sided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than the provinces, of the empire: their liberal curiosity rekindled the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from their ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the philosophers, whose labours had been hitherto repaid by the pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Cæsar Bardas, the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly; a school was opened in the palace of Magnaura; and the presence of Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At their head, was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalonica; his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics was admired by the strangers of the East; and this occult science was magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Cæsar, his friend, the celebrated Photius, 113 renounced the freedom of a secular and studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was alter-[A.D. 858] nately excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East and West. By the confession even of priestly hatred, no art or science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar, who was deep in thought, indefatigable in reading, and eloquent in diction. Whilst he exercised the office of protospathaire, or captain of the guards, Photius was sent ambassador to the caliph of Bagdad." The tedious hours of exile, perhaps of confine more commonly ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in Ms. are in the library of Vienna (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 366, tom. xii. p781). Quiescant! [On the mathematical studies of Leo see Heiberg, der byzant. Mathematiker Leon, in Bibliot. Mathematica, N.F. i. 33 sqq., 1887.] The ecclesiastical and literary character of Photius is copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 296-396) and Fabricius. [See Appendix 1.] 14 Eis 'Acouplovs can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliph; and the relation of his embassy might have been curious and instructive. But how did he procure his books? A library so numerous could neither be found at Bagdad, nor transported with his baggage, nor preserved in his memory. Yet the last, however incredible, seems to be affirmed by Photius himself, ὅσας αὐτῶν ἡ μνημη διέσωζε. Camusat (Hist. Critique des Journaux, p. 87-94) gives a good account of the Mynobiblon. [Photius never held a military post. He was Protoa secretis-an office which corresponded in functions to that of the primicerius notariorum of earlier times (cp. Bury, op. cit., 97 sqq.). He had the rank of protospatharios, but the insignia of this order were conferred on civil as well as military officials. Probably Photius began the Bibliotheca while he was in the East, and completed and revised it on his return to Constantinople]. ment, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two hundred and fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers, theologians, are reviewed without any regular method; he abridges their narrative or doctrine, appreciates their style and character, and judges even the fathers of the church with a discreet freedom, which often breaks through the superstition of the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented the defects of his own education, entrusted to the care of Photius his son and successor Leo the Philosopher; and the reign of that prince and of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most prosperous æras of the Byzantine literature. By their munificence the treasures of antiquity were deposited in the Imperial library; by their pens, or those of their associates, they were imparted in such extracts and abridgments as might amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the indolence, of the public. Besides the Basilics, or code of laws, the arts of husbandry and war, of feeding or destroying the human species, were propagated with equal diligence; and the history of Greece and Rome was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which two only (of embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped the injuries of time. In every station, the reader might contemplate the image of the past world, apply the lesson or warning of each page, and learn to admire, perhaps to imitate, the examples of a brighter period. I shall not expatiate on the works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous study of the ancients, have deserved in some measure the remembrance and gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may still enjoy the benefit of the philosophical common-place book of Stobæus, the grammatical and historical lexicon of Suidas, the Chiliads of Tzetzes, which comprise six hundred narratives in twelve thousand verses, and the commentaries on Homer of Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who, from his horn of plenty, has poured the names and authorities of four hundred writers. From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of scholiasts and critics, 115 115 Of these modern Greeks, see the respective articles in the Bibliotheca Græca of Fabricius; a laborious work, yet susceptible of a better method and many improvements of Eustathius (tom. i. p. 289-292, 306-329 [for Eustathius see App. 1, and below, cap. lvi. p. 227]), of the Pselli (a diatribe of Leo Allatius, ad calcem tom. v. [reprinted in Migne, P. G. vol. 122]), of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (tom. vi. p. 486-509), of John Stobæus (tom. viii. 665-728), of Suidas (tom. ix. p. 620-827), some estimate may be formed of the literary wealth of the twelfth century; Constantinople was enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle and Plato; and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches, we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of Menander,116 and the odes of Alcæus and Sappho. The frequent labour of illustration attests not only the existence but the popularity of the Grecian classics; the general knowledge of the age may be deduced from the example of two learned females, the empress Eudocia, and the princess Anna Comnena, who cultivated, in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy.17 The vulgar dialect of the John Tzetzes (tom. xii. p. 245-273). Mr. Harris, in his Philological Arrangements, opus senile, has given a sketch of this Byzantine learning (p. 287-300). [The elder Paellus (flor. c. init. saec. ix.) is a mere name. For the life of the younger Psellus, see above, vol. v. Appendix 1. John of Stoboi belongs to the 6th century. Of Saidas (a Thessalian name) nothing is known, but his lexicographical work was compiled in the 10th century. Its great importance is due to its biographical notices and information on literary history. Much of the author's knowledge was obtained at second hand through the collections of Constantine Porphyrogennetos. Cp. Krumbacher, op. cit., p. 567. Best ed. by G. Bernhardy (1834-53). The only certain work of Isaac Tzetzes is a treatise on the metres of Pindar. He and his younger brother John lived in the 12th century. John wrote, among other things, an exegesis on Homer; scholia on Hesiod, Aristophanes, the Alexandra of Lycophron, and the Halieutica of Oppian; a commentary on Porphyry's Eisagoge. Most famous are his Chiliads (BĺBλos iσropías) in 12,674 political verses, containing 600 historical anecdotes, mythological stories, &c., and provided with marginal scholia (ed. T. Kiessling, 1826). Extant letters of Tzetzes have been collected by T. Pressel (1851).] 