” 93 event lies in the past. This device may be marked with the words dAA& tava pev

Votepov or, “but that was later on.’’ Examples of the “‘cast forward’’ are: at CGM, 857/4 the death of Leo VI’s second wife Zoe is recorded before that of her father, who in fact predeceased her. But this is merely because the chronicler wishes, quite properly, to round off the story of Zoe’s marriage, reign, and death in a single paragraph. At her marriage and coronation, which are the important things about her, her father was of course still alive. Or again, at CGM, 846/10-847/9 the arrest and imprisonment of Leo VI by his father are

correctly placed in the year 883, but the story carries us on to the young Emperor's release in July 886.’

In order, therefore, to determine whether a chronicle is compiled on the basis of accurately kept annalistic information, we have to establish whether the events recorded, or else the ‘‘points of reference’ in any connected series of events, do or do not follow one another chronologically. At first sight, the allowances to be made for the possible ‘‘cast back’’ or ‘‘cast forward”’ might seem too wide to permit an accurate determination: in other words, our freedom to choose what particular event gave rise to any coherent narrative might enable us to fit almost any two consecutive articles into chronological order. But closer examination shows that this is very far from the truth.

In the first place, a large proportion of the Logothete’s notices are not of series of events, but of single events, which require neither ‘“‘casts backward”’

nor “casts forward.’’ If any of these single events is demonstrably earlier in

time than an event which precedes it in the text of the chronicle, then the chronological system here postulated has broken down, and no reliance can be placed on it. In the second place, even when we are dealing with notices which comprise whole series of events, we can apply the following absolute formula:

if in any two notices, A and B, the earliest event in A is demonstrably later than the latest event in B, the same consequences follow. An example of this has already been referred to, in another connection, above. At CGM, 847/1-2 we find an account of the three-months imprisonment of Leo VI. Most people assume that these three months were April-July 886. Yet, in the very next section (CGM, 847/13) we read of a Byzantine defeat which beyond all doubt is identical with that which is dated by Tabari to the year 883. Either, then, our system breaks down here, or else the facts recorded have been misunderstood by modern historians. We shall offer the solution of this puzzle in its proper place. In the third place, the principle of “cast back”’ or “‘cast forward”’ can be applied only to connected and uninterrupted narratives such as CGM, 866/12-868/10. By contrast, CGM, 870/18ff. tells us of three separate events:

the illness of Leo VI, the fire in the candle factory, and the death of Leo VI.

Here, the first event cannot be regarded as a “‘cast back’’ from the third, owing to the intervention of the second: and this has a bearing on the date of Himerius’ Cretan campaign (CGM, 870/13-17), as will be seen in due course.

All these limitations must be rigidly applied when passing judgement on chronological sequence. 7 Infra, p. 102.

94 ROMILLY J.H. JENKINS Having laid down the guiding principles for our enquiry into the Logothete’s chronological accuracy, we must now proceed to look at the internal evidence for the sources used by this writer in the various parts of his chronicle. In an article published in the Vizantijskij Vremenntk for 1959, A. P. KaZdan

has tried to establish the process by which the Chronicle of the Logothete reached its present state.? According to his reasoning, the Logothete Symeon compiled his first “‘redaction’’ in the period between 948 and 963. The sources

on which the Logothete relied were of three kinds, corresponding to three periods about which he wrote. These periods Kazdan divides as follows: 7, the reigns of Michael III and Basil I (A.D. 842-886); 2, the reigns of Leo VI and Alexander (A.D. 886-913); and 3, the minority reign of Constantine VII, with his mother Zoe, and the reign of Romanus I, including the four years between

the deposition of the latter and his death in 948 (A.D. 913-948). The prime source for the first of these periods KaZdan believes to have been a lost biography of Basil I, which described that Emperor’s life from the time when he reached Constantinople (ca. 856) until he died (886). But this was no ordinary biography. It was written with the express purpose of making the picture of its “‘hero’’ as black as possible; and, thinks KaZzdan, it may have been written by a partisan of Photius, between the year of Photius’ dismissal by Leo VI (886) and that of the ex-Patriarch’s death, some time in the 8g0’s. The chief source for the second period of the Logothete’s chronicle (the reigns of Leo VI and Alexander) Kazdan believes to have been Annals, which recorded the chief events of these years chronologically, and laid especial and characteristic emphasis on prodigious happenings, such as eclipses and earthquakes. Finally, for the third period, 913-948, the Logothete relied on his own personal recol-

lections and on oral information of contemporaries. , With some parts of this hypothesis every informed historian will agree. Leaving aside for the moment the diagnosis of the source or sources for the first period, there can be do doubt whatever that the source for the second is in fact a series of Annals: and one, we may add, that was kept with much accuracy. The conjecture that the source of the third period was personal recollection, helped by oral information, is strengthened by the fact that this kind of source is often mistaken in detail; and we do in fact discover several inaccuracies in this third period which are not apparent in the second, based on written documents. For example, the Logothete was obviously convinced that Romanus Lecapenus was crowned emperor on December 17, 91g. The order

of his text makes this quite clear.® First comes the coronation of Romanus; then, that of his wife, on the following January 6 (920, as the author believes). | Then, that of his son Christopher, on the following Whitsunday. And then, !

correctly, the promulgation of the Tomus Umionis shortly afterwards, in the | same eighth indiction (920). It could have been argued that the Logothete was | right as to the order of events, and had merely taken the day of the month of | Romanus’ coronation from the wrong almanack: that of 920, instead of that of

, ° CGM, 890/12-23. | * A. P, Kazgdan, ‘“‘Khronika Simeona Logofeta,”” Vizantijskij Vremennik, 15 (1959), 125-43- |

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE” 95 g19. But this will not do: since we have the unequivocal evidence of the preamble to the Tomus Unionts itself that, at the time of its promulgation (July 920), Romanus was still only bastleopator, and not yet emperor.’ It was left to Grumel to point out the Logothete’s blunder, and to prove incontestably that Romanus was crowned at the end of 920, and not at the end of g19." Then, again, rather earlier in the same division of his chronicle,” the Logothete records the betrayal of Adrianople to Symeon of Bulgaria in September

914; and, after this, the death of the Saracen admiral Damian at Strobilos. Yet, as we know from Ibn al-Athir, Damian died before July 28, 914.8 These are errors in chronological sequence which may or may not arise from

the fact that, in the last division of his narrative, the Logothete was relying on his own memory of events that had occurred in his own time. But, because the Logothete makes mistakes (very few, it is true: in the main his record is chronologically accurate) in his last period, we cannot conclude from this that he made mistakes in the order of events during the reigns of Basil I and Leo VI and Alexander, which he necessarily took from written records. Indeed, it may be repeated, the whole point of this article is to show that, in his narrative of the years 867 to 913, he is not demonstrably guilty of one single error in chronological sequence.

At this point, of course, we come up against the contention of Kazdan that the principal source for the reigns of Michael III and Basil I was a pejorative Life, or Biography, of Basil I. The Logothete’s version of the reign of Michael III, even after 856, when Michael attained supreme power, is full of chrono- — logical incongruities. The reduction and conversion of Bulgaria (864) are placed

before the defeat of the Emir of Melitene at Poson (863).4* And Bardas is referred to as ‘‘Caesar’’ at least as early as 863, before either of these events, although, as we know from independent evidence, he was not raised to this rank until 864.15 Then, the story hurries us back five years to 858, to the quarrel of Ignatius with Bardas (here once more called ‘‘Caesar’’), and to the appointment of Photius as patriarch:!6 (there is of course no question of a “‘cast back”’ here, since no incident in the article is later than 858; it is mere misplacement,

due to ignorance). Then, after mention of the Russian attack (860), we skip five years and come to the appointment of Basil as chamberlain (865).!’ Thereafter, the events of 866-867 follow in what is presumably their proper order.

Whether the origins of this confused account of Michael’s reign are a pejorative biography of Basil I, as KaZdan maintains, need not here be discussed. Where, however, we have to disagree with KaZdan is in his linking the Logo10 Mansi, XVIII A, col. 336B. 11 Echos d’Ortent, 35 (1936), 333-5. 12 CGM, 880/5-13. 13 A.A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Avabes, II, Part 2, ‘“Extraits des sources arabes traduits par Marius Canard” (Brussels, 1950) p. 145; referred to hereafter as “‘Vasiliev, II/2.”’ 14 CGM, 824-5.

16 Tbid., 824/10: AI PHO, 2/2 (1934), 899-900, note 2. 16 CGM, 826.

7 Tbid., 826-7.

96 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS thete’s ‘Michael III’ and his “Basil I’’ to the same principal source. The Logothete’s ‘‘Basil I’’ is an altogether different kind of document from his “Michael III.’’ Where the “‘Michael’’ is verbose and anecdotal, the ‘‘Basil’’ is concise and factual. Where the “‘Michael’”’ is chronologically vague and inaccurate, the “‘Basil’’ is chronologically careful and correct, as we shall see. In fact it seems clear that, whatever may have been the source of the “‘Michael,’’ the “Basil’’ rests on Annals, and very probably on the same series of Annals which

formed the basis of the “Leo VI’’ and the ‘“‘Alexander.’’ From the point of view of their sources, therefore, the three divisions of the Logothete’s Chronicle

are: I. Michael III; 2. Basil I, Leo VI, and Alexander; 3. Constantine VII and Romanus I to a.pD. 948. One of KaZdan’s reasons for distinguishing the “Basil I’’ from the “‘Leo VI”’ is the absence from the former of portents and prodigies such as are commonly

recorded in annals. But this is not quite accurate. The earthquake of January 9, 869% is no different in principle from the eclipse of August 8, 891.!° There are, to be sure, many more such events recorded of the reign of Leo VI than of the reign of Basil I: in the former we find one eclipse, one comet, one gale, and two prophecies. But the text of the “Leo VI’’ is nearly two and a half times longer than that of the “Basil I’’; and we must include in the latter the account of Basil’s snake-bite as a portentous event, and also his own prophecy of the hard times to be undergone during the future reign of his son.”

So, then, the Logothete’s account of the reigns of Basil I, Leo VI, and Alexander derives its basic facts and chronological order from a series of Annals

probably kept by a Constantinopolitan monastery (this may be deduced from

the emphasis laid on construction of churches, foundation of monasteries, Church councils, and so on). The Logothete’s selection of incidents is undoubtedly dictated by dislike of the Macedonian emperors, as Hirsch long ago pointed

out.24 Like most Byzantine chroniclers, the Logothete slanted his narrative, not by falsifying it, but by omitting what was good and successful and including _ what was mischievous or disastrous:. suppressio vert leading to suggestio falst.

But this prejudice does not affect the order in which the events so selected are put down. Our contention that this order 1s everywhere accurate can be substantiated only by a detailed examination of these three reigns. Let us take them in order. BASIL I (CGM, 839-848)

We have first to see how many of the events recorded are datable independently, and next whether these datable events are in fact given chronologically.

CGM, 839/3-7 (cap. 1): Accession and proclamation of Basil, 867 (1e., Wednesday, September 24: Muralt,?* 446).

Tbid., 852/12. ;

1B Tbid., 840/14.

® Ibid., 844/1, 847/7-9. *1 F. Hirsch, Byzantinische Studien (Leipzig, 1876), 63, 69. 23 FE. de Muralt, Essai de chronographie byzantine (St. Petersburg, 1855).

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE” 97 CGM, 840/14-22 (cap. 4): Forty days of earthquake, starting on Sunday, January 9, 869 (the day of the month is also given by MPG, 105, col. 549 Aand Synaxar.Cfl., and the day of the week, Sunday, by Scr1#t. orig. Constantinopolitanarum [Preger] 2, 272, which is decisive for 869).

CGM, 841/1-8 (cap. 5): The anti-Photian Council (fyaye topov pete ‘Poaiwv émoxétrwv), Wednesday, October 5, 869Tuesday, February 28, 870 (Muralt, 451-2); Birth of Alexander, Thursday, November 23, 870 (Adontz, Byzantion, 8 [1933], 506).

CGM, 841/9-20 (cap.6): The anti-Paulician campaigns, ending with the sack of Tephrice and death of Chrysocheir, 871-2 (Vasiliev, II/2, 6; Vasiliev, ITI, 93).%

CGM, 843/5-9 (cap. 11): Fall of Syracuse, Tuesday, May 20, 878 (Vasi-

| liev, II/2, 136; Vasiliev, II, 93).

CGM, 844/11-13 (cap. 16): Rehabilitation of Photius, 879 (N.B. It is important to note that this event is dated from the reconciliation with Pope John VIII in 879, rather than from the de facto restoration of Photius in 877: exactly as, in cap. 5 supra, his

deposition is dated from the anti-Photian Council of 869 rather than from the de facto deposition of 867. This may throw some light on the nature of the annalistic source. Muralt, 458-9; and see infra p. Io1). CGM, 844/17-18 (cap. 17): Expedition of Basil I and his son Constantine to the east, 879 (Vasiliev, II, 71-2, 94; °? cf. Bar-Hebraeus, 148).%

CGM, 844/19 (cap. 18): Death of the Emperor Constantine, Thursday, September 3, 879 (Halkin, Byzantion, 24 [1954], 14-17).

CGM, 845/1-4 (cap. 19): Encaenia of the New Church, Sunday, May 1, 580 (Jenkins and Mango, DOP, 9-10 [1955-1956], p. 130).

CGM, 845/9-11 (cap. 20): Defeat and death of the protovestiary Procopius in Sicily, 882 (Vasiliev, II/2, 138: Vasiliev, IT, 88).

CGM, 847/12-14 (cap. 25): Defeat of Stypiotes at Chrysobullum near. Tarsus, Saturday, September 14, 883 (Vasiliev, II/2, 9; Vasiliev, II, 82). CGM, 848/15-16 (cap. 27): Death of Basil I, Monday, August 29, 886. % AA. Vasiliev, Vizantija i Avaby ... 2a Vreme Makedonskoj Dinastit (St. Petersburg, 1902); referred to hereafter as ‘‘Vasiliev, IT.’ % The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, tr. by E. A. Wallis-Budge (Oxford, 1935).

/

98 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS Here, then, we have a dozen or more incidents from the reign of Basil I, almost all of them datable on independent evidence, which the Logothete has

placed in their correct chronological sequence. This is surely prima facie justification for the hypothesis that those incidents which cannot be checked independently are equally correctly placed.

Almost at once (CGM, 840/8-13) a test case occurs by which the whole theory stands or falls: the question of the date of (birth and) baptism of the future patriarch Stephen, third or fourth son of the Emperor Basil I. It is one of those small, irritating questions which have almost no significance for the advancement of historical knowledge, but which historians are eagerly and almost passionately concerned to settle for good, one way or the other. Perhaps

the greatest historical importance that can be attributed to it relates to the matter under discussion here: can it, or can it not, be used as evidence for the invariable accuracy of the Logothete’s chronological order in his account of the reign of Basil I? I believe that it can. The evidence of the Logothete can be read only one way.”® Stephen was baptized on a Christmas Day between September 867 and January 869 (that is, Christmas 867 or 868); whereas Alexander was born after the opening, if not after the close, of the anti-Photian Council (October 869-February 870): that is, in November 870 or, just conceivably, November 869. There is no way of getting around this. It is either right or wrong.

The reasons for thinking it wrong are soon told. Nicetas Paphlago and Pseudo-Symeon,”* as is well known, record that among the ruses adopted by the exiled Photius to recover the imperial favor (i.e., between 870 and 877) was his forgery of a prophecy which hinted at the succession of a dynasty called BEKLAS, a name composed of the initial letters of Basil, Eudocia, Konstantine, Leo, Alexander, and Stephen. This forgery was doubtless widely known and quoted at the time; but it proves nothing for the order of birth of Basil’s sons, since the word does not purport to represent such an order, and in any case the alternative form BEKLSA was unpronounceable. However, there are better reasons for supposing Alexander the elder of the two: a direct statement to this effect by his own nephew Constantine Porphyrogenitus,”’ and a direct statement of the contemporary Vita Euthymii.28 Hence many scholars, including and since Hirsch,”® have assumed that the chronicler’s order is misplaced here, and that Stephen was in truth the youngest of Basil’s sons. At first sight, the statement of Constantine Porphyrogenitus seems to be weighty. A man should, one would think, know the order in which his own uncles were born. However, Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself was not born until twelve years after his uncle Stephen died (g05, 893); and Stephen had been dead more than fifty years before his nephew came to write about him. Constantine was, moreover, not wholly free from aberrations of this kind: %& CGM, 840/8-13.

*%* MPG, 105, cols. 565-8; Pseudo-Symeon (Bonn), 689/7 ff.

* Theoph. Cont. 264/15. * Ed. by P. Karlin-Hayter, Byzantion, 25-7 (1955-7), 10/21: referred to hereafter as “VE.”’ ® Byzantinische Studien, 65.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE” 99 he made three notorious blunders in tracing the parentage of his own daughterin-law.° But we need not go so far back as this to discover similar uncertainties.

My own Mother had five brothers. I believe I know who the eldest was, but could not with any confidence state the order in which the next four were born: and if I tried to do so off-hand, I should very likely be wrong. Yet only two of them died before I was born, and the other three I knew well. It is perfectly possible, as Adontz*! contends, that Constantine Porphyrogenitus was misled by the story of BEKLAS. The statement of Vita Euthymiu that Stephen was Uotatos of the brothers, though equally careless, is more excusable. The author was not a relative of

the Patriarch, but, like everyone else, had heard the BEKLAS story and drew his own conclusions. Adontz, therefore, who vindicates the prior birth of Stephen, seems to me to be night: and this for an additional reason, which he

does not cite but which both Amandos** and Kolias® mention. In a letter written in 933 by Romanus I’s minister Daphnopates to Anastasius, metropolitan of Heraclea, who was protesting against the premature appointment of the young prince Theophylact as patriarch, Daphnopates says :* “Are you to accept or reject the appointment of Master Stephen, who in our own time was made

patriarch at nineteen years of age?’’ Now, Stephen, as was known to Muralt and De Boor and has been since confirmed by Grumel, was enthroned as patriarch on December 25, 886.° If he was nineteen years old at the time, then he was born in November 867 and christened on the following Christmas Day. The testimony of Daphnopates seems to me to be decisive. To begin with, a man who is arguing with another on a point of principle is more likely to be sure of his facts than one who is making an offhand and uncontroversial statement. Again, if Daphnopates had been able to assure Anastasius that Stephen had been only fifteen or sixteen years old at the time of his appointment as patriarch, his argument in favor of the elevation of Theophylact at sixteen®* would have trebled in weight. But he could not do so, without leaving

himself open to refutation. Stephen, then, was turned nineteen at Christmas 886, and was therefore born late in 867, probably in November of that year, about fourteen months after his elder brother Leo. Incidentally, this throws an even more ghastly light on the murder of Michael III. That Michael’s onetime favorite Eudocia Ingerina should have helped to stupefy him with drink*’

| 7° . so as to facilitate his murder, is bad enough. That she should have done so when seven months gone in pregnancy aggravates the crime. Was this one

reason why the child, when born two months later, was destined for the church ?

*® DAI, Commentary (London, 1962), note on 26/15. %1N. Adontz, ‘‘La portée historique de l’oraison funébre de Basile I,”” Byzantton, 8 (1933), 505. 32K. Amandos, ‘lo-rop{a to Pulavrivot Kpdrrous (1947), 59. % G. T. Kolias, Bioypapixk Etepdvou A’ Oixoupevixol TMatpicpyxou, in Tpoopope els Zr. TI. Kupioxiiny (Salonica, 1953), 362.

*% AIEE, 2 (1885-9), 403/13-15: av TH Kad’ tas yeve& KUpis Zrépaves tratpidpyns EvveakarbeKaétns xetpotounbels Epc ye crrodexOyoetaa rapa col # ccrraryopevOr\oeran;

35 Muralt, 467; Grumel, 10-13. 8¢ Cf. Cedrenus II, 332/7; Muralt (454) will have Stephen born as late as 872, which would make him only fourteen in 886. 87 CGM, 836/18-19.

100 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS Two further facts point to the same conclusion. First, we have the statement of CGM, 841/6-8 that, when Alexander was born, here was, at last (oGros), a true-born son of Basil and Eudocia. If the calumny uttered of Leo VI—that he was the son of Michael and Eudocia—was also uttered of Stephen, as this passage suggests, then Stephen must have been conceived while Michael (t September 23, 867) was still alive. Second, this conclusion coincides absolutely with the testimony of his contemporary Leo Choerosphactes, published by Kolias,® that Stephen lived twenty-five years. So he did: twenty-five years and six months, to be exact (November 867—May 893).*®

The enquiry, then, so far confirms our theory of the correct order of events in the Logothete’s chronicle; and establishes, in my opinion, that Stephen was older, by just three years, than his brother Alexander. CGM, 841-843 (cap. 7-10) give no independently datable information. The building of Ignatius’ church and monastery (cap. 7), the scandal over Thecla (cap. 8),” the conversion of the Jews (cap. 9), and the death of Nicholas the prosmonarius (cap. 10) should all follow in sequence between 872 and 877-8, but need not each be related to a separate year. As regards the conversion of the Jews, this was obviously a long process, and lasted through most of Basil’s reign.4! The Logothete’s notice plainly refers to some great public ceremony at Constantinople, in which representative Jews were solemnly baptized and

then munificently rewarded. |

CGM, 843/3-9 (cap. 11) describes the excavation of the foundations of the New Church, which was therefore begun in 877 or early in 878,42 before the news of the investiture of Syracuse reached Constantinople. The fall of Syracuse

(May 20, 878) took place before the arrival of the imperial navy, which was consequently dispatched thither around March or April 878. The intrigue of the Empress Eudocia with Xylinites (CGM, 842/10~12, cap. 12) 1s probably datable to the second half of 878, when she was between forty and forty-five years of age, since it is placed after the fall of Syracuse and before the two campaigns against the eastern Saracens in the following year (cap. 15,

17). CGM, 843/15-844/7 (cap. 13, 14) continues the story of the building of *% OD. cit., 358-9.

* This is one of the few points over which I have to disagree with G. Ostrogorsky (GBS, 194-5, note 2). It is unnecessary to say which of the two of us is more likely @ prior: to be right, but I am convinced that my arguments are in sum persuasive. Cf. also Pseudo-Symeon, 700/4-5 and MPG, rog, col. 653A, in both of which passages Stephen is given priority over Alexander. # As noted by F. Hirsch (Byzantinische Studien, 66, note 1), this Thecla was the sister, not of Basil I, but of Michael IIT: so that we ought to insert MiyarjA between &5eAgiis and tol Baciléws at CGM, 842/3. In the next line, pérpiov should be written with a capital initial: it was the man’s name (cf. Synaxarion Cpl., 721/25). The correct reading is Métpiév tiva GvOpcrrov avrijs yeAwtotroiév Svta, “one Metrios, her servant and fool:’’ cf. Sestakov, op. cit., 41.

“1 A tolerably accurate date for the commencement of the persecution (perhaps undertaken by Basil because of the supposedly Jewish origins of the Amorian house, cf. Theoph. Cont. 42-43) is given by the Jewish Chronicle of Ahimaaz of Oria, which has “im Jahre 800 seit der Zerstérung der heiligen Stadt,’’ that is, by Titus. See S. Kaufmann, Die Chronth des Achimaaz von Oria (850-1054) (Frankfort, 1896), who (13~14) equates this with a.p. 868. But the persecution lasted all through Basil’s reign (ibid., 16, 20), till 886. The year 868 is supported by the mention of the raid on Oria by Saudan of Bari (zbid., 16-17), that is, before 869, when Saudan was shut up in Bari by Lewis IT: cf. DAI, Commentary, notes on 29/104-12. 48 R. J. H. Jenkins and C. A. Mango, DOP, 9~10 (1955-1956), 130 and note 35.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE” 101 the New Church in 878-879, on the foundations laid in cap. 11. Then (CGM, 844/1I-16, cap. 16) follows the brief account of Photius’ rehabilitation, dated, as we have seen,# from the consent and recognition given to this rehabilitation _

by Pope John VIII. The Pope’s letters, to Basil, Photius, and the Oriental patriarchs, in which he accords his recognition, were written in the middle of August 879, which is doubtless the operative date of our notice: the Council which officially reinstated Photius did not begin to sit till November. Cap. 16-18, with their tight chronology, throw the suddenness of Constantine’s death into vivid relief. The papal letters date from mid-August; then, Basil and Constantine return (tréotpeye)* triumphantly from Germanicea (end of August); then, Constantine dies (September 3). Cap. Ig and 20 are, as we have seen, independently datable to 880 and 882; and so we come on to CGM, 845-847 (cap. 21-24): to the malign influence of Theodore of Santabaris and to the plots laid against the young Emperor Leo.

We cannot here discuss the significance of these stories, but merely their chronology. _ Cap. 21 records a process (the growing influence acquired by Santabarenus), and two incidents (the apparition of the dead Constantine and the dedication of a monastery in his name). The chronological point of reference of the narrative is clearly the dedication of the monastery (cf. cap. 7, 10, etc.), which, according to our reckoning, took place in 882. There is no improbability here: such a monastery may well have needed two or three years to complete, especially

if it was being built concurrently with the New Church. The rest of cap. 21

is therefore a “‘cast back’’ to explain this; and the conjuring up of Constantine’s phantom no doubt took place earlier, and shortly after his death in 879.

CGM, 846/7-9 (cap. 23) records the young Emperor Leo’s marriage to Theophano Martinakiou, which took place almost certainly in 882,46 and quite

probably in September, at or just after Leo’s sixteenth birthday. The difhculties begin with CGM, 846/r1off. (cap. 24), that is, with the date and length of Leo’s imprisonment by his father.

Vogt assumes that Leo’s arrest and detention fell in the year 886, so that he was imprisoned from April to July 20 (St. Elijah’s Day) of that year and then set at liberty.4” This would agree with CGM, 847/1 that he was confined during three months. However, if so, then cap. 24 is sadly out of place, and we are up against another test case for our theory. For not only does cap. 24 come before cap. 26, which tells of the conspiracy of Kourkouas liquidated on “3 Supra, p. 97. “@ Mon. Germ. Hist., Ep. VII, 167-187. 8 CGM, 844/18. 46 A. Vogt, ‘“‘La Jeunesse de Léon VI le sage,’”’ Revue historique, 174 (1934), 415-6, suggests Christ-

mas 881, but this is mere inference: cf. VE, ed. by de Boor, 105. Since the marriage is recorded after the defeat of Procopius in 882 (supra, p. 97), Vogt’s date should be moved forward some months, to the latter part of 882. It is true that Procopius’ defeat is given by Ibn al-Athir (Vasiliev, II/2, 138) as falling in the year August 881-July 882, so that it is just possible to date it before Christmas 881: but that all the operations which precede it in Ibn al-Athir’s account are to be dated between August and December 881, is most improbable. 4? Vogt, op. cit., 420-3.

102 ROMILLY Jj. H. JENKINS March 25, again, according to Vogt, 886, but it also comes before cap. 25, which tells of the Byzantine defeat near Tarsus, dated quite certainly by Tabari to September 14, 883.” The confusion is more apparent than real. Cap. 24 follows cap. 23, which tells of Leo’s marriage. After the marriage, the bride Theophano had a daughter,

Eudocia, while her husband was still at liberty. This brings us to the summer

of 883, at earliest, if the marriage took place in September 882. The next notice (cap. 24) is Leo’s arrest on a charge of high treason against his father.

But we can be more accurate still. Cap. 25 tells us that Andreas, the commander-in-chief, was recalled before the battle of Chrysobullum near Tarsus (September 14, 883), which was thus lost by the incompetence of his substitute Stypiotes. However, when the Byzantine army arrived near Tarsus, as Tabari

tells us,*! Andreas was still in command. Therefore he was recalled in late August or early September, on the eve of the campaign. And why was he recalled ? He was recalled ws t& Aéovtos ppovév, that is, ““as a partisan of Leo,’’®?

and on suspicion of being concerned in the treason for which Leo already lay under arrest. Leo’s arrest must therefore be datable to the late summer of 883, and not to April 886: otherwise there would have been no charge to make against Andreas.

The chronicler goes on, by means of the usual “cast forward,’ to round off the story with a mention of Leo’s release on St. Elijah’s Day. But in what year? If the reading pfjvas tpcis be retained as the duration of Leo’s imprisonment, this involves us in insuperable difficulties, since St. Elijah’s Day 884 fell nearly eleven months after August 883. But here the reading of Vindobon. hist. gr. 37, to which reference has already been made,** comes decisively to

our aid. This version states that Leo was estranged from his father, not for three months, but for three years. This was the version known in the fourteenth century to Nicephorus Gregoras,** who says that Leo had completed the third year of his imprisonment when liberated. The whole incident at once becomes plain. Leo was arrested in or about August 883, and his arrest was followed by

the dismissal of Andreas. Leo was freed on Wednesday, July 20, 886, after three years (all but a week or two) of captivity. Kurtz®° already suspected the true solution of this problem; and Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself>® states that his father was imprisoned “‘a long time,’’ which is far more appropriate to three years than to three months. That the conspiracy of 883,

“9 Vasiliev, II/2, 9. ) #8 Thid.

51 Vasiliev, II/z, 9.

50 “Zwei griechische Texte iiber die Hl. Theophano,”’ ed. by E. Kurtz, Zapiski Imp. Akad. Nauk, 8th Ser., Hist.-phil. otdel., t. III, no. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1898), 8/5: kal tot téxvov. 53 Andrew Craterus may have been a son of Leo Craterus, who had acted as &vdSoyos at the hair clipping of the infant Leo, and was thus a kind of gossip or spiritual father of the Emperor: see De Certmoniis (Bonn), 622/8. 58 See note 3, supra, and Sestakov, op. cit., 41: troinoe St & Baoidels Atoov & ulds To BaciAtes dd Syeoos toU trocrpds atrrot ypdvous y’.

% Kurtz, op. ctt., 38/28-9: &&ye: tov uldv ToO Seopetnpiou Eros f\hn tpltrov tv Toure Sinvuxdta. See also Synaxarion Cpl., 315/5-6, ypdvots Torol. 5 Kurtz, tbid., 62, note 45. 86 Theoph. Cont., 350/15-16.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE”’ 103 whether Leo was or was not concerned in it, was thought to be serious, and even perhaps successful, can be seen from the fact that the Arab chronicler actually records Basil’s death in 883,57 and then again in its proper place three years later (886). This suggests that Basil’s assassination in the former year was widely rumored, at least at Bagdad. Then, at CGM, 847/15 ff. (cap. 26), with Leo out of the way, the great plot of John Krokoas (Kourkouas) and the sixty-six nobles comes to maturity; is betrayed, as Vogt®* has seen, in 886; and finally wound up on March 25 of that year.®® Its liquidation was naturally followed by the release of Leo, who could have had no hand in this, whatever hand he may have had in the previous, conspiracy. Cap. 27, as we saw, ends the reign with Basil’s death. So far, then, and subject to an occasional “‘cast back’”’ or ‘“‘forward’’ from the central event, to explain its origin or trace its consequence, the chronology

of events is never found to be inaccurate. Let us pass on to the reign of Leo VI himself, and apply the same methods. LEO VI (CGM 848-871):

Here, in a much longer text, the case is much plainer. As before, we will begin by listing the events which are independently datable, making full use of Father Grumel’s invaluable article alluded to above; and then discuss the residuum. CGM, 848/19-20 (cap. 1): Leoruled “twenty-five years and eight months,”’ 1.e. from August 30, 886 to May I1, 912.

CGM, 849/16-21 (cap. 3): Stephen was patriarch ‘“‘six years and five months,’ i.e., from December 25, 886 to May 17/18, 893 (Grumel, r0—13) ; Stephen’s career is

rounded off by a “cast forward’”’ here, though his death is recorded once more in its proper place in cap. Io.

CGM, 850/1-3 (cap. 4): Destruction of St. Thomas’ church by fire: this is dated by Michael Syrus® to the year 1200, that is, A.D. 887.

CGM, 852/5-11 (cap. 8): Victory of Aion of Benevento over Constantine o ept trapezes, June 887 (Gay,® 143; Hirsch, 72). 5? Vasiliev, II/2, 9; cf. Bar Hebraeus, ed. cit., 149. This suggests that when Tabari, anno 886, states that Basil was Allied by his own three sons, he was telling the truth. His testimony, doubtless historical, is the strongest support of Vogt’s theory (op. cit., 427) to the same effect, though Vogt, oddly enough, does not cite it. 5 Vogt, op. ctt., p. 420. 5 CGM, 848/3.

“ The picturesque incident of the parrot who exclaimed af, af, xUp Agwv and thus reduced the company to tears, is not recorded by the Logothete, but by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, at Theoph. Cont. 350/21 ff. No doubt the story is substantially true, since it would be very hard to invent; but one may suspect that the bird in fact said, not af, al, xp Aéwv but af, al, KUpre Ager or EAgnoov (‘God for His 'Mercy”), this being the kind of expletive which, owing to its being pronounced with special frequency and emphasis, parrots are notoriously prone to memorize and repeat. 1 Ed. and tr. by Chabot, ITI, 2, p. 119. #3 J. Gay, L’ Italie méridionale et l’empive byzantin (Paris, 1904).

104 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS CGM, 852/12-13 (cap.g): Annular eclipse of the sun from II a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday, August 8, gz, sun and moon each being in the fifteenth cycle.® (This is the only solar eclipse commemorated in the Synaxa-

, rion Cpl., col. 878, where the date is given in detail and with complete accuracy.™ Cf. Th. Ritter von Oppolzer, Canon der Finsternisse, p.

200, no. 4995, and chart 100. Western chronicles

also record it: MGH, Scr. I, 52; III, 3. See Dobschiitz, Byzantinische Zettschrift, 18 [1909], 104; and Grumel, La Chronologie, 464).

CGM, 852/20-22 (cap. 10): Death of the patriarch Stephen, May 17/18, 893,

. and appointment of his successor Antony Cauleas, August, 893 (Grumel, 6, Io).

CGM, 853-855 = (cap. 11-14): War with Symeon of Bulgaria, 894-896 (G. Ostrogorsky, GBS,? 213).

CGM, 855/18-19 (cap. 15): Loss of Koron (Qurra) in Cappadocia, August 5, 897 (Vasiliev, II, 112-3; Vasiliev, II/2, 13).

CGM, 856/14 (cap. 17): Death of St. Theophano, November 10, 897 (Grumel, 22~29): though her commemoration

falls on December 16 (cf. Kurtz, op. cit., 58, note 2).

CGM, (cap. 18): Leo marries Zoe Zaiitzina, probably after six 856/18-857/4 months court mourning (cf. Halkin, Byzantion, 24 [1954], 15), in May 898. She reigned ‘‘one

year and eight months,’ and therefore died December 899/January 900 (Grumel, 19-21). Her death is here recorded by a “‘cast forward, ” to round off her story: see supra, p. 93.

CGM, 857/21 (cap. 19): Death of Stylian Zaiitzes, six months before that of Zoe, therefore June/July 899 (Grumel, 1g-21).

CGM, 860/1—4 (cap. 22): Death of the Patriarch Antony, February 12, gor, and appointment of his successor Nicholas Mysticus, March 1, gor (Grumel, 8-0).

CGM, 860/11 (cap. 24): Death of the Empress Eudocia, April 12, gor (Grumel, Ig).

CGM, 860/20-21 (cap. 26): Loss of Taormina, August 1, go2 (Vasiliev, II, 125-6). 8 Cf. Buchegger, Byzantinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbiicher, 11 (1934-5), 29-39.

6 G. T. Kolias, Léon Choerosphactés (Athens, 1939), 33-4, wrongly identifies this eclipse with a total eclipse visible in Scandinavia and North Russia on June 7, 894. If, as seems likely, Symeon oi Bulgaria (Kolias, ibid., p. 77) referred to the eclipse of 891 as that which was predicted trpotrépvoi by Leo VI, then trpotrépvo1 here means simply ‘‘a year or two ago,” and is valueless as an exact chronologi-

cal criterion. Taken literally, it would imply a date of 893 for Symeon’s letter to Choerosphactes, as Mercati (Riv. deglt Stud. Or., 10 [1923-5], 221) has seen.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE” 105 CGM, 861/8 ff. (cap. 27): Attempted assassination of Leo VI in the church : of St. Mocius, May 11, 903 (Grumel, 40-1).

CGM, 863/6 (cap. 30): Fall of Thessalonica, July 31, 904 (Joh. Cameniata ap. Theoph. Cont. 5109).

CGM, 864/21 (cap. 32): Appearance of a comet, May 16, 905 (Muralt, 483; Grumel, Echos d’Onent, 36 [1937], 60—1).©

CGM, 865/2-3 (cap. 32): Baptism of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, January 6, 906.

CGM, 865/16-21 (cap. 35): Expulsion and exile of the Patriarch Nicholas, February I, 907. CGM, 868/21-22 (cap. 41): Coronation of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Sunday, May 15, 908 (Grierson and Jenkins, Byzantion, 32 [1962], 133-8).

CGM, (cap. 42): Lunar eclipse (March 20, 908) followed by the

869/20-870-9 fall of Samonas, June 13, 908 (Jenkins, S#eculum, 23 [1948], 234, note gg).

CGM, 870/13 (cap. 43): Himerius sails for Crete, October gr (his expedition fails in April or early May 912: Jenkins, Mpoopope eis 7. TT. KupioxlSnv, 279-81).

CGM, 870/18-20; (cap. 44): Leo VI falls ill, before March 4, 972.

871/1-2 Leo VI dies, May II, 912.

With regard to the last three of these notices, dating from the years 911-912,

I must at once make an observation which should not be relegated to a footnote. The order of these notices invalidates a hypothesis put forward by me some years ago,®* when I tried to show that Himerius’ Cretan expedition was datable, not to October g11, but to the ezght months between August 911 and April 912. While the main conclusion of that article, that Himerius’ final defeat took place in April or early May 912, seems to be undoubtedly right, it now appears that the common reading ’OxtwBpio 5: unvi must after all be preferred to the émi éxto pfivas of Pseudo-Symeon. We are bound to conclude that Himerius’ expedition to Crete started in October g11, which must be the operative date of the Logothete’s article (cap. 43), and it is followed by the usual “cast forward’ to round off the story. If the final defeat of Himerius (April/May 912) had been the occasion of the article, then this article must have appeared after the following notice of the Emperor Leo’s illness, which declared itself before March 4, 912." It is also impossible to regard the Emperor’s death in May giz as the occasion for all of cap. 44: the notice of his 65 As is shown infra, p. 109, this phenomenon had no connection with the birth of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, which took place probably in the following September. The date of the comet's appearance is not absolutely certain. Both Muralt and Grumel give Thursday, May 16, 905, and this is the date suggested by the wording of the western chronicle. But the Chinese observers date its appearance specifically to Wednesday, May 22, so that possibly the Thursday of the western source is May 23 rather than 16: see J. Williams, Observations of Comets ... extracted from the Chinese Annals (London, 1871), 52-3. 6° R. J. H. Jenkins, ‘“‘The Date of Leo VI’s Cretan Expedition,’”’ Tpoogpope els 21. TI. KuproxdSny (Salonica, 1953), 279-80. 87 CGM, 870/20: étv ti dpyxi] Tv vnoteidv.

106 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS | ulness in or before March 912 cannot be a “cast back’’ from his death, since the two notices are divided by a third, that of the fire in the candle factory. The annalistic source certainly preserved these four events in their correct

order: Himerius goes to Crete in October grr; Leo VI falls ill in or before March 912; a serious fire breaks out in the cathedral candle factory (? April g12); and Leo VI dies in May 912. We may now proceed to examine the residual material of the Logothete’s

narrative, and see how it fits in between the chronological points already established.

The transfer of the body of Michael III to the church of the Holy Apostles (cap. 1), the deposition and confinement of Photius (cap. 2), and the appointment of Stylian Zatitzes as magister and logothete (cap. 3) took place, in that order, between September 1 and December 25, 886. With regard to the first of these events, the phrase pet& 1d atrroxpaopfjcat (CGM, 849/2) confirms that it was the first official act of the reign, and therefore took place in September.

The capture of Hypsele by the Saracens and the process against Santabarenus and Photius (cap. 4-6) took place in 887, and the fire which destroyed St. Thomas’ church fell between them. The siege of Samos and the promotion of Zaiitzes to the rank of basileopator

(cap. 10) follow between August 891 and May 893. This is almost the only place where Grumel’s chronology must be modified. He gives the year 888-9 for Zaiitzes’ promotion,® but this is impossible: the eclipse of August 8, 891 intervenes decisively. Grumel is, however, manifestly right in dissociating the promotion from Leo VI’s marriage to Zaiitzes’ daughter, which took place not before 898 (see supra, p. 104). In fact, no marital significance attaches to the title of basileopator, even though it was later bestowed on Romanus Lecapenus,

father-in-law of Constantine VII. It was an honorary title implying spiritual parentage or guardianship of the sovereign. It is said that Leo VI himself invented the rank for Zaiitzes. This may be true; but his father had invented a similar title in favor of the widow Danelis, who uytnp KaAslofai BaciAgws AEidOn

that is, “‘was accorded the rank of basileometor,’”’ and her son was adopted by

Basil as his spiritual brother.”

The revolt of Cherson (cap. 15) naturally followed immediately on the Byzantine defeat at Bulgarophygon (or ‘‘Bulgarogephyron,”’ as we ought to write it): that is, late in 896 or early in 897. The conspitacy of Zaiitzes’ relatives to murder the Emperor at Damianou (cap. 16) occurs between August and November, 897.7!

The expulsion and tonsuring of the corrupt Musicus and Stauracius (cap. 19) took place shortly before the death of Zaiitzes, which itself took place in

June or July of 899. 3

* Grumel, 40; cf. Kurtz, op. cit., 57, note 24. ® Theoph. Cont., 357/5-6: avrrds kaivoupytioas Td Svoyc. % Tbtd., 318/2x~-2.

7 The mention of St. Theophano’s death after the Bulgarian war and the loss of Keron (Qurra) rules out de Boor’s conclusion, defended by Kolias (EEBS, 23 [1953], 332-5), that she died in 893, and confirms Grumel’s date of November 10, 897.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE’” 107 Then follows the major conspiracy of Basil the Epeictes (cap. 20), and the | consequent rise of Samonas.”* The conspiracy was hatched after the death of the Empress Zoe (CGM, 859/3), which took place in December 899 or January goo. Therefore, it was betrayed and frustrated in the early part of goo; and

I have elsewhere conjectured that Arethas, who was examined on Easter Saturday goo, may have been implicated—however unjustly—in this conspiracy.” The next item is the taking of Demetrias by the Saracen Admiral Damian (cap. 22). As this is recorded after the appointment of Nicholas Mysticus as patriarch (March 1, gor) and before the death of the Empress Eudocia (April 12, go), Demetrias fell in March or early April gor. Grumel is therefore right in rejecting the earlier date suggested for this event by Grégoire.”4 The next two chapters (23, 24) are a short piece of dynastic history rendered necessary by the notice of the Empress Eudocia’s death at the end of it (CGM, 860/10-11). The brief notes on the “interim of Anna’”’ (January to June goo)”® and the marriage of Eudocia herself (June or July goo) are an understandable, and indeed essential, “‘cast back’’ to explain who this Eudocia was who died at this conjuncture. The account is perfectly connected, and not interrupted by any extraneous event.

