This chapter introduces the key themes and characters in Byzantine literary reconfigurations of epic. After some introductory remarks about the reception of ancient Greek epic in Byzantium, the chapter is divided into two main parts: the first is dedicated to the only Byzantine epos Digenis Akritis (twelfth century CE), the other to late Byzantine romances which contain Homeric themes, especially the Byzantine Iliad, and Byzantine Achilleid, both from the fourteenth century. Kulhánková’s discussion also pays close attention to the question of genre, probing the overlapping of romance and epos in these works, and revealing their mutual influences.

This chapter introduces the contents of this volume and provides a critical overview of medieval pharmacology with a focus on the Mediterranean from the ninth/tenth century to the fifteenth. It emphasises the importance of drawing evidence from various cultures (Byzantine, Islamicate, Jewish, Latin) and disciplines (history, art history, manuscript studies, and archaeology) in order to discuss topics of broader significance for the global Middle Ages, such as the transfer of medical and pharmacological knowledge. It also shows how our understanding of medieval pharmacology can be significantly expanded by the study of evidence from other areas, such as alchemy, cooking, diplomacy, magic, religion, and philosophy.

The chronology of borrowing is investigated; Latin words were being borrowed much earlier than previously thought, with less borrowing in the late antique period than previously argued. Republican-era borrowings(especially in Polybius andinscriptions) are given particular attention. Latin words first (or exclusively) attested in Greek are noted. The survival of the ancient loanwords is examined, first within antiquity, then in the Byzantine period (when some additional Latin words were borrowed), and finally in modern Greek. The borrowing and survival rates of Latin loanwords in Greek are compared with those of Greek loanwords in Latin.

Previous claims of suffix borrowing are investigated, particularly for -arius, -aria, -arium, -ianus, -atum, -atus, -ensis, -tor, -ator, -atio, -ura, -inus, and -ella. Some of these were borrowed, others werenot, and in a few cases Greek speakers had not borrowed a suffix but believed that they had done so. Not all Latinate suffixes found in Byzantine and modern Greek go back to antiquity.

German excavations carried out between 1980 and 1995 in Tall Bi’a (Raqqa, Syria) uncovered the remains of a unique Syrian orthodox monastery on the top of the central hill above the Bronze Age city of Tuttul. The building complex is unique in that, although it is of inexpensive mudbrick, three of the rooms are decorated with carefully executed mosaic floors with figural decoration. Two of these mosaics have Syriac inscriptions that date the construction of the building (509 AD) and the renovation of parts of it (595 AD). The complex can be identified as the monastery of Mar Zakkai. This chapter focuses on the economic life of the monastery and describes it as a household unit. The starting point is the well-preserved refectory, the large kitchen, and the storerooms. The refectory is equipped with circular benches, unique in Syria, parallels of which are known only from Egypt.

Chapter 27 covers the period from the beginning of the Christian Era to the advent of the Renaissance. The Eastern Roman and Byzantine, (Holy) Roman, Umayyad and Abbasid as well as Chinese empires, in addition to the Indian subcontinent, documented translation and interpreting activity during the millennium when expansionist empires and kingdoms rose and fell, and Silk Road trade flourished. Classical Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit and Arabic texts were revered and much translated, as were the texts of two religions founded during the period, Christianity and Islam. The Chinese invented the fabrication of paper early in the second century, which reduced the cost of producing translations.

Beginning with a striking passage in which the Sibylline narrator asserts her intellectual ownership of Homer’s work, I point out its Theogonic framing, before surveying other thematic and stylistic invocations of Hesiod across the Sibylline corpus. I argue that Hesiod, without being named, is given programmatic importance as a Classicizing alternative to Homeric authority and wisdom. I then distinguish three strategies of Sibylline transformation of Biblical material in Homeric colouring into apocalyptic visions: amplification of scenes of destruction, cosmic revision of individual action, and the countering of heroic epic values with monotheistic principles. In each of these, ideas of ‘the Hesiodic’ generated by its ancient reception provide a cipher for the critique of the Homeric cosmos implied by Sibylline rewriting of Jewish and Christian scriptures in the direction of universal history. I conclude by offering comparanda for future studies.

Chapter 5 brings to the fore Manasses’ activities as a teacher in Constantinople and focuses on the so-called Astrological poem, the Origins of Oppian and five grammar exercises, known as schede, attributed to Manasses. Dedicated to Sebastokratorissa Eirene, the Astrological poem offers a basic introduction to the workings of the stars and planets along with the zodiac. While the Astrological poem may seem to teach rather untraditional knowledge, the Origins of Oppian and the schede express the very basis of Byzantine education: grammar, Christianity and the ancient heritage. The Origins of Oppian at the same time contains references to Manasses’ own situation as a writer on commission, offering yet another important connection between patronage and education. The schede are all on Christian topics, drawing attention to the significance of hagiographical and biblical texts as a complement to the ancient heritage, and for comparative reasons the Sketches of the mouse is brought into the discussion.