116 From obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard Vossius (de Poetis Græcis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with the gravity or dulness of a schoolman, who pored over the categories (de Psellis, p. 42), and Michael has probably been confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to the comedies of Menander. In the xth century, Suidas quotes fifty plays, but he often transcribes the old scholiast of Aristophanes. [It is remarkable that of the five authors, whose lost works Gibbon regrets, portions or fragments of three (some would say, of four) have been recovered during the last century, in older texts than Eustathius or Photius can have possessed. Among the treasures preserved in Egyptian Papyri are several speeches of Hyperides, considerable fragments of some of the comedies of Menander, mutilated odes of Sappho; while a long text from the pen of & fourth-century historian is supposed by some eminent critics to be a part of the Hellenica of Theopompus.] 119 Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style (τὸ Ἑλληνίζειν ἐς ἄκρον ἐσπουδαKia), and Zonaras, her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with truth, yλŵrτῶν εἶχεν ἀκριβῶς Αττικίζουσαν. The princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of Plato; and had studied the TeтpаKтús, or quadrivium of astrology, geometry, srithmetic, and music (see her preface to the Alexiad, with Ducange's notes). [Eudocia Macrembolitissa, the wife of Constantine X., must be deposed from the place which she has hitherto occupied in Byzantine literature, since it has been established that the lavia (Violarium) was not compiled by her, but nearly five centuries later (c. 1543) by Constantine Palaeokappa. See P. Pulch, de Eudociae quod fertur Violario Decay of taste and genius city was gross and barbarous: a more correct and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at least the compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes affected to copy the purity of the Attic models. In our modern education, the painful though necessary attainment of two languages, which are no longer living, may consume the time and damp the ardour of the youthful student. The poets and orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects of our Western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their genius, without precept or example, was abandoned to the rude and native powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of nations. But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that sacred patrimony: they read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next servile generation. a single composition of history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from oblivion by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of original fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose, the least offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from censure by their naked and unpresuming simplicity; but the orators, most eloquent 118 in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from the models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images, the childish play of false or unseasonable (Strassburg, 1880) and Konstantin Palaeocappa, in Hermes 17, 177 sqq. (1882). Cp. Krumbacher, op. cit., p. 579.] Not 118 To censure the Byzantine taste, Ducange (Prefat. Gloss Græc. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius, Jerom, Petronius, George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once the precept and the example. ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses were silent and inglorious; the bards of Constantinople seldom rose above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even the rules of prosody; and, with the melody of Homer yet sounding in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and syllables in the impotent strains which have received the name of political or city verses.119 The minds of the Greeks were bound in the fetters of a base and imperious superstition, which extends her dominion round the circle of profane science. Their understandings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy; in the belief of visions and miracles, they had lost all principles of moral evidence; and their taste was vitiated by the homilies of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and scripture. Even these contemptible studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior talents; the leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools or pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius and Chrysostom.120 national In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emulation Want of of states and individuals is the most powerful spring of the emulation efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of ancient Greece were cast in the happy mixture of union and independ 119 The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as, from their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p. i. p. 345, 346, edit. Basil, 1762). [All the verses which abandoned prosody and considered only accent may be called political; but the most common form was the line of fifteen syllables with a diuresis after the eighth syllable; the rhythm Proverbs in this form existed as early as the sixth century; and in the Ceremonies of Constantine Porphyrogennetus we find a popular spring song in political verse, beginning (p. 367) :— ἰδὲ τὸ ἔαρ τὸ γλυκὺ | πάλιν ἐπανατέλλει. Cp. also above, vol. v. p. 212, note 32. The question has been much debated whether this kind of verse arose out of the ancient trochaic, or the ancient iambic, tetrameter. Cp. Krumbacher, op. cit. p. 650-1. The name political was probably applied because accentual verses were chanted by the citizens and the factions of the circus on public occasions to express pleasure or disapproval. We have examples from the sixth century.] 12 As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John Damascenus in the viiith century is revered as the last father of the Greek, church. VOL. VI.-8 |