Cap. 25-26 are concerned with the construction of two churches and a monastery. The churches were those of St. Theophano (Leo VI’s own first wife) and St. Lazarus. There is some reason to think that the encaenia of the latter took place on May 4, go2.’® The fall of Taormina follows (August 1, go2); and the sack of Lemnos, recorded at the end of cap. 26, is to be put at the end of the same year (902) or the beginning of the next. At the time of the attempt on Leo VI’s life in the church of St. Mocius (cap. 27), which took place on May 11, 903, the Emperor’s trusty servant Samonas was busy “bringing Zoe [Carbunopsina] to the Palace to live with the Emperor’’ (CGM, 861/18-20). This may mark the beginning of Leo’s liaison with Zoe, or else it may indicate that Zoe was being brought to the Porphyra to give birth to her first child by Leo, which was probably the princess Anna II (cf. Ohnsorge, Byzantinische Zertschrift, 51 [1958], 80-81).

Cap. 31 provides a rare instance of chronological ambiguity. It contains the

curious story of the flight, arrest, confinement, and return to favor of the 72 The respective ministries of Stylian Zaiitzes and Samonas lasted about eight years each (891-899 and 900-908). Tf we count the former from the date at which Zaiitzes became magister and logothete (end of 886) rather than from the date at which he became basileopator, it lasted twelve and a half years. The reign of Leo was thus in popular memory divided into these two periods of supremacy, that of Zaiitzes and that of Samonas. A Jewish “Genizah”’ text of the thirteenth century, which was first published by Ginzberg and later commented on by Krauss (Byzantinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbiicher, 7 [1928-9], 66~71), illustrates this. The two ministers are called an ‘“‘Ethiopian”’ and an “‘Arab.”’ Krauss saw that the former must be Zaiitzes, who was probably a negro, or half-negro: see Kurtz, op. cit., 11/28, ti ool gon, Al@foy. The ‘‘Arab,’”’ Krauss thought to be Romanus Lecapenus, an identification very properly rejected by Délger, Byzantinische Zettschrift, 31 (1931), 177. Obviously the person meant was the Arab Samonas. “EAAnvixc, 14 (1956), 349-59. 7% Grumel, 34-6. 78 Idem, 32~4.

7° C. A. Mango, Byzantinische Zetischrift, 47 (1954), 8.

108 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS Emperor’s confidential minister Samonas. The last firm date before these events is that of the fall of Thessalonica, July 31, 904. Then, the minister flies, is recaptured, spends four months in confinement, and lastly returns to favor on the Emperor’s Accession Day, August 30. If the point of reference of the

story is the date of Samonas’ flight, then this took place in April 905, i.e., after the fall of Thessalonica and before the appearance of the comet on May 16, 905 (cap. 32). But if the point of reference is August 30, then we can date the incident to 904, since August 30, 904 is a month later than July 31, 904. On the whole, if we compare the narrative of cap. 36-39, whose point of reference is its final incident, the return of Constantine Ducas from Bagdad in the

winter of 907-908 (see infra, p. 110); and if we consider that the actual date given in cap. 31 is August 30, on which the annalist presumably made his entry, then we shall probably conclude that Samonas fled in April 904.” This was a moment of great danger for the Empire; and that Samonas, being an Arab, should have been under house-arrest during the crisis of June and July seems very understandable. Cap. 32 is interesting. CGM, 864-5 and Theodosius Melitenus, 195/4—-5 preserve the original order of events which the Logothete found in his annals. First, the comet appears (i.e., on May 16, or 23, 905);’8 second, Samonas is created a patrician; third, Constantine Porphyrogenitus is born; fourth, Constantine Porphyrogenitus is baptized (1.e., on January 6, 906). Grumel,” in a brilliant article, has tried to connect a later statement of the chronicle (CGM, 887/g-10), that Constantine Porphyrogenitus was married ti tpitn Tov Mé&oya TH Aeyouévn tis FaAiAaias, with the date of his birth, which, Grumel assumes, must

have been at least fourteen years before his marriage, whenever that was. There can be no dispute about the year of Constantine’s marriage: it was gIQ. The enigmatical ““Tuesday of Easter called of Galilee’’ Grumel equates with the Tuesday of the fourth week after Easter, that is, May 18, 919. Now, some later versions of the Logothete’s chronicle do actually connect the appearance of the comet (on May 16, 905) with Constantine’s birth:™ so, argues Grumel,

Constantine Porphyrogenitus was born on May 17 or 18, 905, and married fourteen years later, to the day, on May 18, g109. The trouble with this argument is that ti tpitn to Md&oya is not the correct reading: Vindobon. hist. gr. 37 has tot ’Avtitracya®! which, for obvious reasons,

is to be preferred. Constantine was therefore married, not on Tuesday, May 18, but on Tuesday May 4, 91g. And, if it were really true that he was then fourteen years old or more, he must have been born on or before May 4, 905, at least twelve days, and perhaps nineteen, before the comet appeared. It could of course be argued that the two events, the birth and the comet, were so close to one another in time that they could be connected in popular memory. But, on the evidence of the text before us, there is no reason to believe that 7 Cf. R. J. H. Jenkins, ‘‘The Flight of Samonas,’’ Speculum, 23 (1948), 227. 78 See note 65 supra. % Echos d’Orient, 36 (1937), 52-64. 80 Theoph. Cont., 370/9: o év Ti yevvttoe Epavn Kourytns dorip: cf. Cedrenus, I], 264/23. 81 Sestakov, Vizantijskij Vremennik, 5, 42: 16 (cod.) &vtimdoya, TH Acyouévn PoAala.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE” 109 the Logothete or his source did connect them. It is the Continuator of Theophanes who infers a connection between two separate events originally divided from one another by a third, the elevation of Samonas to the rank of patrician. We are forced back to the conclusion that Constantine Porphyrogenitus may

have been born at any time between May 16 and November 27, 905;®? and that his marriage in 919 took place before, rather than on or after, his fourteenth

birthday. What probably governed the choice of date for his union with the usurper's daughter was not Constantine’s minority, but the prohibition of marriages during the Paschal Octave, Easter Sunday to St. Thomas’ Sunday or Antipascha. On the second available day after May 2 (Antipascha), 919, the morrow of the day connected liturgically with the Wedding of Cana in Galilee, the marriage was celebrated. This is disappointingly vague. As is well known, the Continuator of Theophanes states® that Constantine Porphyrogenitus lived fifty-five years and two months; but, as he died, according to the same authority, on November 15, third indiction (i.e., 959), A.M. 6469 (i.e., g61!), and as, even if he was born

as early as May 905, he lived no more than fifty-four years and six months all told, no reliance can be placed on this information. We are equally in the dark as to the exact date of the promotion of Samonas, except that it must have been after May 16 and émo tijs avtov guys, whatever that may mean. Indeed, the whole passage® is unsatisfactory: it is either carelessly copied or else corrupt, since, as it stands, the meaning of tyévunoe 5 vidv KTA. is that Samonas, and not Leo VI, was the father of Constantine Porphyrogenitus! However, it may well be that Skylitzes®’ preserves the true record, in stating that Constantine lived “fifty-four years and two months,”’ which would place his birth, plausibly enough, in September go5. On the whole, the most probable solution is that, first, the comet appeared on May 16 or 23; second, Samonas

was made patrician “[a year] after his flight,’’ 1.e., on August 30; and third, Constantine was born in September, 905. The building known as Kuphe (= fornix: CGM, 865/6-7, cap. 33) is also referred to at De Cerimonius (Bonn.), 180/6. Janin’s date® of 905 for its conversion into an almshouse could be mght, since the baptism of Constantine Porphyrogenitus in January 906, referred to in the previous chapter, merely rounds off the record of his birth in (? September of) the year before. But a date between January and April 906 seems rather more probable. In either event, this move against prostitution may be regarded as an act of contrition on the Emperor’s part, since he himself was living in open fornication. 82 Forty days before his baptism: cf. Muralt, 483. 8 By Novel 109 of Leo VI, the imperial family was expressly exempted from the rule which laid down minimum ages for betrothal and marriage: see Kolias, EEB2, 23 (1953), 326-7, who quotes and comments on the text. Constantine VII could thus be married at thirteen years and eight months old, if the needs of state required it, as, in his father-in-law’s view, they certainly did. & See Grumel, Echos d’Orient, 35 (1936), 274-9. It is useful to have established that “Galilee Tuesday” was the second Tuesday after Easter: cf. De Cerimontts 377/2-3. 85 Theoph. Cont., 468/22-3: cf. VE, ed. by de Boor, 116-118. -

86 CGM, 865/1-2. . 8? Cedrenus, II, 338/12; cf. Muralt, 483. 8 R. Janin, Constantinople Byzantine (Paris, 1950), 350.

110 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS The unlawful marriage of Leo VI and Zoe Carbunopsina (CGM, 865/8-0, cap. 34), which took place vera tiv goptiv (Easter Sunday, April 13, 906), was probably celebrated between April 21 and the end of the month. Nicholas Mysticus, writing in 912, states that the papal legates who came to Constan-

tinople in February 907 arrived there eight months after the “marriage,’’ which would place the latter in or about June go6. But, if he is right, what was the éopt of the chronicle? And in any case, if the Vita Euthymzz is to be trusted,®® Nicholas himself made a first attempt to reconcile his colleagues to the union as early as May 1, 906: so that the second half of April remains the likeliest time.

. CGM, 865/14, cap. 35, places the promotion of Samonas to the office of parakotmomenos (chamberlain) before the expulsion of the Patriarch Nicholas

on February 1, 907. This conflicts with the evidence of the Vita Euthymiz, which, a short time after this, still calls him frotovestiarios. Ii the Logothete really found the promotion in an annal of this date, he is probably right; but no date is assigned to it in his text, and it may be his own inference. Euthymius, it is generally conceded, became patriarch (CGM, 865/21-2, cap. 35) at the end of February 907, or thereabouts.*! CGM, 866/5-11 (cap. 36) describes the sudden and severe storm which disturbed the Emperor’s visit to the monastery of Constantine Lips. As this visit was in June, only the year go7 will fit the facts. Both the return of Constantine Ducas and the coronation of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (cap. 39, 41) took place before June 908. Then, in cap. 37-9 (CGM, 866-868), is recounted the long saga of the defection of Andronicus Ducas to Bagdad. I have elsewhere, relying on a document now attributable to Leo Choerosphactes and on a brilliant note of Professor Marius Canard, worked out the time-sequence of this chain of events.** Briefly,

the revolt of Andronicus, deluded by Samonas, took place late in September g05, and was followed by the naval victory of Himerius on October 6 of that year. Andronicus defected to the Saracens of Tarsus in March 906, and proceeded to Bagdad in or after October go6. The effort of the Emperor Leo to secure his return was frustrated in the winter of 906-907. But Andronicus’ son, Constantine Ducas, who had defected with him, did succeed in escaping, and got back to Constantinople in the winter of 907-908."

Now, it is clearly this last, dramatic event which is the occasion of the Logothete’s story. The story itself is a locus classicus for his method of “casting

back.’’®4 Constantine Ducas returns from Bagdad. How did he get there in the first place? Well, it all started with the naval expedition of Himerius in g05, and the malice of Samonas, and so on; and the tale unfolds. How much ® VE, 76/32: cf. de Boor, ad loc., 169. © ibid., 96/18. *1'V. Grumel, Les regestes des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople, I, 2, p. 146: VE, ed. by de Boor,

- See notes 4 and 5 supra. See Grégoire, Byzantion, 8 (1933), 84; Grierson and Jenkins, ib1d., 32 (1962), 137-8. % See supra, p. 92.

SYMEON THE “LOGOTHETE”’” 111 of it, especially of the alleged machinations of Samonas, is true, is not the question here. But the chronological sequence, at first sight violated by re-. cording a naval victory of October 905 after a storm at the monastery of Lips in June 907, is none the less preserved, when it is seen that the end of the story, the return of Constantine Ducas from Bagdad, is the point of reference of the whole narrative. The chronology of cap. 40-42 (CGM, 868-870) has been explained by Mr.

Grierson and myself.** The points of reference are: the Saracen mission to Constantinople in the spring of 908; the coronation of Constantine VII on May 15, 908; and the fall of Samonas on or about June 13, 908. The previous passage (CGM, 869-870) is a “cast back’’ to explain this dismissal. The remaining two chapters, 43 and 44, have been explained above, p. 105, where it is Shown that the Cretan expedition of Himerius set out in October g11; the Emperor Leo fell ill before or very early in March 912; the fire in the candle works occurred between March and May 912; and the Emperor died on May 11 of the same year. ALEXANDER (CGM, 871-874):

The short reign of the Emperor Alexander (May 12, g12—-June 6, 913) provides only a small amount of chronological information, though this seems to confirm, or at least not to invalidate, the principle established for the two preceding reigns.

CGM, 872/17-19, 873/8-12 (cap. 3, 5) gives two independently datable pieces of information. Cap. 3 records the fifteen-day perihelion of the comet Xiphias, known to us as Halley’s Comet. Modern calculation has shown that this period began on July 19, 912,°8 and therefore lasted until August 3 of that year. Cap. 5 records the death of the ex-Admiral Himerius. As Himerius returned to Constantinople in the latter part of May 912, and died six months later, he must have died in November 912. The remaining items are easily placed. Cap. 1 records the recall of Nicholas

Mysticus to the patriarchal see, and the subsequent condemnation, brutal punishment, and (by “‘cast forward’’) death, of Euthymius. The recall of Nicholas was the first significant act of the reign: indeed, the diocese had been in Nicholas’ hands since March or April, 912, as has recently been shown by M. Oikonomidés and myself.*? The process against Euthymius took place, as

we should have supposed, in June. ,

Cap. 2 records the appointment of Alexander’s Privy Council, which is datable to the same month: at all events, before July 19. The blasphemous adoration of the images in the Hippodrome, and the race-meeting (cap. 4), took place on a holiday between July and November. The embassy of Symeon ®5 Grierson and Jenkins, op. ctt., p. 137. %6 See M. Proctor and A. C. D. Crommelin, Comets, Their Nature, Origin and Place in the Science of Astronomy (London, 1937), 62. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 56 (1963), 46-52; DOP, 17 (1963), 399-401.

112 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS of Bulgaria (cap. 6) was repelled with insult between November and the Emperor’s death in the following June, which is recorded in cap. 7.°° Nothing in this invalidates our hypothesis, and what can be established confirms it. We are thus, I believe, justified in thinking that the Logothete used, with much care, a set of Annals for his accounts of the reigns of Basil I, Leo VI and Alexander. Along with much other chronological data concerning trivialities, we have been able, on this hypothesis, to establish the dates of some more important events over which a lot of ink has been spilt in the past. The Patriarch Stephen was born in November 867. Leo VI married his first wife in the latter part of 882, but not later than November. Leo VI was imprisoned by his father for three years (August 883-July 886). Constantine Porphyrogenitus was born, after all, in September 905. Constantine Porphyrogenitus was married to Helen Lecapena on Tuesday, May 4, gr19g.

It is to be hoped that future investigation will render some of the other chronological information elucidated by this article of use to the historian. 88 This does not conflict with what is said of the embassy by A. P. KaZdan, ‘O natchale vtoroj bolgaro-vizantijskoj vojny’, Slavjanskij Arkhiv (1959), 29, though he thinks the war broke out before it; see, however, MPG, CXI, cols. 45-56, passim.

IV

The Classical Background of the Scriptores Post Theophanem

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 1954

This paper was delivered, very nearly in its present form, as a lecture on the 30th April 1953 at the Symposium of the Dumbarton Oaks Research

Institute. It would not have been possible to change the style without re-writing the paper in toto; and the reader is therefore asked to bear in mind that it was composed with a view to its oral delivery. The emphasis laid on the Vita Basilii is due to the fact that this lecture and the one on De Administrando Imperio which followed it, were designed first and foremost to illustrate the personal works of the sovereign.

V \HE Vita Basilii,’ or Life of the emperor Basil I by his grandson Constantine Porphyrogenitus, forms, as we all know, Book V of the his-

torical collection known as “Theophanes Continuatus.” The only reason for the title “Theophanes Continuatus” is that the work commences chronologically at the point where the Chronicle of Theophanes left off, that is, at the year 813. In plan and style the two works are completely different. “Theophanes Continuatus,” as it survives today, is in two main divisions.” Books I to V are each concerned with the history of one separate emperor of the five who reigned between 818 and 886. Book VI comprises the history of all five emperors who reigned between 886 and 963. Book VI, which is the work of at least two hands, was written, or at any rate published, after the death of Constantine VII, and therefore does not concern us now. But the first section, Books I to V, was written under the direction of, and, in part,

actually at the dictation of, Constantine himself, after his recovery of the supreme power in 945 and before his death in 959.* It is thus the most important document we possess for testing the cultural climate of Constantine's age as it affected the writing of history. Books I to IV, the histories of Leo V, Michael II, Theophilus and Michael III, show clear traces of having been

composed by one hand. Book V, the Life of Basil I, is quite certainly the work, and to a large extent the composition, of Constantine himself,* who also acted as general editor of the series. Book V differs sharply in form and slightly in style from Books I to IV. This is not so much because the authors

are different as because each is copying a different model. None the less, each of the two sections is strongly influenced by the other,’ and the two are obviously meant to stand parts of one historical collection. Moreover, the

classical background of each is the same, though not the classical model. Some remarks therefore on the origins and outlook of the work as a whole are a necessary introduction to our study of Book V. Professor Weitzmann has shown ° that one characteristic which distin-

guishes the art of the era of Constantine VII is a revival of interest in the portrayal of the human figure, and a revival of the classical or Hellenistic manner of rendering it. The “depersonalized,” mediaeval figures swell and round themselves into living human forms under the genial influence of this * Theophanes Continuatus (ed. Bonn., 1838) 211-353. | *See F. Hirsch, Byzantinische Studien (Leipzig, 1876) 175-182; G. Ostrogorsky, Geschichte des byz. Staates (2nd ed., Munich, 1952) 171. : *For the date, see J. B. Bury, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 15. (1906) 551, 571-573. ‘Theoph. Cont., 211/15-17. * Bury, op. cit., 570. *Kurt Weitzmann, Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art (Princeton, 1951) 207.

14 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS newly-discovered or newly-appreciated tradition. It is, in the literal sense of the word, a revival of humanism. This is what takes place also in the contemporary historiography. The characters of the historical writings of Con-

stantine’s school are no longer the depersonalized types, angelic or diabolical, who walk stiffly through the pages of the essentially mediaeval Theophanes. They have become, or are at least in process of becoming, individual men, compounded of good and bad, of idiosyncrasies and of what used to be called “humours.” Art and literature are, after all, two closely connected manifestations of the spirit of each age. And when we find this tend-

ency towards classical humanism in literature so firmly connected with the age of Constantine himself, we recognize it at once as useful confirmation of Professor Weitzmann’s thesis regarding the art of the same epoch.

In truth, between the time when Theophanes laid down his pen at the beginning of the ninth century and the time when Psellos took up his at the end of the eleventh, something like a revolution towards humanism in historical writing had taken place. Two brief examples, of the earlier and later styles, will illustrate the contrast more vividly than an hour of exposition. First, here is Theophanes’ portrait of Constantine V, the great iconoclast emperor:’

| It is now our task to catalogue the crimes of that most impious wretch, his [Leo III's] son, crimes most blasphemous and abhorred of Heaven (though we must do so

with proper regard to truth and moderation, in that God, who seeth all things, is watching and surveying us also); so that our account may be of value to all who come after us, and even to those miserable and criminal pygmies who still to-day err in the

obscene heresy of this archcriminal. . .. Now this abandoned maniac, this bloodthirsty and ferocious beast, who had achieved power by usurpation and not by law, at once fell away from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and His pure and holy Mother, and all the Saints; for he was one who was perverted by magic and filthinesses, by bloody sacrifices and the excrements of horses, one who rejoiced in beastly wantonness and in the invocation of devils, as who from his earliest youth was acquainted (in a word) with every pursuit that corrupts the soul.

So much for truth and moderation. You see, the portrait is not of a man at all, but of a heretic and hence of a devil incarnate; and there he stands, painted on a wall in two dimensions, breathing fire and brimstone. It is not strange that in this daub we fail to recognize the brilliant statesman, the skil-

ful and resolute commander, the learned, subtle and austere theologian, about whose tomb the populace of Constantinople, conscious of all they had lost, cast themselves down in an agony of supplication.® If we now turn for a moment to Psellos and select one slight sketch out "Ed. De Boor, 413/10~25. * Ibid., 501/312.

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 15 of his brilliant portrait-gallery, the contrast is truly striking. Here is his description of John the Orphanotrophos, the all-powerful minister and brother of Michael IV, whom Psellos disliked almost as heartily as Theophanes disliked Constantine V.° For myself, who often dined and drank with him, it amazed me that this man, drunkard and buffoon as he was, yet contrived to preserve the balance of the Roman empire on his shoulders. Even when he was drunk, he could follow all that was passing through the minds of each of his boon-companions, and, catching them (as it were) upon the hip, would afterwards call them to account for what they had done or said in their cups; so that they came to dread him drunk even more than they dreaded him sober. He was a strange mixture: he had long worn the garb of a monk, but he never thought of observing the decencies of conduct which such a habit imposes; and yet such duties as the divine law prescribes for that profession he made some outward show of performing, and those who wasted themselves in riot and wantonness he ab-

solutely despised. But if any chose an honourable life, or passed it in the liberal exercise of the virtues, or enriched his mind with classical learning, of all such he was

the enemy, and would do all he could to vilify to each the object of his devotion. Such was his singular conduct towards the generality; but towards his brother the emperor he still preserved the same disposition, with an unchanging, undeviating firmness of demeanour.

That is an individual man, with his lights and shades, whom we should have no difficulty in recognizing if we met him in real life. It seems clear that this humanistic trend started, or was revived, in the first half of the tenth century. It can be illustrated in more than one work of the period. We have only to look at what survives of Constantine's own Excerpta from classical historians to see that a large part of them deals not so much with historical events as with the development and exploration of individual character. Equally significant is the form of the historical work of Genesios and of Theophanes Continuatus: instead of a continuous or annalistic narrative, the whole is divided up into separate “reigns”; and while these divisions cannot be called formal biographies, such as those of Plutarch, they do form treatises in which the sovereign is the central character, and a noticeable effort is made to paint the character as that of a living man, compounded of good and evil, and not of a puppet blessed or cursed by Heaven. It is also clear that this alteration of tone is due to a close familiarity with, and a conscious imitation of, classical models. Constantine VII himself was deeply read in the classics; but his ready and acknowledged quotations from Homer or Sophocles are the mere trimmings

of his prose works, and were the stock-in-trade of Byzantine writers in almost all ages. His fundamental theories of education, especially of a ruler’s education, of teaching and learning, and of history-writing derive from three ° Michel Psellos, Chronographie, I (ed. Renauld, Paris, 1926) 60-61.

16 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS authors to whom he makes no overt acknowledgement: they are Isocrates, Plutarch and Polybius. The influence of Isocrates is apparent on the very first pages of Theophanes Continuatus, for the Preface,’ when its verbal difficulties have been mastered, turns out to bea simple restatement of Isocrates’ philosophy of the logos, that “hymn,” as Professor Jaeger ™ has called it, “written in lofty

prose, which is set out in the Nicocles, the Panegyricus and the Antidosis. The parallels in sense and phraseology * are not to be mistaken. It is plainly laid down that Constantine, as the ideal monarch, has for his chief duties the care of his subjects and the cultivation of the logos, which is the basis of all culture and the single faculty in which mankind excels the beasts. It would certainly be wrong to claim for Constantine the rediscovery of Isocrates as an educational legislator: there are strong grounds for believing that the works and methods of Isocrates had already been reintroduced as the basis of rhetorical education by Photius in the University founded by Caesar Bardas in the latter half of the ninth century. The attention paid by Photius to Isocrates in the Bibliotheca,* the lengthy recapitulation of the Cyprian hortations in Photius’ letter to Michael of Bulgaria,"* and the explicit acknowledgment to Isocrates in the Paraeneseis of Basil I to Leo VI,” which were also probably compiled by Photius, clearly suggest this. Nor would it be accurate to say that the Isocratean view of the practical value of history was a rediscovery of the Constantinian school: Mr. Kustas, in his as yet unpublished doctoral dissertation for Harvard University, has traced the Isocratean component in Photius’ own conception of History, and shown how Photius was able to combine exposition of God's purposes, viewed from the Christian standpoint, with practical examples drawn from past, and even from pagan, history. But the school of Constantine introduced into this tentative revival of classicism in history-writing a humanism which is foreign to preceding generations. Man, as an individual, is invading the foreground. Isocrates, the founder of our modern western educational theory, was an

empiric; and the empiric may, and indeed must, proceed by means of the empeiria of his predecessors. The passages in which this doctrine is laid down in Constantine's own work occur mainly in the De Administrando Imperio.”* * Theoph. Cont., 3-5. ™ Werner Jaeger, Paideia, tr. Highet, III (Oxford, 1945) 89. *E.g., Nicocles 27 D: rois av yap dAdos ols éxopev obSty trav GAAwv Cow Siadépoper; Theoph. Cont., 4/10-11: rotro $ rav mdvrov Siadépopev. * MPG CIII, cols. 434, 436. *“ MPG CII, cols. 661 ff.

266/6. }

-% MPG CVII, col. lvi B. . |

*Ed. Moravesik, 1/13-15; 13/12-14; 46/167-169. Cf. also Theoph. Cont., 265/16-

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 17 But it is important to note that this doctrine involves quite a different view

of history from that which had guided Theophanes, or Nicephorus, or George the Monk. These historians were primarily concerned with the workings of Providence and the sins of the people. But the empirical historian, if he is to accomplish his task of educating his reader in the practical conduct of life or of rule, must study not the workings of Providence but the deeds and especially the characters of men. This led on to a close scrutiny of the multitudinous biographies and humanistic histories of later antiquity. Hence the prime importance for the writings of Constantine's school of the works of that prince of biographers, Plutarch.” It is easy to see the working of this new influence in the early books of Theophanes Continuatus, written beneath the emperor's own eye. The man is beginning to predominate over the event. But more than this. Plutarch, in his famous introduction to his Life of Alexander,'® with which Constantine

was thoroughly familiar and parts of which were perhaps included in the original collection of the De Cerimoniis,” explains that individual character must be studied, not only in its grand and dominating lineaments, but also in its smaller idiosyncrasies, which may be more revealing of the man than as he acts with the eyes of the world upon him. It is the application of this principle that makes the early books of Theophanes Continuatus what they are. Especially worthy of notice is the long study of the reign of Theophilus in the third book. Here the whole man is before us, with his restless pursuit of justice,” his strong religious prejudices,” his endearing regard for a disloyal wife,” his aestheticism,” his scholarship,” his one lapse from con-

jugal fidelity,” his insistence that his subjects should cut their hair,” his curious prying into the booths of his market-place to inquire into the current prices of wine and comestibles.” When we remember that this is the portrait of an iconoclast sovereign of the ninth century drawn by an Orthodox historian of the tenth, and when we remember what the Orthodox historian of

the ninth century did for the iconoclast sovereign of the eighth, we may well regard Theophanes Continuatus as a triumph of classical principles. Cf. R. J. H. Jenkins, Bull. Acad. roy. de Belgique, Cl. de Lettres, XXXIV (1948) 72. ” Init., obre rais émpaveordras mpdfeot KrA.

* Ed. Bonn., I, 515/17-18. Theoph. Cont., 87/9 ff; 92/18-94/18. " Ibid., 91-92. * Ibid., 91/3-5. " Ibid., 106/17-107/5. “ Ibid., 116/11-16. * Ibid., 95/7-14. * Ibid., 107/6-18. * Ibid., 87/16 ff.

18 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS : Ostrogorsky * has rightly said that Theophilus must have been a most interesting character. But how much should we know of that interesting charac-

ter if its biographer had not imbibed the precepts of Plutarch, and had presented Theophilus as the ranting, roaring Herod in whose guise he appears in the monkish Life of Michael Synkellos?

I have briefly indicated the two main classical influences which contributed to a revival of humanistic history. But I must not omit to mention the third. In his study of the reign of Leo V, the Continuer of Theophanes says:” “I am inclined to think that history will be valuable as real education and as a training-ground for politics only if it can point to the truest causes of things and to the hidden motives of action; and I doubt whether any historical work that does not do this can be of the slightest use to the reader.” These rather priggish accents lead us straight to Polybius, and in fact the words are taken from the preface to his famous history.*° The influence of Polybius on the Continuer is chiefly discernible in this very insistence of the latter on the need rerum cognoscere causas. But it is not fanciful to detect it also in the Continuer’s tentative efforts towards objectivity. Polybius maintains that if we pretend to pragmatical history, then impartiality, however

distasteful, must be achieved. We shall often find ourselves blaming our heroes and praising our villains. But then, that is so in real life also, and real life is what history is about.” It is in conformity with this principle that the Continuer does justice to the energy and ability of Leo V,** to whom the monkish tradition is unanimous in ascribing a villainy as unrelieved as that

of Copronymus; and, even under the menacing cloud of imperial propaganda, contrives to slip in a word of praise for the Caesar Bardas * and Michael IIT.** I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. The reigns of the emperors who immediately preceded Basil I could not be represented as other than uniformly disastrous, because it was part of the imperial myth that Basil supervened to bring salvation after fifty years of uninterrupted decline. What I mean is, that the characters of these sovereigns receive a treatment which, though less objective than they deserve, is a good deal fairer than they could have received in any other epoch since antiquity, given the * Op. cit., 168. * Theoph. Cont., 21/19 ff; cf. 167/17-19. ” Polybius I, 1: ¢doxovres dAnOwordryv pév evar maSelay nal yupvaciay mpds Tas moAtTuKas

ampagas thv €€ ioropias pabnow, évapyeotarny 8& xrd.; cf. Theoph. Cont., 21/19-21: xai yap TaUTYY povyy elroy’ dy éyw elvat aAnOwwrdrnv wadeiay Te Kal yupvactay mpds Tas wohiTiKas modbes, THY évapyeotarny airiay.

“ Polybius I, 14, 4-5. " Theoph. Cont., 30/13-19. .™ Ibid., 185/2-8; 193/2-3. “ Ibid., 210/17.

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 19 political exigencies of the historian’s time. It would indeed be absurd to claim

that these enlightened ideas were already fully operative in the middle of the tenth century. But it is obvious that they had taken root; and how they flourished in the following century readers of Psellos’ Chronographia will instantly perceive.

The identity of this pupil and colleague of Constantine who wrote the first four books of Theophanes Continuatus is still quite unknown. The eleventh century historian Skylitzes makes a tantalizing reference to his predecessors Theodore Daphnopates and Niketas Paphlago,** the latter of whom is presumably the author of the Vita Ignatii. It was suggested by Krumbacher ** that Daphnopates was the author of the latter part of Book VI. But the Russian scholar Shestakov went much further than this, and claimed that Books I to IV were also written by Daphnopates.” His proofs were stylistic, that is to say, he compared the arrangement of clauses, choice of diction, and use of proverbial phrases in Theophanes Continuatus with

those in hagiographical works also attributed to Daphnopates. But these proofs are not convincing: indeed, it would not be difficult to show by exactly similar comparisons with the Vita Ignatii that the books were written by Niketas Paphlago, a conclusion which would be, on external evidence, highly unlikely. What such methods of comparison plainly do show, is that the historians of this group were all brought up in the same rhetorical school,

and used the same rhetorical style and vocabulary. This is not to say that stylometry is useless here; but it must be much more minutely and rigorously

applied than Shestakov or anybody else has hitherto applied it in order to obtain a conclusive result. For the time being, therefore, we must be content to leave the author of Books I to IV in his anonymity. When we turn from Books I to IV to Book V, from the works of the pupil to the work of the master, we are in high hopes of a really convincing and

realistic portrait of the Founder of the Macedonian Dynasty. But, as we begin to read the rhetorical pages of uniform eulogy and applause, we are for a moment affected by profound disappointment. Can :t be that, while the pupil has acquired so strong a tincture of the new classical spirit, the master has remained behind in the dead whites and blacks of mediaevalism?

But the disappointment is only momentary. As we read on, the classical spirit of the work becomes more and more apparent. But we are looking at Basil I, not through the eyes of Plutarch, but through those of Xenophon and Isocrates. * Cedrenus, ed. Bonn., I, 4/7. _ ™ Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (2nd ed., Munich, 1897) 459. *"D. Anastasijevié and Ph. Grani¢é, Deuxiéme Congrés international des études byzantives (Belgrad, 1929) 35-45.

20 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS The Vita Basilii does not follow the pattern of Peripatetic, Plutarchian, character-developing biography. It is a splendid specimen of the mature type of Isocratean enkomion, of which the Evagoras, if not, as its author claimed, the first, was certainly the most famous and influential in antiquity; and was the heir of the earlier verse enkomion, a species of composition which provided much mirth to the satirical genius of Plato. It is well known that the Plutarchian and Isocratean modes of biography are different in conception. The purpose of the former is educative and psychological: it at-

tempts, in a factual and chronologically ordered study, to elucidate the personality of the subject by a careful choice of historical material and anec-

dote. If it is not history, yet the insistence on order and veracity gives it considerable historical value. The purpose of the enkomion, on the other hand, is not historical but moral and political. The object is to present the perfect picture of a prince or statesman, and to hang it up for the admiration and imitation of all succeeding generations. From this perfection all that is unworthy or even of a dubious quality must be sedulously excluded. It is a rhetorical exercise, strung on an artificial framework of conventional virtues and noble deeds. It pays little or no heed to chronological sequence. Its value as history is very small indeed: for whatever historical facts are recorded are conditioned by the form, and suspect owing to the nature of the enkomion itself. The rules are so strict, the categories so clearly defined, and the very phraseology so compellingly suggested, that the encomiast has little to do but to select his material, refine it, and melt it down into the conventional mould. These two forms of ancient biography are in fact not entirely separable, as Steidle has most recently emphasized.** The two influenced one another. Notably, the system of describing the events of a man’s life by categories, by deeds of war, deeds of peace, and so on, is one which may be found even in antiquity outside the enkomion proper, as in Plutarch’s Life of Pericles. None the less, the two forms remain, in origin and principle, two. The Continuer of Theophanes followed the one, and Constantine the other. Now here it must once again be emphasized that the rediscovery of the classical enkomion is not to be attributed to Constantine’s own generation. It was the inevitable concomitant of the revival of Isocratean studies in the

latter part of the ninth century. The fact that the Vita Basilii is the earliest neo-classical enkomion of the epoch to survive to our own time by no means implies that it was the first to be written in that age, and there is a good deal

of subsidiary evidence to suggest that it was not. References to the co¢ia. * Wolf Steidle, Sueton u. die antike Biographie (Munich, 1951) 151 ff.

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 21 and 8ixavoovvy of the Caesar Bardas in the Book IV of Theophanes Continu-

atus * might suggest that that great man may have been himself the object of such a panegyric; nor could the students of his university have discovered a worthier recipient. But when we reach the early tenth century the evidence is much plainer. Arethas, the learned archbishop of Caesareia, in an oration delivered in honour of his master Leo VI on the 30th August or Ist September 902,*° extols the emperor first in Platonic terms as the philosopher-

king of the Republic, and last in Aristotelian terms as the truly happy man sketched in the Nicomachean Ethics; but, in between, in terms of the Isocratean enkomion, as surpassing those sovereigns who have excelled in civic virtues, wars foreign or domestic, building of cities and harbours, and other categories of Hellenistic panegyric. While therefore we cannot describe Arethas’ oration as an enkomion in due classical form, it provides abundant evidence that that form was known and studied by the turn of the century, and we can hardly doubt that many attempts to imitate it were made among students of rhetoric. Here, as elsewhere, Constantine was profiting by the experience of his immediate predecessors. Now, the scheme of a royal enkomion, as it was developed and systematized by the Hellenistic followers of Isocrates, is this: the first section contains an account of ancestry, parentage and birth; the second, of youth and career down as far as the dxu7, or most significant portion of life; the third and fourth are deeds, wpdfes, in peace and war, or war and peace; and the fifth, a section on private or family life, death, will, and other personal details. All these elements are present in their correct order in the Vita Basilii, and it is plain that we have to deal with an orthodox classical panegyric.

Can we go further? |

It is necessary at this point to pay a warm tribute to Professor P. J. Alexander, who, in an excellent little study entitled “Secular Biography at Byzantium,” “ laid proper stress on the significance of the revival of interest in the “lives” of individual, secular men in the time of Constantine VII. He rightly saw that the Vita Basiliit was of the type of enkomion known as Baotduxds Aéyos, all the elements of which are minutely prescribed in the hand-book Tlepi éSecxrixadv of Menander Rhetor in or about the third century a.p.“ Professor Alexander then went on to discuss the interesting problem of how this

traditional form of ancient rhetoric was preserved so that it was able to recrudesce in the tenth century at Byzantium. He suggested that the con* Cap. 26, 30. “ Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 47 (1954) 12-13. “ Speculum, 15 (1940) 194-209. I am much indebted to Professor Alexander’s kindness ~ in sending me a copy of this valuable work. “ Rhetores Graeci, III (ed. Spengel, Leipzig, 1856) 368 ff.

22 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS necting link may have been hagiography, which survived as a living tradition during the centuries between Procopius of Gaza and Constantine VII, while secular biography was dormant. He instituted three stylistic comparisons, first between the Vita Basilit and hagiographical texts, second be-

tween Leo VI’s Funeral Oration on his parents and hagiographical writings, and last between the Vita Basilii and Leo’s Funeral Oration. Like Shestakov, he had no difficulty in pointing to many verbal parallels; but that

this indicates any active influence of hagiography on the new school of secular biography, he hesitated to affirm, and I should be inclined to doubt. It seems to me that the stylistic and even the formal correspondences between the Vita Basilii and hagiography may be due simply to the facts that both kinds of biographers were trained in the same tradition of antique rhetoric, and that both species of biography go back independently to the main stem of Graeco-Roman biography. Again, it is common ground that the Vita Basilii is a Baowduxds Adyos, and that the component parts of this type of exercise are catalogued in order by Menander. But, despite some very close parallels, which are well noted by Professor Alexander,** there is no need to assume that Constantiné was writing by the instructions of Menander or of any other rhetorical preceptor. The fact is that Menander himself was outlining a system of enkomion which

had by his time become absolutely stereotyped, and was exemplified in countless panegyrics of late antiquity, most of which have not survived to our time. Constantine is just as likely to have borrowed his form from one or several of these as from a schoolmaster’s digest of instructions. We have seen that the Continuer proper, the author of Books I to IV, which, though not formal biographies, yet contain much material which is peculiarly biographical, went back for his inspiration to Plutarch: that is to say, he made a conscious cast back to antiquity and to classical models which suited the spirit of his age. It seems likely, therefore, that a similar jump back over the centuries was made by Constantine also. Let us throw our net a little wider, and see what we draw in. We must begin by asking, what was Constantine’s object in choosing enkomion as the form in which to write his grandfather's life? It is obvious that his aim, like that of all panegyrists was political. The Macedonian dynasty had ousted the Amorian in 867, after two atrocious murders in which Basil himself had been the prime mover. Basil had been fully aware of the significance of his establishment on the throne, and of the importance of preserving it to his family. It must not be forgotten that by 867 the empire “Op. cit., 198, note 7.

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 23 was already beginning to feel the spring of that energy which brought it in the following century to its second and last golden age, a golden age over

which, but for Basil’s resolution and treachery, might have presided the sons and grandsons, not of Basil, but of Caesar Bardas. Students of Basil's reign cannot fail to be struck by the recurrence of words like véos, véa, xawvovpyws which are used in relation to his doings.“* Et dixit qui sedebat in

throno: Ecce nova facio omnia. Basil therefore appeared in the eyes of the tenth century legitimists as the re-founder and renovator of the Roman state. It is as such that he appears in his grandson’s panegyric. To the classical scholar there was one figure in Roman history with whom it seemed emi-

nently suitable that Basil should be compared, and that was Augustus Caesar. We should therefore expect that an examination of such lives of Augustus as were known to Constantine might be a fruitful approach to the Vita Basilii. It is very pertinent to recall, as Professor Alexander has in fact

recalled,** that when, a century and more before, Einhard had sought a model for his hero Charlemagne, he had found him in Suetonius’ Divus Augustus. It is interesting to note, both in the East and the West, this survival of the prestige of the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned at the birth of the Heavenly King, and who, more than any sovereign except Constantine the Great, filled the eye as the earthly counterpart of the Eternal Emperor. It is altogether remarkable that Vita Basilii shows no trace of being influenced by the Vita Constantini.

There are of course other, more concrete, traces in the Vita Basilii to prove that Constantine has Augustus in mind as the model for his grandfather. In chapters 20-27 we have a digression on the evil and foolish char-

acter of Basil's predecessor Michael III. This passage is introduced in exactly its canonical place in the rhetorical scheme; it is a psogos, an invective, designed to show how bad things were before the hero came to power, so as to contrast them with the peraBod1) pds 76 Kpetrrov which immediately followed his elevation. Such a device is common even in the earliest prose enkomia: we have an excellent example in the Evagoras of Isocrates. Now,

the features of this portrait of Michael III are, as I have shown at length elsewhere, directly borrowed from Plutarch’s Life of Antony, and, there is reason to think, also from the lost Life of Nero. The borrowing is not merely notional in this case. Actual words and phrases of the Antony are repeated in

similar contexts in the psogos of Michael. But why Antony? Constantine need not have looked far, even in the pages of Plutarch, to find models more “ E.g, De Cerimoniis, 118/18; Theoph. Cont., 32/3. “Op. cit., 208. “ See note 17 above.

24 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS black and atrocious than Marcus Antonius. It is the circumstances of Antony’s life which are significant. The frivolous and unworthy Antony, whose victory would have been a disaster for the world, goes down before the sage,

austere, statesmanlike Octavian, who fills it with joy and prosperity and peace, and inaugurates the new kingdom of Saturn. So, with some confidence that we are on the right track, we turn to Plutarch’s Life of Augustus, which, we remember, was the first in a row of Lives of chronologically consecutive emperors from Augustus to Vespasian. Alas! it is lost. Of this interesting series only the Lives of Galba and Otho remain. But for the student of the Vita Basilit the loss of Plutarch’s Augustus may be

of less importance than might appear. We must remember that the Vita Basilii is an enkomion, not a bios. The model is indeed Augustus, but the Augustus of the Prima Porta and of the Vienna cameo, not the Divus Augustus of Suetonius. While therefore in Plutarch’s work we should have discerned no doubt some correspondence of matter, and perhaps even of language, with the Vita Basilii, it could not have helped us as to the form of the latter. It happens that for this we have a more instructive source for com-

parison. In the years immediately after the death of Augustus, his close friend the Syrian historian Nicholas of Damascus wrote an enkomion on him. This enkomion is preserved in two fragments, or groups of fragments. These

fragments survive in one place and in one place only: namely, in the historical Excerpta of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.” The work of Nicholas is written in the strictest form of enkomion, with which even Menander would have had no fault to find. The two preserved groups of fragments carry Octavian’s story down only as far as the year 43 B.c.; and hence Laqueur maintained ** that the whole was in fact only an ac-

count of his earlier years. But this, as Steidle has shown,” is certainly er-

roneous: the original, as its programme makes clear, was a full-length biographical enkomion. Nicholas certainly laid great emphasis on the importance of ancestry and upbringing as the basis of future greatness. But that fragments from later parts of the work are not found in Constantine's Excerpta is due simply to the fact that they were not germane to Virtutes et Vitia and Insidiae. Many were no doubt included in sections of the encyclopedia now lost, as in those on Andragathemata and Demegoriai. The orthodox Baowuxds Adyos as Menander tells us,” starts off with ac“Excerpta Historica iussu Imp. Constantini Porphyrogeniti Confecta, II (ed. BiittnerWobst, Berlin, 1906) 353-361; III (ed. De Boor, Berlin, 1905) 33-58. “ Pauly-Wissowa RE XVII cols. 422-423. * Op. ‘cit., 188-134. ” 370-373.

