As the title suggests, <i>Byzantios</i> or <i>About the Imperial Megalopolis</i> is the eulogy of Constantinople, one of Theodore Metochites' many works that still remain unpublished due to the writer's obscure style. My primary aim in this edition has been to establish the text, an oration written by one of the most prominent figures of the Palaeologan Renaissance. In fact, the text constitutes the eulogy of the Capital of the Byzantine Empire and it could provide useful information to historians, archaeologists and Various scholars. However, I must ask for the reader's understanding regarding the matters of punctuation. The artificial style and rhetorical presentation in many passages make no wonder if a satisfactory rendering of the Greek can be achieved. I have added an Introduction where I deal with Metochites' life and works, the genre of <i>Byzantios</i> and a few more issues raised by the oration (missing folios, dating of the oration, etc.). The text needs to be elucidated from a wide Variety of sources, historical and literary, and this is the main aim of the commentary. In addition. I wished to present reasons for my interventions in the Greek text, to offer some parallels from other - mainly rhetorical - works and to give the quotations of the classical authors to which Metochites refers. Obviously the commentary does not provide exhaustive discussion of the many different topics raised in <i>Byzantios</i>, but I hope to have provided a minimum bibliography for further study. The appendix at the end shows how much Metochites followed Menander's precepts. I believe that the indexes will also prove useful to the reader.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:399419 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Pougounia, Irini |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cf858c4b-029f-48a9-aa1e-e2c6bddbcb5b |
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