In the case of the poems of Romanos the Melodos the usual difficulties involved in establishing chronologies are further compounded by at least two factors. First, very little is known about this Byzantine poet of the sixth century. A hagiographical life, adorned by a miracle, provides us with meagre information about Byzantium’s poetic genius. Secondly, because his poetry is liturgical, composed for the corporate worship of the Church, it is necessarily impersonal and general in character. Romanos speaks most often as a priest, a sacred poet of the ekklesia. Fortunately, however, rich sources survive for the Golden Age of Justinian, the period of Romanos’ poetic activity in Constantinople. Encouraged by these abundant materials, and eager to understand better the poet’s creativity, the student of Romanos is tempted to undertake chronological problems. This paper is concerned with the chronology of the six kontakia of Romanos in which the Apostle Peter figures prominently.

In view of the paucity of other sources for this century, so momentous in the history of the Near East, the Syriac materials take on a particular importance for both Byzantine and Islamic historians. While some of these sources, such as Michael’s Chronicle, are well known to all, others lie as yet unexploited and ignored. The purpose of the present article is to collect together in convenient form details of all the main Syriac sources available for the seventh century, listing standard editions, translations and the more important discussions. Fuller information on authors and secondary literature can readily be found by reference to the following works: A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur (Bonn, 1922); I. Ortiz de Urbina, Patrologia Syriaca, 2nd ed. (Rome, 1965); C. Moss, Catalogue of Syriac Printed Books and Related Literature in the British Museum (London, 1962); S. P. Brock, ‘Syriac Studies 1960-1970: a classified bibliography’, Parole de l’Orient, IV (1973), 393-465. For the topographical history ot the area now covered by Iraq, J. M. Fiey’s Assyrie chrétienne, 3 vols. (Beirut, 1965-8), is an invaluable compendium.

The anointing of emperors (Kaisersalbung) in the late Byzantine coronation ritual formed part of the subject of an often cited article by Professor George Ostrogorsky in 1955.’ The purpose of these few words is to re-examine the evidence for this practice and to suggest some different conclusions.

How agreeable it would be if the art historian could, with the aid of iconographical documents, resolve problems which baffle those who depend primarily upon literary sources for their studies. Unfortunately, such a triumph is rarely afforded to the art historian. Byzantine artists in particular have not left us a detailed record of contemporary events; their productions tell us more about the ideas current in their lifetime than about what actually happened. This is certainly the case for the rite of unction. We have no pictures of a Byzantine emperor being anointed and no evidence that such pictures ever existed. Consequently the art historian cannot directly help towards a firm answer to the question raised by Donald Nicol in his article: after what date should references in chronicle sources to a Byzantine emperor being consecrated by unction be interpreted in a literal rather than in a figurative or metaphorical sense?

At some time in 1431, Cyriac of Ancona visited Thessaloniki, a visit that seems hitherto to have passed unnoticed by scholars who have worked on the history and monuments of that city. A brief account of his stay is to be found in the life compiled by Cyriac’s friend Francesco Scalamonti and completed in 1464. A manuscript copy of Scalamonti’s work by Felice Feliciano is preserved in the Biblioteca Capitolare in Treviso, but the only published version is of a further copy of the Treviso manuscript printed by G. Colucci in 1792. Since the account includes a reference to an otherwise unknown monument of Aemilius Paullus in Thessaloniki and also throws light on what seems to have been the earliest recorded inscription there, it has been thought worthwhile to discuss some of the points raised by the passage.

Out of the vacuum of the sparsely developed dramatic environment of nineteenth-century Greece grew a performance totally unrelated to the largely literary and western-European oriented theatre of Athens under the influence of the king and his court. It was a performance which, unlike the literary theatre, aroused the interest of the common man through its use of folk tales, anecdotes, songs, dialects, costumes and characters as the basis of its presentation. Originating in the Turkish folk form Karagöz, the Greek performance, called Karaghiozis, found its roots in an entertainment with which Greeks bom on the mainland and in other parts of the Balkans and Middle East were already familiar.

Traditional plays of the Greek shadow theatre deal with the adventures of Karaghiozis, a poor Greek who is the embodiment of πovηρία (cunning, slyness). Plays of the comic type, and more specifically, plays in which Karaghiozis assumes a position requiring certain skills, have a standard narrative structure or plot which can be summarized as follows : A wealthy Turkish pasha or vizier, looking for a person to perform a job which requires certain skills, meets Hadziavatis, the subservient town crier, and asks for his help in finding such a person. Hadziavatis agrees at once, sets off, and invariably meets Karaghiozis, who, upon learning of the position the Turk is trying to fill, immediately claims to possess the prerequisite skills. Widi much humour and cleverness Karaghiozis convinces first Hadziavatis and then the Turk that he can in fact perform the job. Karaghiozis then appears on stage as the skilled person widi the appropriate costume or equipment (cook’s hat, doctor’s bag, secretary’s writing implements, etc.). He is transformed from a poor uneducated man of low status into a skilled educated man of high status. In that position he deceives several stock characters, such as Omorphonios, Dionysios and Stavrakas, until his deceit is finally exposed and he is chased off stage.

The formation of the modern Greek army coincides with the efforts of the newly established Greek nation of the nineteenth century to import and emulate western institutions. The persistence of most governments in creating an officer corps inspired by the professional standards of western armies may be viewed as part of a general effort to modernize the Greek state. This attempt has invariably been thwarted by traditional practices which prevented modernizing forces from taking firm root in Greek reality. The degree to which professionalism was attained in the army depended both on the quality of military education and on the degree of professional security enjoyed by officers. Lack of security made some officers willing clients of ambitious cliques and agents of disruption of both military and political order.

As a precedent in the resolution of Middle Eastern crises, the settlement of the embittered Greek-Turkish conflict of 1919-1922 constitutes a landmark. The swiftness and comprehensiveness of the settlement was hailed from the moment it was formally achieved by the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 23 July 1923. It has been rendered even more impressive since World War II by what, until recently at least, has seemed like the intractable Arab-Israeli dispute.