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 25 counts of ancestry, birth, physique, nurture and education (-yévos, yéveors,

gvous, dvarpody, maweia); then follow deeds in war and deeds in peace (mpd£ets kara. wéhepor Kai Kar’ eipyvnv). The programme of Nicholas is virtu-

ally the same: it is, yévos, vows, yervnrai, rpody, waiSevors, and then épya moéuov Kai eipnvns. The order of Vita Basilii is yévos, yervytai, dvows, rpody and vadeia, and then épya eipyyns cai wodk€pov. As Professor Alexander has

noted,” in the Vita Basilii the deeds of peace precede those of war, which is the one noteworthy departure from Menander’s system; but even here in one passage °** Nicholas promises the same arrangement. A characteristic feature of birth and childhood is the portents (ovuBoda) which attend them. If they do not exist, says Menander cynically, you need not hesitate to invent them. In the Vita Basilii these prodigies are, first a prophetic dream of Basil's mother,

and second a persistent eagle that perched on a haycock under which the child was sleeping. Dio Cassius,” followed by Skylitzes © and Zonaras,” narrates two precisely similar portents connected with Augustus: a prophetic dream of Atia, and an eagle who took away the boy’s bread and brought it

back again. Suetonius © tells the same stories. As such portents are, we saw, enjoined by enkomion, it is no very bold guess that Nicholas is the source of all the versions. Again, Nicholas lays great emphasis on Atia’s influence in the education of her son.” This is not an essential feature of enkomion,” but there is more than a hint of it in Vita Basilii,“! where Basil’s mother, after her husband’s death, plays a significant part in her son’s career, first by forbidding and then

by encouraging his migration to the capital. Since probably four-fifths of Nicholas’ work is lost, we can do no more than point to these very brief indications of its influence on the form of the Vita Basilii; but it is possible that Constantine has Nicholas in mind when at the end of the Vita he says © that he has narrated 7 apo ris Bactdteias dywyh Kai doa 7 THs Gdns avrod Cwis

wrdbects; for Suidas * says that Nicholas éypayev . . . rod Biov Kaicapos aywyny. “ Excerpta, II 354/10-12; III 38/24-25. * Op. cit., 198. © Excerpta, II 354/6-7.

* 371/10-12. | * 45. 1.

* Cedrenus, ed. Bonn., I, 301/3~9. | * Ed. Bonn., II, 339/13-340/5. ” Divus Augustus, cap. 94. * Excerpta, II 355-356. ” But cf. St. Luke 2:48-51. “ Theoph. Cont., 220-223, 225. “ Theoph. Cont., 352/22-353/1; cf. ibid., 212/9. “ Ed. Adler, III (Leipzig, 1933) 467/33-34; cf. Laqueur, op. cit., col. 403.

26 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS It would be a fascinating, and perhaps not unrewarding, task to attempt by means of a close comparison of Vita Basilit with the Divus Augustus of Suetonius to restore something of what the original enkomion must have contained: for the first two texts show certain parallels of incident which cannot be accounted for by direct borrowing, but must go back to a common original.” But that is not our task to-day. Nor can it be claimed that Nicholas was Constantine's sole model. As we have seen, Plutarch’s work is often under contribution;® and at least one passage seems to be directly inspired by the Evagoras of Isocrates.*° But the points which may properly be stressed regarding Nicholas of Damascus are, first, that the purpose of the Vita Basilii is to present Basil as the new Augustus; second, that the work is an enkomion in the strictest form of ancient rhetoric; and third, that just such an enkomion on Augustus is known to have been read and excerpted by Constantine himself.

We see then that both the Continuer of Theophanes and his imperial ‘master went for their different models back to the Graeco-Roman epoch, just as did the contemporary artists. We may thus speak with justice of a revival of the classical tradition, which, re-established in education in the late ninth century, inevitably led on to the humanism of the tenth, just as the latter inevitably followed the former in fifteenth century Western Europe. I have not left much time for the second part of my task, which is to examine the historical value of the Vita Basilii; and this matters the less since

the form of the enkomion automatically vitiates its claim to historical accuracy. Menander Rhetor observes ™ that in a BaowAtxds Adyos nothing of a

pejorative or of even a dubious nature can be allowed to appear; and in this example, nothing does. Moreover, the method of narration per species and

not per tempora robs the Vita Basilii of almost all chronological value, whereas it is quite possible to byild a reasonably accurate chronology out | of the more straightforward narratives of the Continuer. But, however much | we may regret all this, we should not blame Constantine for failing as a his| torian; we should rather admire him as an encomiast, since his work is, within its rather narrow limits, an artistic triumph. Enkomion, as Polybius has reminded us, is not, and does not pretend to be, history; it is a xavdv, an dvSpias, an apxéruTrov pinoews.”

It is obvious that the different sections of a panegyric must vary very greatly in respect of historical reliability. Where the subject is truly great and “ Cf. below p. 28. “ Cf. the ‘Bucephalos’ story, Theoph. Cont., 230-231, and the Homeric tag ibid., 352/15. “ Cf. Theoph. Cont., 219/15-21 with Evagoras 193 A. * 368/5-7. *Theoph. Cont., 212/12-18,

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 27 can honestly be commended, that is to say, to put it bluntly, where the biog-

rapher has no particular reason to lie, it may provide useful information. And vice versa. In examining it we have always to apply the criterion of interest. The first section of the Vita Basilii, which tells of Basil’s descent from

the Arsacids on the father’s side and from Alexander the Great on his mother’s side; of portents which attended his childhood; and of his arrival,

unknown and penniless, in Constantinople,” is historically quite worthless. / The only parts in it which are certainly true are that Basil was of Armenian stock, and that either he, or more probably his father, was for a time prisoner in Bulgaria. The rest is fairy-tale, and tells the story of the noble prince in the guise of a beggar, so that, as in all enkomia since Evagoras and Cyrus,

his rise may be due to his own unaided virtues. There was an additional reason to bring in the doctrine of the Poverty of Basil.”” It was part of the imperial propaganda towards the poorer class that the imperial house sprang from an immediate origin not less humble than their own, and could therefore understand and side with them against the already dangerous power of

the feudal aristocracy. The picturesque story of Basil's wandering to the capital is almost certainly fictitious. Genesios in an unguarded moment lets | out the truth.” Basil was, at the time of his coming to Constantinople, a relation by marriage, perhaps even a son-in-law, of Constantine Maniakis, the great logothete and grandfather of Genesios himself. Maniakis had been a prominent figure at the court of Theophilus when Basil was in his cradle. When therefore Basil came to Constantinople, it certainly was not to try his luck. He was, as his story makes clear, very well looked after from the start.

The section which deals with Basil’s rise to power over the bodies of Bardas and his nephew Michael,” if not wholly false, is in the highest degree

misleading and disingenuous. Here we are able to check Constantine's account by the authentic narrative of Symeon Logothetes. There can be no doubt whatever that Basil was the actual murderer of Bardas, and that the gang of bravoes who murdered Michael were his creatures and, indeed, very largely his own relatives. The psogos of Michael,” is rhetorical and untrustworthy almost from beginning to end. The intense black of Michael's reign gives place to the unnatural radiance of Basil's dawn. Yet Basil, though willed

by God to succeed, is by God delivered from the sin of having to put his predecessor out of the way. Exactly the same way out of the difficulty is “ Cap. 1-10. * Cf. R. J. H. Jenkins, The Byzantine: Empire on the Eve of the Crusades (Historical Association, London, 1953) 14. ™ Ed. Bonn., 110/9-10. ™ Cap. 11-19. ™ Cap. 20-27.

28 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS found for Evagoras by Isocrates.* There is no doubt that the motives for painting Michael’s character in the darkest colours possible were political. But the precise extent of the injustice done to him is still a matter of dispute. That he was not the criminal buffoon depicted in the Vita Basilii we may ad-

mit without hesitation; on the other hand, it is hard to deny that he was a weak, unmanly creature, absolutely under the thumb of his successive favourites, one who could feel the sense of his enormous power and position only when he was drunk, which, to say the truth, was often enough.” The really significant step in Basil’s career was the murder, not of Michael, but of the Caesar Bardas. After this tendencious opening, the Vita settles down to give, in the ap-

proved sequence of categories, an account of the zpdfes of Basil’s reign. His awpafers eipyvys, financial, legal, ecclesiastical and administrative,” are

naturally chosen to illustrate the conventional virtues of 8:xavoovvn, cuodpoovvn, dovdrns and ¢iravOpwria. But they introduce some information

of a general character about the economic state of the empire at that time, which is useful to the historian. The chapter on evzaidia, the Flourishing Family,” provides a puzzle. Constantine says that Basil had four daughters, and that he made them all take the veil and become brides of Christ. The implication is certainly that all were unmarried. In the parallel passage of Kinhard’s Vita Karoli Magni ® we read that Charles also forbade his daughters to marry, with unhappy results. Einhard in turn is thinking of the troubles of Augustus over his daughter and granddaughter, the two Julias, whose im-

moralities were such that he had finally to shut them up altogether. Sueto-

nius ” records their disgrace quite frankly. But how did the encomiast Nicholas treat this awkward affair? May he not have said that his hero, believing that modest women were better neither seen nor heard, placed his female relatives in a dignified retreat? In point of fact, Basil’s daughters were

not all unmarried. It is probable that one of them married Christopher Magister,” and possible that another, Helen, married that Artavasdos who rendered Basil a signal service at a perilous crisis of his career.” The épya wohéuov ™ form the longest and historically much the most valuable section of the book. Constantine warns us that his order of events “ Evagoras, 198 D-E. * See Ostrogorsky’s sober appraisal, op. cit., 180. ™ Cap. 28-34. ™ Cap. 35. ™ Cap. 19.

” Divus Augustus, cap. 65. * Cont. Geo. Mon., ed. Bonn., 841/18. “ Acta Sanctorum, Nov., III, 882 D. ™ Cap. 36-71.

SCRIPTORES POST THEOPHANEM 29 may be faulty, and adds that he cannot, at this late time, date with accuracy the incidents described. None the less, much painstaking and, comparatively speaking, honest work has gone into his account of the campaigns. His descriptions, where we can check them, are, except for the Bari campaign, tolerably accurate so far as they go, and they are often the only descriptions of Basil’s wars to survive in the Greek sources. As the épya zodéyov of Augustus started with a civil war, so those of Basil start with the struggle against

the Paulician heretics. Then follow the chief campaigns against the Eastern Saracens, ending with the terrible defeat of Styppiotes at Tarsus in 883. The western campaigns start with the siege and capture of Bari in 871; then follow the naval campaigns against the Tarsite, Cretan, Egyptian and African Saracens; and we end with the loss of Syracuse in 878. The fact that Basil

was not in personal command of most of these operations enables the panegyrist to record defeats where they occur, and to lay the blame for them on the generals. Basil saw his schemes for the west, on which he had expended so much care, meet shipwreck in the fall of Syracuse; and Southern Italy was saved only by the energy and skill of Nicephorus Phocas. But on the sea he more than held his own; while in the east, he, his son, his son-inlaw, and his brilliant marshal Andrew Krateros made a permanent contribu-

tion to the rise of the Middle-Byzantine Empire. All this appears fairly enough in Constantine's account, and is its sole purely historical merit. After some short notices of Basil's private life and benefactors,** Con-

stantine, the artist and antiquary, enters con amore on a lengthy description of his grandfather’s achievements in architecture.** His minute and ac-

curate catalogue is of great value for the history of Byzantine art. But it would be a mistake to suppose that it is introduced merely because the author

himself was interested in architecture and art, though that is no doubt the reason for its length. Building was, as Professor Downey rightly notes,** one of the essential activities of the ideal monarch, who thus demonstrated his powers of creation and general benevolence. The germ of the idea is seen in the Evagoras, who, finding his city é«BeBapBapopérn, beautified it with various public constructions.” But Augustus again might provide the classic example; and even the panegyrist need scarcely have exaggerated the achievement of the emperor who found Rome built of mud-bricks and left her built of marble. The eulogy continues with some remarks on Basil’s missionary work,” ° Cap. 72-77.

“Cap. 78-94. * Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 38 (1938) 10, note 2. “198 C. * Cap. 95-97.

30 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS which are parallel to the conciliatory labours of Augustus among foreign peoples, an account of which Nicholas promises us in his preface.** Next we come to Basil's dynastic plans, to the dreadful loss of his eldest son, and to his devising the crown upon his second son Leo, after the sad misunderstand-

ing that had caused their temporary estrangement.” It is clear that more lies behind this interesting story of the plots of Theodore of Santabaris than is allowed to appear in the sources. The affair of a deluded father practised upon by a conjuring magician to the detriment of a cruelly ill-used son was so discreditable that even the encomiast can do no more than plead that ! Basil was more sinned against than sinning. But, again, we are struck by the |

parallel of Augustus’ long estrangement from Tiberius, and his cold hoc ! reipublicae causa facio as he nominated his heir. It is not probable that Nicholas wholly passed this over. But, since he wrote under Tiberius, it is also not probable that he ascribed this natural antipathy between Augustus and Tiberius to anything but alien machinations. The relations between Basil and Leo were in fact so bad as to lend colour to the lying rumour that the latter was the son, not of Basil, but of Michael III. But this will not do for enkomion. And so, reconciled with his heir, Basil passes away (like Augustus, from a “flux of the belly”), leaving an empire restored, prosperous, and nearly at peace from end to end. “In him might one see the indwelling of the quadruple virtue, and might admire his wisdom with his valour, his justice with his temperance, and all things continually advanced towards excellence. Then seemed it that the world had returned to its ancient order and estate, while its emperor watched with unwearying providence over the well-being of his subjects, and forbade the injury of one by another; and those who were set in authority strove to imitate the imperial piety, and mercy toward the poor, and justice toward all men.” ® En redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna. The Vita Basilii is not history, even in the sense that the first four books of Theophanes Continuatus are history. When Constantine wished to impart information, he had very different methods and a very different style of doing

it." The Vita is none the less the perfect copy of a purely classical original by a learned and sensitive classical scholar; and it has that touch of local colour which gives it its charm, like some enchanting neo-Attic relief of the Augustan age. LONDON

* Excerpta, Il 858/21-23. ” Cap. 98-101. ° Theoph. Cont., 8315/7-17. " De Administrando Imperio, ed. Moravesik, 1/8-15.

V

A Note on the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus

Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. II. 1963

A NOTE ON THE PATRIARCH NICHOLAS MYSTICUS

The Patriarch Nicholas Mvsticus (852—925) is stated by reliable sources}

to have been of Italian extraction. There is no reason at all to doubt this. On the other hana, he is frequently stated in modern times to have been a blood-relative of the Patriarch Photius. As there are no grounds for believing that the familv of Photius had any Italian affinites, it is not easy to see how both these statements can be true.

In fact, the second is untrue. Jt is based on a mistranslated word in Vita Euthymii? where Nicholas is described as 6 todtov (se. Botiov) oixoyerie. The first editor of the Vita, C. de Boor, in his glossary,? writes: ixoyeyng : =

cuyyevng (cf. Hesvchius)?» The query shows that he had doubts about this interpretation, and with good reason. Hesychius, 8.v.,4 has wixoyerng - doddoc.

7 ovyyevys. The second alternative. ovyyenjs, is cited, on the authority of Hesvehius, by Stephanus ad calc.; but is ignored by LSJ: rightly, it would seem, for lack of examples. In the very passage of the Vita in which the word is used, the terms ovyyerjg and ovyvyereds are employed to describe Photius’ relatives by blood, in manifest contrast to his ofxovewjg Nicholas. Nevertheless, de Boor, in his prosopography,* describes Nicholas as «V erwandter des Photios»;

and this is repeated by Krumbacher® and by many others.’ The recent editor

of the Vita Euthymii, Mrs Karlin-Hayter, translates oixoyevj¢ as «close relation ».§

* (This paper destined for the Moravcsik Memorial Volume (Acta Ant. Hung.

X, 1—3) is published for technica] reasons in this number. — Ed. ] a.

'F. Fischer, De Patriarcharum C/politanorum Catalogis (Comm. phil. jenenses It, 1884), 293: “Hv dé 16 yévog *Irudoc; Synaz. Eccl. C/politanae, 652/40: Nixddaog...

0 ‘Itaddc. Cf. Ephraemius (ed. Bonn.), 403, vv. 10 034—6. 30: Boor (Berlin, 1888), 6/1; ed Karlin-Hayter (Byzantion 25—7, 1957), 16/25. ed.decat., 227.

*GBL*, 456. . ‘ed. M. Schmidt, III (Jena, 1861), 184. ® ed. cit., 215.

TE. g. F. Dvornik, The Photian Schism (Cambridge, 1948), 248; «he (Nicholas)

was Photius’ nephew». * ed. cit., 17.

10 Acta Antiqua XI/1—2.

146 R. J. H. JENKINS I cannot find any parallel usage to justify this interpretation. The natura] meaning of the word is verna, «a household slave», one born in his master’s household (familia).® So, to cite a contemporary instance, Skylitzes!® tells us of Leo Argvrus that he would meet and defeat Paulicians and Saracens with no better support than that of his ’household’ (or, to use the Old English term, of his ’meinie’) -- pdévog peta tHv oixoyevor, which the Bonn version rightly renders, «solus cum vernis suis»; and the paralle] passage in Theophanes Con-

estate.) |

tinuatus!! has ueta tovg av¥em@novs, with the same sense.

Nicholas therefore was born of an Italian slave-woman in the house, or on an estate, of Photius, who was at that time (852) about thirty vears old. Photius is known to have been rich, and his father’s banishment bv the emperor Theophilus does not appear to have entailed confiscation of his We know also of Nicholas that he was both ‘spiritual son’ of Photius (6... Dots 6 éudg év nvedpatt dyiw natjo) and the ’brother by adoption’ (Oerdc adedydc)'4 of the emperor Leo VI. De Boor supposes that the latter

relationship came about through Basil I’s having stood god-father to Nicholas. This is most improbable. If Nicholas had been born free, he would have been baptized in 852 or 853, when Basil, even if he was in Constantinople, was a man of no account. If we suppose that Nicholas was manumitted and baptized after Basil’s rapprochement with Photius, that is, as late as 873 or thereabouts,!® it is certainly just possible to assume such a relationship. But it is much more likely that Nicholas and Leo were spiritual brothers through a common rela-

tionship, not with Basil, but with Photius. There were various methods of manumission at Byzantium, deriving from old Roman and later Christian practice.1® But the one adopted in this instance was doubtless that of Christian baptism, at which the manumitting slave-owner (Photius) stood god-father.!? Nicholas would thus become the mvevpatixos vide of Photius, who also, as Patriarch in and after 877, would stand in the same relationship to the imperial family. As spiritual sons of Photius, Leo and Nicholas would be spiritual brothers of one another.

* Cf. B. Kiibler, Vocabularium Jurisprudentiae Romanae, V (Berlin, 1931), 1306: «verna, ae. Subst. servus in domo domini natus, dotAos olxoyerisy. '© Cedrenus (ed. Bonn.) II, 270/5. 11 (ed. Bonn.) 374/17.

"2 F. Dvornik, «The Patriarch Photius in the Light of Recent Research», Berichte XI. Internationalen Byzantinisten-Kongress (Munich, 1958), 2. 'S MPG cxi, cols. 36 D—37 A.

' Vita Euthymii (de Boor) 6/7, 37/9; (Karlin-Hayter) 16/31, 76/6. '® G. Moravesik, «Sagen und Legenden iiber Kaiser Basileios I.», DOP 15 (1961), 68. ‘® Anne Hadjinicolaou-Marava, Recherches sur la vie des esclares dans le Monde Byzantin (Athens, 1950), 10)—112.

7 Ecloga VIII, 4 (JGR, ed. Zepoi, I, 37): 4 addw éay 6 xvguog atrot 7 4 todtov

xugia... Ex tot dyiov xui awmtnjpubdovsg Bantiopatos adtév (dvajdéfwrtae...

A NOTE ON THE PATRIARCH NICHOLAS MYSTICUS 147

There are one or two other points which this re-interpretation of Nicholas’

origin helps to explain. In the first place, Leo and Nicholas are said by the Vita Euthymit to have been, not only spiritual brothers, but also ’fellowstudents’ (cvyuadytat).18 Since Nicholas was fourteen vears older than Leo, it would be hard to see how this could be so if both had started their education at the normal time. If Leo VI began to study with Photius in or about the vear 873, at the age of 7, Nicholas at that time would have been already 21, bv which time a free man’s education would be complete. But if a slave had been liberated after a vouth of ignorance and neglect, it is verv possible that the voung man and the child should have sat simultaneously at. the feet of the same master. Secondly, if such were Nicholas’ origins, it would be strange indeed if his ferocious antagonist from 906 until 920, Arethas of Caesarea, had not alluded to them. But he did allude to them, and very plainly. Writing to Nicholas in the summer of 912, he savs:!9 padtota yao dv dtxutotegov xatd cod tabta 7) toe Veod anodvouito exxiynoia, yervnoauévyn oe pév ot (nodEr yae 7 MOS Oi GOYNVETAL GOL THS yovriyjs xual AQOS ye TOsTOLS 7 yEvEeots, CuvNaY aplEetvoy) Vpo-

cuca 6¢... xtdA., of which the parenthesis may be rendered, «the origins and condition of the authors of vour line, not to speak of your birth, are best passed over in silence». This brutal taunt would have been meaningless if Nicholas had really been a blood-connexion of the patrician family of Tarasius and Sergius and Photius. It appears odd at first sight that one wno afterwards became mysticus, protoasecretis, the emperor’s spiritual brother, and, lastly. twice Patriarch, should come of servile origin. But this is because the subject of slavery at Byzantium, as Anne Hadjinicolaou-Marava savs in her excellent little monograph,2° «encore peu connue». That slaves rose high in the confidential service of the crown, a cursory glance will show.?! It is not so well known that they often rose high in the armed forces,” and in the Church.”* To a tenth-century contemporary the origins of Nicholas would not have appeared strange, still less a subject of reproach, except to a bad-hearted enemy. Dumbarton Oaks.

'® (de Boor) 6/6, 37/15; (Karlin-Hayter) 16/30, 76/6.

2939. A. Papadopoulos-Keramevs, Varia Graeca Sacra (St. Petersburg, 1909), 260/ 79 op. cit., 114.

"e.g. Const. Porph. De Adm. Imp. (ed. Moravesik), 50/204; Vita Euthymu

(de Boor), 26/8—11. 2 e. g. Cedrenus II, 417/17—20.

2 The 11th Novel of Leo VI (ed. Noailles-Dain, p. 49) deals with slaves who have become bishops while still in the servile condition. 10*

1

|

VI

Nine Orations of Arethas from Cod. Marc.Gr. 524

With B. Laourdas and C.A.Mango

Byzantinische Zeitschrift 47 1954

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This volume being a reprint of the original publications, it is not possible to incorporate revisions to the Greek texts which form part of the following two sections (VI and VII). Difficult circumstances prevailed at the time when the Greek texts were set up in 1954 and 1956 but since the value of the commentaries remains unaffected, these studies are included unaltered in the present volume. A definitive version of the Greek texts is being prepared by Professor Westerink of Buffalo University and is due to appear shortly.

NINE ORATIONS OF ARETHAS FROM COD. MARC, GR. 524 R. J. H. JENKINS/LONDON, B. LAOURDAS, C.A. MANGO/ DUMBARTON OAKS* The Manuscript. In Néog “EdAnvoyvynpoy, 8 (1911) pp. 3-59, 123-192,

Spyridon Lambros gave a detailed description of Codex Marcianus 524, from which the following texts of Arethas are taken. According to Sp. Lambros (p. 3) the codex belongs to the second half of the 13th century. It is written by various hands, and consists of various works put together at a later date. The texts of Arethas form the fifth section of the manuscript (ff. 121'-152"), and are in four quaternions numbered «@’, « (sic), y’ and 8’ (Lambros, pp. 166-169, 190). They are copied by an elegant and careful hand, with almost no mistakes at all. The name of Arethas is not mentioned in any of the texts; but that he is in fact the author has been proved by S. Kougeas.! Kougeas noticed that the title, beginning and end of the 15th text in this collection (Lambros

p. 169) were identical with those of another text certainly written by Arethas, and published in 1909 by Papadopoulos-Kerameus.? He was able to adduce much other evidence which establishes beyond doubt our author’s identity. Classification and Chronology. It is from this collection that we here

publish the first nine compositions. Their importance lies in the fact that all nine are datable with strong probability to the same brief period of two years, namely, to the years 901 and 902. They are all short, occasion* Orations 1 and 4-9 were transcribed from photostats by Mr. Laourdas, who wrote

also the note on the Manuscrift and the Comment on Oration 4. Orations 2 and 3 were transcribed by Mr. Mango, who wrote also the Comments on them. Mr. Jenkins

is responsible for the apparatus and punctuation of Orations 1 and 5-9; he wrote also the introductory notes on Classification and Chronology and fHtstortcal Significance, and the Comments on Orations 1 and 5-9. The order in which our names appear is, of course, purely alphabetical. The photostats from which the texts were transcribed are the property of Harvard University Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection; for the loan of them, as well as for every other kind of facility, the editors would like to express to this Institute their very sincere and cordial thanks. 1°O Katoapelas "Apédag xat 1d Epyov adtod (Athens, 1913) 33-35. This excellent work is still of prime value for all studies connected with Arethas. See ibid. 85-89. 2 Varia Graeca Sacra [Zapiski Istoriko-Filologiteskago Fakulteta Imperatorskago St. Petersburgskago Universiteta, Part XCV.] (St. Petersburg 1909) 267-68. 8. 121r-134r. The numeration of the speeches and the breaking up of each speech into numbered paragraphs are additions of the editors, designed to make their Summaries and Comments more intelligible to the reader.

1 Byzant. Zeltachrift 47 (1954) ,

2 I. Abteilung al ‘orations’. The other eight compositions of Arethas preserved in this manuscript, though rhetorical in style, are not orations, and all but one of them (No. 10) are concerned with the problem of the 7etragamia and datable to the years 905-907. Our nine speeches, therefore, both in type and date, form a logically separable group complete in itself. The date of each speech is discussed in detail in the Comment on it. The results of these discussions may be summarized as follows. No. 1 is certainly datable to 1st of March 901; and No. 8 with equal certainty to 14th February 902. The dates of five others can be inferred with great probability: No. 2, 17th October 901; No. 3, 4th May 902; No. 5, 30th August or 1st September 902; No. 6, late October or early November 901 ; No. 7, 6th January 901. It is to be noted that the orations are not arranged in chronological sequence in the manuscript; none the less, seven out of the nine are certainly or probably datable between 1st January go1 and ist September 902. We are left with No. 4 and No. 9. No. 9 was delivered on 20th July; and there is some internal evidence to suggest that it was in a year before 903 (see below, p.'17). It is, we believe, a reasonable inference that it was delivered on 2oth July 901 or 9o2.

No. 4 is 1n a different category. It is Arethas’ Profession of Faith, delivered on his appointment as archbishop of Caesareia. This appointment took place after 895 and before 907.! Is it possible to determine the date more closely than this? Kougeas? says that Arethas ‘“‘became bishop in the middle of 901, shortly after the election and appointment. of Nicholas Mysticus to the patriarchate (1st March 901), and owing to his steady support’. But this statement is founded on three misapprehensions. First, there is nothing in the manuscript to indicate that Arethas was already ‘protothronos’ when he delivered oration No. 9;* second, that oration was not delivered to commemorate the emperor Leo’s deliverance from the assassin in the church of St. Mokios,‘ but his deliverance from Theodore Santabarenus in 886 (see below, p. 17); and third, that speech was not second in chronological order of the manuscript collection and therefore datable shortly after No. 1,5 but the second speech made on that particular occasion, whenever it was. We have therefore no grounds for stating that Arethas became archbishop in the year 901. We have already noted that all these compositions are orations; and all except No. 4 are orations delivered before the emperor to celebrate some particular feast or event. Arethas therefore, at this time deacon, was also

official orator to the palace. It was apparently only during these two years that he held this appointment, as we know of no such palace-orations

from him either before or afterwards. The first words of oration No. 5 suggest that he had never spoken before on that particular festival. Now, it seems a fair inference that the termination of this oratorical appointment

coincided with his appointment as archbishop of Caesareia, in which 1 Kougeas, op.cit.7. ibid. *ibid. ‘ibid. 88. § ibid.

R. J. H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C..A. Mango. Nine Orations of Arethas 3

capacity he would have had more important duties to attend to than that of delivering set speeches at palace celebrations. It is inference only, and not proof; but, following it, we are inclined to date Arethas’ Profession of Faith, and with it his appointment as archbishop, to the end of the year 902, and to see in oration No. 4 the last, chronologically speaking, of this series.

Historical Significance. The chief historical importance of these orations 1s that they enable us to fill in the story, and to clarify the chrono-

logy, of Byzantine campaigns against the eastern Saracens during the years 900-902. The Bulgarians made peace with Leo in 896 and again in go2 (see below, p.10). Their comparative quiescence allowed the emperor

to pursue a vigorous campaign, both by land and by sea, on his eastern frontier. In 900 Nicephorus Phocas won a brilliant victory in Cilicia (below, p. 15), and in the same year the nucleus of the hema of Mesopotamia was established on the Euphrates (below, p. 15); in 901 a strong force, including troops of the newly-founded Mesopotamian fhema, cleared the Saracens from Phasiane, beyond the Euphrates (below, p. 14), and Syria was successfully invaded from the sea (below, p. 13); 1n 902 Leo Katakalon, who had been routed six years before at Bulgarophygon, captured Theodosioupolis (below, p. 14). These victories go some way to restoring the credit of Leo’s arms, to which the various versions of the Chronicle of the Logothete attribute almost nothing but disaster. Leo was, whatever Arethas may say (No. 5, para. 6), uniformly unsuccessful in the west; but it is clear that he systematically, and not unsuccessfully, followed that policy of territorial expansion in the east, which was later pursued with more spectacular results by Romanus I. These texts are also worthy of careful study by those interested in the imperial idea at this time. No. 1 para. 2, No. 3 para. 3, No. 7 paras. 2-3 and No. 9 paras. 3 and 5 are remarkable for their outspoken representation of the emperor as the earthly embodiment of Jesus Christ; while No. 5 illustrates the fusion of the Christian and classical traditions of imperial dignity which accompanied the revival of classical learning in the second half of the ninth century. No. 1

7stle: Address to the pious emperor Leo on the appointment of Nicholas, the most holy patriarch; composed as if spoken ex tempore. Summary: $1. The emperor’s subjects are daily in receipt of ineffable benefits at his hands; but never before of one so welcome as the present, which is the appointment as patriarch of this man of peace and quiet at a time when universal calm has been restored to the Church. § 2. For the bitter feud which has so long troubled the Church has been healed by the wise and conciliatory policy of the emperor himself; and over this newly-won peace he is setting as guardian the wise Nicholas. § 3. But why is Nicholas himself so manifestly reluctant to accept the office? Is it that he is slothful or apprehensive? But salvation must be wrought by labour. Nitholas is a captain whose

skill and wide experience of al] weathers are good omens for a prosperous voyage. 1¢

4 I. Abteilung § 4. Let him not fear! Like Jonah, he must calm the rough sea, and answer the call of the great city that needs his aid. His life is as blameless as those of Paul and Barnabas; let him equal them in courage also! § 5. These words are of course not meant to instruct Nicholas, but only to fortify him and entice him to his task, § 6. Perhaps the orator has been too bold. But why does the emperor himself not lend his wisdom to encourage his patriarch? Surely he can persuade him that it is not hard to rule over.a willing and loving flock ? §7. The emperor’s own secular flock is, to say the truth, by no means universally willing and obedient; but this fact does not lead the emperor to resign

his duty of governing, distasteful though it is. § 8. But in the Church at least there is no disloyal element. All are rejoiced at the appointment. Then let the emperor use his own unrivalled eloquence to counter the patriarch’s reluctance and apprehension! Comment: The oration was delivered on Sunday 1st March 901, the day on which Nicholas Mysticus became patriarch.! It was the first Sunday in Lent and the Feast of Orthodoxy, and the banquet at which the speech was made took place in the Patriarchate.®

There are three points in this oration which deserve comment. First is the reference in para. 2 to the Union of the Church, i. e. the reconciliation of Photians and Ignatians, which took place in the patriarchate of Antony Cauleas (t 12th February 901). Grumel maintained® that this Union was consummated before September 899, since there is an undoubted reference to it at De Cer. 739, 12-15, in the Kletorologion Philothei, which, as is expressly stated (ibid. 702, 6-7), was compiled in that month. However,

the language of Arethas, both here and in No. 8 para. 4, seems to suggest that the Union was a more recent event. He here uses the present tenses (xatamavets, etayep(Cy) to describe Leo’s action in bringing about the reconciliation, and goes on to say that Leo is now crowning his achievement by setting up Nicholas to guard the peace which he has made. Again in No. 8 Arethas states that Leo dedicated the actual Tomus Unionis in the sanctuary of St. Sophia ,,just before‘ (utxpov EumpooSev) the appointment of Nicholas (see below, p. 16). If Grumel’s reasoning is correct, then an interval of at least eighteen months, and probably more, elapsed between ‘the Union and the elevation of Nicholas; and it is hard to see why Leo should have waited so long to make the simple dedication of a Tomus which must have been ready to hand as soon as the bishops had signed it. Maas‘ suggested that the passage in the Kletorologion was a later interpolation, and he referred it to the Synod of 907. Grumel rightly saw that the reference was to the earlier Union achieved by Leo and Cauleas. But if we combine the arguments of both scholars, it seems possible that the passage is indeed a later note, but not so much later as Maas supposed. If we suggest that it is an insertion of about a year later than September 899, then this will also agree better with a much-discussed passage in Vita Euthymii,5 which states that ‘‘after the Union of the Church Antony died i the same year, and Nicholas succeeded him’’. Grumel® believes that the phrase in the same year refers back to the preceding paragraph of the Vita, and indicates that the patri-

arch Antony died in the same year as the empress Eudocia (t 12th April 901). This may be a possible interpretation, but it 1s certainly not the natural one, as Grumel himself admits. The natural meaning is that Antony died in the same year as the Union of the Church took place. If the calendar year is meant, then it took.place between 1st January and 12th February 901. If the indiction, then it took place between ist September goo and 12th February 901. Either would agree better with the language of Arethas than a date before September 899. Secondly, the emphasis-laid in paras. 3-6 on the reluctance of Nicholas to assume the office is too great to suit a conventional nolo efiscopart. The tone of the speech 1 See V. Grumel, Chronologie des événements du régne de Léon VI, Echos d’Or.

35 (1936) 9. 2? Cf. De Cerimoniis (ed. Bonn.) 761, 19. * Op. cit. 13-17; cf. W. Ohnsorge, B. Z. 45 (1952) 322-23.

“ B. Z. 34 (1934) 258-60. ’ Ed. De Boor. (1888) 34, 24-29. © Op. cit. 18.

R. J. H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C. A. Mango. Nine Orations of Arethas 5 suggests that, despite the forma] Union, the church parties were still not at peace; and Arethas, while claiming that everyone unanimously supports Nicholas, yet makes some

ominous reference to the trials of Paul and Barnabas. It is important for an understanding of the whole of Nicholas’ first patriarchate to note that he was originally appointed as pvAaé& elpnvnc, or guardian of the newly-established peace, and dreaded being responsible for, or involved in, a new ecclesiastical quarrel (cf. Néog ‘EAAnvouvnuwy 8 [1911] 305, 17-18; A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Varia Graeca Sacra 256; Vita

Euthymii 41, 1-2). Thirdly, para. 7 makes it clear that a serlous amount of disaffection to Leo has recently shown itself, and that Leo has put it down with a strong hand. This may well refer to the conspiracy of the Zaoutzas family, which was betrayed to Leo by Samonas.!

The date of this conspiracy must be goo, since it was not begun until after the death of the empress Zoé, who, as Grume]® has shown, did not die before October 899. If this

is what Arethas has in mind, then he is referring to a recent incident.

No 2 Title: Speech of welcome to the honourable relics of Lazarus which Leo the Christ-loving emperor had translated from Cyprus. Summary: § 1. The instigator of this festival is Lazarus. It is not a banquet he is offering to move the Jews to envy, or to have his sister anoint the Lord; it is the translation of his relics that he 1s celebrating, and that at the hands of a most pious emperor,

who is bedewing him with the tears of joy. § 2. Let everyone participate in this rejoicing, and approach the reliquary in spirit rather than touch it with the hands. Things of the spirit are not limited by place: thus it is that we approach God, and the only impediment is lack of faith. The miraculous operation of the relics extends to their

sight, their shadow, their fragrance.‘ It is in this way that Peter cured the sick with his shadow, and Paul by the application of garments which had touched his body. Did not Jesus also raise Lazarus with His voice, which was more effective than any hands? § 3. It is the same Lazarus that the emperor is now bringing from Cyprus, the first to have undermined the kingdom of death. They say that after his resurrection he lived

for another 15 years® before he regained his friend in heaven. § 4. Behold the church of St. Sophia, as it embraces the relics and rejoices at their arrival, echoing with chants, and illuminated with lamps as with stars. The emperor’s action will eclipse the exploits of olden times, and will be repeated with eulogy by succeeding generations. For what achievement is greater than to be God-loving and to love the saints? Thanks

to these relics the emperor will vanquish the foe. He will walk on the asp, he will trample on the barbarous lion and the serpent, who are delaying a peaceful settlement by their crooked plans. The relics wil] also serve as a passport to heaven, since the

emperor is a friend of Lazarus, and Lazarus is Christ’s friend, and an old saying

proclaims that friends have their things in common. , No 3

Title: Description by the same of the holy procession which Leo the pious emperor made for the honourable relics of Lazarus, the friend of Christ, when he first translated them from Cyprus. 1 Cont. Georg. Mon. 857, 24-859, 18. 2 Op. cit. 21. 8 The next two orations (2 and 3) are summarized and commented on by Mr. Mango,

who takes them together in his discussion of their dates. 4The miracles performed by the relics after their arrival at Constantinople are enumerated in the Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (ed. Delehaye), p. 147. 5 The usual figure given is 30 years. So St. Epiphanius, Adv. haer. MPG 42 col. 88 C. The Synax. Eccl. CPanae p. 146, says 18 years.

6 I. Abteilung Summary: 3 1. Who is the instigator of this festival and of this crowded assembly, who caused the whole city to pour together to one spot, like a river with many tributaries, a crowd equalled only by last year’s, at the eastern city wall overlooking the sea, and who has set up a new calendar festival ?Surely it is Lazarus sounding his clarion call again and calling together the pious, not that he may amaze them by his resurrection or extend to the Lord a newly-budding branch, but that, upon his arrival from Cyprus, he may celebrate a splendid procession and sanctify the assembled crowds. § 2. It would be fitting to describe what happened on that occasion, as a reminder to those who were present, and valuable information to those who were not. It was daybreak when the _ emperor boarded a boat and crossed over from the palace to Chrysopolis, where the relics of Lazarus had just arrived. Great crowds awaited the emperor on the shore. The sea was not completely calm; without breaking into foam, it swelled gently and carried the imperial flotilla with joyful leaps. One could see the fish jumping up from the water and all but bursting into song. There was also another marvel: thanks to the emperor’s munificence, countless. ‘“‘pyres of wax’’ by their reflection caused the sea to look as if it

was ablaze with fire. § 3. When the relics were about to be disembarked, a great longing seized the spectators, all those who watched from the walls of Constantinople, or the sides of the hills, or stood on the pier, to embrace the remains of Lazarus. The emperor came down, weeping abundant tears, like Moses bringing the tables of the law down from the mountain, or rather like Jesus, for he mingled freely with the people,

and laying imperial pomp aside, went about without escort. § 4. Now back in the city, the emperor walked at the head of the procession. The street leading to St. Sophia was decorated with foliage. A band of singers intoned a hymn which had been specially composed by the emperor. It was late in the day when the slow procession finally reached the Great Church and the jostling crowd was engulfed by the immense interior. Over the bema, lamps were hung on high bars so as to form a cross, and so brilliant was their light that the incoming multitude was at once blinded and seized with wonder, The ground had been covered over with planks, and as it was late and cold, the

crowd kept stamping their feet. So loud was the noise, that when the relics were placed on the holy table, the emperor was unable to deliver his customary oration. Next it was the bishops’ turn to embrace the relics. With his own hands the emperor helped to raise the lid of the coffin, at which moment the congregation, unable to contain their zeal, forced their way through the altar-screen and the sanctuary came near to being profaned by laymen’s feet. Fearing lest the relics be torn to pieces, the emperor had the lid replaced and the coffin carried behind the holy table. There he prostrated himself and with abundant tears prayed for himself and his subjects. Thereafter, when the service started, he did not cease intoning hymns of thanksgiving, which continued until dawn. The congregation vied in singing, while the emperor presided over the contest from the gallery, and gave prizes to the winners. § 5. Thou who hast procured such a treasure and brought so much joy to thy city, mayest thou live long and prosperously and defeat the foe. Mayst thou receive embassies from the other unruly nations, just as

the Bulgarians have come to recognize thy might and to lick thy feet, through the intercession of Lazarus. May we see thee on this day of the consecration of the magnificent church thou hast built to Lazarus, in a festive mood, enjoying the gratitude of those whom thou hast honoured so signally.

Date of nos. 2 and 3. Comment. The first speech, significantly labelled émS8atnpiog, was delivered upon the arrival of the relics of Lazarus in Constantinople; the second, on the éyxatvia of the church of St. Lazarus the following year. The commemoration of the translatio occurs twice in the calender of the Greek Church: on the 17th of October and again on the 4th of May. It is worth while to quote here the text of the Synaxarium. Under the 17th of October we read: ‘“‘On the same day, commemoration of the transfer of the relics of

the holy and righteous Lazarus, carried out by Leo, faithful among emperors. The latter, moved by a divine zeal and as by some divine inspiration, first built a most

i

R. J. H. Jenkins, B, Laourdas, C. A. Mango: Nine Orations of Arethas 7

beautiful church, and then, having sent (a mission) to the island of Cyprus, found that holy relic in the city of Citium, lying, after a lapse of nearly a thousand years, under ground in a marble sarcophagus, on which was engraved this inscription in a foreign tongue: “Lazarus the four-days dead and friend of Christ”. Having taken up straightaway the venerable relic and placed it in a silver coffin, they brought it to Constantinople, and after adoring it and performing the usual rites, they deposited it with reverence in

the church which had been built by the emperor.” On the 4th of May we read:

‘Commemoration of the transfer of the venerable relics of the holy and righteous Lazarus, the friend of Christ, and of Mary Magdalen, the myrophoros, which occurred under Leo, the Christ-loving emperor of pious demise. The synaxis takes place in the most-holy monastery, which had been set up by the same emperor and dedicated to the saint (i. e. Lazarus). The consecration (éyxalvi«) of this church of St. Lazarus is cele-

brated at the same time.”? The fulness of the first entry as contrasted with the

brevity of the second would incline one to accept Oct. 17th as the date of the arrival of the relics of Lazarus. This is in fact corroborated by the statement of Arethas, in his third speech (§ 4), that ‘‘already the sun was moving to its northerly course, and the season was changing for the setting of the Pleiades’’. Besides, the pavement of St. So-

phia was covered over with planks on account of the cold, which could not have

happened before late autumn. What is especially noteworthy, however, is the fact that Leo started building the church before he obtained the relics and probably before he had any knowledge that he would secure them, since the construction of the church is described as an act divinely inspired. Now, according to Pseudo-Symeon, Leo erected the church in the 13th year of his reign, i. e. in 899,8 or, to be more exact, between the 30th of August 898 and the 30th of August 899. This date is quite acceptable if we take it to indicate the beginning of the construction activities, since, naturally, it was some time before the church was completed. Further evidence that the church was in fact started in 899 is furnished by the liquidation of the conspiracy of Basil Epeictes. In order to have Basil’s father, the hetaeriarch Nicolas, arrested quietly, Leo gave out that he was going to dine at the church of St. Lazarus. The conspiracy took place soon after the death of the empress Zoé, who died at the end of 899.5 Another piece of corroborative evidence is that when the empress Eudocia died (12th April 901), her body was carried to the newly-built monastery of Lazarus (td veworl xatacxevacdév), only to be refused admittance by the abbot.® The completion of the church could be placed in 902 if we believe the statement that while the Byzantine fleet was helping with the construction of the churches of St. Theophano and of Lazarus, Taormina fell to the Arabs (August 1st 902).? The charge is, however, rather loosely stated® and probably refers to the church of St. Theophano

rather than to that of Lazarus.

