The only known illuminated copy of the Sacra Parallela (Paris, BnF, gr. 923) presents a unique rendering of Basil the Great in the company of two female personifications, identified here as lust and chastity. Adopting as its ideological premise the social visions of Basil and John Chrysostom on wealth and poverty, this essay argues that the peculiar image is informed by two interrelated monastic concerns – earthly possessions and the desire of the flesh – and participates in a discourse on issues of earthly wealth and sexual abstinence.

Taking as its point of departure Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, this article shows how femininity and masculinity are performed in three lay saints’ Lives from the middle Byzantine period: the Life of Philaretos the Merciful (820), the Life of Thomaïs of Lesbos (mid-tenth century) and the Life of Mary the Younger (eleventh century). The approach of these texts through gender performativity shows in the most graphic way the difference between male and female constructions of sanctity on the one hand, and the important role that gender plays in the construction of lay sanctity, on the other.

The fall of the Byzantine empire at the end of the twelfth century and the debacle of 1204 had complex causes, most of which are far beyond the scope of a short paper. However, it is very evident that military failure was a powerful element in the Byzantine collapse. The enquiry that follows seeks to establish the reasons for this failure by examining the nature of the empire’s armies and the events of particular campaigns. It is evident that sweeping generalizations about military failure need considerable qualification and that the outcome of individual expeditions was influenced by particular circumstances. Yet it does appear that it is possible to see certain general factors at work undermining, or at least limiting, the military efforts of Byzantium.

This paper explores correspondences between biographical attributes of Homer and self-representation in twelfth century texts: The first section deals with the blind bard’s presence in Theodoros Prodromos’ Sale of poetical and political lives and the ‘rhetoric of poverty’ in his poetry; the second with Ioannes Tzetzes’ class-room persona and the emplotment of Homer’s biography in the Exegesis on the Iliad; the third with the same author’s take on ancient traditions about the initially unstable situation of the Homeric text and his struggle to secure the immortality of his own name.

Even though the Ionian Islands (Heptanese) were removed from Venetian control in 1797, it was not until 1852 that Italian ceased to be used as an official language there. My article examines the official use of the three relevant languages (Italian, Greek and English), as laid down by statute and carried out in practice, and traces the stages leading to the final replacement of Italian with Greek for all official purposes. My study is based on the minutes of Ionian parliamentary debates and on despatches between the High Commissioner and the Colonial Office as well as constitutional documents and published Acts of Parliament.

This article examines the ways in which the perennial philosophy of Heraclitus becomes a site where the battle between modernist and postmodernist poetics unfolds. Seferis and Elytis exploit the Heraclitean doctrines of change, unity of opposites and the all-permeating logos in a manner that allows them to conceptualize and present what Lyotard calls the ‘modernist sublime’. Fostieris mobilizes the very same doctrines within his poetry, flouting the logical law of contradiction as Heraclitus did. By using and abusing the very concepts he challenges, Fostieris interrogates the modernist quest for master narratives and universal consensus, bringing forward the illusory character of such endeavours.

Despite the abundant literature on the Greek democratic transition of 1974, the dictatorial regime’s failed self-transformation attempt of 1973 (the so-called ‘Markezinis experiment’) has attracted very little attention. Based on the account of the nature and structure of the regime, and of the tactics of the actors (regime elites and counter-elites) during the transition period, this article tries to account for this short-lived and ill-fated attempt, the outcome of which has condemned it to oblivion.