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.

Nearly twenty years after Antony Bryer raised St. Asteios of Dyrrachion from obscurity this article aspires to shed more light on the significance of this little-known saint. Despite the paucity of archaeological evidence, hagiographic texts help reconstruct and contextualize the steps in the institutionalization of a local martyr that appear to reflect the strategic importance of the city. The limited imagery of St. Asteios, including his unexplored portrait from the church of the Saviour at Rubik in modern Albania, are also used to substantiate his emblematic function as the local model of a Christian martyr-hero and, more importantly, his visual ‘identification’ with the city of Dyrrachion.

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.

This paper is the first presentation of four graffiti from the church of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, and a contribution to the study of Viking graffiti of sailing vessels.

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.

In this article I analyse the twelfth-century commentaries of Aristenos, Zonaras, and Balsamon on canons that prohibited certain forms of entertainment to clerics and/or laymen. Only when their commentaries are studied as a whole, does a pattern in their treatment become clear: they sought to minimize any distinctions between laity and clergy found in the original canons. This gives us a rare glimpse into lay and clerical interactions and reinforces the view that the Byzantine Church did not wish to maintain clear boundaries between clerics and laymen.

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.

From the sixteenth century onwards, the Syriac Jacobites living in the Ottoman empire were confronted by the propaganda of Catholic missionaries. As a result of this propaganda, a Syriac Catholic patriarchate was established in the late eighteenth century, and the Syriac community was divided into two. A merciless conflict ensued between Orthodox Syriacs, aligned with the main Church, and the Catholic Syriacs. While this conflict occurred in all places where Syriacs lived, it was most intense in the city of Mardin, the location of the patriarchal centre of Syriac Jacobites. The Jacobites struggled to prevent both the Catholicization of their community, and also the Catholic takeover of their churches, monasteries and cemeteries. At various times and for various reasons, the Ottoman empire and certain European states felt the need to intervene in this conflict. Continuing almost uninterrupted throughout the nineteenth century, this conflict adversely affected the Syriacs, and also precipitated their modernization.

The article examines the fortifications and the settlement of Venetian and Ottoman Koroni (it. Coron), through the accurate record of early nineteenth century engineers of the newly-established Greek Kingdom. The basic plan was conducted in 1835 by the military engineer Metaxas, who recorded all the buildings, their function and current owners, including a proposal for the urban re-planning of the city. His work proved its usefulness, since an exact copy was made in 1856 by lieutenant colonel Manitakis. It was supplemented by a second plan produced in 1842 by the surveyor Friedrich Zerse who focused on the settlement beyond the walls. These plans are set within the framework of the administration’s endeavours to assess and reorganize the cities of Messenia following wider town-planning aspirations and policies.

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.

Examining the treatment of Byzantium in the history textbooks that were used in Turkish secondary education from the foundation of the Turkish republic in 1923 to the present, I argue that the history of this treatment can be divided roughly into four periods, during which the Turkish, Graeco-Roman, and Islamic parts of Anatolian history have been differently emphasized depending on the current ideological concerns. The presentation of Byzantium has diminished progressively since the beginning of the republican period, both in volume and scope, and is currently dwarfed by the extensive and detailed treatment of Turkish and Islamic history. A negative image of Byzantium is produced and disseminated in the textbooks through mechanisms of exclusion, overemphasis, and distortion.

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.

The Istanbul Greek migrant community resident in Greece exists in the space between two homelands and two identities, expressed in the dichotomy between the Hellenic and the Romaic. The migrants exploit this flexibility and ambivalence in Greek identity to contextually navigate a range of social pressures – diaspora, discrimination, alienation, and even financial collapse. At times they pursue assimilation with their host population as the most Hellenic of the Hellenes, whilst at other times they assume a Romaic identity to distinguish themselves from the mainland Greeks. Deploying an identity rooted in Byzantium, the Istanbul Greeks are able to be Greek but more than simply Hellenic.