1 Synax. Eccl. CPanae p. 146.

*Ibid., pp. 658-59. Cf. M.I.Gedeon, Bufavrivov éoptroddyrov (Constantinople

1899) 98.

° Script. post Theoph. p. 704, 3-5. * Cont. Georg. Mon. p. 859. § She is spoken of as being still alive in the Kletorologion of Philotheus, written in

Sept. 899. See V. Grumel, Chronologie des événements du régne de Léon VI, Echos d’Or. 35 (1936) 19-21; and above pp. 5. * Vita Euthymii p. 33. * Theoph. Cont. 364-65, Cont. Georg. Mon. 860. See A. A. Vasiliev, Vizantija i Araby II (St. Petersburg 1902) 125-26. It is to be noted that a similar charge is made against Basil I for having lost Syracuse while the fleet was helping with the construction of the Nea (Cont. Georg. Mon. p. 843).

® “While the fleet was busy with the construction of suck churches (t&v tovodtev éxxAnovav), Tauromenium in Sicily was taken by the Arabs” (Theoph. Cont. p. 365; Cont. Georg. Mon. p. 860).

8 I. Abtetlung We do not have the exact date of the translatio, except by deduction. The relics of Lazarus must have arrived when the church was well under way, 1. e. some time after 899, and probably before 902, if the latter date is accepted as that of the éyxalvea. Mr. Jenkins suggests that in oration no. 6, which was delivered about the end of October 901, there is a reference to the émGatnptoc (see below p. 15), indicating that the latter had been spoken but a short time previously. If that is so, the arrival of the relics and consequently the éx.Batnpto¢g could be dated to the 17th of October 901, while the second speech on Lazarus might fall on the 4th of May 9o02.! An attempt has recently been made to set aside the evidence of all the sources and place the translation of Lazarus in 912, The reason of such a drastic change 1s the author’s belief that Cyprus remained in Arab hands until about 906,? since after the sack of Thessalonica in 904, the Arab fleet put in at Paphos on its homeward journey.‘ This argument rests, however, on a misunderstanding of the position of Cyprus, which was neutral by virtue of the treaty of 688. This can be gathered from a letter of the Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus to the caliph, written probably in 913 ;® but there is no need

to expatiate on the subject here, since it has been dealt with by Mr. Jenkins in Studies presented to D. M. Robinson, II (1953) 1008-1014. The second argument that needs correction is that the church of Lazarus which received the relics was distinct from the ‘‘monastery of St. Lazarus”’ built by Stylianos Zaoutzas early in Leo’s reign. It is an entirely unwarranted assumption that the monastery built by Stylianos was dedicated to Lazarus. Strange though that may be, we do not know under what saint’s patronage the monastery was placed, and that although we possess an oration delivered by Leo himself on its consecration.® Since, therefore, we

only hear of one church of St. Lazarus built in the reign of Leo VI, it is reasonable to assume that it was the one which was begun in 899. The only evidence to the contrary, that of the 15th century chronicler published by Sathas, to the effect that Leo died ‘‘a short time”’ (uet’ dAlyov) after he had built the church of St. Lazarus,’ is too vague and certainly too late to be of any authority.

Additional Notes to no. 2 The Cypriot claim to the relics of Lazarus rests on a tradition that after his resurrection he was placed by the Jews in a leaky boat, along with his two sisters and his 1 Assuming that Arethas, in accordance with the ann. mundi, counts January and not September as the beginning of the year. * R. H. Dolley, The Historical Significance of the Translation of St. Lazaros from Kypros to Byzantion, Byzantion 19 (1949) 59-71. * A Forgotten Byzantine Conquest of Kypros, Acad. Roy. de Belg., Bull. Cl. d. Lettr. 34 (1948) 209-24. ‘ John Cameniates, Script. post Theoph. p. 596.

5See R.J.H. Jenkins, The Mission of St. Demetrianus of Cyprus to Bagdad, Mél. H. Grégoire 1 (1949) 267-75. *Akakios, A€ovtog to} Lopot mavwynpixol (sic) Adyou (Athens 1868) 274-80. Cf,

A. Frolow, Deux églises byzantines d’aprés les sermons peu connus de Léon VI le Sage, Etudes Byz. 3 (1945) 49-55; 63-70. The Patria (Script. orig. CPanarum, ed. Preger, II p. 289) merely says that the monastery of Zaoutzas was built in the reign of Leo VI. Cf. R. Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de ]’empire byzantin III p. 139 (who has missed, however, the reference in the Patria). It is true that a variant reading

. of the Patria (II 288) says that St. Lazarus was first built by Basil I and later enlarged and endowed by Leo VI, but whatever truth there is in this statement, it surely does not support the view that the monastery was first built by Zaoutzas and thereafter ‘‘refounded”’ by Leo. The Patria, in what seems to be an appendix on recent buildings, devotes a distinct paragraph to the monastery of Zaoutzas with no implication that it had anything to do with St. Lazarus. 7 Biblioth. gr. med. aevi VII (1894) 147.

R. J. H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C.A. Mango: Nine Orations of Arethas 9 servants, and committed to the sea. The wind carried him to the shores of Cyprus, where he was consecrated first bishop of Citium by the apostles Paul and Barnabas.

He died and was buried there after holding his see for 30 years.? This tradition is subsequent to the 4th century, since it 1s not mentioned by St. Epiphanius. It is, of course, common knowledge that Lazarus is also claimed by Marseilles, Autun

and Avalon in the West,? and Ephesus in the East.4 At Citium (Larnaka), the ancient church of St. Lazarus is still standing, though sadly transformed. It is basilical

in plan, and was originally surmounted by three domes. It contains an empty sarcophagus which 1s claimed to have held the relics until they were removed by Leo VI.

an earlier date.§

There is a tradition that the church was built by Leo to compensate the inhabitants of Citium for the loss of their relics, but architectural considerations would indicate The invitation in § 2 to approach the reliquary in spirit rather than touch it with the hands may be a hint at an awkward incident which is related in the next speech: when the relics were placed in the sanctuary of St. Sophia there was a frantic scramble; the people, eager to embrace the relics, forced their way through the altar-screen. So perhaps it was necessary to place Lazarus out of bounds, and that 1s why Arethas isinviting his audience to worship the relics from afar. There is a noteworthy historical reference in § 5: ‘“Thou shalt walk on the hostile asp, who lends a deaf ear to peace (negociations), and thou shalt trample on the bar-

barous lion and serpent, who exult in their own strength, and drag out a peaceful settlement as with a long rope (lit. capstan).’’ Surely this points to the drawn-out negociations with Symeon of Bulgaria. We know that even after the protracted mission

of Leo Choirosphactes which culminated in the peace of 896, Symeon continued to , harass the Empire, and seized many forts in the theme of Dyrrachium. Leo Choirosphactes was sent on a second mission, which has been dated between 896 and 904, and succeeded not without trouble, in having these forts handed back.® It would appear therefore that the éx:Bathpiog 1s contemporary with the second embassy of Leo Choirosphactes, whose successful outcome is alluded to in the next speech.

Additional Notes to no. 3 In § 1 we read that the crowd was as large as that of the previous year (presumably October 17th), ‘‘under the eastern wall by the sea’”’. The church of St. Lazarus was indeed built by the sea walls of Constantinople, in the immediate proximity of the

imperial palace, in a locality called Topoi.’ It has been conjectured with some probability that the site of this shrine, which Leo made into a monastery of eunuchs, is

1Cf. J. Hackett, A History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, London 1901, pp. 411-414, and more fully in the Greek translation of Ch. J. Papaioannou, ‘Iotopla tig "OpSoddEou éxxrnotag tH¢ Kuompov II (Peiraeus 1927) 257-67.

2 See the amusing article of J.-A.-S. Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire critique des reliques et des images miraculeuses II (Paris 1821) 98: «Il n’aurait pas fallu, au dernier siécle méme, aller dire aux Provencaux que cette histoire était un conte. Ils ne sont pas encore traitables sur cette matieére. » ® See DACL, s. v. Lazare, col. 2037 ff.

4 Cf. Bernardi Itinerarium (A. D. 870), PL 121, col. 573. 5 See G. A. Sotiriou, Les églises byzantines de Chypre 4 trois et 4 cinq coupoles et leur place dans |’histoire de l’architecture byzantine, Studi Biz. e Neoell. 6 (1940) 401-06 (where a 6th century date is suggested). Photographs in G, A. Sotiriou, Ta Butaveiva uvneta tH¢ Kupov, Athens 1935, pl. 19. © On the circumstances see G. Kolias, Léon Choirosphactés, magistre, proconsul et patrice (Athens 1939) 42, and for the date p. 47 n. 2. 7 See, in addition to the sources quoted above, Cedrenus II p. 260; Zonaras III p. 446 (Bonn.), Leo Grammaticus p. 274.

10 Ll. Abteilung now occupied by the Giilhane hospital.! In addition to the relics of Lazarus, Leo also endowed the church with those of St. Mary Magdalen, which he brought from Ephesus,* where in fact they existed as early as the 6th century.® Since the latter are not mentioned by Arethas, one may conjecture that they were brought at a later date. According to Nicephorus Callistus, Leo and his brother Alexander carried the remains of St. Mary Magdalen on their shoulders, and deposited them in the church of St. Lazarus, on the left-hand side of the sanctuary, in a casket entirely covered with silver. As for Lazarus, he lay on the right-hand side. The church was of indescribable beauty, and second to very few in size.* Several pilgrims speak of it: the anonymous Englishman shortly before 1200,° the scribe Alexander in 1393,° and the deacon Zosimus in 1420.” In 1422, it 1s listed by Buondelmonti among the chief churches of the capital,® and pictured on his bird’s eye view. In the 14th century the emperor used to go there on the raising of Lazarus.® The description of the emperor’s crossing to Chrysopolis (Scutari), of the arrival of the relics, of the return to Constantinople and the service in St. Sophia speaks for itself. One is reminded of a similar ceremony when, some forty years later, the Holy Face of Edessa was brought to the capital by Romanus Lecapenus.?® Arethas is rather vague when he refers to “‘numerous pyres of wax, exceeding in beauty and size any ever made.’”’ He probably means that the imperial party was rowed across the Bosphorus carrying lighted tapers of unusual size, whose reflection in the water made the sea

look as if it was on fire. It was in fact the custom to meet relics and miraculous

images with lighted tapers."4 It is interesting to note that Leo had himself composed a hymn in honour of Lazarus which was sung during the ceremonial procession to St. Sophia (§ 4). This hymn has

not, to our knowledge, survived, although we have some other specimens of Leo’s religious verse, as for instance the ottynpd ldiduerx in the Vatopedi 1496, the Ldidpedov onSt. Demetrius in the Lavra A 164,!% and alengthy poem on St. Clement, etc.!® The Book of Ceremonies also mentions an érodutixtov of Leo’s which was sung antiphonally on

the feast of St. Elijah. Lost likewise is the oration which Leo was going to deliver in St; Sophia. Its conspicuous absence from the corpus of Leo’s homilies in the Vatopedi 408 may be due to the fact that Leo was unable to deliver it on account of the noise. The noteworthy reference to the Bulgarians in § 5 has already been noticed by Prof. N. Bees.?® The humbling of the Bulgarians, which is surely an allusion to the return of

1 R. Demangel et E.Mamboury, Le quartier des Manganes et la 1ére région de Constantinople, Paris 1939, pp. 81 ff. R. Janin, op. cit., is, I believe, wrong in suggesting that St. Lazarus was north of St. Mary Hodigetria, since it was by the xaraBactov tod thuxaworynplov (Georg. Mon., p. 859), the downhill road which skirted the polo-ground of the imperial palace. 2 Rather than from Bethany, as stated in the Patria II 288-89. * Gregory of Tours, De gloria mart. § 30, MPL LXXI col. 731 A.

Sermo in S. Mariam Magdalenam, MPG 147 col. 573.

§S.G. Mercati, Santuari e reliquie Costantinopolitane, Rendiconti Pont. Accad. Rom. d’Archeol. 12 (1936) 144. © Mme de Khitrowo, Itinéraires russes en Orient (Geneva 1889) 164. 7 Ibid. 201.

®G. Gerola, Le vedute di Costantinopoli di Cristoforo Buondelmonti, Studi Biz.

e Neoell. 3 (1931) 276. © Ps,-Codinus, De officiis p. 82 (Bonn.).

10 Theoph. Cont. p. 432. 11 See the examples collected by Ph. Koukoules, BuGavrwov Blog xal morttiapds II 1 (Athens 1948) 62-63. 18 See Sophronios of Leontopolis, Geodoyla 14 (1936) 76. 18 Akakios, op. cit. 190-209. Cf. Emereau, Echos d’Or. 23 (1924) 285. 44 pb. 115 (Bonn.) 18 Al ExcSponat tHv Bovaydpwv bd tov thdpov Lowey, "EAAnvind 1 (1928) 366~67.

R.J.H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C.A. Mango; Nine Orations of Arethas 11 the 30 forts in the theme of Dyrrachium, secured by Leo Choirosphactes on his second mission, must have taken place after the first speech on Lazarus and before the second, 1. e., if our dating is correct, between the 17th October 901 and the 4th of May 9o2.

No. 4 Title: Profession of Faith, delivered on his appointment to the bishopric. Summary §1. In this expression of his theological opinions the orator is following the tradition according to which a newly elected bishop is required to declare in public. his conception of Christian dogma. He has nothing original to offer in these matters: he is following strictly the teaching of Scripture, of the Fathers and of the Holy Synods. § 2. He explains at great length his position in regard to the Nature of the Trinity and the Incarnation. § 3. He summarizes the decisions of the seven Oecumenical Councils.

Comment: The Profession was delivered before patriarch, bishops and clergy, probably late in the year 902 (above, pp. 2-3).

The main point of historical interest in the Profession 1s the attitude of Arethas towards the Oecumenical Councils (para. 3). In his list he includes the second Council of Nicaea (787, against the Iconoclasts). In this he follows the example of Photius, who not only stressed the importance of this Council in his letters to Pope Nicholas? and Boris- Michael of Bulgaria,? but also succeeded in having it accepted as the seventh Oecumenical Council.‘ The interest of Arethas in the theological aspects of iconoclasm is shown in two other texts: in his letter to ‘“‘NixorAdw douxpytig tH ToD DaBpend’’, with

the sub-title ‘‘IIpd¢ elxovoydyoug’’, in which he attacks the iconoclasts on the basis of Old Testament evidence;® and in his scholion on a passage in Dio of Prusa, where he writes ‘‘ypnouov xata elxovordywv’’.®

It is also noteworthy that Arethas speaks of seven Councils only, and mentions neither the Photian Council of 867, which had been mentioned by Photius himself in his Encyclical to the eastern patriarchs as an “‘olxouevix? . . . covodog”’;” nor the AntiPhotian Council of 869-870, which in the western tradition has been regarded as the eighth Oecumenical Council.® The earliest Profession of Faith known to us since the death of Photius has hitherto been that of the patriarch Euthymius (907-12); and even of this the authenticity has recently been disputed.® The Profession of Arethas is therefore, in view of its date, of importance in connexion with the problem of the number of Oecumenical Councils accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Church. It seems that Arethas was well aware of the difference between Eastern and Western Churches in the matter of the “‘filioque’’ clause; but he apparently attached little significance to it: in para. 3 he passes over the question of éxmépevorg with the non-committal expression ““‘fivtiva Syrote tavtTyy thy yéwnow 7} thy éxrdpevow Ewoetv’’.

No. 5 |

Title. After-dinner speech in the presence of Leo the pious emperor. Summary: § 1. The orator wishes to extol the greatness of the emperor, but is afraid of his own inadequacy, when contrasted with the emperor’s wisdom. But the 1 Prof. Bees dates it 899/900 because he assumes that the arrival of the relics was contemporaneous with the construction of the church in 899. 2 Pwrtlov ’Emotoral, ed. J. Valettas (London 1864) 142. * Ibid, 216-18.

4Cf. F. Dvornik, The Photian Schism (Cambridge 1948) 70 ff. 5’ Kougeas, op. cit. 78. © Ibid. 5§1-§2.

7 Valettas, op. cit. 179. ® Dvornik, op. cit. 309 ff. ® Ibid. 383-84; cf. V. Grumel, Rev. Et. Byz. 10 (1952) 283.

12 I. A btetlung attempt must be made: he has set his hand to the plough, and cannot now turn back. § 2. The emperor is the true philosopher-king, desired by Plato but never seen until now. § 3. Previous emperors have been distinguished by other achievements, as in foreign or domestic wars, alliances and buildings; but these have wasted their energy on the husk and ignored the kernel. Leo’s greatness rests in his wisdom and his piety, on which he feasts his guests at these annual banquets. § 4. The emperor has those qualities which make the ideally happy man. His wisdom and intelligence preserve his affairs in the golden mean between two extremes. This is seen in his combination of firmness and mercy in punishing evil-doers. § 5. It must not be supposed that the emperor is lacking also in the external advantages such as health, beauty, wealth, sovereignty and fortune, which go to form the happy man of Aristotle’s definition. § 6. His natural advantages and wealth are too obvious to require description; but his fortune also is seen in his recent exploits in war. The Hungarians arrived providentially to serve him, Only last year the African Saracens met with an unexpected defeat while attempting to surprize Byzantine territory; and, shortly before, the Byzantines overthrew the (sc. eastern) Saracens both by sea and land. Theodosioupolis too is witness to the imperial fortune, and Attica, where a deed of valour has recently been performed. § 7. The emperor’s next exploit can hardly be ascribed to fortune so much as to moral excellence. Rain has at last come to break the fearful drought, but the emperor has brought the‘rain and saved the harvest through his pious intercession with God. § 8. Another of the external advantages in Aristotle’s catalogue is friendship, and here the emperor may be advantageously compared with Alexander the Great. For the latter, great conqueror though he was, was a false friend to Kleitos. But Leo has many good friends, and none better than the patriarch Nicholas. § 9. Conclusion and prayer for the emperor’s well-being. Comment: This oration is an éyxaytov on the emperor Leo VI himself, and was delivered at a certain annual festival (para. 3, tag érnoloug tabtag .. . mavnyvpets). This festival was, in all probability, either the birthday or else the accession day (adtoxpatoeeta) of the emperor. Leo’s birthday fell on the 1st September (Cont. Geo. Mon. 835, 5~6), and his abtoxpatopeia two days earlier, on the 30th August (de Cer. 780, 19-781, 13). The historical references in para, 6 make it clear that the year was 902. Thespeech was therefore delivered on 30th August or 1st September 902. The importance of the speech is twofold. First, it illustrates the revival of classical studies inaugurated in the previous generation by Photius and the Caesar Bardas, in the specifically classical terms in which the emperor is extolled. In para. 2 Leo is identified with the philosopher-king of Plato’s Republic. In para. 3 the orator turns to the form of prose tyxwyov initiated by the Evagoras of Isocrates, which was developed throughout the Hellenistic and Roman epochs and finally became so much stereotyped

that al] its parts could be catalogued in rhetorical hand-books, such as the IIepi ’Exderxtixav of Menander Rhetor.! This type of panegyric included the conventional categories of activity (mpd&ewc), of which Arethas here refers to three or four, viz., success in foreign or civil wars, peaceful expansion of territory and building of cities or harbours. It is well known that the later Vita Basilii of Constantine Porphyrogenitus is based on this rhetorical scheme; and perhaps, more specifically, on the &éyxatov of Augustus by Nicholas of Damascus.? It is therefore interesting to note that already in the earliest years of the 10th century the students of rhetoric in the University were

conversant with this kind of composition. Paras. 4-6 award to the emperor the internal and external advantages postulated for the ideally happy man by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics; and para. 8, reverting to the Aristotelian requirement of

1Cf. P. J. Alexander, Speculum 15 (1940) 197-200, an important article to which Professor Délger, with his habitual kindness, drew my attention some years ago. § Cf. frags. 32, 33 of Nicholas in Excerpta Hist. iussu Imp. Const. Porph. confecta II 1 (Berlin 1906) 353-54.

R. J. H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C. A. Mango: Nine Orations of Arethas 13 ‘‘friendship’’, contrasts Leo in this respect with Alexander the Great. This overwhelming weight of classical allusion is relieved by a single paragraph (7), where it is claimed that Leo’s Christian piety and intercession have been efficacious in breaking a ruinous drought. But more important are the references to contemporary historical events, which occur in para, 6. The passage is of such significance that it must be translated in extenso. ‘‘Turks (1. e. Hungarians), a people whom we had never known until we needed them, will bear witness to what I say. And what should one say of disasters to the Saracens, whether one considers that unexpected disaster which befel the African last year, when he was about to swoop on ourcountry as on a bird’s nest and its abandoned eggs, had it not been that your(? victorious forces) by weight of superior numbers anticipated his loud-mouthed boast ? Or whether one considers that disaster which took place shortly

before the other, when earth and sea shared in their overthrow, the sea raging under furious tempests and gulping down their ships of burden, men and all, under his loyal waves, and earth yielding captiveto your invincible might whole cities and armies, before

a mere handful of your troops? Theodosioupolis bears witness to my words, and the heroic feat of arms performed inAttica with your Majesty’s aid.”

The five operations may be taken in order: |

1. The Hungarians had assisted Leo against Symeon of Bulgaria in 895, and had twice or thrice defeated the Bulgarians in that year; see Theophanes Continuatus 358;

Cont. Geo. Mon. 853-54; Leonis Imp. Taktika (MPG vol. CVII) col. 956 C-D; De Admin. Imp. (ed. Moravcsik) 40, 7-12; 51, 111-24; V. N. Zlatarsky, in Sbornik za Nar. Umot., Nauka 1 Knizn. 24 (1908) 93-94; G. Kolias, Léon Choerosphactés (Athens 1939) 24-34. 2. The African Saracens under Abul-Abbas invaded S. Italy from Sicily and captured Reggio in June or July 901. Meantime a Byzantine fleet had arrived at Messjna. This

fleet was defeated by Abul-Abbas on his return to Sicily; but thereafter he retired to Palermo and stayed quiet for the rest of the year. Such is the account of Ibn al Atir.# This campaign the encomiastic orator tries to make into a Byzantine victory. The Byzantine force which ‘‘anticipated the loud-mouthed boast”’ of the African must be the fleet which [bn al-Atir describes as having reached Messina in the late summer of 901; too late to save Reggio, but able to claim that 1t repulsed Abul-Abbas and caused his

withdrawal to Palermo. This is the most that Arethas can make of this disastrous

campaign; and indeed, before this speech was made, a worse blow had already fallen, for Taormina was captured on ist August 902. 3. The Byzantine victory by sea and land over the eastern Saracens is that described by Tabari? as having been announced at Bagdad on 28th November 901. The Byzantines arrived by sea, pushed overland as far as Kaisum and captured 15,000 prisoners. Arethas says that this victory took place “‘shortly before’’ the victory over the African, but he is no doubt referring to the respective times at which news of the two operations reached Constantinople. If news of the Byzantine victory reached Bagdad only on 28th November, it can scarcely have taken place before October, or even early November; whereas the naval battle at Messina probably took place in August or September. But the news of both would reach the capital about the same time, one, as Arethas says, shortly before the other. These engagements, 2 and 3, both of which took place

in 901, date our oration to 902; since both, says the orator, happened ‘‘last year’ (mépucty).

4. The reference to a campaign at Theodosioupolis is a quite new piece of evidence, which establishes once for all the truth of a statement in Leo’s Taktika. At col. 981 A, Leo refers to the general ‘‘who quite recently seized Theodosioupolis from Saracen hands and subjected it to our imperial Majesty’’. The campaign is also mentioned at

2 Ibid. p. 17.

1 A.A, Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes II 2: Extraits des sources arabes (Bruxelles,

1950) 142.

14 1. Abteilung De Admin. Imp. 45, 50-55, where we learn that the general in question was the magister Leo Katakalon. Vasiliev! rightly connected these passages and saw that they must refer to the reign of Leo VI. The Arethas passage confirms that Theodosioupolis was captured in Leo’s reign, and strongly indicates that it was captured in the year 902. This date is also strongly suggested by the evidence of oration no. 6 (below, p. 14). 5. This is our sole reference to a military operation in Attica at this time; but it is not hard to relate it to contemporary events. Demetrias was captured by the Saracens in 901 or 902.3 It is likely enough that these Saracens made a descent on Attica either

before or after attacking Demetrias, and were repulsed. It is altogether in keeping with the tone of the éyxatov that it should omit the major disaster and record only the minor triumph. The only other points that call for comment are the references to the drought, and to

the merciful mediation of the patriarch Nicholas. The drought, as it had only just broken, must have persisted through the summer of 902, and ended only in July or August. The mediation of the patriarch may perhaps refer to his intercession in favour of the admiral: Eustathios, accused of betraying Taormina (see Cont. Georg. Mon. 861, 3-5); but it is perhaps more likely that the trial of Eustathios took place after than before the end of August 902.

No. 6

Title: After-dinner speech in the presence of Leo the emperor. Summary. § 1. The orator in a recent speech has not prophesied falsely in saying that the emperor’s piety would be the mother of many benefits: for Leo has won a splendid victory over the Saracens on the Euphrates. § 2. Alexander was a great conqueror, but could not have conquered except at the price of personal labour and suffering; nor was he invariably fortunate. But Leo, with no labour, has erected the many trophies referred to in recent speeches, and now, with the aid of his fellowcommanders, has won the victory celebrated this day. This is the reward, not of fortune, but of piety. § 3. Alexander, moreover, was an aggressor, and successful aggression corrupted him. But Leo has merely recovered his own, and restored a lost flock to its former inheritance. § 4. Prediction of further successes in ‘‘Syria beyond Euphrates". Comment: The evidence for dating this oration 1s inferential, but the strong probability is that 1t was delivered in the Jate autumn of 901. The victory over the Saracens of the (Upper) Euphrates, which has resulted in the restoration to their inheritance of a Christian flock, of cities and churches of God (para. 4), is almost certainly that referred to in De Adm. Imp. (ed. Moravcsik) 45, 43-50. This latter passage states that the military governors of the Armeniakoi, Koloneia, Mesopotamia and Chaldia (the ovetpatnyol of our para. 2) drove the Saracens out of Phasiane, and liberated the churches which these Saracens were using as fortresses. Now, in September 899, as we

shall see in a moment, there was as yet no ¢hema of Mesopotamia. Therefore this campaign, which took place Jefore Katakalon’s campaign against Theodosioupolis in 902 (above, p. 14), must be datable either to 900 or to 901, and much more probably to 901, since it is not likely that a new fhema could have taken part in a campaign in the very year of its foundation. We may thus conclude that the victory in Phasiane was won in the autumn of 901, and celebrated by Arethas shortly afterwards.

We can perhaps adduce additional evidence for this date. Arethas begins “It was not idly, as it seems, most excellent sovereign, that im my recent words I prophesied (as it were) that your Majesty’s piety toward heaven was the mother of many blessings for you’’, This may be a reference to para. 4 of oration no. 2, where Arethas predicts 1 Vizantija i Araby II (St. Petersburg 1902) 101 note 2.

*Grumel, op. cit. 36; De Boor, op. cit. 102-03; Vasiliev, Vizantija i Araby II p. 136 note 2,

R. J. H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C. A. Mango: Nine Orations of Arethas 15 that Leo’s pious translation of the relics of Lazarus will bring victory in war. Oration no. 2 was most probably delivered on 17th October 901 (above, p. 8); so that no. 6, delivered shortly afterwards, will be datable to late October or November of the same year. It is important to make clear, in this connexion, what must be the date of the foundation of the ¢hema of Mesopotamia. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, as we saw above, states that the military governor of that ¢#hema took part in the campaign against the Saracens of Phasiane. A. Pertusi, in Costantino Porfirogenito De Thematibus (= Studi e Testi 160, Rome 1952) 144, follows Grousset in dating this campaign to 895; but,

as he has previously noted on p. 139, there was no fhema of Mesopotamia before September 899, since it is not mentioned in the Kletorologion Philothei. Therefore the date of 895, however arrived at, must be discarded. If, on the other hand, we accept the date of 901 for the campaign, all is clear. The ¢hema of Mesopotamia will have been founded by Leo VI in 900, or, at any rate, between September 899 and the campaligning season of 901, when its first governor, Orestes (De Admin. Imp. 50, 127), participated with Lalakon in the invasion of Phasiane.

. No. 7

7ztle;: After-dinner speech on the day of Epiphany, in the hall of the

19 couches. Summary. § 1. The orator praises the holy and royal banquet, at which the patriarch is present, and over which the emperor, in a]l his beauty and wisdom, presides. § 2. Former emperors are praised for establishing the feast. For it is in accord with the spirit of this day, on which the Divine Shepherd, clad in sheep’s clothing, came among others to be baptized by John, that the emperor too should humble himself and sit at dinner with his lowly subjects. § 3. The emperor’s table at the feast is compared to the holy table of the sacrament, surrounded by clergy and solemn choirs, and distinguished by abstinence, dedication and devotion to the Creator. § 4. The emperor’s part in the festival 1s the same as that played by his predecessors. But what are his own personal merits? Mildness, humility, foresight, wisdom and others. § 5. But if, in pagan fashion, we look also for instances of the imperial] Fortuna, these are abundant. Cappadocians will bear witness, and the unprecedented victories recently won over the Saracens. These are the rewards of imperial faith, piety and intercession, and of the prayers of the patriarch, the emperor’s loyal helpmate. § 6. Prayer for the emperor’s future welfare and happiness. Comment. The oration was delivered on the 6th January, at the annual banquet held on the day: see De Cer. (ed. Bonn.) 146, 9-147, 20 and 754, 4-757, 10. The year was probably 901; and, if so, this oration is the earliest of our group. The only evidence which points to the year, is the historical reference in para. 5. There Arethas says that ‘“‘the Cappadocians will bear witness (sc. to the imperial fortune), and their recent triumphs over the Saracens, which are such and so splendid that the long lapse of time has brought forth few like them’’. We read in the emperor Leo’s Taktika (MPG vol. CVII) col. 933 C that ‘‘while Apulpheros the Saracen emir overran Cappadocia, he (sc. our genera] Nicephorus Phocas) devastated Tarsus and all Cilicia, inflicting heavy loss on the Saracens‘‘. This celebrated campaign is referred to also at ibid. col. 800 A, and at Nicephori Phocae De Velit. Bell. (ap. Leon. Diac. ed. Bonn.) 241, 14-243, 6. These accounts make clear that the campaign of Nicephorus in Cilicia, besides capturing much booty, also had the effect of drawing off the invading Saracens from Cappadocia; hence the Cappadocians are, Arethas says, faithful

witnesses to the victory. Now, this campaign is quite certainly the one placed by Tabari! in the year 7th January - 5th December goo. If therefore Arethas also is referr-

1Cf. A.A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes II 2: Extraits des sources arabes (Bruxelles 1950) 13-14; idem, Vizantija i Araby II (St.Petersburg 1902) 118-22.

16 I. Abteilung ing to this campaign, as his reference to Cappadocians seems to suggest, then the date of his speech must be 6th January 901. In this event, the patriarch mentioned in paras, 4 and 5 is not Nicholas but Anthony Cauleas (t 12th February 901).

| No. 8

Title; After-dinner speech in the presence of Leo the emperor, on the anniversary of the patriarchal elevation of the patriarch Nicholas. Summary: § 1. The orator stands amazed by the patriarch’s virtues; yet he must venture to speak, as refusal might be attributed to envy. § 2. The present festival has a double significance, an ancient and a more modern: it is the first Sunday in Lent, but it is also the day on which Orthodoxy and the worship of images were restored, § 3. It was on this day that Nicholas became patriarch, by the will of God, as interpreted by the emperor and ratified by the clergy. The virtue, wisdom and orthodoxy of Nicholas are briefly praised. § 4. The emperor has set up two trophies to commemorate his restoration of Union to the Church; he has placed a rich memorial in the Sanctuary of

the Renowned Church; and immediately afterwards he appointed Nicholas to be patriarch. Both trophies speak of his achievement. May he be happy in both, and win from them earthly prosperity and eternal felicity! Comment: The oration was delivered on Sunday the 14th February 902, the first Sunday in Lent and the Feast of Orthodoxy. It was also the first anniversary of the elevation of Nicholas to the patriarchate (1st March 901). The banquet was given in the Patriarchate; cf. De Cer. (ed. Bonn.) 761, 18-19. Only two points call for comment. First, the speech gives an additional indication that the Union of the Church under Anthony Cauleas should be dated to 900, or even early in 901, rather than to before September 899 (above, p. 4), since the emperor’s memorial to it was dedicated only just before ist March 901. However, this first point depends to some extent on the second. What exactly was the memorial in question? The text says, ‘‘On the one hand you have set up (ldpvecwevoc) in the adyta of the Renowned Church a thing of gold, wondrous to look upon, shining with precious gems (or possibly ‘‘pebbles’’) and seals”. It is improbable that

this passage describes a mosaic, for it is hard to see what part seals (oppaytdec) would play in a mosaic; nor do we know of any such mosaic in the Sanctuary of S.Sophia or of the Nea. Mr. Mango therefore seems clearly right in seeing here a reference to the Tomus Unionis itself, which, bound in gold and gems and adorned with the seals of the signatories, was placed by Leo in the Sanctuary. If this 1s so, then there would be no reason why Leo should have waited from the summer of 899 to the spring of 901 before dedicating the volume.

No. 9

Title: After-dinner speech on the feast of the prophet Elijah, when Leo was entertaining us in memory of his preservation. This speech was made second, after one made at the beginning; and it ran like this: Summary: § 1. The loyalty and affection of the previous speech are not to be mistaken. But is the emperor satisfied to hear the orator speak again? His love makes him

talkative; when the emperor is the theme, he cannot remain silent. § 2. This 1s St. Elijah’s day, and on it we are enjoined to celebrate the deeds of both Elijah and Ehishah. Summary of their chief miracles. § 3. But the day is made yet more glorius by being the new Easter Day of Byzantium, on which the emperor was delivered from deadly danger and restored to his loyal and rejoicing subjects. § 4. Parenthesis praising the emperor’s wisdom and educative skill; he dispenses more wisdom than a library of books. § 5. This then was the day on which the emperor re-appeared in the imperial

R.].H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C. A. Mango. Nine Orations of Arethas 17 procession, re-united with his father, to whom he had been wickedly slandered and brought near to tasting of death. § 6. What a welcome he received from old and young that day! §7. Nothing can mar the orator’s pleasure except the suggestion that he has spoken too long. So he will end, with a prayer for the prosperity of the emperor.

Comment: This speech was delivered on the 20th July, St. Elijah’s day, at the annual banquet given by Leo VI in the Chrysotriklinos to celebrate his preservation from the plot of Theodore Santabarenus in 886. In the absence of any contemporary historical reference, we cannot determine with certainty the year in which the speech was made; but that it was either 901 or 902 can be justifiably inferred from the fact that seven out of the eight other speeches of this group are datable to one or the other of these years (above, p. 2). If it were certain, as R.H. Dolley! believes, that the attempt on Leo’s life in the church of St. Mokios took place in April 902, then we could place this oration with some certainty in 901; since it is hardly credible that the orator could describe Leo’s preservation in 886 without any reference at all to a similar preservation which, if the speech had been made in 902, would have happened only three months before. But De Boor und Grume]l* have shown good reason to place the latter attempt in 903. The occasion of the speech was, we have said, the annual commemoration of Leo’s reconciliation with his father Basil on 20th July 886, after his deliverance from the machinations of Santabarenus; the principal sources for this incident are Theophanes

Continuatus 348-51; Cont. Geo. Mon. 846-47; Sym. Mag. 697-99; De S. Constantino (AASS Nov. tom. 4) 648 C-F; Vita Theophanous, ed. Kurtz (Mém. Acad. Imp. St-Péterbourg, VIII Série, III 2, 1898) 13. For the annual banquet given by Leo, see De Cer. 776, 14-16; 777, 10. A speech made by Leo himself at one of these banquets is preserved, and has been printed in that rare work Agovtog tod Loot Tlavnyvptxol Adyot (ed. Akakios Hieromonachos, Athens 1868) no. 31, pp. 259-62.

Texts Note: Orations nos. 1 and 4 are also found in the XVIIth century Codex

Ottobonianus Graecus 147 (see E. Feron, F. Battaglini, Codices Manuscripti Graeci Ottoboniani Bibliothecae Vaticanae, Roma 1893, p. 147). In our text of nos. 1 and 4 we therefore give the pagination of both Marcian and Ottobonian mss., prefixing to the latter the symbol “B”’. (1)

"Exowvyoig Agovte 16 edoeBet Bactret ext tH yerpotovig tod NuxoAcov (121°) TOD KYLWTATOV TATPLAP YOU’ Mxovduntar S& we KTOoYEdtAoDELO.

(1) OSroté tivog xal KAAnS xpeltrovos, DedAnnte Bacrred, nopolpyoe dra cod Sryxoov Suundtiac, alc Autv moAAatc xali duvdytors doa. oyedov Awepat

Exrdayrrevecdat prrotiny, aA’ odv obdémw xal thuspov, boa eye xplverv eldévan, tyArxadetns HEvopeta yapitoc, obtw TH xaroG mpocpopwtatnys, obta Toit AnuBd&vovaty edxTaLoTATHS’ TO Yap ToL TOV WEYaV TOUTOV xal KAnIWs TOD 5

Yeob &vVBowrov, toy gouaThy THs hovylac, thy advtpopoy THs Eyxpatelac, Td avaxtopoy tHS ceuvoTyntosc, Td evdialtnua tis a&npxypootvys, Ev TobTa TO 1 Mélanges H. Grégoire 2 (Bruxelles 1950) 232-237. 2 Vita Euthymii (Berlin 1888) 110-14; op. cit. 40-41.

2 Byzant. Zeitechrift 47 (1954) ;

18 I. Abteilung Uaornpty avdpvan hutv cuprpoduurndivar xapa xat endpEacda 48 TovtoU SG, Ste ceuvotepov avOpdrorg éumoArtevetat, ote yaanvys 6 Bloc d&vapectoc, 10 Ste TO Erretxés te xal Enpaypov dnac doraletar, mad>¢ od MavTdc TPOTLLOTATOY,

ree ody! (B 132”) npoopopatatoy, mae ob xaTAAANASTATOV:;

(2) To d& xat wera tov roddy éxetvov xal abrdv addmevov tdiv ovpavay tapayov, 6¢ mavta ouyyéac tk xara eEexbynve, xal tov lepdv 7G Ovtt xal axnouxtov méAeuov, Sv od StamoAeuyjoas xatamaverc aitée — tf yap éyphy 15 ToAEpetv elpyvys Depaneutac te xal SrayyéArous } xataotacdkZerv avdowrmous ol¢ érnpetarg Bacxavou tivdg Satuovoc kak xaTAOUpELoL TOU Séovtoc obdéev

ev eipyvatov wdiveto xat yarns, xpatos 8% vixns h Eptc Evevoutoto xal obtos HAeyxeTto xatopddiv b¢ Konovdov thy EyIoav mode 1d avetizadov OUVETY)-

per; — dia tara wév otv ob die udyns abtoic iévar copdy te xal Spacthptov 20 xplvac tO evavtuwtéty petayerplty td Epyov dvuowdtata: umepBoay yap

cuuratelac vom medduevos elw td dvtinvéov dmav wxhoac xal Adyots elonvns xal mpayuaciy acuvdnous ta Steoteta xal odor’ av ovdeplav Exutotc aroAchondta errtda cupBdoews, xal tedmov SAAOV (uixpov eixdoat wsyade) bv xai Sede tH EuG brép Adyov Eyxexpapévos (B 13 3°) mpaypartev25 Gdwsvec, TO peta talta oldv tt téiv gEapétwv dyavicua xal TPOTALOV THC ToavtTys emaziov vinng tov tepdv todtov pedelc Huiv &vSowrov AVAOTH OAL pudaxa ths elenyns copwtatov, xuBepyatny tév xad hue TPOLNVECTATOY, ToUTO tlvwy ovx edxtardtatov, tivwy Tév ele ydprtog Adyous HxdvTev ovuyi

teprvotatov; 00d 6 paxpdc almv duaupdcer thy ydow, obx dnavOloer Thy 3° Bpav, od Avyavettar tH S6Ey. xal por Soxd ph ovvtvyla todto oupByvar GAGy@, (121%) fv EoD Ere xal toig tvyovar teSedueda obvdecpov, AAAK ye di xpeltrovoe tO may emivolac te xat mpovotac del ta xpelttw pynyavopéevys tOlG xpelttooLy.

(3) “Oca pév obv Seta mpopndere tote buetéporc ele mévra xaupov BovaAed35 pao ma&pedpoc, @ tay nanote Bactdéwv Seo mpovola te xal ETLOXOT)) LAAAOV

avarAce, Ta¢ as nal Hudiv évexdaunoe Whoue, toradtd te xal tooadte Oyo te 6 hustepoc alpet xal ws toicg KAAotG tod God xed&ToUC Setypa SeoceBelac xnpd&a. tk Deod exPeBlactar. ab Sé, & leps tod Seod &vSpwr7e, rh pop} thy

éyyxelonow; th dvaddy mpdc thy éxotactav xat Sucavacyetetc td (B 133°) 40 Siddpevov; th mpbc totto éxAby xal tac lepdc dravalvy ppovtldac; } Bloc dpydc Got tov Evepyot mpoxpitéos; GAN’ obSe Bods exeivos eraivetéoc, b¢ &vetov Uropatve. Cuyol xal dBndv. tov abyéva, KAA’ &¢ tov vébtov bixvéc te xa TETPLLL-

UEvoc dpdtpw mpocavéywy td mkv Thy dvayxatav exmopiCerat tTpépovtt. 7

pdovets seats tév din tata otepdvev, } tH xpelrtom tod Baduod srek45 lotacar, id dreipov dy Sev tio torabeys olxovoulac d&roxvater cor Td BovaéBevov; ox aapadeic of Adyor, ab xplcers exiwpor. movetv Set tov KPoTy pa THC evoeBelac, otepivoug dvadeicdar ob ydprtos GAAL Tévav, NSt ToC BAdowg uyte ye saute éuroday tig awrmplac xaoracda. névrey ev m&oLV Urepavéatyxac, odx wovcoy yp7ua tov torodtav ed olSa ot, 083° erro yedic50 Cav thy yapw xal tedmwv xawveyv dvevploxay xatkoracty. Eyerg ol¢ xvBep 17 vevépztoto cod. 23 obx supplevit Jenkins. 31 Av} § cod. 42 vétov cod. 17-19 cf. Thuc. III, 84, 4-7.