Chapter 7, the concluding chapter, discusses the literary production of Manasses in light of the observations made in the close readings throughout the monograph. Returning to the theoretical considerations of the functions of occasional literature, special attention is here devoted to certain aspects of Manasses’ production: the recycling of Graeco-Roman and biblical material and his own verses within and across genres. The economy of reusing motifs, words, expressions and verses is considered from the perspective of occasional literature written on commission or in the hope of achieving commissions, but also from an aesthetic viewpoint. The ways in which Manasses comments upon his own situation as a writer and inscribes his own authorship into his texts are seen as the conscious creation of an individual voice, but also as a reflection of the Komnenian trend towards poetic self-assertiveness.

Chapter 6 analyses and discusses the relation between the Verse chronicle, the novel Aristandros and Kallithea and the so-called Moral poem. These three works share not only a number of motifs and themes but also a fairly large number of verses. They contain motifs such as the instability of fortune and the dangers of envy, which appear also in other texts by Manasses. The investigation here aims at understanding the significance of authorial choices in the handling of slander and envy: the recycling of images and expressions that transgress genre boundaries and thus contribute to a characteristic authorial voice. The attribution of the Moral poem to Manasses has been questioned, but in view of its relevance for a better understanding of Manasses’ authorship and its reception, it is included in the analysis. Regardless of who composed the poem, it represents the Manassean voice and makes for a fruitful discussion of questions of authorship, attribution and tradition.

Chapter 1 introduces the object of this monograph: to present a new reading of the complete works of Constantine Manasses, thereby offering a potential model for analysing other authorships based on commission and patronage. The primary focus here is on the key concept of occasional literature and its specific position between writer and patron, fiction and reality. The latter is defined in terms of two kinds of referentiality: on the one hand, the text’s connection to the occasion (pretext/performance); on the other, its (literary/potentially fictive) representation of a ‘reality’ that is relevant to that occasion. It is assumed that writing on command privileges originality and encourages the challenging of conventions. A society like twelfth-century Byzantium, in which occasional poetry and rhetoric had central positions, therefore called for a strong and individual voice of the author, since the voice was the primary instrument for a successful career.

Chapter 4 examines the Encomium of Michael Hagiotheodorites and a series of letters preserved in the same manuscript. Taking its point of departure from Umberto Eco’s distinction between the empirical and the model author, the analysis focuses on the story of a writer in trouble that can be reconstructed based on the encomium and the letters. The encomium offers an elaborate praise of the learning of the addressee, but there is also a more urgent message: the writer is in trouble and he needs the help of the powerful Michael to explain to the emperor that he has been slandered by his enemies. The three letters offer further clues as to the social and historical circumstances of this situation, representing a writer who saves himself from a difficult situation by mobilizing a network of friends. Regardless of Manasses’ own experiences, that situation may well reflect the reality of a Komnenian writer on command.

Chapter 3 turns to Manasses’ production of lamentations and consolatory discourses. A model for understanding the occasional text as an expression of a cultural and semiotic relationship between writer and patron, characterised by similarity, is employed. Four texts are examined: the Monody on the death of Theodora, wife of John Kontostephanos, the Consolation for John Kontostephanos (comforting him in his sorrow at the loss of Theodora), the Funerary oration on the death of Nikephoros Komnenos and the Monody on the death of his goldfinch. John Kontostephanos, who is also mentioned in the Itinerary, and Nikephoros Komnenos both seem to have been important patrons for Manasses. The reading of the Monody on the death of his goldfinch underlines the lament’s focus on the literary activities of the narrator, where the bird – a frequent symbol in Manasses’ works – seems to function as a sort of literary muse or even rhetorical alter ego of the writer.

Chapter 2 focuses on three texts concerned with the imperial space of Constantinople: the Description of a crane hunt, the Encomium of Emperor Manuel Komnenos and the Itinerary. The first work is a detailed ekphrasis of an imperial hunt in which the emperor himself takes part. The same imagery of hunting as an equivalent of war is prevalent in the encomium, praising Manuel’s victories against the Hungarians. The Itinerary, a narrative poem that describes the poet’s experiences during an embassy, is here interpreted as a means of praising the qualities of the capital left behind. It is argued that all three texts take on the function of imperial praise and, moreover, that the experience of the capital’s imperial space plays a particular role in the construction of that praise. The encomium becomes a praise of not only the emperor but also of the rhetorician and his skills.