Chapter Three ANTHOLOGIES AND ANTHOLOGISTS Between c ...

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Part One: Texts and Contexts
11. 284: (king Amphion) Ýß pot\ n \Orcomen/ Minye5ù Éói 4nassen [cf. v. 12: (Leo)
c0ron pikrat6zn te palaió1toy \Orcomeno¦o]. The poet was also familiar with
the Greek Anthology: qeod6gmzn, a hapax recorded in AP VII, 363. 4; kaò oJ
lal6onta, cf. APl 30. 4; p\ äpe5rona k7kla, cf. AP IX, 468. 3; mhtrñß
äpeirog1moy, cf. AP I, 2. 3, 27. 3 and 99. 6; xet6lessaß, cf. APl 43. 3 (in the
same metrical position); s0n kam1tzn, cf. AP I, 9. 1; kaò töde g2r t6menoß
panao5dimon xet6lessaß, cf. AP I, 9. kaò töde s0n kam1tzn panao5dimon Çrgon
t7cqh. Is this the work of a local poet? Perhaps, but given the superb literary
quality of the verses it seems more likely that the palace official Leo the
Protospatharios (the subject of the poem) commissioned a Constantinopolitan
poet to compose this elegant verse inscription 125 . The second classicistic verse
inscription is an early tenth-century epitaph found on a sarcophagus in the
vicinity of Galakrenai, the monastery of the Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos 126 .
The patriarch’s synkellos, Michael, is commemorated in the epitaph. The poem
is remarkable for its use of Nonnian phrases, Homeric tags and explicit borrowings
from the Greek Anthology. See, for instance, the following two macaronic
verses (vv. 3–4): 4cqoß äporr5vaß (AP VII, 19. 4) bebarhöta (Homer and later
epic writers) desmñn äl7xaß (Od. 8. 353) / possòn laórot1toisi (Nonnos, Dion.
28. 287, 32. 246, Par. Ev. Ioh. 19. 21) di6sticen (Nonnos, passim), ¼ci core7ei
(Nonnos, Dion. 3. 110) 127 . Seeing that Alexander of Nicaea wrote two epitaphs
on Nicholas Mystikos (APl 21–22), he would be a likely candidate if one desired
to attribute this classicistic verse inscription to a known author; at any rate,
the poem “emanated from (…) the same competent literary milieu of high
prelates gravitating around the Great Church” 128 .
However, it must be said that all this classicizing between c. 850 and 950
was very much a Constantinopolitan thing. The epigrams of the Anonymous
Italian, for instance, are not at all classicistic. And even in Constantinople, the
classicizing vogue was not wholeheartedly embraced by all intellectuals. The
epigrams by Leo Choirosphaktes, for instance, are not particularly classicistic.
Strangely enough, though, the same Leo Choirosphaktes was accused of “hellenism”
by Arethas of Caesarea, an author whom we know to have written
extremely classicizing epitaphs. The above is merely intended as a cautious
reminder not to stick stylistic labels on periods. Diverging styles, preferences
and mindsets coexist in Byzantium at any given moment, sometimes peacefully,
sometimes with a lot of sabre-rattling. No period is exclusively this or
that. For instance, the art-historical concept of the “Macedonian Renaissance”
may account for the classicistic style of the Paris Psalter, but ignores other,
125 See also the comments by OIKONOMIDES 1994: 489–492.
126 See ŠEVCENKO 1987: 461–468 and CAMERON 1993: 319.
127 See the excellent commentary by ŠEVCENKO 1987: 462 and 464.
128 ŠEVCENKO 1987: 462.