R. J. HH. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C.A. Mango: Nine Orations of Arethas 19 vnoetc, ol¢ atevduvetc pbc Spov tous mAWTHpPAG xal ExnBdAous Hugs’ TOAAKC oe tay lepdv xuBepvncewy H HArxia te xal dpetyH ed:ddcEato, (B 1347) moAAas TOV NUETEPWY OlaxwV LETAYELOHoELG yaAnvys, CaAnc, Eapoc, yewwdvoc’ Ff axataloyuvTds cou EAric mpdg Sedv TMoAAGY ayxupGy lepdv dopadreortépa, 7 TES KUTOV TAapPHota lotTéoV TAavTOS EUTOPWTEPOV TO Lepdv OxdpOS AVaTTEPMOEL, 55

“Hal paAtad Stav talc ayvotata.s budv mpocevyaic TO Detov Morepel xata Tpvpvayv Cotyta mvedLa xal Actoxduova tod Blou thy Dadkaccav arepyatyrat, ta xar’ adtov Ev0dav Hutv SiaBhuate.

(4) My dé819. totvey und? ayyiec te madyo xal tio waxp@ TH yedva ouvaveyntetonsg cot prdccopiac aAAOtpLOV, undév yadrerdv, unde Stoxodov, bo unde tH tov pEevyovtos maAaL pOMHTOV EvatAAov’ Evamedyval oe Set tov

énov “lwvav tH quctépa Daratty xataotopedyvar. Sia cod xat et te Aormov btoppitrovy EeEappiter tod xvuatog UrodeySyvar, odyt xntax yvada odde yaotpt Sypiov, dvotvyav vavayiwy oayhvy, GAN’ éexxAnotac teod Cavroc TANPOUATL xNEVxa (122°) mpOBANDyvar OAc. Leyloty, TO cuTHpL 6o9aAU 65

THC olxovpevys, Bacratds: tOv aracdv méAcav, et xat wy xata Nevevi (B 134°) THY GAAOMVAOV, GAA’ Obv xal adTY Seousvy TOU med¢ TO BEATLOV Exavayovros,

xal TOTOUTW Ye TAEOV bow xal prdocopwtepas Cwrc EEnothucda. dpac of GE TO VEDA TPORYEL TO KYLOV’ LL} YAP ToL TOUTO voulons avdparmivoy Adyov

oroveys’ uluyoa. [ladAov xat BapvaBav tH mept ta mapdvta xaAz mpoduuta, 70 @v ovdSevds amoAetry THs xata tov Blov ceuvotytoOS. ExcAet TO TrvEDUA Sid Tdv

Tpopyntay avtovs cic Siaxoviav’ ovdév aveBaAArovto, oddév Educyépatvoy, xalto. pov@ow avdpwror.s oupTAsxecar wEAAOVTES.

(5) Tadte ce odx ayvoodvta Sidacxopev’ paviag yap av 7o mpaypa eyyvc nav ext vodv mote toUTO Baréodar, xat Suordv te Spav xatEAnpoat totc Bact- 75 Eas mAoutiCery Ercryerpovaty xiBdHAwYV voutouaTwv xal UroyaAxwv Swonuctwv. obxouv Siddoxouev, dAAR oe elte TOU peyédouc TOU mpayuaTo>S cuviévTa

elta tadté TL TAGYOVTA TOtG aunyavw Bader tac Serco Evacretor xat lAlyye

AapBavouevorc, Ew tod madoug avtol xadtotapevor avaxtapeda (B 135°), elte tio cuvndouc mepteydpevov anpaypoouvng TH PeYaAOQuEL oe UTOALYVEU- 80

ovtEs TOD Lodo Thy aduulav UrotemvopEda. (6) ’AAN’ obtws pév Eym Depude, we Eouxe, ta ToLradTA avAP xal TEpa TUXOV

To Mpoanxovtos Tappyaiacths, auyvog xiwav (td tod Adyou) Peydévtwv F ETALIVOUVTMY, WOAY TLC AUTdV edvolag H wlcoug mpdg HAS Exwv xatrarayBe-

vinta. th dé atwrac xal adtéc, Pedcope BactAcd; odx edxalpws cor prAocoget- 85 TAL TH THS atYHSG. &voiEov mpdc adtov otédua, coplac mHYHY, mavtas hac

Sox Sé por xai adtov Siubdvrac Adywv éunrnser ovvécews. AdAnoov alte eic

Thy xapdlav un aduuety thy mpootaclav. xlvycov avt@ toug xatappaxtac tov vol, &Biccw TH o7} THY toUTOV mapaxaAd@v K&Buaccov, pwvac xpoTHoar

odyl Bpovtaics laac oxAnp® tH Hyw dradbsynywoas thy axony — xal toito pév 90 yap érxedav mAnttew Senon todo apaptavovtag — GAA’ ExtomHUNS Adyots NOLULAVTUXIS Huae ye téwe mepractpava, te CGvr. adtod Adyw xatl Evepyet, 59 &yywvts haud dubie cod., sed vox nobis incognita.

62 Jon. 1-2, 1. 64-65 1 Tim 3, 15. 70 Acta 13-15. 83 cf. Hom. II. 16, 264. ge

88-89 Ps. 41, 8.

20 Lf. Abtetlung xal ool Tov yapLtotHoLov mAcEaoDaL. metcov abtov (B 135”) a> ov yarerdv

&pyew avdpwrwv Und ye tolTH tatTeoFaL xatereryousvov xal mepLyapds 95 Statideuevov tH Tecywate. (7) Katrou ye cor, prravdopwndtate Baoidéwv, (yojvar yao olua. taANnd, AEyetv) ode TOAADGTY THY ApYoLeVw “otpa TO ExovoLov THS APY oupTAn-

pot’ Boayeta yao xal door xaroxayatia yarns xoowovpevor. &Ar’ Bums ov dia tovto ducyepaivers thy Baotretav, ob Suapopets thy dpyjy, od meptlatacae 100 TO UNMNKXOOV, HAAR xal Uh BovrAdmevos Kpyerc adtds xal Ady maLrdaywya Thy

OBow avtay xatayywv te xal xorAaCuv ert td ppovetv adtous eb warn emavayers xal cwppovety. (8) "AAW Eq’ Hudy oddév ToLrodtov edpetv, odd’ obtws Tic itads xal ovvesews &L01p06 wo YHpe dia SixadtyTa mavtTMs avTAéyetv Peod, AAA Kal mav105 Teg Kopevor xal TMaVTEG YaPLV AvOWMOAOYOUVTES (122V) Exl Tot¢g TapodGL Deo

Hal TavTEG AUTH Civ Eyvwxdtec, oby Exutotc. ap’ obv mpd EvTEdCWTOV AUTH mpopaciy aroBAsrEL TO OLA THY APYHV aduLELV; (B 136°) odx Eortww elmety.

toutwv dSedueda xal tTHv toLoutwyv, mavayade Bacircd, } pxAAov dpuxtotéog AOyou caynvyy xa Depwortépa Eqddw Aynucatwv parakar TO mpdg THY Huetépav 110 avtTod mpootactav atepedv’ olog abtbg duaym Adywv dSuvduer xal tuyye &yeev nal pépetv Moav EDEANS TOV EatovtTa, oldg te Ov xal wAgov érayeodat, Srep 6 pak exetvog Avpoto1ds, TOUTS ye TO wOAY, bau TIS alodnoews Korn. TOUTWY

Sedueda, Bactred, toutwy xat thyowev die cod. merodyoetal cov tots Adyots Dapedyv Feountidoc, obx atirdoer THY ErcarveTHy Blav, odx éxoer mapevdoxiy115 GML TO ELK] TOOGOV AUTG dEOG (Ov UN Eott PdBoG) THALXAUTNG dpETIS cvuBovAny,

} 7d ToD cuuBovAou ducumndeic KEdmoTOV, } TH xatplLwtépw weTaxALDels TOD

BovAsvuatos. GAA’ Eootto Tadta, Dedcove, xal dvatueda mavreg adtov, Td Wav DLETEPOV XOATOS TOV TONG Fedv ealtTny, TOV TVEVATLKXOYV TOLG Epyols émLYLVGO-

KXOV WAaTEOA, Huet O& TOV ToLeva, TOV apyLepea, Tov TPdSG (B 136%) Sedv dJrad120 AaxtThy, TOV TOG avooWTivoUs TAOROAOV TrELpMGWLOUG, Ly) OH xatémv TIS mepl

yap TO xatHpss ErovwTToOv Thy alodnow TOUG THY Saxpvwv aveotéuwoev dyetous, obtw Sh xal rd xa’ 2Arlda xardv SikYVOLV TPOLNTOUVLEVOY TH) PUGEL, TH TEPLTTO TOVG THY 6upATWV AVETANGEV 10 ky WY OUG.

(2) *AAAX cuvdpaywpuev xal Huetc, usp0g THs émrawveths TavTHS xal Laxaplag evppoouVysG YEevwWUEda, LETATYWUEV TOD KyLAoLOD, el xal UH yepol TIS (1237) copov mpooWavovtes, HAA’ obv tH TtotEL EyyiCovtes. odx EaTEevoyMpytat TK TOU TVEVUATOS TOT, OVdE StappAaTTyTaL TOL anelpyouaty H yaptc tva UH 16

xaVTADDA TapevdOXtUavTat ob THY yyw eldjuoves. obtws éyyiTouev xal tH TAVTA TANPOLVTL DEG. celta UH MAPEPYWS EXELVO axoUNTaL TO, yyloate mpdc

uc xal Eyy.@ Uuty, xal waxouvdueda TH amLotia TopvevovtTEes an’ avtod, WC TOPPW TOD aYAaDOD xal THS apETHS aTMOVEvOVTES. TL yxP KAAO TO xwWAVOV éyyiTeL

TH TavtTayoD mapovtt; GAA yao tL yor TaUTa xLvelv; mooodavwuev xal ob 20 TOPPW THG TAVAYLAG TAHUTIHG GOPOD, TatG THY OUUaTWV BoAatc ExapmMmEvoL, TH

OxK xatarAauBavouevol, TH CoMPHoEL THs cvVMdtag TOV Tiulwv dGTaY avTLAaLBavouevor. ate xal tovtoig THY yaPLV GUVAKY, TAG vdGoUG HUYadevELV, &TAV

odopotoloyv uty anotperetv. Tlétopov pow xai Tavaov davaunvynodyte ta&v SavUdtwv, TOD LEV TH OxLE TOU OE TH YOWT THY Govdaptuv Ta NMapddoEa évepyouv- 26

twv. tL dé xal O Eudo TaALW Gut "Iyncodc; wh mavTA TA TEpKOTLA TH KO?

xatarpattetat; Aalape, Setpo 2m, pnjat, xai idod mpdc Eoyov eddc 6 Adyos YOpEl, xal yao 7 Puvy Spaotixwtépa yerpdc, xal To Tapa TOD OTduUaTOS éxTELMVEV Evapyeotepoy EAxeL THY AYOVTWY TPOG TOV xXMAOUYTE.

(3) Obtog 6 tOTE xAndeicg 6 viv Hutv Ex Kumpov tH Pacrdéws avvécer Emt- 30 Synudy. Eder yao Eder unde tov torovtov Huss ayracwov votepety. oUtTOG 6 TPaTOG TH TOV SidacoxdArov pory TO TOD Davatov diacetcacg BaciAciov, obTOG 6 xadareo ATO TIVOG WooNs avdIC StavAodpOUHGas 6ddv, xal maAL ETECLVY WE

pac nmévte xal déxa xataraBav tH TapovoNs CwHs TO xaTHAVUR, xaL POG TOV AVTOD XADHYNHTHY Te xal PlLAoV avanTAS’ MODEL YAO TG MLAOvVTL GUVvEtvaL 35

Kal THA HEWV WET AUTO THY OpWLEVYV avaCwrUPODVYTOSG XOVLV, xAL POS aXOXTOV LLETAOTOLYELOUVTOG XATAOTAOLY.

(4) "AAAa yap oxdret Lor viv xal TOV mEpLMVULOY TOUTEV VaoV xal TIS DEeoU

copias étavupov ola tiva Euduyov mavdoyéa xat pweyaroduyov oxtptayta te xal ynddowevoy TH TOU Tavaylou TovUtov Inoauplauatos érteraddu, Ws KANDHS Te 40 mplv TOLG TANEGL TAEEN TH StdaoxaAw, GAD’ tv’ éx Kumpov tH Bacrrews ovvécer émiotac, adTés wéev EuTrouTevoL Fauucdorov olov totc mANVEow, KyraCor Sé TOUS GuvelAcypévous THS TMpodumlas TOUTO SGpov avTiAapBavovtac. (2) AAA yao xarov &v ely, xal tTHv Exel teAcodEvtwy THY yaApLV TH ADV

15 SreEedPeiv. (1247) Eotat yap toto tote pev elddowy Umouvjots, Tots 8° &yvoovat xaAov Sidayua, waAAov dé xowwdv Exatéporg EvtpuPHUA. MpbS TA TEPTVE

THA Eravaeyouey TH Adve Sia Tio anoHs nal Kx tTHS ao TOD ypovouv AWS Spaotixatepov pxpuaxov. Husa wev ovv Ureyaonaceto Hdy, xal Bacrreuc O Ta

Peta noAve and TOV avaxtdpwv axatav Sinoy avaBac tov xata Xpvodmoaty 20 Topdyov bn eipsatav déBare, tod Jelou AxCapou taiv datdv Kot. XpvooroAtv xararaBdvtwv EryBodos yevnoduevoc. eclotyxer dé thy avtinzopdpov &nacav TO

brhxoov arovaBdv, ac “Aapev tiva tepov bx0 mapanetacuate tH Daratty tov abtoxp&topa TO TOU topduov broduvtTa Sidotnux mpocdexbuevov. elye xat Pdracoav adTHY KyaAALapa Totc TeAoUmEVOLS CUvacpEvitovoay. ov yap UnTio

§0-52 Ps. 90, 13. 56 Pythagorae tribuitur: cf. Gaisford, Paroemiograph. graec. pp. 68, 573. 146, 293. etc. Tit. Sve pr. man.; Ste in ras.

3 elg supplevit Mango. 4 ayutaic dreppevyeofat cod.

R. J. H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas, C. A. Mango: Nine Orations of Arethas 23 TH POD Kal Noeuale Actoxduwv Setxvuusvyn obdév tL Tots Spwusvors cuu- 25 mpovupciovan yvitteto, xwpa@ dé TH xvpate Eordatvouca ob mods &ppdv Thy Shiv tpayvvovtr, AAA’ olov TOAAG TH Teptdvtt oxiptHoa te xal yeA@ou, mrav-

vt te TH EauTis peldpw tov Bactrcrov axatav mpoontueaota: xatemeryouevy

avidvte te xal xatidvta, ed av KAAwv oxapay h Standvriog th ayie rou) évteAcito Mapemeumev. cld|eg av xual TOUS tydUas HAAoLEVOUS TOTE xal d&vAadpawa- 30

XOVTAG, Kal WoTEpEl yopetav, HOU Déeapa, xat” Zovy xal cvotnuata sautdv ovyxpototvtas xal pwviv zorxétas mpojata taxa TO yivduEvov AvuLvELV Tovc

apavous BraCouevoug tov puaixov Seouov EyEavtac. Fv idetv exet xal KAA mapadogov, Thy VYpaY TMUPbG ELTOPOUGAY apddvov, xal ofc H pbotc extuayov THY ovvedevawy amedéorice, TOUTOLG H BactrAéws prdotinia evwevny xai TPOGH- 35 YOpov Eunyavato Thy cuvdpouyy. Tupaols Yap XNEOU TAEloTOLG SooLG xXKAAEL TE nal weyeder Toug TwWTOTE TAPEAAUVVOVEL XaL THY xaTa FdAACoav tourHy BactAEVS KaTATOLXLARS EurUpiCsadat THY Dypav THC Sadouyxtac Eupacer mapetyeTo.

(3) “Eet d& mpd¢ thy andBacw 6 axatag peta tod tepod mooacwoutTeto poptov, ovdete otic Evtavda tay te E& brepdekiov tH¢ KwvortavtivourdAews 4o EORKROUG KATACKOTOUVTWYV, TOV TE EX TOU TPAVEGTEPOUV avavevdvTUYV, Hdy dé xal

sQv && too tis arobatoas EvateniCdvtwv odyt TH Sher cvvarnvéxoy xal thy Wuyxnv Tepl Thy Uaxaptav TG Svtt Axovaxa EUMLAoyMpay xal Thy évarronetwev7y

Aatapou xdviv today mepimtucactar. xaterot wév obv Baotdeds abtos, (1247) Evdeog ev tdetv, Evdecatepos be THY Thy Spwuévwv Siadeowv. mpodyéovto da- 45 xpvav ABades AUTH THY OMdarlUdy, WS yous oluar THY dépFaAUGv LeyadorpsTELG ETTLOTEVOOVTL. ETEOAYLAEVETO THY MOUXTWPLAV, AnUTAGL TOUS évTUYydVOVTAC

deEvobuevoc. elrecg av adtov Mwiicéx dorep an” Sp0uc Ket tTHS vews xaTaBatVOVTH, xaL Deoyopapa meta TH TMapEGTtT. THY lepav Gopov TpOCKOUICOVTA, 7 xual Tov Euov “Incody AtaH>¢ mKOLW avawtyWULEVOV xal TH TMLECUG TOU auUIHTOV 50

ouvdaBduevov SyAov. 6 dopugdpos apydc, 6 meléETaLpos Havyos, 6 mponéuTOV TEPLTTOS, O TAPATEUTUY UATALOG TO COBAPoY EmLdelxvUcdaL, Ste xal TPGTOV

eLdouev Bacikéa TO TIS TINS Uev dvaxEeyweNXdTA Tots BovAowévoLS aTOTELTOwEevov, adTOV OE TOLG UTYxO0LG KyaNGvtTa cuvayeraCeadat, xal tov TOD de” Huac &VWDEV THC AVTOD S6ENS xevwdEvtos TaTEtvwov TOD BactActov TUMOD ErimpoG- 35 Sev &YOVTE.

(4) "AAAw th TO EvtedDev; elyev H MOAIG TOV abTOxPKTOOm ETA TOD TPLV Yevecdar aTLOTOV TOLG TOAADLG TEaYyUATOG. Hpeto yepaly h copds Gotars. duynv-

Siteto pvaAdotg we Edos puTdyv xat xopvuBors ol¢ todTO EmreAELA 7 EOS TO THE Delacg cogias Evdiattynua pEpovea. TpOHye Bacrdeuc. eimeto TO UmNKOOV. 00 eSwoarol tives xal xxAALWOATCOL TO VedTEUXTOV Kou EH Sov Ob BactrevG avTOUP-

yoo éyonuatilev. Oréotevev 7 7 TO Bape. THY Epyousvwv ayDouEVH THY AcwPOPOV. Ox Fy Tiva TOV MAPEVTOV UTAAARTTOVTA THY TOpELav Dexoactar, EdoxEt

Sé TAnpwua Tavtodanay avipwrwv ac dp’ Evi TONG XATEGTHAWLEVOV OPay. TATA TOL OYOAT xal BASH xal do GE doyxHs eUtaxtog Exaotos Thy ddbv da- 5 wovtec, Ove xat WoAts Tov TEELMvULOV vadv OrmeLanoyovTO, Evdu TH teoG TOUT

37 mapeAadvovtag cod.; correxit Jenkins. 38 éupzoct correxit Mango, tupazcets cod. §9 olg rotto éxtwededs cod.; Exiérctae cont. Jenkins.

48-50 Ex. 32, 15. §0~51 Marc. 5, 31.

24 I. A btetlung &Spoicpati, xadares ard tivo cupuetpov topo pelo, lc KYaves TL XUTOS ELOYEOpévn STOAWHPEY Te TAPEXWPELTO TOD wDicLOD, xal mMpbS aveTWTEPAY yEvoLEVED

xatcotacw, tecuatos addic Etépov Fy dvarlurAaotar. ppuxtol yap wetéwoor 70 &e’ bYyAoic Toi ixplors aipduevor xal TSE xdnetos elc Eurpoovey te xal brictev vov tepdv dmoAaBdvtes dxptBavta, xal ovuBorov tod cwryplov madous TH oY7parte Sicypdpovtes, FapBos duod xal xatanAnEwy tote dodo. mapelyovto. pic

yap &xpatov, bnodvyatopévy tH leo teveviopati, talc TOV dOuuatov adpdws meoonintoy tay cictdvtwv Borate xai olovel duvocov tag xdpag TH SpxotHPlw 75 tod péyyousg amnuBavve te tas Serg xat cuvetapatte, xal medg avaArniv TOU olxeiov 7H eto tod domuéevov oyordCew Emétpevev. Erexcdter Tots Duvouc vo tepov (125°) avotnua, émateyer xatwdev EEalorov UmNXOvV Talc UoBEBAn-

pévarc acavior to Edapoc. Hn yao Ady taco Bopetoug mopetac 6 HAvog TapyueiBeto xal mpdc Svaw mAciKdw Ta TIS Hoag weteppvdutCeto, Ste xai xpvouc 80 dnopuyyy &vOpwror pnyavopevor, 6 Taig bneotpwpevars TMAREL Pdorg MapEyeotar ESwAlatev, TA mOdS ToOVG Tbdacg Sia oTOUdTs Kyouow. Exel dé TH dele tToanely To obtws dElwc Sopupopydéev aretéedy, Ewxer wevt. Baotdeusg mpoSuucioda: tav clwddtwv gpetv ofc del MACAV TAVHYUPLY GELVOTEPAY ATEPYVEY.

émetye Sé Thy TeodvULav TV GuveADOvTOV 6 Dos Taig dxoals EvoyAdy, Stev 85 émel TouUTOV xaLpdG OD TapHY, adTOV Lev El¢ TOV ExLTHSELOV aTOTAPLEVOAGDEAL

xptvac xardv, d6Eav 8 obtw tous tepkpyag Thy Ewrdpyovoay mepimTUgacdar xdviv, éo” @ Te xatayaoar TH yelAy. évtadTA wor oxdmeL TOV oUvEthey LEVY TO TOG THY Tlotiv dSikmupoOv. Hoeto wev yap H xaduTTPA TIS aylag IyxNG, aUTOVPYODVTOSG xaL TOUTO TOU adTOXPKTO_OG, EloEopeL dE TAPEVTUG O TPOGALTA-

90 pddv SurA0s, tas tepac Bracduevos xryxAldac, oddev H xal mape PADAOV TO TOLC &dvtOLS ExrympraTerv Tos dviepous ToLodmEevos. Eddxer yao AdGapov we GANDA

Zumvouv éxetvov tdetv kot. tov Alou meptaipedéevtos TOU pvHatos, Kal TAALY ic Blov mpootayuatt TOD xaAODVTOG émavayouevov. EvteDtev cic apLdWOV tive ovaTaAévtwy Bpayby Tay doo THY UaXxaplav TAUTHY KaTaGAVTO KOvLV, ADDIC TH

95 xaAUTTO” 6 Fyoaveds HopadriCeto. xal yao Ededter Baorreds un xal TadoL TOV SyAwv én SiaerayHy tTHv tintwy dvypetiouévey Aerpavev, xal mP0G THY TOALav Aoitov TapAXLvdULVEVOVTWY TAG YELPAG STALCeoDar. adtod de mov THC LepaC

eEdmiotev toaméetync Aavtd 6 guts modo tov olxov "ABeddapa thy aAAHY TEWS xatatéepevos xiBwrdv, Tpds yhy te xArdelc xal TAUTH SAWS, @ TloTEWS avUTTEP-

100 PANTO, mepryvteic, Guuactwv te Depuotarats foats adta xal brynxdw Tavtt TAPALTYGALEVOS TX GUUMEpOVTA, TO AoLTOV HOH TH pvOTAyWYta MapEYwpEL.

od pévto. ye TOv épetiic t&v mpdc Fedv yaorotypiwv buvev anéAnyev, KAA’ érerdy Tepl AVyVwv apa moobBawe Ta THS Hucpac, Sevtépwv Ouvodidv Kor Tpds THY Ew APY TOTO xaKtotaTO, TOD TANDOUS wév amep &v TOUS TOLOUTOLG

105 PlAct Tov buvwv cKutArAav émiderxvvpevov, aywvodetouvtos 0° &vwte_ev ao TV

tep@v brepmwv adtod xal Thy wx@oav totg xadumeptepotor BpaBevovtoc. 69 opotxtol cod. 71 &roAaBdévtes correxit Mango, &modaBévta cod. 73 vrodvyaCouéve cod., quasi tenebricoso, sed vox non alibi inventa. 100 DJepotatwv cod.; correxit Mango.

48-50 Ex. 32, 15. 50-51 Marc. §, 31. 98 II , 10.Reg. 6

R. J. H. Jenkins, B. Laourdas,€.A. Mango. Nine Orations of Arethas 25 (5) "AAW & tocaldtyy uev Suundtav ty) of) 76Aet, tocottov 5¢ Inoavpdv Topladpevoc, ETL TocoUTov dé Tots Selous TaUTHY Exkpacs abynuact, elns Hutv

evdatudvanc el¢ paxpdtyta Stapxdv juepav, matnoas tydpovc, ducpevetc oxvevous toAeulouc, Aagpupaywynoas Urevavtious. Hxotev cor xal KAAwWY (125%) 110 avnxdwy mtpeaBerg EdvGv, THY ohv WS xal viv Bovayapo: &uayov sauny éxeyvwxotes, xat youvv tatc AaCapou moeeaBelarc tHv today Actyovtes’ Tdoupév of Kal KATA TAUTYVY THY xUplav TOV syxatviwy Huéoay, 00 TO elw TOUT xaAALTTOV TE XAL LEYAAOTPEMEGTATOV ETELEViOW vadv, PALdPGs Lev EopTaCovTA, yapudov-

vov O& dtaxetuevov, tepoteAcatixGs te THY Svtws TOD Deod xiBwrov TH ExuTHS 115

XATATAVOVTA olxw xal tos aEloug and tHv obtw mapa TOD xpaTous buUdv TETLUNUEVOV ULLGTOUG xouLCduEvov viv Te xal cig Thy Exetdev Bactrciav’ yévorto. OILY.

(4) LUpBorov mlatews Emirdovey Ext TH THS EmLoxoTS aVTOD TMpOYELPLOEL.

(1) Kat tov éxxAnoimotixoyv a&téttatvov vouov cldwc, tov &vW yedvou tod nad NuKs Kyou TpoG TOdE xaDHXOVTA, O¢ TAtS iepatc ACyrarpectatc Adyov Srdévan THC xaT auTOV EATLOOS TOV ExAcydmevov BovAETaL, xal THC EUHS ovdevetacg BaCAVOV TLVA XaL SOXLLAYV Duly THG MloTEWS TAPEYOMEVOS, EV F xaL yeyEevvyjaL xal

EXTEVPAUUAL XAL DEOD yapiTL EoTHXA, Fy xal ouvareAdety edyouar TOD LOYXU- 5 p00 ToUde aapxtov AvoElc, EmML THY TAaPOVEAY, @ tepéwv Deod xal apyrepewv

ayLMtatov cuvtayua, (B 1377) Eyypapov apwpunuar Guoroyiav, OOX ATO xapStas AnA@V od8& Qwvdv and ic, OTmEep 6 Ta yelAn TO vOTLX® xadapdelc kvI pax. TECMNTIS Tioly eTmiéugeTar (uavia yao kvtixpUS TEP LEYaAWV OTH xaL THALKOUTWY ODO’ EoTLV doov ciety AUTH yoHjoacdar SidacxadAw xal xad’ 10 EXUTOV, TO KOdUEVOY, TAiTeLy Krav Exrapards Te xal dAcdptuc), & dé Tapa THY

etddtwv peuadyxa bd ye TO Selw THs dAndelac mvevuate SidacxdrAw, Ov &Ahow TE “upto. TOV Deopdpwv Tatépwv xal TpoaéeTe obs 6 EmTA StapdpOLS ayLaLs cuvddots Kprdw6s érrytwmMoxet Aoyadas. Ov xal Dapinaus Talc KyvoTaTaLs EVYALG

Hvorga otéua xat etAxvon mrvedua, el xal un xa’ éxelvouc, AAA’ ovv xad Goov 15 6 TH edyouéva drd0vc6 evyny Eyvwxev’ SovaTtar yap OUTOG, HG ye TLOTEVWY TAP EUMUT@ xExpLxa, xal Gomov Fetvar TOV &cOMOV xal AdyoLg GUVEGEWS TH TOD

dovvéetou émidadircvonota. otduatr. Sev apEauevor Acyouev, aoynvy exetvyny xXaAALoTHY TOD (B 137°) HuEetepov mo0cTHNOapEVOL Adyov.

(2) Med¢ july mathe, TavtoxpatWp, TAaVTWY aPYH xal Attia, N Laxapla Opo- 20 Aoyia, weta tav && adtod dypdvws Te xal duEpGic xal avexporTHTMWS, EvvTOOTETWG TPOtdvTWY Adyou xal mvEevMaATOS, TOD EV YEeWyTH>, TOU dé ExropEUTAc, Hvtwa Symote tTavTHY THY yéevvyoiy 7} THY ExmdpevoL Ewoelty, TADS EUTADOUG

te xai aicdyntis brepxetevyny xivyjcews te xal ayécewes, 6 Sy tprada ev povads xal wovada év torcdr 6 edoeBng &vwhev Adyos amyxpiBwaoato, obtE TA TPLTTY 25 ic Stapdpous QvceIc LavLWda> xaTaTEUvwv, OUTE TO Eviatas cig wlav Lovdatxade cuvarciowy Umdotaci, GAAd TO wév ToLTTOV amovéUWY Tate UmootacEct, TO Eviatov d¢ tH tHS ovaiag anoxAnp@v ayLoTyTL. (1267) Eder yap Eder wh wovev

1 TOU} mou B. 10 abt] adta codd. yenoactar] xejodar B. 8 Is. 6, 7. 11 Gaisford, Paroemiograph. gr. B 528.

26 I. Abteilung moAdarchod tivos eEnptyoda te pet’ exetvo dia toto Sapopa, aAAR SH xat 30 mpd¢ plav dpyhv cuvayeoSal te xal dvarelvectar, tod cxedacuod xat tis ametplas édevIepobpeva. are obv (B 138") xal Adyosg Hyouv vidg (AéyeTa yap &upottpws), tH piv To aradic tig mpoddou, tH dé 1d mpdc Thy TPaTHY altlav KATA Thy pda enrderxvduevov &napdArAaxtov, xal mvedua KyLov talc UrootadE-

aw bvous, cuvevapyd te xal cuvatdia xat atovia xai pydevi trav TH me@Ty xa

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rvedpa tio TOU Tpokyovtos ovatac shitmrov’ UBpic yap &vtixpug todtTO TOU 40 mbovtos } pddven éxpbaoic mpoddotg te 2E adtod atipodvtos } dodevete TPOG ad THs ypetag xardv evdedic Eyovros, lta mpd td tH lodtyTOG Hrtov tots attorg auvuroBalvovtoc, ob tt av GAO yévorto EumAynxtotepov; TaUTY TOL dooF; ywOouy xal dxanyredt@ ppovawate povada pév tavtwv dyn ceBouev (B 138%),

Surthy dxwhtws, Thy pev yewytas, thy dé Exmopeutiic, Gomep Epae, eb 45 tautig mpoBadrropevyy Srédctacw, wed’ Gv TO tTpiTTOV bmayopever TMV UTOGTEcewv, pévovoav SynAadh todto tH pvcer Smep Evac Eoti te xal AcyeTat, Kal ULNTE sae Sirtac brootécers PatéEpA THY TpOdSev MpoKyoUGay (EATS YxP aV ObTWG

, Fv to botepodvt, tHv Seonperdv npoddwv atiwovpevy), pnd éExatépav TANSbovcav talc the Toonywyys ExtSdceary (Ste wd alodytat abrar, und? obx 50 abt&pxws ExuTaic Eyovoat mpdc teAetmany), GAw@ dé TH elvar ta eG aUTHS TepOBadrouévyy xal oddevi KAkw 7) TH ye TedmH THs Mpoaywy7s TO TOOG EKUTA

natadedey eva Sidpopov cobyyutov Exdotw xal uévovoav Thy Tpoaywy)y auvwnpetv, odte thy cig dAAHAaC TOV Uroctécewv weTaBoAny SPLSTALEVWY 7) TH vyovinw TaAL TO pds Toy naTEpa SHDev arapahAaxTov éuderxvupevev (7b609H 55 yap ToUTO THs &tpémTOV xal paxaplac dnépérrta proewe), (B 139") ov TO GUVE-

ordpetadar mpd¢ Sjwov atporCopéve Sedv (mide yap av ouvapiduntety, of¢ 27) cém0¢, Un yedvos, wh pdaicg xal LSidmres &mopepilduevar Thy TOG dAANAa sovtwv elonyettar SmadAayhy;), 008’ ab ye puppov TH tod mavtds 7} xa Ome TO nav éxkotou rAnpwtina ths Sv AAANAwY ereracaxyobans MEpLYwPHCEWS’ Level 60 yap éxdoty xal peta ToUTo (@ Fadux) map’ Exuty, xal THs exvty}c LSudtynTO0¢ Ox Elorarar. wovas obv &tpentéc te xal dvaddrolwtos H Ev torads 7H TMpooXUVOULLEVY,

SebtyG, ToUTO peta Thy mpdodov pévovaa, 6 mpderary Ev AUTH, xal TOUTO Tpotodoa, & péver map” sauty’ TO ye Evi (126%) tee woven GAAR UY TOLKLAOLG TALC LSidtyot Tod Evdg EErota&evov, dvernpéaotov Shrov Thy mpd TO Ev Eyer émLoTpO-

65 phy, olg ph mavtn oxeddvwra, mds bv xopupodpevov xal ol To bTAAAATTOV nexdfpwtat, Tod évdo axedavvduevov’ Excdtepov yap Uy YNPEvOV Satépov Tv

te Tept thy Selav plow aneppawwovtev tag broAnpers ExtpemeTat nal ads cate adtaic Sov} (B 139%) peor td dmeupalvery Soxodv vrodverat. GAN’ 6 utv rept tio &vw Deodroylas Adyos ev todtog dvarenavedu, pdBuw te TOV 70 aveplnutey To n&vTn mepiTtov elAaBovpevos xal Kua THs Ex Tob xdpou AMAVLOTH-

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6 tabta cuvexpotetto xal témog tij¢ aywvlag td fepdv pitatwptov, emt- 30 G&AAetc Sé xpiatv, copmtate, Svdpl tq Bdp|er tig pudaxiic tHv lepHv xduvovtt xavdvuy xat tabty ye Si} xexAtpéve we toly~ nal’ ad ppayps &newopévy, Sv x&v b¢, td toO Adyou, Saxot, adtdc Oy tv torodtwy Fay rab@v td xpttiptov, BactAeds oddev tHv Ext voOv rxdvtwv ele dv7vutoy Tepatvopevos (nav yap dnontyacet tiv Suvactelayv), B¢ xat Sy- 35

1 Sol: xol cod. 12 4 cod. 34 xprtiprov incertum 32 Ps. 61, 4 33 cf. Gaisford ‘Paroem. gr. 200

332 _ R.J.H. Jenkins, Basil: Laourdas woolots ([nnoctactore, 00 xata BactAéa tolto mov, xathkyets tov ouKOpavtyy to pebdog oudAgExcbar xai ma&dcv dv&vets thy HOpotopevyny adr

tepatevonobar praplav, xal ta0ta mpootdypatt xal Adyore Sryveplots te xal tAots, ob} mpdypacty aAyBéot xal Bebalors, ol¢ xal Sobetor 5 pOyts apytep|ebs Geo aAloxectar mépuxe’ tle yap xal mpaypatog BeGardtyns ob pyde tiv apyty brdotacty Eyvwpev, Os 8 ye “Iwavyys o td Eexwvupov “PabSoby0¢ &AyPeias suvnyopobons napéotyae;

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dvaxaBbapoty éxnovijoat xal Stavdanc0ar, xal efoéte xal viv brdédixoyv 8 toO eEyjxovtog yetpMvog moAAole pév Apytepebot AvOFvar tHe xataSluyg Hpas B6cdoato, tuyelv 5° oddaiie SeS0vyjtar toO oxonod. dA” Bye tOv Exatov mevtyxovta matepwv Extoc xavwy, S¢ tautyvl thy pactAiba 20 thy méAewv fepdv Sixactyprov ExAynpwmsato, néppw noppw morettat tHI¢

tv fep@v Stayvwdcewy xtyxAlBo¢ tobe tale mordtynat tabtats meptototyoupévoug (152v) xal torcobtov to ExutHy napéyovtas yywptopa. 4. Kat Ste wey odx év Stxy cdde Oelwy Oeopiy, od modArtixdy vé-

pwy éydpeva ta pet& xetpag xa hudwy eyxerpovmeva, capi tadta 95 Onéotyoe. xdv pév, oupnabéotate Bactded, tH E exis xpwpevog 6rxaLoavVY atoxrelans tots Htv EpeSpevdoucr ta ta, xual tov Opxzody nal ad8c6y xal dAalova xal Sa taita Aotpov Hudopayatony tij¢ &tnatag tipnoy Cypiacs, Slxarov Svta mokA@y Evexey SrmodAwdAévar, 8¢ odx

ESercey dyarSeotaty yywpy oxtvoahods Huly éyxAynpatwy dvanrdcoacbar

30 xal tpayeAdpoug xal toOt éxetvo td xal xata "Alavaciou to Betou dotdipov tiv “Apoeviou nepipepopévyy advavewouobar yetpa, ef taO0” oftw mpobaiyc, xdpre Oe@ v0’ dy odx enéotynoas ceautdy eo” alpare

d0my, péxp: to vOv t¢ ye olopar gyxauyg, GAA’ &eidou tiv duyhy cov x Oavitou, tods SpOaApovs cou and Saxpbwv xal tobe néEa¢ cov and 35 6AroOypatog’ ob th Av Epol xepSadewtepoy BAdo tH wy) xata akpxa Stayevouévey Opty xal tiH¢ éwautod xdprv ebrotpiag xal, 8 pacty of cool,

9 cf. Pap. Ker., Var. Gr. Sacr. 263 11.4-6 19 Rhall. Potl. 2, 181, ll. 10-14 81 cf. PG 25 col. 364 B

, Eight letters of Arethas 333 yaotpdg Exatt; tuxdv SE tr xal mAzov tote xpeittoav Eber Ete py} TOLOUTY) xaOKPLate SrercalyOys tH xpetttove Npoovepdpevoc. ef SE pe ta

xelpw vixmy, tiH¢ Stuns pév aobevovane avtdiSopéevwyv 8° Hy tots dpyGar tovpob meetv alatocg, épol pev td Exel xprtyprov a&roxelcetar cig Stxatworv & py) mpdownov olde Oaupadtercy pdt Suvaotyy évtpéne- 5 oOat, tH 5 Spetépa~ Bactreta eb olSa petapeAnoer xd&v tovtm wmonep gp’ ol¢ KdAorg petéyvwxag xa’ Hudy entyerpnoas novypa@y a&vOpwrwy xat &hactopwv yvwpace mecOdpevos (ef nal pydév mAgov byty tH petaEdm ouvyveyxe), AoyraOycetar 58 xal Hutv xal tote Adore macdead ta Tmapéyta xxl tHv ént dbd&pou olxodop@v xat oddév Anervov’ xal ye 10 totovtoug hel moAgpous pao Srwxecy evCdpeda.

2 pe ta cod. 8. T@ avt@ peta éatiaoty toayzéory Epogunoart Adyocc. 1. Odte xxbéSpac, prdavOpwrdtate Bactred, Eqrépevos Excroxdmwy

(no y&p, 8¢ poyts exévevaa alSot xat Bia petamerabels matpd¢ xal Seondtou; loacr cyeddv anavtec, éxlatatar xat ypdvog ext tocobtov mapatabets), ote odv Opdvenv ExcOupia, o8 S6Eyo xevijic Epwte xal tH 5 tig elvar voulCecbar mapa Bactret ent thy napodoay xatéotyy a&modoylav’ tlh yap wor xal dene tig Svtwe aAAotproboys xal G&ttov Spanetevovans; ZAAK xatéotyy Str prot TO bwetepov xpadtog tH mpotepaia Omép xatvos...

Primus edidit Kougeas. 9 cetera desunt.

HISTORICAL COMMENT! I. Chronology. These documents fall, chronologically, into two

groups. The first comprises No: 1 only, which can be dated on

internal evidence to shortly after March 1, 901 (No: 1 § 3). 1 Please note the following abbreviations: Sokr. B. Kougeas, ‘O . Katcapstag *“ApéOag xal td Epyov adtod (Athens, 1913), cited as Kougeas; N.

Popov, Imperator Lev VI Mudry i ego Tsarstvovanie (Moscow, 1892). cited as Popov; Zbvtaypa tHv Oslov xal fspdv xavévev, ed. G. A. Rhallis,

384 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas The second group, comprising Nos: 2-8, is exclusively concerned with Arethas’ opposition to the fourth. marriage of the emperor Leo VI. The last but one of this group, No: 7, can be accurately dated on internal evidence. It tells us that. Arethas is to be tried asecond time on a charge of impiety, that Euthymius 1s already patriarch, and that the winter of 906-7 is already over (No: 7 § 2, 3). No: 7 therefore is datable to the spring of

907, and probably to March, since “no long time”. after the appointment of Euthymius (V. E. 55/9), who became patriarch

in late February, Arethas came back from exile to make his peace with Euthymius and the court. The dates of two others, No: 5 and 8, can be fairly closely established. The short fragment of No: 8, the latest of the group, belongs probably to the end of March 907 (see below). No: 5, §§ 4 and 8, refers to the impending trial of Arethas, for which. No: 7 is his defence; but at least a part of it (§§ 3 and 4) seems to refer explicitly to Nicholas Mysticus, who is still not deposed and still working for the fourth marriage of the emperor; therefore December 906 or January 907 is the most probable date for No: 5.

Nos: 2, 3,4, 6 provide little internal evidence for a close dating. They are all bitter attacks on Leo’s fourth marriage, which is assailed with every kind of scriptural and - Aristotelian

argument. What does emerge from them all is that Nicholas Mysticus is still patriarch; and, as the chief advocate of the marriage at this time, he is the the chief target of Arethas’ abuse. Now, as we shall see (below, p. 340), it is beyond all question that Nicholas continued his efforts to break down Arethas’ opposition to the fourth marriage at least until 6 January

907, after which he seems to have given up in despair and to have himself adopted that line of resistance to it which, in after

years, he claimed to have followed from the first. Hence we shall not be wrong in adopting early January 907 as a terminus ante quem_for these four letters. But what is the terminus post quem?

It seems clear that the emperor-Leo had no intention, or at least expressed none, of marrying Zoé Carbonopsina until after

the birth of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, which was his sole _ M. Potlis (6 vols., Athens, 1852-59), cited as R.- P; Vita Euthymii, ed. C.:De Boor (Berlin, 1888), cited as V. E.

Bight letters of Arethas 335 object in forming the liaison‘. There are arguments for placing Constantine’s birth either in May or 1n September of 905; but it is not important for our discussion to decide between them. It can at least be said that Nos: 2, 3, 4, 6 cannot be earlier than May 905; and this is confirmed by an actual reference in No: 3,§3, to the birth of the child. But there are reasons for belie ving that these four letters, which are very similar in tone to one another (indeed, Nos: 3 and 4 form parts of a single diatribe),

may be placed in a narrower period than this, namely, in the period between May 906 and January 907. First, it was only after Leo's illegitimate fourth marriage (April 906; below, p. 337) that Nicholas began openly to work for the “dispensation” and to persuade his metropolitans in the same direction. It was then

that he encountered the stiff opposition of Arethas, and, as we have said, Nicholas and his policy are the chief objects of Arethas’ attack. Secondly, it was only after the fourth marriage had taken place that Leo was banished canonically from the church. Now, in No: 3,§4, we have a clear reference to this: Arethas urges Leo to adopt his advice and rid himself of Zoé, so that he can once more ‘‘dwell in the tabernacles of the Lord” from which he is outcast. No: 4,§11, twice refers to the same. Nos: 3 and 4 therefore are certainly datable after April 906. Thirdly, it is remarkable that whereas Arethas led the opposition to the marriage in conjunction with Epiphanius of Laodicea’, yet at the christening of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (January 6, 906) Epiphanius alone is mentioned as protesting. Why was this? The obvious explanation is that Arethas was not there to protest. In No: 7,§3, Arethas says, “Your God- guarded Majesty sent me

to Hellas to finish and fulfil the purification of those many churches from their defilements”. This mission appears to have

been made necessary by the Saracen devastations of Greece between the years 902 and 904. If the concluding ceremonies of repair and re-dedication were performed by Arethas in Thessalonica (captured July 31,904) and elsewhere, they were probably

not ready for his participation in them hefore late in 905. If his mission lasted some months between 905 and 906, he would

certainly not have been in Constantinople at the time of Con1 V.E. 114; Popov, 97, note 4. 2 V.E. 41/2, 26-27; Kougeas 74- 75.

886 R.J.H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas stantine’s christening, and perhaps not at the time of the fourth marriage itself. It is tmpossible not to wonder whether he may not have been purposely sent out of the way during these events,

to which he was bound to have taken very strong exception. What need was there to send the Archbishop of Caesareia all the way to Hellas, tn order to do what could have been done

just as easily by the local bishops? |

_ With all this in mind, we think it certain that the second

March 907. . The order in which the texts should be arranged chrono-

group of letters (Nos: 2-8) falls within the period May 906 to

logically is exactly that of the manuscript. No: 1 is of course the earliest, datable to 901. The title of No: 2 shows that it is datable to the beginning of the trouble over the marriage, at least as far as Arethas had to do with it, and it therefore precedes 3-8. Nos: 7 and 8 are respectively from early and late March 907'. No: 5, as we saw, dates from the turn of the years 906 - 907. And Nos: 3-4, a single diatribe in two parts, which contain no reference to the forthcoming trial of Arethas, fall naturally between Nos: 2 and D.

II. The Fourth Marriage of Leo VI. The emperor’s third wife, Eudocia, died on April 12, 901. She was delivered of a son, who was christened Basil after his paternal grand-father ?, but who

died immediately. The throne which Basil I had thought to be firmly established in his family was still without an heir. Not one of his sons had begotten a surviving male child. In deciding to marry a fourth wife, Leo had no consideration in mind but the paramount duty of producing a son to succeed him’. Not long after the death of Eudocia‘, he began to think of a new union. By the summer of 904° Zoé Carbonopsina was living in the Palace as his mistress. In May or September 905 she gave birth in the Purple Chamber to a male infant, the future emperor Constantine VII. Leo’s next objects were to baptize the child, to have him acknowledged as the legitimate heir to the throne, and to marry his mother. The patriarch Nicholas, like a true 1 On the date proposed by Kougeas (p. 20) for No: 8, see below.

2 De Cerimoniis, ed Bonn., 643/19-20. ®* Popov 97 note 4. 4 PG CXI, col 196C. 5 Cont. Geo. Mon., ed. Bonn., 862/14.

Eight letters of Arethas 837 successor of Photius (below, p. 340), was prepared to support | these plans. But he met with resistance from many of his (Ignatian) bishops. The christening of Constantine with full imperial

honours was carried out on January 6, 906. But it was only agreed to by the clergy (and not by all of them)! on the understanding that Leo should abandon his mistress. However, three days later, on January 9, he received her back into the Palace, and there she remained until he persuaded the presbyter Thomas to marry them. He then with his own hand placed the imperial crown on her head’. It is important for the chronology of our documents to determine as closely as possible the date of this marriage. We know

that it took place after 9 January 906, which is the date on which Zoé, still unmarried, returned to the Palace. We may con-

clude that it took place before 1 May 906, when the patriarch Nicolas made his first offer to provide “‘dispensation’’ for it by receiving Leo into the church at the festival of the encaenia of the Nea*®. We know also that it took place peta thy éoptyy‘. Is this festival the Epiphany (January 6) or Easter (April 13) ? Other evidence suggests the latter. Nicholas stated six years later® that the papal delegates arrived'in Constantinople ‘“‘in the eighth or ninth month” after the marriage. The delegates in question_ar-

rived in February 907°. April 906 was ten months before this date; but January was thirteen. It seems most probable that the marriage took place immediately after April 13, perhaps on the following Sunday.

III. Attitude of Church and State on Fourth Marriages. The early Christian Church, free to interpret as it liked the words of 1 Corinthians 7, was not severe on marriages contracted one

after the other by the same person. Dionysius the Great of Alexandria (c. 200-265) was one of those who interpreted the words of St. Paul in a very liberal spirit (No: 6 § 2). The Latin Fathers, Jerome and Ambrose and Austin, were of the same 1 oV. E. 87/16- 17.

2 PG CXI, col. 197 A-B; ‘Cont. Geo. Mon. 865/9; V. E. 60/26; Popov 105-106; G. Kolias, Léon Choerosphactés (Athens, 1939) 49 - 68.

8 V. E. 38/8; cf ibid. 44/21. 4 Cont. Geo. Mon. 865/8 - 9. 5 PG CXI, col. 201 A. 6 V.E. 123-124; Popov 132 - 138.

838 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas opinion!. But in the Eastern Church since the 4th century the rule governing fourth marriages was that laid town or implied by Canons 4, 50 and 80 of St. Basil (MPG XXXII, cols. 673, 732, 805: R.-P. [V, 102-107, 203-205, 242-245). These edicts are discussed at very great length by Arethas in No: 4 (§§ 2, 3, 5 etc.). Canon 4 is not, as he points out, relevant to fourth marriages, since the phrase tptyépuv xal nodAvyépwv means not *‘persons who marry three times and persons who marry more

than three times”, but “‘persons who marry three times, that 1s, polygamists”, an interpretation which 1s supported by Canon 50. Canon 80, on the other hand, deals expressly with persons

who marry more than three times, stigmatizes this practise as “‘bestial and wholly alien ‘to the human race’’,and imposes a penance of probably eight years’?. There are certainly ambiguities in Basil’s ordinances, taken together; and of these ambiguities the friends .of Leo were quick to take advantage. But to the candid reader the obvious implication is, not only that such marriages entail heavy punishment, but also that they are not marriages at all, which implies the separation of the parties before the period of penitence can begin. It was some centuries before the civil law was revised in conformity with the canons. But the

Procheiros Nomos of Leo’s father Basil I, datable to the years 870 - 879, at last made this revision, and interpreted very fairly the sense of the canons in question: “‘A law was laid down by the ancients, and confirmed by the most pious Justinian, whereby those who wished might extend cohabitation as far as a fourth marriage; he had in .mind, no doubt, to how many persons it naturally happens that their partners in marriage die early, when they themselves are still youthful, and nothing can resist their natural desires; So that it happens to such that they are debarred from chaste wedlock, and turn to criminal intimacies. We, who are subject to the same natural weakness, might well adhere to the ancient laws in this regard; but we see that the sacred (sc. canon) law forbids it. For this reason Our Serenity, wishing to curb the abandoned passions of those in love, forbids anyone to proceed to a fourth cohabitation, and orders that those who have proceeded to a third shall be subject to the canonical penalties of the Church; so that the same writ shall run in the

' 4 Popov 148 note 8. 2 R.-P. IV 244-245.

Eight letters of Arethas 339 case of a third cohabitation as in that of a second. Let it now

be absolutely clear to all,thatif any shall dare

to proceed to a fourth marriage, which 1s no marriage,not merely shall sucha pretended marriage be of no validity and the offspring of

of it be 1llegitimate, but 1t shall be subject to the punishment of those who are soiled with the filthinesses of fornication,it being understood that the persons who have indulged init shall be separated from one another”'. The canonical -penalty against those who married even a third time was re-inforced, in very vigorous language, by Leo VI himself 1n his 90th Novel *,

at a time when he had no idea that he himself would one day transgress up to this point, and beyond it. This revision or “‘purification”’ of the civil law by both Leo’s

father and by Leo himself is alluded to by Arethas in No: 3, §9 and No: 4,§10. There can be no doubt that so far as both canon and civil law went Arethas and his party had an unanswerable case. And as both the civil laws had been issued under the name of Leo

himself, his action in violating them was doubly unfortunate. IV. The Church Parties; Attitude of Arethas. It has been rea-

lized, at least since the publication of Popov’s book’, that the Churc hat this time was still divided into two parties, just as it had been a generation before. The supporters of Nicholas inherited the broader, more worldly policy of the Photians, which tended to support the wishes of the emperor. The supporters of Euthymius inherited the narrower, more conservative and more independent

tradition of the Ignatians. If this is so, how then, asked Popov, did it come about that on this occasion the party traditionally favourable to the worldly policy of the emperor (the Photians)

ahould have resisted the fourth marriage of Leo VI, and the pary which traditionally upheld the scruples of the Church against all secular interference (the Ignatians) allowed that marriage to

be recognized? But the first of these two questions rests on a 1 Zepos, Jus Graeco - Romanum, 2 128 - 129; cf. 6, 235. 2 ed. Noailles - Dain 296 - 299.

8 160-165; cf. DGvornik, The Photian Schism (Cambridge, 1948) 276 - 277.

840 R.jJ.H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas misunderstanding of the conduct of the Photian - Nicholaan party

from the date of the marriage until January 907. The fact is that during all these months Nicholas, in the true Photian tradition, did his utmost to persuade his bishops to agree to a dispen-

sation in favour of the marriage. It is true that in the period before the marriage actually took place Nicholas himself bad not been wholly consistent in this policy. Arethas repeatedly accuses himof wavering from one side to the other (Nos: 3, § 8; 4, § 10; 5, § 2,

etc.). He was obviously torn between loyalty to the emperor and dread of splitting the church (below, p.341) A passage of the V. E. (43/27-28) shows that some time before 907, perhaps as early as 905’, he had made with his bishops a declaration of unanimous opposition

to the marriage, or at least a declaration that no decision either way should be taken except on a unanimous vote. But there can be no doubt that the tenour of his whole policy between May and December 906 was in favour of recognizing the marriage. Certainly, when he wrote to the Pope in 912%, he pretended that he had consistently opposed it. But this is false: not only does V. E. prove it so*, but also the writings of Arethas, both of this and later periods, show conclusively that at this time Nicholas was strongly in favour of the marriage, and Arethas against it. Writing to Nicholas in 912, when their:réles had been reversed, Arethas says: “I was following you when I changed my mind (sc. in favour of the marriage): for you at that time were very

loyal to the emperor and most eager to admit him into the church....I do not know what caused you to turn about and adopt a stiff and harsh attitude instead of the more humane and loyal one which you had hitherto maintained” .. So loyal in fact was Nicholas to the designs of the emperor that the author of V. FE. was able to attribute his subservience to blackmail (p. 38). But there was one thing that not even he would do: and that was to start a new church quarrel by a partial 1 This earlier decision from which Nicholas has now seceded is often referred to by Arethas (cf. Nos: 3, §8;5, §§ 3, 5). The statement of V. BE. (pp. 37, 43) that Nicholas was as early as 905 blackmailed into taking the part of Zoé and her unborn child cannot be accepted without

independent testimony. -* PG CXI, cols. 196 - 201.

® Cap. XI- XIII; cf. De Boor ibid. 160 ff. ~

‘ Varia Graeca Sacra, ed. Papadopoulos - Keramevs (S. Peterburg, 1909) 264/22-80.

Eight letters of Arethas , 341 and unilateral decision in Leo’s favour. Nicholas had been appointed patriarch by Leo in 901 on the understanding that-he | was to be “‘guardian of the peace’, that peace which his predecessor Cauleas had recently made between the Photian and

Ignatian parties. Many passages bear witness to the capital importance of this church unity in the eyes of Nicholas'!. He was only prepared to grant official dispensation if his bishops were unanimous. But to this unanimity there was one inSuperable obstacle: the resistance of Arethas?. Arethas was himself by tradition and education a Photian of the Photians*. He had until 901 been a close friend of the Photian patriarch Nicholas (No: 1, §§ 2,3). Yet here, in 906 and 907, we find him writing as an orthodox Ignatian, with a bitter personal hostility to his one-time friend‘. He uses all the stock Ignatian invectives, abusing the sudden elevation of an upstart layman to the patriarchate(No? 4,§§1, 10), and the wordly and time-serving policy of the Photian / Nicholaan party in general (Nos: 2, §7; 38, 886, 10; 5,§ 6), who regard the emperor’s whim as &ypapos von0¢ (No: 4, § 9). He takes up a stiffly conservative attitude against Tarasius’ dispensation for Constantine VI (No: 3,

§ 9). He isthe friend and teacher of a rigidly Ignatian pupil, Niketas Paphlago®. And he is in touch, through the same Ntiketas, with the Ignatian /Euthymian party (below, p. 344). How is this change of front to be explained ? Great scholar as Arethas was, his private character appears to have been very far from estimable. His betrayal of his pupil Niketas in 907 was especially odious*®. There is reason to think that he had from the first been envious of the elevation of Ni1 V.E. 48/24 - 44/10; Varia Graeca Sacra 256/16 - 22.

2 That by the end of 906 Nicholas had got the great majority to follow him can be inferred from Nos: 2, § 5; 5,§3, where Arethas admits

that his own party of opposition is a small one. ° Kougeas, 5. « Cf. his repeated jeering at Nicholas’ myopia: Nos: 4, § 8; 5, § 4; cf. Néo¢g ‘EAAnvopvinwv 8 (1912) 305/27.

5 Below, p.344. Papadopulos - Keramevs, in Viz. Vrem. 6 (1899) 22-23,

wonders how Niketas can have been a pupil of Arethas and yet have

written against Photius in the Vita Ignatii. He did not realise that

6 V.E. 58/9 - 12.

between 903 and 906 Arethas had changed parties.

23

842 } R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas cholas to the patriarchate’, an office which he coveted for himself and hoped, as Popov acutely conjectures’, to obtain in succes-

sion to Euthymius. This latent enmity was certainly increased by the refusal of Nicholas to take any action against Xylomachaeris in 901 (below, p. 351). Arethas therefore, after his appoint-

ment as archbishop of Caesareia in 902 or 903%, joined the opposition party in the Church. We have suggested above (p. 335) that it was in view of his inevitable hostility to the fourth mar-

riage that he was sent abroad during the critical period when Nicholas hoped to induce the Church to sanction it. This plan failed; and on his return Arethas entered the struggle with ardour. The emperor knew very well from what quarter the Opposition arose, and made every effort, through Nicholas himself (below, p. 344), through his protovestiary the patrician Samonas

(No: 5, § 1), and through his agent Xylomachaeris (No: 7, § 3) to overcome it. But Arethas stood firm. At last, in January 907 Nicholas himself could no longer hope for a unanimous dispen-

sation. Faced with the alternatives of splitting the Church or

resigning himself, he was true to the terms of his original appointment and chose the latter. In this way Arethas had his revenge. While these documents fully explain the respective attitudes

of Nicholas and Arethas towards the fourth marriage in this initial period, they do not solve the second difficulty posed by Popov. That up to January 907 Photians should have supported the marriage and [gnatians opposed it was in keeping with the traditions of their parties. But how can we explain the fact that after Nicholas had at length been forced by Ignatian intransigeance to give up the idea of a dispensation and to resign, the Ignatian party themselves, headed by Euthymius and Arethas, should have turned about and themselves given the dispensation?‘ It is hardly possible to disagree with Popov’s explanation * that.the Ignatian party, which had been “‘out of office’’ since the death of Ignatius himself (877), was prepared to make this sacrifice of their principles in order to get the affairs of the church once 1 Cf. B.Z. 47 (1954) 36/8 - 9.

2 160 note 1. 8 B. Z. 47 (1954) 2-3. | * cf. V. E. 53/17-18; 75/6-10; Mansi 18, 336/2-5. 5 pp. 164- 165.

Eight letters of Arethas 348 more into their own hands. They could plead that the dispensation had been approved by Rome, for whose judgement they

had great veneration. But their sudden change of front after their opponent had, by their own intransigeance, been forced to abdicate, can only be called cynical opportunism. V. The Crisis, December 906 to January 907. The fourth mar-

riage of the emperor, which, as we saw, probably took place in

late April 906; automatically subjected him to the canonical interdict whereby he was excluded from taking any part whatever in the church ceremonies during a period of four years!. He had

known that such would be the result of his action, but relied on his patriarch’s loyalty to secure him dispensation *: that is to say, a decision of the church to make a special case of the marriage, so that it could be recognized and condoned. The patriarch Cauleas had been forced to make such a concession in the matter

of Leo’s third marriage to Eudocia in 900, and this had been agreed to on grounds of political necessity *. But it was clear that there would be opposition to dispensing a fourth. Nicholas, if the V. E.. is to be trusted ‘, was at first prepared

to issue dispensation on his own authority, and to receive the emperor into the church as early as 1 May 906, just after the

marriage had taken place. He repeated this offer on the 6 August. It is however probable that Arethas was absent at least on the former of these occasions, and perhaps Nicholas had in mind to take this favourable opportunity to present his bishops with a fait accompli. But the emperor had other ideas. He wished for the sake of his son to make it clear beyond all doybt that his marriage had been legitimized; and since this could not be done by unanimous verdict of his own bishops, he determined to apply to Rome and the other eastern patriarchates also. The appeal to Rome was a master stroke: it could not fail to please the Ignatians, who had relied on Rome in their struggle with Photius; and Rome herself was certain to respond favourably, sincé she could non resist the chance of interfering once more in the church affairs of Constantinople, and moreover relied 1 R.-P. 4, 244-245. 2 cf. No: 5, § 4; PG CXI, col. 1144 D; Popov 98.

8 PG CXI, cols. 197 D-200 A. 4 pp. 38, 44.

nc

B44 R.J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas

yn Byzantine help in her struggle against the Saracen’. The

delegates from these sees could not arrive before the following February: so Leo decided to wait, at least until he was certain of what their verdict would be, before accepting the invitation of Nicholas °.

His refusal was unfortunate: for the next time that Nicholas renewed it, Christmas Day 906, he was already promising more

than he could perform without the certainty of schism in his church. The opposition, led by Arethas, had in the meantime developed strongly ®. And although the Nicholadns tried by all means to persuade their colleagues that no question of heresy was

involved to justify opposition to the court‘, and though Leo himself, through his agent Xylomachaeris, put strong pressure on the dissident bishops 5, neither arguments nor threats were efficacious. When Christmas Day came and the emperor, now certain of the support of the foreign patriarchates, was willing to accept the invitation to enter the church, Nicholas drew back, and postponed his invitation for twelve days until Epiphany. The V. E.* states that between August and Christmas Day 906 Nicholas, whose support of Leo had previously been secured

by a threat of prosecution for treason, changed his inind and opposed the emperor because he had learned meantime that Leo intended in any case to dethrone him. This is false. On Christmas Day 906 Nicholas was still doing all he could to overcome the opposition of the Ignatians and Arethas to the marriage. This is proved by a document of unquestioned authenticity, a letter

written to Arethas himself a few days after Christmas by his friend and pupil Niketas Paphlago’. On the evening of that ‘very Christmas Day 906 Niketas was summoned to the patriarchate. Here he found Nicholas and with him Niketas’® own uncle Paul the sakellarios, a strong supporter of the court party.

Dinner was brought in, but Niketas refused all refreshment. Then the struggle began. Nicholas told Niketas that the emperor suspected him (Niketas) of being the chief cause of Arethas’ resistance to the marriage. Sarcasm, tears, threats and promises 1 Popov, 116. 2 Varia Graeca Sacra 264/24.27; V. E. 88/11-15.

* Ibid. 42/27-29. « No: 2, § 2. 5 No: 7, § 8.

é p. 389. 7 Néog ‘EAAnvopvipewy 8 (1912) 801 - 806.

Eight letters of Arethas 345 were all applied to make Niketas abandon his position. But Niketas remained firm; and said, very reasonably, that it was absurd to suppose that a pupil could have such a decisive . influence on his master. It was probably only then that Nicholas saw that his efforts on Leo’s behalf were hopeless, and that he would have to give them up. It was a triumph for the Euthymian opposition, to whom Niketas lost no time in disclosing all that had passed ?. Epiphany came, and once more Nicholas had to confess chat he could not redeem his promise, owing to the relentless opposition of Arethas?. If all would agree to the dispensation, he said, he would agree with them; otherwise, he could not*. He then sum-

moned his bishops to the patriarchate, made them reaffirm a declaration that they would all stand together, come what might, and waited for the inevitable deposition ‘.

Then came the great change-over of the party policies. Nicholas, who for the past eight months had warmly supported the marriage, now perforce abandoned it and resigned his office on the respectable pretext that his conscience would not allow him to grant the dispensation (February 907); and this fiction he maintained in his letter to the Pope, written in 9125, in which he uses many of the same arguments against the fourth marriage which Arethas had previously-used against him. The Euthymians, on the other hand, who had always opposed the marriage, now used the authority of Rome to grant the dispensation °, and their leader became patriarch. Arethas, who as the most violent op-

ponet of Leo’s plans hitherto, was the especial object of the imperial resentment, was threatened with and perhaps actually subjected to a prosecution for impiety, an old charge originally brought against him in his Photian days. But although he went temporarily into banishment’, he was not deprived of his see, and he soon returned to make his peace with the court, at the ~Y bid. 305: &xactov obv 8 slnsv xpdg fydc 6 Andy xal 6 xpatdv (Nicholas) tote xspt Ed@sprov &€ broyvlou deB7Awxev (sic: but the correct

readiny is obviously 383%A@xa). |

2 VV. E. 41/1-2. . 8 Ibid.48/24-25. |

- « Popov, p. 126, notes that Nicholas consented to resign in order to avoid the anomaly of two patriarchs, since, whether he resigned or not, Leo was certain to appoint another who would do his will.

6 PG CXI, cols. 196 - 220. ¢ V.E. 54. * Ibid. 55/12-18.

846 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas expense of all his finely expressed principles. It 1s probable that

he had all along intended to do this, and that his prosecution and exile were by this time no more than a farce. The object of his policy, the dismissal of Nicholas, had been achieved, and he could now turn over to the court with the Euthymians, with whom he had doubtiess had an understanding (above, p. 344). Leo, having won over Euthymius, had no motive to be hard on Arethas and was ready enough to welcome him back into favour. The only convinced opponent of the fourth marriage who remained consistent to the end was Niketas Paphlago. He was confounded by the volte-face of his party and of Euthymius in particular. He wrote a savage attack on the emperor and his new patriarch ', and retired to a hermitage near the Bulgarian frontier. He was brought back and would have been severely punish-

ed if Euthymius had not interceded for him. It is melancholy to record that Arethas was one of those who demanded that the punishment should be carried out on him®. Niketas escaped and took refuge during two years in the country. It was perhaps at

this time that he wrote his Life of St. Ignatius (907-909). At the end of it he stigmatizes® “‘the whole line of Photius’ successors who shared with him the ambition to rule’’, which certainly implies a good number of patriarchs since Photius, and probably includes the renegade Ignatian Euthymuus‘.

VI. The Revolt of Ducas. We have followed the story of the fourth marriage as far as the spring of 907, where these texts of Arethas leave off. It is a story most discreditable to both church parties, though casting some credit on the patience and diplo-

macy of Leo and Samonas. But it is not possible to omit all reference to a curious story preserved inthe V. EK. According to

this story, Nicholas was in league with the rebel aristocrat Andronicus Ducas, who deserted with his son Constantine to the caliph about this time: and a letter supposedly written by Nicholas to Andronicus fell into the emperor’s hands, and was used. by

him to blackmail the patriarch into complying with the emp-

1 sV.E. 57, 12-14. 2 Ibid. 58/10. 8 PG CV; col. 573 C. 4 Popov, 161 note 5, records that Fr. Gerasim Yared, in Christ. Chten. 2 (1873) 329, was the first to note that this passage referred to patriarchs at least as late as Nicholas.

Right letters of Arethas 347 eror’s wishes in the matter of hts fourth wife and son during the years 905 - 906°.

This is not the place for a re-examination of the credibility of the story, or of the chronological problems which, if it were true, it would raise. The conduct of Nicholas during the years 906 and 907 is perfectly understandable without such intervention from outside. If Grumel is right? (and his solution, though by no means reconciling all the testimonies, appears upon reflection to be the most probable), then Ducas did not revolt before the autumn of 906, and did not go over to the caliph till the spring of 907. Therefore the story of a letter of Nicholas to the rebel written in 905 cannot be true. That such a letter was produced on 6 February 907 to persuade some bishops to secede from him to the Euthymians ®*, is probable enough; but, as Popov suggests ‘,

it was probably a forgery of Samonas. This solution does not rule out the possibility that Nicholas, in desperation, had towards

the end of 906 come to some sort of an understanding with Ducas: and for this there is independent evidence*. But it is quite unnecessary, as well as chronologically difficult, to date this understanding as early as 905, as the V.E. does: in seeking for a

solution in favour of his emperor Nicholas was merely acting in accordance with his Photian principles.

SUMMARIES AND COMMENTS No: 1

Title: Letter written while still Deacon to the Patriarch Nicholas, because Nicholas surnamed Xylomachaeris, convicted of false witness, had not been properly punished for slander. Summary : § 1. Internal diseases, if the patients are careless enough to conceal them, grow worse and become fatal. I must speak out about the sorrow that preys upon me, and either procure reilef or be assured

of the worst. I may speak harshly; but my excuse must be the pain which I suffer. § 2. A slanderous charge was made against me before you and the ecclesiastical tribunal. The charge was so circumstantial | that even I myself began to wonder whether I had not unconsciously committed the crime alleged. At last, however, one arose who exposed

1 Cap. XI- XII.

2, Echos d’Orient 36 (1937) 201 - 207. V.E. 47/21 - 30.

4 pp. 101 - 102. 5. Cont. Geo. Mon.. 867/11 - 12.

848 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas the plot and demolished the accusation. I naturally supposed that the accuser would have been most severely punished. But nothing was done

to him beyond the exposire of his lies. Many good men sympathized with me over this, and commiserated with me on my betrayal by my trusted friend. My enemies laughed at me, and said the case had been well worth bringing. The credit of the acecuser was scarcely damaged

in the eyes of his friends. § 3. Of course the charges were all unfounded;

but I shall feel safe only when the slanderer is properly punished. So long as he is not, there is the fear that he may re-appear with a supplement to his charges of last year, and have better success When he accused me of atheism and other crimes in your hearing, his outrage went unchecked, though he himself was a low wretch and I am distinguished by every advantage of birth and wealth. But when you were made patriarch, it seemed that you would give me no satisfaction in the affair, though my friend and spiritual father. I should perhaps not have pressed my demands; but I relied on our friendship. If I must strive so hard for this friendship against those who envy me, surely

you can help me by repressing their hostility. But I will beg for no favours. I will find blessing in the hatred of men, and be thankful I am no worse off. Yet how could I be? What could be worse than that one who has been honoured by emperors and patriarchs in east and west,

who have divided among them the triumphs of my industry, should lose all reputation at the whim of villains? No: there is no balm in Gilead, no justice to bind up my broken heart! § 4. I have this too to complain of: when a charge is trumped up against me, the holy tribunal at once accepts the whole as gospel truth, and penalties are denounced

against me. But when the charge is proved slanderous, then the talk is all of the “long-suffering of Christ’* and -mercy for the slanderer (though the judges are severe enough on what touches themselves). Jesus was merciful; but He erdained the punishment of sinners both by precept and example. § 5.So much for my judges. The process must be regarded as a sham. Surely you will not overlook this in the case of an old friend, the favourite of fortune and Divine Providence? Christ teaches us to lay down our lives for our friends, not to hand them over to murderers. The slanderer must be made an example. Such indulgence is harmful and blameworthy. Law and justice demand the penalty. How can we punish our servants for some slight negligence when we ourselves overlook far more serious matters? §6. The despicable accuser

has insulted your holy tribunal. It is all very well to display your impartiality at the expense of my misfortunes; but it is hard to believe that any impartial observer can think that the accuser has been fairly treated with such indulgence: he cannot be excused who takes another’s goods and wantons in another's plenty. I have been soiled by his wickedness

and you only can wash me clean. If you neglect it, you sin against God. Your indulgence to those who now fawn on you is an insult to me and my sympathizers. And if you think that by such indulgence you have silenced your enemies, the bad men who worked against your elevation to the patriarchate and are still envious of your success, then

tight letters of Arethas 349 you are making a big mistake, as you will soon find when you are left naked to their attack. Do you then, the best of all my friends, avenge my dishonour, even though my enemies have for the moment called a truce to their slanders and you. make such a show of mercy towards them. If the slanderer is properly punished, blindness will doubtless

cause him to alter his ways, and he will be an example to others of your own true friendship and fidelity.

Comment: This letter can be dated with fair accuracy. From

No: 7, § 2 we learn that Arethas’ prosecution took place on Easter Saturday, and from the present letter, § 3, that it took place “‘last year’. Since then Nicholas has become patriarch (§§ 3,6). Therefore our letter is datable a short while after 1 March 901, the date of Nicholas’ elevation’: and the date of the prosecution must have been Saturday, 19 April 900. The story can be pieced together from several references in

Nos: 1, 5 and 7. The ostensible prosecutor was one Nicholas Xylomachaeris?, who was perhaps a “‘basilikos”’, a member of the imperial secret police. But No: 7, § 2 makes it clear that the real mover in the affair was the emperor himself, who ordered Xylomachaeris to collect the evidence and conduct-the prosecution. The main charge, among others, was that of impiety or “‘atheism”

(§ 3). The case was heard before an ecclesiastical tribunal which sat in the metatorion (imperial robing-room) in St. Sophia. The judges included EKuthymius, at that time ‘synkellos, Christopher hishop of Cyzicus, aud Nicholas himself, at that time a layman and imperial private secretary (mystikos) *. The charge of atheism was perhaps no more than a pretext, such as might be brought forward against any Photian churchman

who took too much interest in secular learning, especially in secular philosophy. We may suspect, from Leo’s personal interest and from the fact that the charges were revived against Arethas

by the same prosecutor in 907, again with a political motive (above, p. 345), that a political motive lay behind the earlier pros-

ecution also. Between October 899 and July 900 (to give the outside limits ‘) two major conspiracies were set on foot against -Leo’s person: that of Basil the Epeiktes and that of Leo’s brother

1 See Grumel, in Echos d’Or. 35 (1936) 9.

2 No: 1, Tit.; 5, § 8. The name seems to mean “wooden sword’’, which may indicate that the man began life as a gladiator or stage-player.

8 No: 1, 8§ 2, 3; 7, § 2. 4 Grumel, op. cit. 32 - 34.

350 R.J.H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas Alexander. It is perhaps not fortuitous that Arethas’ trial fell in the very middle of this dangerous period (19 April 900). There is no subsidiary evidence to connect Arethas with either Basil

or Alexander. But it is strange that Leo should have taken a personal interest in the marshalling of evidence on which to try a deacon for impiety. The prosecution, though artfully framed, broke down through the intervention of a certain John Rhabdouchos'. Arethas was acquitted, became reconciled with Leo,and was shortly afterwards appointed by him to be official orator to the Palace*. Arethas was grateful to the emperor, whose mercy and repression of anger he extolled both then and afterwards °*. With the conduct of his friend Nicholas Mystikos he was not so well satisfied. No steps had been taken to punish Xylomachaeris, who by Arethas’ acquittal had been convicted of false witness. When Nicholas became patriarch in the following year (1 March 901), Arethas expected that, out of friendship, Nicholas would at once have proceeded against Xylomachaeris; but Nicholas

did nothing, with the result that Arethas’ name was not cleared and Xylomachaeris not fully discredited. This is the occasion of

our No: 1. It is not clear from it what steps Arethas thought that Nicholas could take in the matter; and the suggestion, in the last sentence, that Xylomachaeris might be blinded, seems to be fantastic. In any case Xylomachaeris had imperial protection, and it was not likely that Leo. would abandon a useful servant

to the wrath of Arethas. But the incident may well be of great importance for what followed (above, pp. 341 - 2). Arethas was not the man to forget an injury: and his supposed betrayal by Nicholas was in all probability the motive for his defection to the Euthymian

party a few years later. The significance of all this is, therefore, plain enough. Whatever the real cause of the action against Arethas, the ostensible case had-been got up by the Ignatians. Their leader was Euthymius, whose influence with Leo was great. When the case broke down, 1 No doubt a near relation of Leo R., who became (but it is not _ clear when) both magister and logothete: see De Admin. Imp., ed. Moravestk, 32/81-84; G: Kolias, Léon Choerosphactés (Athens, 1939) 12,

60, 128-9. The Rhabdouchoi were thus of the neo-classical party, and John would be a likely person to take up Arethas’ defence.

2 B. Z. 47 (1954) 2. 8 Ibid., 30/65-72: below, No: 8, § 4.

Right letters of Arethas 351 and the Photian Nicholas became patriarch, Arethas naturally applied to him for vengeance. But Nicholas was in a difficult position. Though a Photian, he had been appointed patriarch to keep the peace between the two church parties'. He was thus reluctant to embitter the opposition by violent action against Xylomachaeris at the very outset of his patriarchate. Arethas urges (§ 6) that Nicholas’ leniency will not in the end reconcile his (Ignatian) enemies who worked against his elevation, and will only offend his own (Photian) party. But Nicholas remained firm. His conciliatory policy was honourable to him: but it ruined

him. Five years later Arethas saw his chance to be revenged. Over the question of the Tetragamia he joined the Ignatian/ Euthymian faction, resolutely opposed any compromise, and thus brought about the dismissal of his friend and benefactor (above, p. 342).

It 1s to be noted that No: 1] is the only letter in our group which is datable before the Tetragamia controversy. It seems probable that its inclusion here is in the nature of a scolion on the second trial of Arethas in 907 (Nos: 5, 7), at which the same prosecutor appeared; and an indication of the nature of the quarrel

which led Arethas in 906-907 to take up an extreme Ignatian position against Nicholas. No: 2

Title: To the emperor Leo, at his beginning that disturbance unadvisedly provoked in the Church over his fourth marriage. Summary : §1.I beg from my emperor a fair hearing for my words of wisdom. A pilot wastes his skill in a leaky boat, and a teacher can do no good if his message falls on stony ground. You should heed me, and stop your ears to those silly and malicious counsellors who mislead

the multitude of innocent folk. The blind are leading the blind. I am moved to denounce them, and to expose the deadly nature of the bait which they are dangling before their victims. § 2. I hear that these evil counsellors are going up and down telling everyone that the question of the fourth marriage need involve no scandal or disunion. There is no heresy here, they say, nothing which threatens an incurable breach among the faithful: so that to secede from the Court and to form an opposition party on this issue is unreasonable. This sounds plausible. But there is none the less a heresy here, as-I shall show irrefutably later on. § 3. Men’s opinions are of two kinds, concerned with theory 1 B. Z. 47 (1954) 5.

352 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas | and with action. The former relate to things divine and unseen, which are brought to light by the unaided power of the reason. The latter are the so-called “‘actable’’, of which, though here too reason supplies the motive, the distinguishing mark is performance. In either category we have three factors, belief, believers and objects of belief, accompanied by correct or incorrect judgement. Now, where the operation is purely theoretical, there is nothing very terrible in error: for error can do no harm to the immortal objects of belief, even though the author of such error may ruin himself and perhaps his father too, whose blasphemy he spreads abroad no less. But where the operation is practical, that is, concerned with action affecting others beside the originator, the effect is far more ruinous. Persistence in recognized wickedness and the effort to pervert others to it are the ruin of others beside oneself; and this is far worse than any error of the purely intellectual faculty. § 4. Christian doctrine itself demands that works should accompany faith. It cannot be right for a man to renounce works while pursuing purity of faith, or to soil with impure deeds the faith which should appear in the pu-

nity of his life and conduct. We have an innate faculty of intuitive perception, by which we instinctively form our notions of right conduct and apprehend the undemonstrable; if this faculty is corrupted by foulness of deeds wherein the celestial beauty should be mirrored, then the contradiction between our works and our faith will expose the latter as hypocrisy. This is what Jesus meant by saying “Not everyone that saith

unto me Lord, Lord, etc.”, and by His telling the Samaritan woman that God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth, that is, the truth that comes from purity of conduct. § 5. Everyone accepts this, but few have the courage to apply it. How few are the men of God, like Enoch, Noah, and the others! But God did not despise them because they were few, far from it! But you who boast of your big battalions, have laid up for yourselves not gold and silver but mud and chaff. Why do you think that John and before him Eleazar would condemn you? Not for your faith, but for the conduct which has disgraced your faith. - John Chrysostom has been much blamed by little men, who say that by his obstinacy he brought about his own ruin when he had no divine command

to do so. So all these men were deluded, were they? They should have taken advice from you! They would indeed have been grateful for such capital guides, who have not the wit to understand the works of God, or even their own in a clear case of right and wrong. § 6. Surely it is

mere madness for you thus to sin against the light. I well know that these men do not really believe what they profess. They know that they

are spreading wrong doctrine. They cannot hope for forgiveness, for their conduct is worse than heresy. Heretics are at least genuinely convinced, and, if they learn better, recant later on. But to know what _is right and yet to persist in error is unpardonable. What sacrifice is there for sins willingly embraced? § 7. But why should I go on, and corrupt the fairness of my speech with their foulness? How can such be the conduct of men who call themselves priests? And yet, if such is their own nature, what crime will they not commit if authority urges them

Eight letters of Arethas 858 on? The naturally crooked man is not likely to grow straight if his . superior encourages his crookedness. And he who sins for the love of it

will be the more outrageous if he thinks that his sin will be defended by his master. These men should be grateful to the master who thus drives them forward. The omens are all favourable for success when every

transgression can be justified by reference to the transgressor.

Comment: This letter may have peen written at any time between May and December 906 (above, p. 336). The word évapyouévyy in the Title would suggest an earlier rather than a later

date between these Jimits. But it is not certain exactly when Arethas himself returned from Hellas to take up the chief réle in resistance to the marriage (above, p. 336); and it may well be that Nos: 2, 3 and 4 are all datable near to the end of the year. Almost the whole letter is directed against the Nicholaan party in general, and it does not contain the personal attacks on Nicholas himself which area feature of succeeding letters (above,

p. 341). No: 2 is also distinct from 3-6 in that the Nicholaan attack on St Basil’s canons has not yet developed. At present, the Court faction in the Church 1s merely trying to avoid schism over a question which, as they say, involves no heresy and may

thus fairly be subject to compromise (§ 2). Arethas therefore confines his argument to the claim, based on both Aristotle and Holy Scripture, that works must accompany faith and that purity of life must accompany purity of profession. He admits that right

thinking men such as himself are a very small minority; and ends with a-typically Ignatian attack on the time-serving policy of his Photian colleagues (above, p. 341). No: 3 Title: To the same, on the same subject. Summary :,§ 1. Two lines of attack have been developed against me owing tomy resistance in this matter; and perhaps even Your Majesty,

perplexed as you are, may be tempted to think ill of me. My opponents

adduce plausible arguments; and for my part I do not know how to win your ear, or how to plumb the spiritual depths of my god-like and high -thundering antagonists, simple and untutored as I am; but I must not shrink. God can provide words for the dumb, when their cause is righteous.

§ 2. The whole Church knows what accusations are daily made against me by my good brothers. They are, as I said, of two kinds: my friends are told that I am mad, and my anemies, who judge others by themselves, that I am malicious. If I am mad, then I-am not responsible for

354 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas what I do and should be an object of pity. As for the charge of malice and crookedness, God knows that my nature is simple and guileless, and

that I make my friends among those who are like me. But let me get to the subject. Perhaps I can teach my detractors some sense. If not, I am ready to stand by my words and suffer for the truth. But I must begin by asking Your Majesty this: do you really want the truth, or just something pleasant to hear? I think you will say, the truth. Very well, then. I will speak out in words of truth which it befits a bishop to use to his emperor. § 3. Tyrants abuse their subjects for their own pleasure; but true emperors regard their subjects as their children, and subordinate their own pleasures to their subjects’ good. If then an empe-

ror must care for the morals of his people, there must be no talk of any illicit marriage, which would be the worst possible example to the subject. If the excuse for such a marriage is the procreation of heirs for the throne, then I have two things to say: first, it is best to submit to fate’s decrees in this matter and not try to circumvent them, especially

since in this life one can never be sure that one’s plans will turn out well, and one may live to regret them when it is too late; second, why can you not now dismiss with thanks the woman who has given you the child you desired,as we dismiss a ship when her cargo is dicharged or throw away the husk which has brought the fruit to maturity? If you keep her, you are guilty both of ingratitude and wantonness, and you spurn the example of Abraham,who dismissed Hagar but kept and reared Ishmael. § 4.Licentiousness must be mastered. You have won renown by your control of anger.

You must now master the sensual pleasures, exalting the sovereign reason and trampling down the servile passions. You will thus persuade

me to accede most readily to your request, and will again dwell in the tabernacles of the Lord, from which the unclean are excluded. A man who has conquered the stronger passions and then succumbs to the weaker must incur the charges of effeminacy and cowardice. For it is obvious that anger is harder to. master than lust since its occasions

are not in our own control. § 5. Well but (you will say), the lust of youth cannot be controlled, and sexual license resides in palaces. But there have in the past been many young emperors who have controlled this lust, some marrying once only, some twice at most. Arcadius and his son Theodosius : married only once, and very

few have even gone to a second marriage. So what defence can be found for you? We must regard these emperors, not merely as moderate, but as the very pattern of self-control and as shining examples to their subjects! Well but (you may ask), could anyone seriously maintain that

they abstained from fornication? I would not go so far as this: it does - mot become a priest of God to settle like a flesh-fly on the wounds of the soul, and to pass judgement on the faults of past emperors. But I will say this: it is best of all to have absolute control of the physical passions and to give thein no license at all.. An emperor should not wear wantonness like an imperial decoration: on the contrary, his life

should be laborious and unselfish. But if he should slip in human wise aS may concede something to the urge of nature, so that he be

Fight letters of Arethas 355 not ruined, like a bow, from overmuch straining), then let the evil be confined to him alone and his shatne be hid, and let him not incur a double guilt by publishing his shame abroad. Of two evils let us choose the less. But if anyone says we can rid ourselves of the shame by calling this liaison a “marriage’’, this might be an argument if we could change things simply by changing their names. But we cannot. We may callan ape a lion, but it still] remains an ape; and your labour is in vain. § 6.1 know that these merciful dispensers are full of talk about the long-suffering of Christ, and of my harshness and cruelty They would indeed be truly dispensers and truly merciful if they regarded their own high position and were not influenced by ignoble motives and the interest of those to whom they grant dispensation. But, as it is, they are guilty of greed and simony; | they have degraded their own high - priesthood and soiled the fair name

of marriage. Their example is most pernicious. They are not doing a little harm in order that great salvation may result; but are disgracing themselves by perverting the canons of the Fathers, ruining him to whom | they give dispensation, and spreading impiety among other men, who see their priests chaffering the things of God for grace and favour. They are rendering unto Caesar both the things which are Caesar’s and the things which are God‘s. The result is infidelity and license. They have

hanged the mill-stone about their necks; like dogs they have returned | to their vomit, and as sinners they are caught by the works of their hands. § 7. But (they say) the Fathers consent, and grant a lenient penalty

to those who thus sin. If you can show me any passage of the Fathers which encourages sin, then I say no more. But if such sin is everywhere held up as abominable, then who could be so shameless as even to suggest

it? It is true that the Fathers granted some healing medicine to souls corrupted through ignorance rather than vice. But if you, our great teacher, are to rely on that, and encourage people to give free rein to licentiousness, then the canons will be a godsend to the wanton, and the Fathers themselves will be the instigators of wickedness. This will be to blame the disease on the doctors. These holy remedies. of the Fathers were not intended for those who were conscious of their sin and, though forbidden, persisted in it. This would imply that we should, while condemning sin before it is committed, become its friends and supporters when it has been committed. This is rascality beyond that of Eurybatos

and the Cilicians. Its author shall have his portion with the publicans and gentiles. Let him hearken to St Basil, who saith that “there is no account of them who prefer pleasure to the life of holiness’’. § 8. Who would ever again call on him as a physician to the soul? Are we to call in the doctor who uses palliatives, and to reject him who uses astringents and the surgeon’s knife? Nay, shall we neglect the doctor when he gives good advice, and yet obey the same doctor when he counsels

evil? His authority is based neither on civil nor on spiritual law: for the civil law refuses to allow a judge to change his mind, and spiritual law punishes severely those who condone sin. How can we be sure that such waverers will not change their minds once again? §9. Doubtless thay will dig up the affair of Tarasius and Constantine

356 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas VI. But how is this relevant, since Tarasius merely sanctioned a second marriage, for which there were precedents? A fourth marriage is

quite unheard of. But this is not all. Constantine’s affair caused great scandal, which was not removed until previous co-habitation had been de-

nounced as inimical to the state of marriage. So that this is not a good case for them to cite. But (you will ask) do I go so far as to call Constantine’s marriage adultery, and accuse Tarasius of having condoned this?

I am prepared to accept what the Church has pardoned; but I think it better not to uncover the shames of our predecessors, or to try to make laws out of them. They should be forgotten, like pre-Euclidean geometry. A father’s deformity need not descend to his son; still less should the father’s

sin be embraced, after full warning, by his children. (As for myself, if 1 have any virtue comparable with that of the Fathers, I leave it unsaid, for St Paul exhorts us not to imitate this or that human being, but only Christ.) So I say, that neither Fathers nor laws can be cited in support of a fourth marriage. On the contrary; those who purged the stain of a third utterly rejected the notion of a fourth; and St Basil would not even give the name of marriage to any union after the second. Of that which

both the revised civil code and the Fathers denounce I hesitate to accuse Your Majesty. But I remain firm in my resistance. § 10. So, if there be anyone whose love of his emperor leads him to condone license

and to confute the Fathers, I well know that Your Majesty yourself will condemn him when this crisis is past; and that he will be consumed

by that heavely fire which will shine radiantly on me. In a word, if they can find in the Fathers indulgence for this marriage, let them use it and do away with the need for dispensation. If not, let there be no talk of dispensation, which is in fact destruction. Those who act not

for salvation but with their eye on worldly rewards are playing a dangerous game, and the gift they offer is worthless. § 11. This, Your Majesty, is my defence. If it cannot succeed as I would wish, yet it is noble and worthy of your own dignity. If you are persuaded by it, then

thanks be to God! I have done all I can to wipe away the stain and guilt of impurities that all good men must abominate. If my words are unpalatable, I must trust to the generosity of my audience.

Comment: The first sentence of No: 4 shows that it is a continuation of No: 3. The two letters were therefore written at

one time, and form a single diatribe. The date must again be between May and December 906, at a period after the composition of No: 2 (above, p. 336). ‘The first part of No: 3 (8§ 1-5) is addressed to the emperor

personally. Leo is urged to realize the true significance of his high position, to abandon all thoughts of his illegal ‘‘marriage” and to dismiss his concubine. Only thus can he be received again into the church. § 5 actually condones imperial fornication if it can be kept secret. Even this is better than publishing it abroad

Eight letters of Arethas 357 and calling it marriage. §§ 6-10 are an attack once more on the

Nicholaan “‘dispensers’’; and the latter part of § 7 and all of § 8 are a personal attack on the worldly and wavering policy of Nicholas himself. The Nicholaans have now begun to re-interpret the canons, and to say that the Fathers grant indulgence. Arethas rightly protests against this interpretation, which is a deliberate

encouragement to licence. In fact, whatever forgiveness the Fathers may have extended to sinners was certainly not meant for those who sinned deliberately in the knowledge that indulgence would be granted. It is plain that the Nicholadns, disappointed of an unanimous

“dispensation’’, were now attacking the very canons which forbade plural marriages and the civil code based on them (above, p. 338). If it could be proved that the canons did in fact sanction a fourth marriage, no dispensation would be needed (§ 10). But this Arethas defies them to do; and passes on, in No: 4,

to a detailed refutation of the arguments put forward by his casuistic opponents. No: 4 Title: To the same, on the same subject.

Summary: § 1. Such, Your Majesty, is my exhortation to you (No: 3), which has been, I think, neither superfluous nor irrelevant. But since I see many who do not scruple to corrupt Christ’s flock by citing obscure and obsolete laws, arrogant, ignorant men who are invading the precincts of the saints and the Testament of God, and who continue to wrest and pervert the words of St Basil; then surely I must say what I can to confute them, since I am St Basil’s successor in the see of Caesareia. § 2. These men say that St Basil, in a letter to Amphi-

lochios bishop of Iconium, condones polygamy subject to a slightly more severe penance than is applied to bigamy; and that, if three marriages are allowed, so may ten or twenty. If this argument were used by Hercules writing to Sardanapalus,'I should think it a very good joke. But since these are men who undertake to make laws for a Christian people, I must regard their blasphemy as worse that the sin against

the Holy Ghost, if to encourage sin be even worse than to commit it. But they shall be punished for it, since it is a pure God who oversees us and holds purity so dear that He chose a pure Virgin for His birth, and taught

us that our life should be spent in purity and sobriety. § 3. But we must examine their arguments more closely. They fasten on Basil’s conjunction of “trigamists’’ and “polygamists’’ (sc. in Canon 4), and say that he here conjoins two different classes of persons,so that the latter are to be indulged with the same easy penalty as the former. This is nonsense.There are many _ 24

858 R.J.H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas passages, even in Holy Scripture, where the conjoined phrase implies not difference from, but extension of, the former. The addition of “polygam-

ists’’ here certainly does add something: it adds disgrace. But we are not justified in applying everything said in this Canon about trigamists to those who marry more than three times. St Basil would hardly have stated (Canon 4) that both classes were penalized by the Fathers, and then in the same breath (Canon 80) that polygamists were in fact not mentioned by the Fathers at all. This is to make him out a buffoon. It is obvious that (in Canon 4) he is speaking of one and the same class of persons; and indeed he says “they call this sort of thing (i.e. trigamy) polygamy’’, which he would not have done if he had in this Canon been distinguishing between the two classes, as he is later careful to do. He thought that here he had included them all in the single comprehensive term, “trigamists, that is to say, polygamists’’. Where lower down he speaks specifically of trigamy, you will find it difficult to apply his words wholesale to those who marry any number of times, since he

draws a distinction between them. For the moment, what you say is on my side of the question. § 4. But if you are deaf to this, let me remind you of what children learn at school, namely that three is the beginning of plurality. You cannot cut off the other plural numbers from the source whence they derive plurality, any more than you can cut off streams from their fount. Three is plural, and the following ‘numbers similarly, which derive their plurality from it. And do not accuse me of attributing identity to different species in virtue of this common relationship. These numbers are identical only in their relation-

ship to the idea of plurality. This bond of plurality is indeed one and the same, but that does not imply the identity of the elements which it binds: for perfectly identical elements would require no bond. Thus, of any two separate elements of which sameness can be predicated, otherness can also be predicated: otherwise they would either be wholly undifferentiated or else wholly different. We speak therefore of a similarity, which resides in their common relationship to something else; or perhaps such similarity may exist without a common external relation-

ship, unless one adopts the wholesale relativity of Plato. If this is so, there is no need to predicate identity. between the earlier and later elements in a series because of their cominon participation in plurality. As I say, they are the same only in their relationship to a single, prior

conception. If not, all numbers after three might as well be called three equally. § 5. Perhaps this is too deep for most people; so let us return to the main argument. As was said at the start, of two conjoined notions the second may be an extension of, not a differentiat-

ion from, the first. St Basil therefore hardly mentions polygamy

again in this place (Canon 4). But if he devotes the rest of the Canon to trigamy only, it is certainly not that he considers polygamy less shameful, as may be seen from his citation of the story of the Samatitan woman. When he says that those who sin over and over again in this respect do not deserve the name of husband or wife, he speaks -

according to the sense, and implies that in series of marriages a

Eight letters of Arethas 859 third is less culpable than a fourth. Note the intensification which is supplied by the preposition. If trigamy is a mean between the extremes of innocence and abandoned guilt, then it must be less hurtful than what follows it in the series. So that, by comparison with innocence, trigamy does not deserve the name of marriage; but by comparison with abandoned guilt he calls it fornication indeed, but “moderate fornication’’.

The Fathers therefore call a third marriage “moderate fornication’’, with a view to its amendment, but anything beyond this they altogether

reject. § 6. A third marriage, then, though by no means respectable,

was not considered to be among the worst of sins whose stench

(as St Basil thought) sundered them from human society (Canon 80). But there are other differences between a third and a fourth marriage, of order, degree, penalty, etc. St Basil (Canon 80) expels the polygamist

from the holy precinct, and so publishes his sin of adultery and gives him the chance to wash it away by repentance; he does not encourage a conscious sinner to worse sin, as you will have him do. True, he does not subject him to “public condemnation’’; but “public condemnation” is not, as you maintain, the same thing as divorce from the concubine; and this false interpretation of yours leads you to give indulgence to incurable sin. It is hard to see on what canonical authority you based yourselves. You have repeatedly been told that the Fathers regarded even a third marriage as fornication, if “moderate’’ fornication. No one would quarrel with allowing trigamists into church, since moderate is better than abandoned fornication; or with excusing them from public condemation. But none the less third marriages are condemed by St Basil as without the law (Canon 50), and you cannot get round this. § 7. But if anyone urges that a third marriage, by transmitting to fourth or fifth marriages the idea of plurality, also transmits to them its other qualities, then he is talking nonsense. We shall find his proposition untenable in philosophical argument. Different species do not communicate their differentia to one another by virtue of their participation in a single genus. Elephants and ants are both of the genus “animal’’, but they do not become one another. A man does not neigh, a horse does not laugh. Similarly, a third marriage does not become a fourth; both are pluralities, but their other characteristics remain their own. That is why St Basil allows the trigamist inside the church, as being not yet past all remedy; but the polygamist he regarde as outcast, and treats him as an habitual fornicator (Canon 80). A wise decision. You who are called in as doctor in this case will never cure it without insisting on divorce from the concubine as a preliminary. But (you will say) this separation is not specified by the Canon. No; nor does it spe-

cify punishment for incest. Do you condone that, because it is not mentioned? What is self-evident needs no injunction. § 8 I would ask > you also to remember the evil example you are setting. Who in future

will bother to listen to St Basil, with this example before him? The waverelr will always follow a bad precedent, and a man who has once profaned his marriage will now have no impediment to his embracing ©‘1eer fornication. There is no half way between marriage and fornica-

860 R.J.H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas tion. But you will not realize this; so how can you save the sinner? Your conduct is that of a purblind man who cannot see the gold at his feet; and yet you are entrusted with problems of morals. But sucha supervisor should have the eyes of Argus if he is to detect and ward off evil. § 9. The true explanation of St Basil’s words is simple enough to the candid observer. How do we explain the fact the Fathers are silent on polygamy, and yet that St. Basil himself thought it reasonable to subject it to a canonical ruling? Surely thus: that the Fathers omitted to mention sins that were outside the pale of human conduct, just as Solon’s code did not mention parricide; whereas St Basil thought

it reasonable to subject polygamy to the Canon because the evil was already invading the Church, and in order that the sin might not be left neglected and unrestrained. Neglect is surely worse than treatment. And what was his remedy? Not the remedy already prescribed for tri-

gamy by the Neocaesareian Fathers, but one which should touch the already abandoned fornicator; which is a proof of St Basil’s mercy. This

must be clear to all who are not wilfully deaf or blind. If you are persuaded that it is right to recover the persistent fornicator through repen-

tance, then let it be repentance which is offered him. But if you cannot offer proper repentance unless yon find it written (though it is your habit to base yourself rather on the unwritten code), how can you have the insolence to speak of repentance? §10. Away then with your arbiters. The professional knows his business better than the amateur, and the man of the spirit better than the man of the world. The root of bitterness must not be allowed to flourish and corrupt. That which is “worse than fornication’’ (Canon 80) must no longer be accounted as mere “moderate’’ fornication (though it may obtain pardon if the proper punishment is not remitted by unseemly indulgence). Your trespass must be prosecuted. We must see the idea of beauty harmonizing the unity offjits entity with the plurality of its manifestations, and the doctrine of St Basil confirmed. As for me:

you know that St Basil elsewhere writes that he has “few who know the way and are qualified for these services’’. I only wish that the combined duty of messenger and polemic did not fall on me alone. But what can one do with an impious people? Right judgement requires intelligence and unprejudiced reasoning, but there is no remedy for the wilfully blind. Yet even if I had no arguments, or if yours were as good as mine, even so it would be wrong for you to take the worse path and shame yourself and fill the state with rottenness. What a reward to pay

to the state that has nurtured you and advanced you so far! Where arguments are equal, the purer should prevail; but in this case, I leave it to you to judge if the victory has not gone in overwhelming measure

to truth. Respect therefore, if not that purification of the civil code

already effected, at least those noble and pure decisions which you yourself once made on this subject. Then you were worthy and dignified in your adherence to the Fathers; but now you have changed and cite the Fathers against the Fathers and have bartered faith for opportunism, and are like dust blown hither and thither by every breath,

now yielding and now recanting. You destroy our laws by speaking

Eight letters of Arethas 861 now on one side now on the other, like the Tetralogies of Antiphon. Yet you know that the nature of good is to proceed up from a myriad images to a single head, whereas evil is unstable and unlimited and proceeds like an echo from a single origin to a myriad confused reverberations. A good man must increase goodness by toiling for virtue and rejecting vice; and the good citizen must keep the body politic healthy by cultivating chastity and expelling licence. I am surprized that you, who claim to love the emperor so well, should reward him by advising him to subject his reason to his desires. I am ashamed to be one with you.

God has made us one of another; but may I never give such dreadful advice to a friend, or even to an enemy! § 11. Your Majesty (to return to you), this is what I have to say. If you would be a door-keeper in the house of your God, reject the ruinous counsel of those who are unworthy of your confidence and favour. In so doing, you will be obeying the voice of God. Ere we part, let me pray that you may dwell once more in the tabernacle of the Lord and drink of His sweet waters.

If not, know this, that I will not reject His love, and will laugh to

scorn the feeble assaults of my enemies.

Comment: The date of this letter is the same as that of No: 83, of which it is the continuation (above, p. 335). Arethas now turns to an examination and confutation of the Nicholaan interpretation of St Basil’s Canons (4, 50 and 80). Canon 4 begins Mept toryduwv xal modvydpwv tov adtdv Sproay (of Tatepes) xavova Ov xal ext tiv Srydwv, &vaAdywo. The Nicholadns

chose to interpret this as meaning “‘those who marry thrice and those who marry more than thrice”: from which it followed that both third and fourth, fifth or sixth marriages could be allowed, subject to a period of penitence. Arethas (§ 3) shows that in this phrase of the Canon the conjunction joins two-classes which are

not distinct, but of which the second is the extension of the first: that is to say, the phrase means ‘As regards trigamists, that is, polygamists...°°. Therefore Canon 4 takes account only of those who marry three times, and has no relevance to a fourth marriage. This is proved by reference to Canon 80, which begins Thy 5& rodvyapiay of matépes a&nectwryoav: obviously, therefore,

the “polygamists” of Canon 4, whom the Fathers subjected to the canon of bigamy, cannot be the same as the “polygamists”

of Canon 80, of whom the Fathers have made no mention. Further proof is found in the later words of Canon 4, dvoudfouar Yap to toroOtoy (sc. tpryaplay) obx Ete yapov, ZAAZ moduyaptay, that

is, “the Fathers call this sort of thing, third marriages, ‘poly-

362 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas gamy °°. So that Canon 4 may be left out of account in discussing fourth marriages. - Besides, continues Arethas (§ 4), it is not possible to separate tri-gamy from poly-gamy without denying plurality to three, which is in fact (as grammarians teach children) the origin of

plurality itself. But to say that three and more-than-three are both plural does not imply that they are in all respects identical, which is what the Nicholaans would like it to imply. It merely implies that they are bound by a common relationship, a mpé¢ tt, namely, to the concept of plurality, and in other respects remain separate and individual. This philosophical argument is resumed

at § 7, where the Nicholaans are accused of maintaining that what is applicable to a third marriage must be applicable also to a fourth or fifth or sixth. This is rejected by an appeal to the Categories of genus and species. One species does not transmit

its characteristics to another by virtue of participation in the same genus. Three and more-than-three are species of the genus plural. But they are not on that account to be held identical in their differentia.

In fact, it is clear that third and fourth marriages differ from one another in degree of guilt (§ 6). The one is “‘moderate”’, the other “‘abandoned”’ fornication. The one may be allowed to

stand after a long period of penitence, the other must be dissolved before any penitence can begin. This last point was of crucial importance: for, 1f it were conceded, Zoé and all her powerful relatives would be banished from the court (§8§ 6, 7; cf. No: 5, § 4). The Nicholaans therefore maintained that separation of the parties was not prescribed by the Canon (§ 7); indeed they

went further, and identified this separation with the “public condemnation’ from which the Canon expressly excuses the polygamist. Arethas rightly exposes this sophistry, and points to the revised civil code, which was itself based on the Canons and in which such separation is expressly enjoined (above, p. 339). This long diatribe is directed almost wholly at the Nicholaans and at Nicholas personally, who is the corrupt physician of §§ 7

and 8. The philosophical arguments of §§ 4 and 7 are drawn from Aristotle’s Categories and the Commentaries on them by

Porphyry and Photius. They are weak and uncovincing, but interesting as showing the influence of Aristotle on the modes of

thought among educated men of the day. It is not possible to

Eight letters of Arethas 863 deny that some such juggling with the Basilian Canons was attempted. by the court party, aided by the rediscovered Aristo- . telian logic. Nicholas himself sought out a canon of Athanasius and a ruling, though uncanonical, of Dionysius of Alexandria (below, p. 368), by which he so far convinced the emperor that, as the chronicler states‘, he was prepared to introduce legislation allowing all men to marry four times. Arethas’ exposition of the Basilian canons is more satisfactory, and agrees with that of the jurists who amended the civil

code in their light. Although the arguments are sometimes questionable and the citations, such as that of Bianor’s case (§ 6),

irrelevant, on the whole Arethas position is far less sophistical than that of his opponents. No: 5 Title: To Stephen His Majesty’s private secretary, a friend. Summary: § 1. I understand that the patrician Samonas and you yourself are calling me a false and ungrateful friend to His Majesty; but this is nothing to me, since we are commanded to pluck out even ‘our right eye if it offend. The fact is that the emperor, having chosen to adopt a quite unheard-of policy, now blames his friends for quarreling with it; though, as he admits, my only quarrel with him arises from my having hitherto tried to follow him too closely, for which I ought to be commended rather than blamed. The best copyist is he who follows his archetype most faithfully. § 2. I abstain from discussing

those high and holy principles in which God has trained me, and through which I now incur the charges of cruelty and obstinacy; my friends know that I am obstinate only in those matters where firmness is praiseworthy and is the mark of those who trust in God and stand resolutely by the truth even unto death, rejecting as damnable all extravagance and levity. But he is as reed shaken by the wind, unstable in everything, perverting and perverted. Was not this the strife of Jacob, the lot of the sons of Levi (sic, ? Reuben). § 3. Dut,as I say, to leave higher

considerations aside, see how I am treated: They call me Lot mocking

at the destruction of Sodom, to mention only one of the witticisms made at my expense. I am shunned of all men, as. Homer says of Bellerophon. But they are not bashful in the monstrous examples they put forward for the imitation and ruin of our imperial house. Their worldly fortune has corrupted them, to the exclusion of right principle. For if it be right to adhere to decisions and reward the givers of good advice, why do they not stand by what was agreed and reward me? But they 1 Cont. Geo. Mon. 866/1- 4.

864 | R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas have given me evil in return for good: justly enough from their point of view, no doubt, since they knew quite well the rights and wrongs of the affair, and would not now be doing me wrong if they had them-

selves adhered to the right. I can wish for them no more fitting

reward that which they have given to their good counsellor, namely that they should be expelled from God’s mercy as they have expelled me from my dwelling-place. Such spiteful and censorious conduct is alien to the teaching both of Christ and St Paul.’ And if they put the blame for what they do on another, I may tell this all-wise counsellor that this in no defence. Adam and Eve got no good out of blaming one another. Indeed we know that those who encourage a wrong-doer are more guilty than he: for Christ thought Judas more guilty than Pilate. § 4. And what of this recent charge against me (or rather insult, for you cannot call it a serious charge)? Imagine trying to proceed against me in this manner: His Majesty is much mistaken if he thinks he can secure his own exculpation through the plots of a common criminal and

slave. If his excuse is that anger has driven him to attack me thus, then what shall we think of one who is the tool of his own anger and lust, who regards his own whim as law, and insults the priest of God? He persists in a course which he knew from the start would entail his condemnation. He thinks that by imperial decree and by force he can obtain that pardon which can only come through penitence and dismissal of the pollution to which he clings.If he applies force, then we must say to him “Depart from me, for we will not know thy ways’’. Or do we wish for a seeming and specious solution of the problem, a mere colouring? But this is unworthy of Leo, whose piety and good government have hitherto been above reproach.God forbid that I should break His laws at the hest of man: How shall a man have his heart's desire by pandering to his disease through an exercise of authority? “Except the Lord build the house’’.If the stain is to be covered by a worthless indulgence, this may satisfy men, but God is not deceived. The garment cannot be washed clean unless proper means are

taken to cleanse it. § 5. Nothing shall shake meat least from this principle. Earthly friendship shall not sunder me from God’s love, especially

now that I am old and must think of my reward for what I have done in life. If this is true of me, an emperor should be even more steadfast. His sophistry and lack of scruple put him in danger of hell-fire; but the slightest deviation from the commandment in him will be signally punished, especially against a commandment of St Basil, whose see I hold. I must be true to him; if you, being men, are angry with me for breaking my compact with you (though it was you who taught me how),

what will my Lord and St Basil say to me at the Judgement if I have not kept that which was entrusted to me? § 6. You tell me that my

repute is not equal to that of St Basil? But it is the law, not the expounder, that we must reverence. We must not reject a noble gift because the bringer of it is ugly. We do not reject Our Lord’s message because the Apostles were men of humble stock and profession. It was through the lips of a sinner that we received the Lord’s command “Do that which your priests tell you to do”. Only so can the pupil be formed

Eight letters of Arethas 365 aright, whether the teacher himself be condemned or commended in the hereafter. Will you then persist in judging your teacher? You did not do so when you were healthy. I know that the doctor is not welcome

to his patients, nor the watch-dog to the wolf. A herdsman does not choose a dog who, for all his good looks, will not keep off the wolf; he

chooses one that may be less handsome and intelligent, but is more diligent and conscientious. I am one of the latter kind. The others, your supporters, are the worldlings who drain your empire’s riches and traffic in simony, giving indulgence to you but profaning the Lord’s teaching

and His sanctuary. Should not their portion be with the gentiles? § 7. Examine your own consience. What comfort can you find, as you

so often say you do, in your Nicon or Peter or Sacus, those sinners who make up your fine throng of supporters ? Were they men who had

merely made an error of judgement? Is it on such examples that you base your hopes of mercy and forgiveness? Go back and re-read the law of God, and see if you are not neglecting the words of St Matthew 23, 3. Why coula you not take heed of the good advisers? You are ready

enough now to pick up anything said on the Other side. But if you are trying to catch me in the same snare, I can only marvel that two people, looking at the same problem, should take such totally different views of it. As far as I am concerned, your hopes have been disappointed: none of your powerful favourites has been able to terrorize me into

desertion. This is proof of my rectitude; of which you yourself are witness, for you did all you could to promote my election to my see, me, whom you now call a shabby, degraded wretch! Or perhaps. my election was a trick, designed to make me your friend and to stop me from bringing your plans to shame? I should indeed have been afraid of my own shadow if I had at that time anticipated such a fearful crisis as- this, I, who would rather live quietly alone than yovern an empire in strife. Why should I want to enter such a bull-fight, and barter away my philosophic repose? Such I was when you supported me; but now I am a wretched sinner, though I can again become all that is holy if only I will do what you want! But no: such conduct is for your supporters in this matter. § 8. But why do they bother to attack me? Why

not simply say that St Basil himself approves their blasphemy, and leave it at that? But such trickery is intolerable. The father of this blasphemy must perish with it, and the Church be adorned with the true teaching of St Basil, rejecting the antiquated rule of Dionysius (which was never a canon, although these misguided teachers have cast off St Basil’s anchor and ride only on the thread of Dionysius; they are ready enough to listen to the Fathers when it is a question of rejecting St John’s version of the Passion, and yet here insult St Basil, whose authority is equal to a whole synod). So, until they repent and reinstate St Basil’s doctrine, I shall care nothing for the rule of those who are enslaved by their passions, nor listen to their nonsense. I will return good for evil, and do alla good friend can;for I am your friend, whatever you may now think of me. You will realize it when the fire of passion is extinct and reason reasserts her rule. Then I will listen to my detractors,

866 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas whose speech is now mere idle words of hatred. As for the attack which

they are reviving against me through Xylomachaeris, but which will redound fatally on themselves, I cannot say which will be greater, my second victory or their shame. Their darts are the weapons of children. § 9. Read this to the patrician Samonas, if our friendship is true and not dictated by mere interest. Not that I need your defence or his help; but the blame should rest where it belongs. If you are also the close friend of the emperor, then show this letter to him as well. It will be a proof of whether you are indeed his friend: for I fear you too may be _attached to him for worldly reasons only.

Comment: Arethas refers in §§ 4 and 8 to his impending re-trial on the accusation of Nicholas Xylomachaeris. We know that the defence against this charge was composed when Euthymius was already patriarch (No: 7, § 2), but probably only a very short time after he had become so (above, p. 334). The trial, therefore, if it ever took place, came not later than late February or early March 907, and was probably not impending before the ‘end of 906. On the other hand, undoubted references to Nicholas

Mysticus in § 3 (‘‘the all-wise counsellor”), § 4 (‘if I am not half-blind’) and § 6 (“the fine looking but cowardly and useless watch dog’’, cf. Kougeas 73 note 2), show that Nicholas is still patriarch and still working for the dispensation. This he seems to have abandoned on 6 January 907 (above, p 345). We shall therefore not be far wrong in dating No: 5 to the end of 906. The ‘private secretary Stephen 1s known as the recipient of at least one other letter from Arethas!. Samonas, as we know, took a prominent part in forwarding the emperor’s cause over the fourth marriage’, and deeply resented the patriarch’s desertion of that cause*. This letter is, however, addressed mainly to the

notice of the emperor himself. §§ 1, 2 and 4-7 have direct reference to Leo. It is important to establish that in § 7 Leo is the person addressed, as the citation of St Matthew 23, 3 and the reference to pressure put on Arethas by the emperor’s favou-

rites seem to prove: for in the same paragraph we read “You (the emperor) used many a device to win me for election (to the archbishopric of Caesareia), though now you call me a despicable wretch’’. Now, the election of Arethas was certainly late in 902, if not in 903‘, at a time when Eudocia, the emperor’s third wife,

1 Kougeas 83, 146 - 147. 2 V_E. cap. XIV.

8 ibid. 74/3-6 / 4 BZ 47 (1954) 3.

Eight letters of Arethas 867 had been dead at least eighteen months and when Leo must have

been considering, at least in his own mind, the advisability of marrying again. This suggests that at the time of his election -Arethas was still outwardly a Photian and a friend of Leo and the court; and that Leo had him made archbishop in the hope that he would remain so. Indeed, Arethas in this very paragraph hints that this was so. His defection to the Ignatian / Euthymian faction therefore took place probably after his election, in 903, when he was at last free to show his animosity against Nicholas. No: 6

Title; To the emperor Leo, concerning those who adduced the ancient Fathers in support of polygamy. Summary : § 1. Yes, Your Majesty; I have read and pondered the passages of Dionysius. But while I have learned from Marcus Aurelius to read thoroughly, I have also learned from him to be slow of belief. § 2. It

may be, as you say, that some of the Fathers were not acquainted with Dionysius’ book; but those who admittedly had read it, rejected it and ordained that sinners should be subject to the Canons. St Paul himself was strong in condemning this sin. If Dionysius is now to be followed, the Canons are nothing and a reign of unrestrained licenti-

ousness will follow. There is no law which obliges us to adopt the customs of the Church in ancient times; there were then, and indeed there are now, many individual practices among the several churches which their neighbours are not required to follow. Bishops used to marry, and madmen were admitted to the sacrament. Do you wish us to do the same? Even to-day in Alexandria bishops do not rise when the Gospel is read, which we should think very irregular. Catholics allow the clergy to be ministered to by women, and even to fight in battle. But these individual practices, whether old or new, are not laws;

we have no right to dig up old customs in order to confound sacred law. I hope I may not be so foolish as to rank my soverign among madmen, with whom your corrupt advisers seem to confound the sane

by perverting them with the notions of Dionysius. Let me stay with St Paul and the Fathers, who banished sinners and madmen alike.

Comment: There is no reason to date this brief letter out of its context: it was probably written very shortly after No: 5, that is, at the end of 906 or the beginning of 907. At No: 5, § 8 we have already a reference to the ruling of Dionysius, which is enlarged upon in No: 6. Dionysius the Great, archbishop of Alexandria (c. 200 - 265), was one of those who interpreted St Paul’s ruling on marriages

868 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas {I Cor. 7) in a very liberal spirit '. He wrote a book [epi Papuy,

of which only one fragment survives, but that fragment 1s significant: “‘misfortunes should-be regarded with pity rather than hatred’*?. It is clear that Dionysius had no objection to fourth marriages, and many good and wise men of his day agreed with him (above, p. 337). But Arethas maintains that the ruling of Dionysius cannot be regarded as canonical (No: 5, § 8; 6, § 2),

and that the practice approved by him is antiquated and alien. It is a question whether the “‘Canon of Athanasius” which, according to the V. E.*, Nicholas dug up to condone the fourth marriage of Leo, may not have been 1n fact this ruling of Diony-

sius. It is not otherwise clear to what canonical letter of Athanasius Nicholas can have referred. No: 7@

Title: To the emperor, beginning to ill- treat him. Summary: § 1. I am grateful to Your Majesty that you have not abused your power in this case, but have summoned me to a fair trial where I can defend myself. I beg you to give me careful hearing, for if my defence fails, the penalty will be severe. You must not take it amiss if my words are bitter: truth is bitter, they say, and I am fighting for my life. § 2. You summon me to trial. But on what sort of charge? One which was long ago denounced by many bishops of that day as calumnious, and of which the author would have been properly punished if I had not taken pity on him. Witnesses of this are, among others, the present patriach Euthymius, who was then synkellos, and Christopher synkellos, then bishop of Cyzicus. The latter commended my virtue and execrated my accuser. It was Easter Saturday, and the case was heard in the mitatorion. I was weak from my Easter austerities. But the worst of my sufferings was the conduct of my emperor, who had sent a slanderer down to collect his false evidence in the public stables.

It was mere talk; there were no proofs, or in any case not such as to have any weight against a bishop. One cannot prove that of which the very existence is doubtful, as John Rhabdouchos said. § 3. You call me before judges who are my enemies; but this is illegal. Then, the accuser is a man of the vilest character; his own crimes are legion, among them being those whicb he committed, and has not yet expiated, in Greece, when I was sent there by Your Majesty to re-dedicate the profaned churches. He is still liable to prosecution for having, during 1 Cf. St Jerome, MPL 22, col. 511. 2 C. L. Feltoe, The letters and other remains of Dionysius of Ale-

xandria (Cambridge, 1904) 256 - 257. § 38/19; 42/19.

Right letters of Arethas 869 this past winter, tried to force several bishops into releasing Your Majesty from the ban, though without success. He is just the sort of man whom the Synod of Constantinople prohibited from giving evidence

in an ecclesiastical court. § 4. I have thus made clear that the case against me cannot be maintained either in ecclesiastical or in civil law. If you consent to punish Xylomachaeris for his ridiculous accusations against me (which he keeps on producing as the Eusebians kept

on producing the supposed hand of Arsenius against Athanasius), then thanks be to God that you have kept yourself in the right path, and so much the better for me, who have no personal motive in quarreling with you. But if the worse should prevail and I am given up to those who

seek my blood I put my trust in the heavenly tribunal which cannot be corrupted; and you will repent it, just as you have always repented, though too late, actions which you have been persuaded into taking against me. For the whole process will be judged by all as the merest farce.

Comment: This letter is most important for chronology. In the first place, it combines (§ 2) with No: 1, § 3 to give us the exact date of Arethas first prosecution for impiety, when he was still deacon (he forgets himself when, in No: 7, § 2, he says that the charges preferred in 900 were not such as to prevail against a bishop, for he was not bishop at the time). The date was Easter Saturday, 19 April 900 (above, p. 349). Secondly, it gives clear indications (§§ 2, 3) of the date of the second trial, or accusation. § 2 states that in 900 the present patriarch was synkellos. This can only refer to Euthymios, since Nicholas never was synkellos. Therefore Euthymiosis now patriarch, and the defence of Arethas was written not before the-end of February 907. Again, in § 3, Arethas says that Xylomachaeris 1s etoétt xal vOv dxd8cx0y 8 tod BEvixovtog yet@vog moAAots pev dpytepebar AvOyvat tig xatadlung Hyde

e6idoato, tuxetv 8 ovdapig SeSuvytxt tob oxonod’ (we must however

read Opa for the senseless %s); “he is even now liable to prosecution in that during the past winter he enforced on many

bishops that you should be freed from ‘the condemnation”. Xylomachaeris, therefore, doubtless on the instructions of Leo

and Samonas, tried to put pressure on, that is, to blackmail, several bishops of the opposition party so as to have the emperor released from the ban. The winter in question was plainly that of 906-907, since Leo was under no ban in the previous winter.

This winter is now over; so that we are again brought to the early spring of 907. Now, we know from the V. E.' that Arethas 1 56/9- 13.

370 R. J. H. Jenkins, Basil Laourdas came back to Constantinople to make his peace with Leo and Euthymios very shortly after the latter became patriarch, perhaps as early as March itself. All of which indicates that his trial and exile must be dated to the end of February or the beginning of March 907. The details of the charge against Arethas in 907 are unknown, since we have some reason to think that the main part of what here purports to be his defence is missing. After briefly recapitulat-

ing the circumstances of his previous trial and abusing the prosecutor, Arethas goes on (§ 4): “That the present proceedings

against me are unjust and conform neither to divine nor civil law, this has cleary demonstrated’*. As we have it, it has demonstrated no such thing. We might therefore place a lacuna between

§§ 3 and 4, and assume either that the defence proper was never written or that Arethas later suppressed it. It is however probable that both in 900 (above, p. 349) and in 907, while the charges against him were connected with his theological opinions, the motives behind the prosecutions were political. There can be little doubt that the object in 907 was to remove him and with him his opposition to the emperor’s fourth marriage. A similar instance of using a charge of impiety to cover

a political motive is seen in the action taken against Leo Choerosphaktis in the same year. Choerosphaktis was exiled ostensibly for unorthodoxy and profanity; but he lay under strong suspicion of treachery, which had nothing to do with his ortho-

doxy '. It is interesting to note this use of charges of heresy by the government of the day, when it did not wish to lay bare the true motives of its actions. It is not certain that Arethas was ever actually brought to

trial on this second occasion. This letter is addressed to the emperor, not to his judges. It is certain that as late as the end of February proceedings were still threatened against him. But his.short exile in Thrace may not have been the result of a formal condemnation by an ecclesiastical tribunal: and his speedy return and “‘conversion’’ to the court may have rendered a formal trial unnecessary.

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9

872 R. J. H. Ienkins, Basil Laourdas No: 8 Title: To the same, who had assailed him with rough words after dinner.

Summary : § 1. It is known to all, and has long been known, that I accepted a bishopric only out of repect to my father and sovereign; so that 1 make the following defence not out of any desire for a bishop’s throne or for a position of importance at your court. I make it because yesterday Your Majesty...

Comment: Kougeas? dates this fragment to 2 February 907, because he thinks that the ‘‘dinner’’ in question is that referred to in V. KE. (44/13 ff.). But if Arethas was removed fron Constantinople along with Nicholas on that same evening (1st February),

it is not likely that he would have had leisure or materials to embark on a long defence next day. Besides, his words are surely more suitable to the occasion when he came back from exile to the capital and made peace with Leo’. His condemnation meant

loss of throne, repute and court favour. An apology for past conduct meant saving all three. So, having nothing more to gain from obstinacy, he made the apology. As for the “‘rough words”

inthe Title, it is likely enough that on his return from exile Arethas had to endure some bitter sarcasms from Leo, who was, as Arethas once observed °, prone to making wounding reflections. If this is accepted, the chronological order of the manuscript arrangement of all eight letters is preserved. Addenda et corrigenda. 296,24 Jenkins corrects the app. crit. with

ref. to Stephanus s.v. Zdypa¢ 31 xapyAov 298,8 ode ps Aotpod? see fig. 1 line 7 301,31. év dol Eva: "Evae Jenkins 809,32 sbdprnol 315,3 Jenkins suggests tadt& 81k todto +6 cuvddov, 8 816,35 bro6dAAopev

319,29 éautov 321,31 oxyvipacy, elxs th Ady Aotndyv 324,31 ovC@vto¢ 831,34 lectio. incerta in fig 2, line 6 354 last line should be corrected: as who may concede.

R. J. H. JENKINS BASIL LAOURDAS King’s College Institute for Balkan Studies

London Thessaloniki

1 p. 20. 2 V.E. 55/22 -23; in late March, we suppose. * Varia Graeca Sacra, 265/18 - 19.

Vill

Three Documents Concerning the“Tetragamy™

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16 1962

HE publication and appraisal of documents concerning the celebrated Fourth Marriage or ‘“‘Tetragamy”’ of the Emperor Leo VI in go6 are still

far from complete. This is regrettable, both in itself and also because, without them, no definitive study of this very important reign can be written. Some progress in the right direction was recently made by the publication of Eight Letters of Arethas! on this subject. Mrs. P. Karlin-Hayter, in addition to re-editing the Vita Euthymi1,? has republished, with translation, two documents from the MS Cosinitsa 1 which concern the resignation of the Patriarch Nicholas in 907 and his reinstatement in 9g12;? and has made a start on publication of the most important collection of Arethas’ works, the cod. Mosquensis 315.4 Several other pieces, though published long since, have not been appreciated. Two such are found in cod. Vindobon. phil. gr. 342 (fols. 217-32’), and were

published by Lambros as letters of Nicholas Mysticus.* Darrouzés® rightly rejects this attribution, but proposes no alternative. However, it would appear that the author of both was Niketas Paphlago. The first of the two (ed. Lambros, Ppp. 3-7) is almost certainly addressed to Arethas, and indeed forms part of a correspondence between Niketas and his master with reference to a sophistical interpretation of r Cor. 7:1 (kaddv d&vOpatre yuvanKds yt &trtecGar) put out by the

“tetragamist”’ bishop of Pharsala. The argument deals with the proper place of “accessory sexual pleasure’ (i) Tapugiotapévn fSovr) in Christian marriage. Two of Arethas’ own letters to Niketas (Nixitg oxoAaotiK®) on this subject survive in the Moscow codex 315 (fols. 115'-117"), and have been published by Mrs. K arlin-Hayter (see note 4).

The second letter of Niketas is longer and more interesting (ed. Lambros, pp. 7-14). It is addressed to a certain metropolitan Nicholas, congratulates him on joining the small band of stalwarts who reject the Fourth Marriage in spite of all the threats and blandishments of the Court, and urges him to stand fast in his position. The letter is strongly influenced by the style of Arethas. But more than this: it betrays a direct, verbal knowledge of the Ezght Letters

255-266.) ;

1 By Mr. Laourdas and myself, in Hellenika, 14 (1956), 293-372 (incorrectly cited as “EEB2 14 [1955] in Rev. Et. Byz., 18 [1960], 115). 2 Byzantion, 25-27 (1955-7), 1 ff.

3 Ibid., 748-771 (after A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Varia graeca sacra [St. Petersburg, 1909],

‘ Byzantion, 28 (1958), 363-389; ibid., 29-30 (1959-60), 281~302. The last three documents in the former publication (pp. 373-389) concern the ‘‘Tetragamy.’”’ The latter article republishes “‘Arethas’ Letter to the Emir at Damascus”’ (cod. Mosqu. 315, fols. 96V-110%) ; but this letter is not directly relevant to the ‘‘Tetragamy,’’ nor indeed was it written by Arethas at all. It has led scholars a sad dance (see KarlinHayter’s edition, pp. 281-292), through their failure to realize that the word dAAayiov (tbid., 302/13) means exchanges, not of ideas, but of prisoners. The writer was Leon Choerosphactes, the date 906, and

the reason for the document’s inclusion in a collection of Arethas’ compositions is that its contents

provoked Arethas’ own outburst, Xoipocgdxtns 4 Micoyons, found in the same collection (fols. 87°91 r). The title and scholion at fol. 96% are of course editorial flights of fancy. See now also Byzantion, 31 (1961), 273-307, for two ‘‘Defences”’ of Arethas on his return from exile in 907, of which one may be an

earlier draft of the other: cf. infra, note 24. 5 Neos Hellenomnemon, 21 (1927), 3-7, 7-14. 6 Rev. Et. Byz., 18 (1960), 128. 231

232 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS referred to supra, which might suggest that Niketas had, during the latter part of 906, acted as Arethas’ amanuensis. Two other letters in the same Vienna MS’ have been ascribed to Niketas by Lambros, and the ascription seems certain.® All four letters must be datable to the latter part of 906 or the early part of 907.

They deserve to be re-edited together, and the second of them should be studied with reference to the parallel texts of Arethas. But the texts with which this article is concerned are three short letters of the Patriarch Nicholas, nos. 40, 49, and 146 in the editions of Mai and Migne, which have, so far as I know, not yet been studied with respect to their bearing on the question of the ‘‘Tetragamy’’ and its outcome. The best commentary on Nicholas’ correspondence in general is that of Father Grumel;® but he omits two

of these letters (nos. 49 and 146) from his work, and of the third (no. 40, his no. 770) he has perhaps not brought out the full significance. Moreover, the text printed by Mai and Migne, which derives from the Vaticanus 1780, is not everywhere satisfactory; and the Latin renderings printed by Migne, especially Baronius’ rendering of no. 49, do not accurately represent the Greek. The texts printed here derive from the cod. Patmensis 178, which 1s itself the source of Vat. 1780, used by Mai.!° I have been able to study the Patmos MS by means of excellent photostats which are the property of the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes at Paris, and which have been most generously lent to me by Father Marcel Richard. I Fol. 165’. 1 pw’ Modoxivdd tratpixio

Oux fAynoanev eri Tois SvetSicpois os Kad’ fUdv creppitrre: TO ypaupa, Sidti Kal TOUTO PEya vouilopev, TO &E1ovoGar GAws Uvns, avOpootroi Sic Tas Guaptias fhudyv pndé TOV cepa OTTaV Sixaiol TuyKavovtes. “AAA’ Exeivo Tuiv GAyeivov Epavn, STI vouv Eyoov

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tou S1o1kouvtos GAA’ éviote Kal d&oydAAovtos én” atrtrois els Uirdotaov ayer. Tauta YlvwmoKwv ads vouvextis Kal ouvetds (fol. 166°) Goes tas yEweis Kal Tas piKpdrs tyépas THis Coofjs Tudv eUyou. Xpeworteis yap T& Te GAAA Kal St1 PiAos Urré_p piAou Tih evyry, ef wt

15 tavromaciv diraptoxn 6 & tou tepiotoryilovtros Bdpous Td&v GAlwewv cdvéTOUS Siayayeiv.

II 6s addidi * Ed. Lambros, Neos Hellenomnemon, 19 (1925), 189; ibid., 8 (1911), 301. § It is accepted by Darrouzés, op. cit., 126. Mrs. Karlin-Hayter (Byzantion, 25-27 [1955-7], 170-172) is inclined to doubt the ascription to Niketas of the second of these two letters, but she does not take account of the first, which immediately precedes it in the MS. This first letter is addressed to Niketas’ uncle Paul, and is a warm eulogy of Niketas’ friend and master Arethas, from whom the Court party

is trying to separate him. *'V. Grumel, Les regestes des actes du patriarcat de C’ple, I, fasc. II (1936), nos. 598-784. 10 See Darrouzés, Rev. Et. Byz., 18 (1960), 127.

DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE “TETRAGAMY” 233 TRANSLATION

40. To the patrician Malakinos: I was not pained by the insults cast on me by the letter, because I regard it as a great compliment to be thought deserving of any notice whatever—I who, for my sins, am unfit so much as to draw breath. But what did seem painful to me was that a man of sense, capable of appreciating the situation, should have been led astray as to its nature, and, instead of thinking it over rationally, should have looked merely to his own desire. He puts the blame on the wrong shoulders, although he knows from past experience what my purpose was at the time when

my advice could have been acted upon without any difficulty. If the business has incensed him and provoked him to blame me because he and that other one got some promise out of me, then that too is unreasonable: an intelligent man must also be aware that time is a factor of great importance, which realizes

many of our plans in a way not according to the wish of the planner, who sometimes bitterly regrets them. You, with your good sense and wisdom, are aware of this: so stop blaming me, and pray for the few days remaining to my life. This you are bound to do in any case, but especially so since your prayer will be that of a friend for his friend—unless indeed God is wholly averse to my living in freedom from the burden of sorrows that now beset me (sc. 1m which case prayers would be unavailing). Bibliography: Ed., from cod. Vat. gr. 1780, by Mai, Spic. rom. X (2), 312; Migne, PG, CXIT,

cols. 228 D-229 A. Found also in cod. Vindobon. phil. gr. 342, fols. go’-g1": see Neos Hellenomnemon, 19 (1925), 11, 19, but the variants there noted by Lambros are variants

from the Migne edition, not from the Patmos codex, and do not improve the latter. Grumel, Les regestes, no. 770. COMMENT

The first thing to notice is that the abusive letter which Nicholas has received has not come from his correspondent Malakinos: it is ‘‘the letter,’’ not “your letter.’’ Similarly, the intelligent man! who has however misjudged the situation, and is now blaming his folly on Nicholas, is this same third party who

has sent the abusive letter in question. When this is understood, the circumstances point to our identifying this third party with the Emperor Leo VI. He has, either just before or just after Nicholas’ banishment, written insultingly to the latter.12 Nicholas professes not to mind the insults, but does mind that one usually so sagacious as Leo should have mistaken the signs of the times and pushed on regardless towards the fulfilment of his “desire’’ (¢m6upiav). This word émSupia is repeatedly used by Leo’s opponents to represent his chief motive for

marrying a fourth time: see Migne, PG, CXI, cols. 196 C, 209 A. , Then follows the most illuminating sentence in the letter (Méupetan ... yvouny). This says, in effect: ‘‘It is no use the Emperor’s blaming me now: he knows well 11 For &v@purros, cf. Migne, PG, CXI, col. 201 C. 18 Cf, Byzantion, 25-27 (1955-7), 769—cAnSeotatn Bacirées EmioroAt rpds Upas.

234 ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS enough what I felt about it at the time when I could easily have managed the business.’’ The clause éte xaupds fv pt) SuoKoAlav etréyav Tov pds Epyov Tihv tyetépay

Eiévor yvounv is rendered by Migne: eo nempe tempore quo nulla erat producendt

nostram sententiam dtfficulias; it should rather be: cum adesset tempus nullam

adferens difficultatem quominus sententia nostra in actionem prodiret. The reference is clear. The Vita Euthymi and a host of documents written by Arethas!® make it certain that during the last eight months of 906 Nicholas was loyally working for recognition of the Fourth Marriage, and even offered, in May and August, to receive the Emperor back into the Church on his (Nicholas’)

own authority; but the Emperor, unluckily for himself, refused. It was only after Christmas 906 that Nicholas realized the teAeia évotaois of Arethas and his party, and finally retracted his offer. After his restoration in 912 Nicholas never

admitted that he had, in fact, once worked for the dispensation: and this deceived Popov" into rejecting the evidence of the Vita Euthymzz on this point. But, if our interpretation of this letter is correct, we have here Nicholas’ own direct statement that he was willing to grant dispensation when it could have been done safely, i.e. in the spring or summer of 900.

All the rest of the letter supports this interpretation. “If he and that other [that 1s, Leo and his minister Samonas] got something [that is, some promise or concession] out of me, and the Emperor is incensed because I cannot now fulfil it, this is unreasonable: a sensible man must realize the importance of taming (%) Por) Tou Koupou). It could safely have been done then; now, it cannot, without disastrous results.”’

The correspondent Malakinos is unknown from other sources. It is natural to think of him as a member of the Emperor’s privy council, and he may even have been its president (tapaSuvactevwv),}° an office which, as we know from the Life of St. Nikon Metanoeite,!® was held a century later by another member of the same family, John Malakinos. That Leo employed his faradynasteuon in communicating with the exiled Patriarch we know from Byzantion, 25-7, p. 752,

line 3, where the phrase 1 .. TO 50vacGai trap’ atts AaydvTi Means simply TS trapasuvactevovT:. But, in view of Vita Euthymi 48/20-1 (Karlin-Hayter, 96/17—18), it is perhaps more reasonable to think in this connection of Samonas, who may well have combined the offices of protovestiary and paradynasteuon at

this time. The date of the letter could be either before or after Nicholas’ deposition, but cannot be many weeks removed from that event. The refusal to receive Leo into the Church at Christmas 906 and at Epiphany 907 has presumably taken place, since Nicholas lays emphasis on what he was once willing to do but cannot do now, and speaks of the Emperor’s rage at his refusal. The early part 13 Vita Euthymi (de Boor), 38; (Karlin-Hayter), 76-8; Byzantion, 25-27 (1955-7), 706; Ezght Letters, 343-345.

14N. Popov, Imperator Lev VI Mudryi (Moscow, 1892), 120: My ne imeem osnovanii stchitats patriarcha sposobnym pisats odno, a govorits i delats drugoe (!). 18 See Beck, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 48 (1955), 327-338. 16 Ed. Lambros, Neos Hellenomnemon, 3 (1906), 178/32; cf. A. A. Christophilopoulou, ‘H ZuyKAntos

els +d Bulavtivév Kocros (Athens, 1949), 77-78. For the Malakinos family, see further Cedrenus, II, 358/20, 451/19-22; J. Darrouzés, Epistoliers byzantins du X¢ siécle (Paris, 1960), 45.

DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE “TETRAGAMY” 235 of go7 1s the most likely date. Confirmatory evidence of this, for what it is worth, may lie in the fact that our letter no. 40 is placed in the middle of a series of letters to Gregory of Ephesus, which have been dated by Grumel!’ to between May and September of go6: and, as Darrouzés has well observed, ‘comme il arrive souvent, les lettres d’une méme époque de la vie de |’auteur sont restées groupées.’’ But more than this: the order of those of Nicholas’ letters which appear in cod. Vindobon. phil. gr. 342 (fols. 12’-20", 807-91") is not the order of Patm. 178, though it is in some ways related to it. Though the Vienna codex is of the twelfth century, its reproduction of Nicholas’ letters is

not based on the Patmos version, but depends on a probably earlier, and probably more chronologically accurate, arrangement of those documents. Thus, for example, the letter to the ‘““Emir of Crete’ (sc. to the Caliph at Bagdad), which appears first in the Patmos collection (Migne no. 1), appears third in the Vienna collection, and immediately after Migne no. 113, to Niketas

of Athens. Internal evidence makes it certain that the former is datable to 913-914; whereas the latter, as we shall see (note 26, 7mfva), must also be dated to ca. 914. Now, Migne no. 40, in the Vienna arrangement, is placed immediately

after Migne no. 133, to the Archbishop of Alania; and this latter is dated by Grumel (his no. 610), with, I believe, absolute certainty, to the end of 906 or the beginning of 907, which is precisely where we have dated the letter to Malakinos. When Nicholas speaks of tas pikpds téoas tis Cwfis {udv, this, of course, does

not mean that he was necessarily on the brink of the grave, though he often supposed himself to be so when things went wrong. But in February 907 he was already 54 or 55 years old,’ and, as he himself said elsewhere,”° the expectation of life was small after 60, and very few lived to be 70. 2

Fol. 171’. 1 0’ TIpds tous untpotroAitas é€eo tis ExxAnotas évtas. "Av@partrous treifouev, pnoliv & Oeios a&ird0TOAOs, BG SE Trepavepwmpeba Kai OUK EOTIV

GAAos 7 Kata thy poKapiav éelynvy yAdooav tiv € ovpavou AaAovoav Kai ovy) Aoylopay Ovntdv cal dvOpootriveov. “Opa &1} ov Kai ov, wa&AAOv SE dp&te, os — oUK Ola 5 T1dds ouptrabtotepov eitra — SuoTUX ds ELauUTS Kal TH TOU XpioTtou Kal Geou crreyevvnoa

&xxAnola. ds yap ovyi Suotuxds; of EyevufOnté por ovY Iva KaTa TOV TrpéTrOVTA TéKVOIS TIpds yovéa vduoV TrpocaoTrionte, UTrepuaytjonote, Kal Tuxov év KIVEUVOIS Td 17 Tes regestes, nos. 604-607. 18 J. Darrouzés, Epistoliers byzantins, 45.

19 According to F. Fischer, ‘‘De Patriarcharum Constantinopolitanorum Catalogis’’ (Commentationes Philologae Jenenses, III [1884]), 293, Nicholas died on May 15, 925, aged 73. (Popov, op. cit. 92 note 2, cited this very passage, but apparently had not read it, since on p. 90 he stated that ‘‘the date of Nicholas’ birth is not accurately known.’’) Nicholas therefore (as Krumbacher, GBL? 458, knew) was born in 852. This fact in itself is enough to invalidate the hypothesis of Darrouzés (Epistoliers byzantins,

36, 120) that the Patriarch Nicholas was identical with the prosmonarios Nicholas, the favorite of Basil I, since the former could hardly have been a prosmonarios at 3 or 4 years of age. But, as the Continuator of George the Monk (Bonn ed., 842/17-843/2) and parallel texts tell us, the prosmonarios Nicholas was surnamed Androsalites, died a synkellos, and was buried in the Arcadianae, none of which facts applies to Nicholas Mysticus (cf. Darrouzés, op. ctt., 85, note 33). ” Migne, PG, CXI, col. 184 A-B.

236 ROMILLY J.H. JENKINS dvtwv ouvavTiAdBnove, Kai Tou KivSUvou AUonobe Tov tratépa Kav lows Trapa Sikny; Etreftren tot trapc O66 Kai toratrrns ouptrabelas d&vTiS001s TH Ta€avTi T1yT\s Spous 10 (fol. 172") trorrpdo1 Kal tékvots. "AAA’ ovyi TO UyETEpOV ToIOUTOV, ToU yap Xpiorou Kal

GeoU pou, oy Sti trpds Oepatrefav avrou eelpyaotal 11 tote Trap’ hudv, GAAG 51’ &gatov dyabétnta thaws evpevous tiv Tuyxdvovtos Kal ouSev trapaKexcopnKoTos TOLOUTOV TI TETTPAYHEVOV TLTy OpOtjvat.

10 Uyétepov cod fpETepov edd. TRANSLATION

49. To the metropolitans outside the Church: ‘‘We persuade men,” saith the divine Apostle,”! ‘“but we are made manifest unto

God’’: and it is not otherwise than according to that blessed tongue which speaketh out of Heaven and not out of the thoughts of mortal men. Look thou then to it—or rather look ye, whom (I do not know how to put it more kindly) I begat”? to be a curse both to myself and to the Church of Christ our God. For

a curse you have certainly been: were you not born my sons so that, in accordance with the law which rules the proper conduct of children to their parent, you might protect me, fight for me, and take my part if 1 was in danger,

and deliver your father out of danger—even, perhaps, if I had been in the wrong? for affection, even when shown in such circumstances as these (1.e. to a parent who ts in the wrong), has its reward from God, Who has ordained the

terms of honor between fathers and sons.?? But this was not your case: for since my Christ and God, not for any service ever done Him by me but out of His own ineffable goodness, has always shown me His favor and has never permitted that any such wrong should be seen to have been done by me ..... Bibliography: Ed., from cod. Vat. gr. 1780, by Mai, Spic. rom. X (2), 321-2; Migne, PG, CXI, cols. 240 D-241 A. Latin version, Baronius, Ann. Eccl. X, 775. Cf. Grumel, Les vegestes, nos. 630-632, 706. COMMENT

In the title the Migne edition has gow, but Mai correctly reproduced the &w

of the MS, and the Latin version of Baronius so translates. The point is important because, if the metropolitans are excommunicated, then Nicholas has deposed or is deposing them, and the letter is datable to June 912. This is confirmed by a comparison of our document with the fuller version that was found in the Cosinitsa MS and published by Papadopoulos-Kerameus and Karlin-Hayter.24 Nicholas addresses the same parties in both documents, and 812 Cor. 5:11. #3 Is. 1:2. 43 Exod. 20:12. % Varia graeca sacra, 255-259; Byzantion, 25-27, 748-756. This is not the only case where we have

two differing versions of the same composition of Nicholas: Cod. Vind. phil. gr. 342 fols. 84*-87¥ contains a Consolatio of which only the last third is identical with Migne, PG, CXI, cols. 236-240. See also Karlin-Hayter, Byzantion, 31 (1961), 275-276.

DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE “TETRAGAMY” 237 makes use of much the same language (e.g. the quotation from Isaiah 1:2 and the phrase “Opa 81 otv Kai ov, uaAAov & dpa&re; cf. ‘Opas, ua&AAov Spare, ed.

Karlin-Hayter, 754.) In the longer document Nicholas denies the validity of his

resignation from the patriarchal throne in 907, and ends with the formal deposition of his Euthymian opponents. The shorter version, reproduced here, ends inconclusively, and there is good reason to believe that it is a fragment only. The final sentence (tol y&p XpiotoU .. dp6fjvar) is a subordinate genitive absolute, and lacks the main subject and predicate which should make it clear that, since God in His mercy has never allowed Nicholas to act mapa dixny, the metropolitans were doubly criminal in deserting his cause. In these circumstances it is not possible to determine the exact relationship of the two versions, or to decide which of them came first; but they must be nearly contemporary, and datable immediately after Nicholas’ restoration in 912.

The persons particularly addressed are known from the Vita Euthymu (62/14-15; Karlin-Hayter, 120/32-34). They were the metropolitans Demetrios of Heraclea, Gregory of Nicomedia, Gabriel of Ancyra, Hilarion of Hierapolis,

Peter of Sardis, and of course Arethas, who wrote a reply. The first four of these were brought before Nicholas, and, after some verbal exchanges, Nicholas ordered the recital of ‘“what he had composed”’ (zb1d., 62/21-22; Karlin-Hayter, 122/6: t& Trap’ avo ouvtebivTa ExéAevoev d&vayivooKeofa). This composition was

doubtless the formal indictment and the Council’s sentence of deposition, and the ex-metropolitans are henceforth otto1 oi xa9npnuévoir (2b7d., 62/25; KarlinHayter, 122/9). Now the fuller version of our letter, found in the Cosinitsa MS, is just such a document as this, and may well be the actual text read out to the

metropolitans on that occasion; and the letter republished here could be a first draft of the Cosinitsa text, which would be consistent with its present fragmentary state. So far as they can be compared, the chief difference between the two texts is that, whereas in the fragment Nicholas himself exclaims ots .. SuoTuXas .. atreyévvnoa, in the longer, more elaborate version he has the Church herself cry out against her misbegotten sons (ed. Karlin-Hayter, p. 748), and is characteristically abused by Arethas for this artifice (1b7d., p. 758).

There is some doubt as to the number of metropolitans whom Nicholas actually did depose. It appears from the Vita Euthymi: that the Council which was convened in June 912 pronounced anathema and sentence of deposition on all the Euthymian bishops indiscriminately ;25 whereas in his letter to Niketas of Athens?¢ Nicholas states that only four have in fact been deposed, v1z. three of those mentioned in the Vita Euthymii, Demetrios, Gabriel, and Gregory,

with one other, Cosmas, who had told lies at Rome. It is possible that we 25 Grumel, Les regestes no. 631; cf. Vita Euthymit, 72/17-20, which implies that the number of those deposed was considerable.

a6 Migne, PG, CXI, col. 329 B-D. This letter to Niketas of Athens can, on internal evidence, scarcely be dated as late as 922, where Grumel (Les regestes, no. 706) would place it. Nicholas never wrote in this tone of despair about the Church after the Tomus Unionis was promulgated (920). The truth must be that Niketas immediately succeeded Savas in 913, and was afterwards superseded by George, after whose death in 921 he returned to the see. This is confirmed by the order of the episcopal list in the Athens Synodicon: see Laurent, Mémorial L. Petit (Bucharest, 1948), 277-280. The letter is more probably datable ca. 914. Cf. de Boor, Vita Euthymt: (Berlin, 1888), pp. 197-199.

238 ROMILLY J.H. JENKINS should add Hilarion of Hierapolis to the list, if he is the same Hilarion who later

created disturbance in the monastery of abbot Peter (Migne, PG, CXI, col. 261 B; cf. col. 361 A—C). Grumel, no. 706, critique 3, notes the discrepancy (cf.

also Popov, pp. 170-177), and suggests that the general denunciation of June gI2 was in the nature of a condamnation de principe. It is probable enough that Nicholas, whose instability of character was the jest and torment of his associates,?’ should, in the first transports of triumph and revenge, have gone further than was prudent, and later saw that, if church unity was ever to be

restored, he must proceed in a far more conciliatory fashion. The case of Arethas himself may be instructive in this connection. It is absolutely certain that Nicholas deposed him in 912; but he flatly refused either to recognize his deposition or to offer his resignation. He would yield to an imperial edict for his eviction, but to nothing short of this;#8 and Nicholas once more seems to have bowed to his colleague’s resolution and to have left him where he was. This is one of the eight letters of Nicholas published in Latin summaries by Baronius.”® The summaries are so wildly at variance with the Greek text as we know it that the suggestion has been made that Baronius relied on an altogether different tradition from Patm. 178 and Vat. 1780 (cf. Grumel, Les regestes, no. 712). This is not the place for a discussion of the annalist’s versions, but the

hypothesis of an independent tradition is rightly rejected by Darrouzés.® — Migne unfortunately reprinted some of Baronius’ versions in his edition. The best that can be said of this one is that it is secundum sensum rather than secundum verbum. 3

Fol. 234°

1 ppd’ Keovotavrives trewtoacnKpitis ‘ATA ypapo trpos avOpwtrov ouvideiv Kal év iSie — (fol. 234”) — tela Adywov wuyiis GAynua opodpov. “Axon fkovoapev peta Thy Tou Baoirtws é€ fydv d&vaywpnoiv cs &pxiettioxotrov trap& Tis hudv yelpotovndévta tatrervoTntos — otrtos S& éotiv 6 > NeatroAgos — éxSiaoKxete kal téutrete GAAov Ov oppdyioev Kal éEatréoteiAev Exel & Kal els THv TUETEPAY TV TaTrelvdv Kal Tavtwv d&vOpwtrwv dyaptaAotépwv, Sas Sé ofois ofSe

Kpipaciv 6 cuvappooas uds TauTN Xpiotdés pou, KaGas avtoi ériotacbe, elotrnSijoas. Baétrete ti troieite. “Opas mrdds GTTAG ypc; *APdos ell tis aleoviou KataSixns Uydv Alavies yap KataKkpipati Tov TOUTO Tro1ioUVTA UTTOBAAG, el Kal dYapTwAds elu, &pyxiepevs

10 dv tis Tou Xpiotou exxAnolas Kal cuvappoobeis atti ot Bia, ot mrepiSpopais guais, ob oTrovdi] avOpwrrivn, GAAd Adyois ols olSev 6 TO Gyiov alya Urrép avtijs Kevaoas. Kal TH GcAutw éxelveo Seoue o av UToBaAoupev Tous TouTo émiyelpoUvtTas TrapaotisovTal TH popen® Briyati Kal ya ovv autois, kal TéoTe yvooodpeba EveoTriov trdons GapKds Kal Tov Siov CiAov Kal TO ppovnpa Kal Thy évtpéxeiav Kal Thy pIAlav Kal Tas TTOAAdS TrEpivoias, 15 étav Tay oTépa Eugpdoontat Kal Exactos KaT& T& Olkefa Epya Arjwetar Thy dvrardboo1v.

2 ouvidelv sc. ppovipov Svta ouvideiv §=rocf. Dwtiou Adyor kal ‘OwAfou, ed. Aristarchis, Il, 438/ 2-3 37 Cf. Byzantion, 25-27, 760, 766: 1d opadepdv, Td koTd&OynTtov TOU fGous.

® Varia graeca sacra, 268-269; cf. Vita Euthymii, 62/3-5, Karlin-Hayter, 120/21-23. ® Annales Ecclestastici, X, ann. 917. % Rev. Et. Byz., 18 (1960), 127.

DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE “TETRAGAMY” 239 TRANSLATION

144. To Constantine protoasecretis: I write plain language to a man zntelligent enough to discern, even in simple

words, a violent grief of heart. I have heard a report, since the Emperor’s departure from us, that you are expelling an archbishop ordained by my Humility—I mean, him of Neapolis—and sending another who had been consecrated and dispatched thither by him who, as you know yourselves, usurped the throne on which I, though humble and the most sinful of men, was

none the less established by the inscrutable judgements of my Christ Who confirmed me in it. Take care what you do! You see, don’t you, how plainly I write ? [am innocent of your eternal damnation: for I shall commit to eternal damnation him who does this—I who, though sinful, am yet arch-priest of the

Church of Christ, being confirmed in it, not by violence, nor by my own canvassings, nor by the favor of men, but for reasons known to Him Who for that Church poured out His blood. And by that indissoluble bond in which I shall commit those who attempt this, they will stand at the fearful Tribunal,

and I with them, and then we shall know, in the presence of all flesh, their private emulation and arrogance and intrigue and friendship and their many clever devices, when every mouth shall be stopped, and each shall receive his reward according to his own works !%! Bibliography: Ed., from cod. Vat. gr. 1780, by Mai, Spic. rom. X (2), 425-426; Migne, PG, CXI, cols. 372 D-373 B. Popov, Imperator Lev VI Mudryt, 92, 174 (correctly dating the letter to Nicholas’ second patriarchate, but not going on to examine the circumstances). COMMENT

Migne’s Latin version goes hopelessly astray in the second sentence (Axon ... &lommndijoas). The patriarch’s language, under stress of emotion, is indeed somewhat elliptical: written out at full the latter part of this sentence wouldrun: © Kai els Thy TUETEpav Tv Tatreivdv Kai Tadvtwv d&vOpwtraov dyapTwAoTépwv Syws

Se ofois olde Kpipaciv 6 ouvapydoas Tuas tauTH Xpiotds pou Runciman, p. 105. 41 Antapodosis 11, 24.

208

THE DATE OF THE SLAV REVOLT IN PELOPONNESE

Peter and St. I.uke are evidence for such an invasion shortly after g20.** The evidence of the Life of St. Luke is especially noteworthy: for, as we shall see, that Life is extraordinarily accurate in its chronology, and the saint's prophecy that ‘EAdds é\a6yjoeras xat Te\ondvynoos tokepwOnoerac® refers beyond any doubt to the invasions of the time of Symeon.“ Again, the plot against Romanus in which Arethas was said to be involved is more likely to have been hatched in the first years of his reign than in the middle of

it: it was clearly a conspiracy, not a revolt such as that of the false Ducas in 932.“ As for Protevon’s levy, it might equally well be related to either of the two Lombard revolts in Romanus’ time (920-921 or 929-936). It is therefore best to adhere to the date of 921-922 for the events of De Admin. Imp. 50/25ff., and to dissociate De Cerimoniis 660-662 from them altogether. Lastly, the Life of St. Luke the Younger® contains one anecdote which at first sight

seems to relate to our passage from De Admin. Imp., and has in fact been related to it by many scholars, with disastrous results for their chronological findings. The anecdote“ tells how a certain Krinitis, military governor of Hellas, was about to return

to Constantinople at the end of his term of office; but St. Luke prophesied that he would not yet reach the capital, since it was God’s will that he should continue to reside in the west. Sure enough, an imperial missive arrived soon afterwards, appoint-

ing Krinitis governor in Peloponnese. It is natural that this Krinitis should have been identified with Krinitis Arotras, and that the governorship of Peloponnese conferred on the one in the Life of St..Luke should have been identified with the nine months’ governorship of the other described in De Admin. Imp. But very great, and perhaps insurmountable, difficulties stand in the way of these identifications. To determine the reliability of the Life of St. Luke, it is necessary briefly to examine its credentials. That it is the work of a writer in close touch with the saint’s immediate associates, is clear enough; and that it was compiled very shortly after the saint’s death, which occurred in 953, is explicitly stated.“* Moreover, for at least three sections of the Life the source was St. Luke’s own sister Kale.” Every chronological indication

confirms the reliability of the text." At every stage in the saint's life the author records the number of years which it lasted, and sums up the whole in a chronological

résumé at the end." From these data we can accurately recover the chronology of 42 See notes 12-14. 43 Suppl. V. L., 95. 44 Bees, pp. 343-344. «Ss Theoph. Cont. 421/7ff. Cf. G. Manojlovié, Rad Jugoslavenshe Ahademije 186 (1911), 57: Mislim, da je to izvjeSte (sc. the Meling-Ezerite revolt) moglo nastati ve¢ u prvo vrijeme carovanja Romana I (919-924), kad je ovaj krepko uzeo upravu carstva u ruke. «© The only complete text of this Life,was published by George P. Kremos in @waund 1 (1874), 25-62. But

the work is very scarce, and it is better to cite the incomplete Migne text with the Supplementum of Analecta Bollandiana; see note *. 47 Vit. Luc. cols. 468D-469A.

+ Suppl. V. L. 82. The terminus post quem for the composition is 961 (capture of Crete, Vit. Luc. 469A), so that the work may well have been written within a decade of the saint's death.

«9 Vit. Luc. col. 444D; Suppl. V. L. 97 and 104. : 8° Zakythinos, p. 53, is surely unjust in saying that the Life Aplee xpovedeysndy dpaprapdre. The fact seems

to be the exact contrary. 81 Suppl. V. L. 120.

209

R. J. H. JENKINS

St. Luke's career."* Born in 896, he became a monk in g10, resided on Mt. Joannitza from 910-917, in Peloponnese from 917-927, again on Mt. Joannitza from 927-940, at Kalamion from 940-943, on the island of Ampelon from 943-946, and lastly at

Steirion from 946 until his death in 953. This chronology is confirmed by every historical reference: the death of Symeon in 927; the embassy of Romanus I to Egypt

in 937-938; the Magyar invasion of 943."° All these events are placed in correct chronological sequence and in the appropriate periods of the saint’s career. In dealing with an account of such manifest accuracy, we are not justified in arbitrarily transferring the incidents it relates from one period to quite another of the saint’s life, simply because extraneous evidence seems to suggest it. Now, the incident that concerns Krinitis is placed by the author in the final period

of the saint’s life, after his migration to Steirion in 946. It immediately follows an anecdote about Pothos (sc. Argyros),** which tells of a plot against Constantine VII and which therefore cannot be dated before 945 at earliest.°’ It seems altogether impossible to relate the Krinitis story of the Ltfe of St. Luke to an event which took place in 921, when the saint was not in Boeotia at all, but a refugee in Peloponnese. It is true that the saint’s prophecy about the capture of Crete,** which follows the

Krinitis story in the Life, is slightly misplaced, but only very slightly, and full chronological data are given to help us with it. The author, after narrating two incidents, the Pothos and Krinitis stories, which date from about 946, goes back to an incident which dates from 941-944; but he is aware of what he is doing, and makes it clear that the prophecy about Crete was made in the last years of Romanus’ reign. It is an altogether different matter to accuse him, in defiance of his express statement,” of carelessly misdating events by as much as a quarter of a century. We are therefore bound to conclude that there is no connection between Vit. Luc. cols. 468D-469A and De Admin. Imp. 50/34-54.% It seems more likely that Pothos was the last governor of Hellas under the Lecapenids, and was succeeded by that 2 Cf. Bees, pp. 341-348; Papadopoulos in @eodoyla 13 (1935), 201-219. 83 Vit. Luc. col. 453B.

84 ibid., col. 460A; cf. A. A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, 1, 2, Extraits des sources arabes, Bruxelles 1950, 228.

58 Vit. Luc. col. 461A; cf. Theoph. Cont. 430/22-431/3, and Papadopoulos, op. cit., p. 2132. 6¢ Cf. Theoph. Cont. 463/1. 87 Cf. ibid., 440-441. 6s Vit, Luc. 469A. 6° Suppl. V. L. gg: rd per ob» xpd r¥s rol UOvous éwiSpouss rol Oelov Aovxd ra0ré dor: .. . rh 8d perd rhy gvydy

wal ferirelay 3 déyos H8n ByrGdoe. Papadopoulos, op. cit., p. 214, says that Arotras was twice governor of Peloponnese, in 922 and 941; even if this were true, neither date would suit Vit. Luc. © Runciman, p. 73, n. 1, has already pointed to a serious discrepancy between the two accounts. De Admin. Imp. does not say that Arotras was transferred from Hellas to Peloponnese, but only that he was sent to Hellas at the conclusion of his mission in Peloponnese. It is most unlikely that a capable general would be sent with an army out of Hellas into Peloponnese at the very moment when Hellas was being invaded by the Bulgars. Arotras was more probably sent to Peloponnese directly from Constantinople. G. ManojloviC, op. cit., pp. 62-63, sees clearly the difficulty of connecting the incident of Vit. Luc. with those of De Admin. Imp., which latter he rightly dates between 919 and 924; but his solution casts undeserved discredit on the accuracy of the former document. G. Laskin (see note 11 above) also refused to connect the two events, and dated the Sklavesian invasion to 9z¢.

210

THE DATE OF THE SLAV REVOLT IN PELOPONNESE

Krinitis of Chaldia who was shortly moved to Calabria and there disgraced himself."

However this may be, we need no longer feel that the events of De Admin. Imp. 50/25ff. must be tied chronologically to a prophecy made at least twenty years later, an assumption which has led to many misunderstandings in the past. KING'S COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

*1 Cedrenus 1, 357/20-§58/7. For the Krinitis family, see Adontz in Byzantion, 10 (1935), 535-539- Lf Arotras had a son old enough to take part in the revolt of C. Ducas in 918 (Theoph. Cont. 384/11-12), he would have | been over 70 in 946, and is therefore not likely to be identical with the Krinitis of Vit. Luc. or

.

«

XX] , The Peace with Bulgaria (927) Celebrated by Theodore Daphnopates

Polychronion

Festschrift E Dolger Heidelberg, winter 1966

THE PEACE WITH BULGARIA (927) CELEBRATED BY THEODORE DAPHNOPATES

Long enough ago Dr Johnson said of Shakespeare, “‘whatever advantages he might once derive from personal allusions ... have for many years been lost; and every topic of merriment, or motive of sorrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only obscure the scenes which they once tlluminated.’’ And because we so keenly share Dr John-

son’s regret we cannot help asking, Must every lost thing remain lost? May no corner

of the dark curtain of oblivion be lifted? Or is it possible that materials already at hand may be put together to make a guide-post to rediscovery of some part of that lost

rena? LESLIE Horson, The First Night of ‘‘Twelfth Night’’. It is not possible to exaggerate the extent of the debt which all Byzantinists owe to the very great scholar whom his colleagues are combining to honour in this volume. To be invited to contribute to it is, in itself, a signal honour. The best compliment that I can pay to Professor Délger is to do my best to re-interpret, in the light of his own work and of that of Professor Ostrogorsky, some parts of a document which, if they had not written, would remain as obscure to us as it was to its original editor, Uspenskij. In Codex Vaticanus graecus 483, at ff. 43-51, is found an oration dating,

as internal evidence shows, from the year A. D. 927, and entitled éxi t7 taév Bovdydowy cvpfdoe, that is, “On the Treaty of the Bulgarians’. This oration was published by Th. I. Uspenskij, in Letopis istoriko-philologicheskago obshchestva pri imperatorskom novorossijskom universitete, vol. IV, Vi-

zantijskoe otdelenie II (Odessa 1894), p. 48-123, under, the title ‘Neizdannoe tserkovnoe slovo o bolgarsko-vizantijskikh otnosheniakh v pervoj polo-

vine X veka’, that is to say, ‘An unpublished church-sermon on BulgaroByzantine relations in the first half of the 10th century}. Uspenskij’s edition is unsatisfactory in every way but one: for it is only fair to say that his

transcription of the text, written in a late 14th-century hand, is most accurate. But the meaning of the document — the allusions which it makes 1 For bibliography, see Gy. Moravesik, Byzantinoturcica’, pp. 223-224. ,

288 R. J. H. Jenkins to contemporary events and personalities, the significance and date of its explanatory ‘key’ (I mean, the marginalia), and indeed its very nature — almost wholly eluded him: and he himself very frankly admitted that this was so’,

We need not follow his manifold blunders in detail, though we must take note of the few occasions where he was right in his interpretation. But two

of his misunderstandings must be observed at the outset. First, his title ‘T’serkovnoe slovo’ is a misnomer. There is no reason to suppose, and every reason to doubt, that this is the text of a sermon for delivery in church. The

wealth of classical allusion, and the constant, if covert, reference to contemporary politicans, would make the oration quite unsuitable for a thanksgiving in S. Sophia. The misunderstanding arises from a passage® in which the audience is exhorted to go to the church and give thanks for the peace. In fact, the oration is delivered by the official palace orator in the presence of the emperor (Romanus I)4; and is comparable with the series of palace orations delivered before Leo VI by Arethas of Caesarea a quarter of a century before.

In the second place, the 14th-century text includes, not only the title given above, in red ink, but also some highly illuminating marginal comments, partly in red ink and partly in black. These comments are a ‘key’ to the identity of some of the persons disguised in the text under Biblical or mythological names. Uspenskij® thought that these marginalia were additions of the 19th century, perhaps the work of Hase, who is known to have

had access to the document. Hence, he thought himself free to doubt and even reject these identifications where he thought them improbable. But, in

fact, these marginalia are in the same hand as the rest of the text®, and, what is more, are in every instance but one demonstrably correct. There can be little doubt that they go back to the 10th century and are perfectly reliable. We may add that Hase, good scholar as he was, would hardly have been capable of writing them. This is not to say that all the document’s obscurities vanish before the eye of a modern scholar. Uspenskij has this to say’ of his text, with much of which we can agree: “The church-orator, who belonged to the highest ranks of the Constantinopolitan clergy and was perfect master of the tricks of the - 2 Uspenskij, pp. 52-53, 94. 3 Ibid., p. 64: cig tov olxov Kupiov peta opovolas ovviwper. 4 Tbid., p. 61, line 13. § Tbid., pp. 50-51. * As Mercati has pointed out, Bessarione 23 (1919), 39. 7 Uspenskij, p. 52.

The Peace with Bulgaria (927) celebrated by Theodore Daphnopates 289

rhetorical art of his time, employed in his phraseology all the means open to hs talent and extensive erudition, and has plunged the actual facts and circumstances described in his oration into such obscurity that in our day it 18 a work of no common difficulty to divine whose portraits he 13 depicting or to what events he refers . . . these rhetorical artifices may have been to the taste of educated

Byzantines of the 10th century; and the imagery and allusions of the author were perhaps clear to, and understood by, his audtence (though one may have have doubts about about this); but for the modern scholar, who cannot appreciate all the concealed motives that governed the events of the 10th century, the dtf-

ficulties of interpreting such documents are enormously increased.” Well: perhaps it is not quite so bad as all that. Let us see what we can make of it. Internal evidence shows that this oration was given in the Palace to celebrate the peace signed and ratified between Tsar Peter of Bulgaria and the Emperor Romanus I Lecapenus in October 927. Hence the oration itself may be dated to that month, or very shortly afterwards. I cannot, for reasons of space, here republish the whole of it, though the whole deserves republicat-

ion, in view of its importance and authorship and of the rarity of Uspenskij’s edition. But I select the two passages in it which are of greatest im-

portance to the historian, translate them and add some notes on their meaning, author and historical reliability.

Cod. Vat. gr. 483 f. 45v* @ tho énwoias. tO yng xai Baddttns peOdotov, tO pETalymLov HELpwTOV TE

xal ynitov otoatod, xai Baotieic dtyoyywpovotvtac, duotdlovtas, olov tov Dovyiac! te xai Muxrrns dxovouer, cig suoygoovvny, cig Oudvotay ovvennyaye. tig to nédayos tHS Gyabdtntos adtod nxegrdnjpetat, tic dé tov tHG PiAavOownilac

adtod Buldv xatadjypeta, dtc ta dtagdayévta wéon tHS oixovpévns cvvotAwoe xal odtwe sic dAoxAnoiay xal cvugrutarv®, va unxéts LxvOnco xat BapBapos xai td

xal t6 xadovusba, Xgrotiavoi dé mdvtes xal Oeod téxva xal @divec tod [Tvevpatos xal Aeyapeba® xai decxvipucba; tic tov ndodtoy tij¢ aopiag xal duyduews attot dunyrjcetat, 6tt tods Eonegiovg Avxovg xai tay Edwv nEglegyotégous xal Ooacvtégove tocavty metectotyeiwoey idagdtnts wo xal mictevecbar pudAdocety TO noipmov nai tods povods énttiBeuévove xal danedatvew xal dnotoéneoba, * Sigla: cod = Cod. Vat. gr. 493; U = Uspenskij’s edition; Kurtz = Ed. Kurtz in Byzantinische Zettschrift 4 (1895), 615-616. 1 Dovylas cod Gbias U 2 post cvugutay excidisse aliquid videtur e. g. ovréotnaey vel ovrjAmocy 3 Aeyducba cod an Asyousba? 19 Festschrift Ddlger

290 R. J. H. Jenkins 6ui tov tay Cilaviow onopéa xai pvisaxa, tov veov "Adeo, tov xatvov ’Odogéovnr' npodtaueBodevaduevos TH adtod xdow® tHv dtacnogay tod 'IcooanA aveowoato, xal mddw éni tac oixeiag mnyas xal ovxdc Exactoc td Bég0¢ ducy xal tov dune-

Adva tovyayv xai avaxabalowy thy dio xai Babtywrv to tnodjmov tH Boapevti tay torottwv enevyeta; tic tH avekeoetyyntoy adtot xndeyoviay trouvijoetat, 6tt, peta Lodoudvra® rev’ cignvixov xai piAdcogoy té) “legoBodu tot notuviov dsaonacbévtos dia tH tev vewtéowy Bovdny, tov Cydwtry ‘lwvdv® toi¢g xaigoic éyaoloato, tnonoag &v toig peyiototg tow péytotoy xal yeiot yeioa xpativow xai Boaylou Boayiova duvaydy xai xwwey xat petaxwdy Snov Bovietar xai w¢ BoddAetat, tov adtoy xai Baotdéa xal noduayor xai dywmothw xal dtaddaxtijotor, to déov cxonovuevoy, TO Cvugéooy noouNOovpEVoY, Toig NOdyuacLY avEoTHCATO;

tle tatta tay ciddtwv daov 1 siprwn xaddv 7° Oéus éotly éxawwéceta; tls ta napdvta xat’ d&lav aivéoeta, (f. 46) thw nag’ édnida petaBodry, try naoa apoocdoxiay GAAoiwoty, thy avéxpoactoy duerpw, thy dntotoy tavtny évdtyta; nédowyv iotoplia Llodvpiwv, adawyv [TAovtdgyor nagddAdnio, noiov daypwddy

uétoa, tivwy ebyAwttiat Ontépwy ta toratta aynoovor dinyiuata; ovdé tor xdonov xat éy@ua (td to’ yyannpévov) thw Tolottoy yworjoat tO péyeBoc.

(ibid. f. 47) |

GAN éni ta viv Enavaxtéov tedovueva xai moodetxtéov ta tHS éootHS éxdnAdtegov’ dnav yao ddndov andéoteoor. énei dé to nay odvy oldy te dtatoavdou un xai (f. 47%) ta modtegov nagadeiEavtac, ta 0° otx GAhwe pr xal tag AaBac xal ta aitia napactijoartas xat dOev xual dnwe éxeivd te npoéByn xa tad’ éExéBn,

| oftw pot Ooxei dtabetéov elvar tov Adyor. Fvbe ta Huétega adAa xai avbotvta nooéxonter, noyale, tho axuns EBavudleto, tio éniddcews eerdleto, CnAwta ndow dnijv xai dommeva nal Aeydueva xal peta ddén¢ Sinyeito toicg négaci, 6te tO otoatiuntixoy EG6v0uileto Agovte xai ovveBoviAever ’Ayitoged nai Aogaxoyr

xai LdAwy &Béonilov, Stay ai uvOixai Motoa (olov cineiv) ent yijic &yywpilovto

xai 6 “Agno xaretitpdoxeto, Stav cig nétavoov Gdov tO agiAdcoyoy xai naga to dovdcg axdtog 1) avoula (xata tv nagotular'”) xai Bowdgew yeiges E€wotoaxiCovto, Ste to yovaotw yévog énoditeveto xai to nay elyev eddatpovia xal THY Oeiow anddavats. odtw mm¢ elye ta Huétega ndAa, ovvjvber xal ta Bovdydowy

xal tomorye (xal ng yao od, viobernPévtey adtay xal Ged Hudy xai anopua“in marg Zupedy 6 LxvOn¢ cod 5 xdo@ cod xdem U in marg [Jétow 16 vi Lupewy * in marg déovta Baordéa cod 7