Chapter Three ANTHOLOGIES AND ANTHOLOGISTS Between c ...

126
Part One: Texts and Contexts
composition out of pure modesty. The anthologist must have been a court
dignitary of some importance, for he had access to the imperial archives, where
the numerous hymns composed for performance at the imperial court were
kept. For his anthology he selected only court poetry connected one way or
another with the Macedonian dynasty. There are no ceremonial hymns in
honour of Michael III or Theophilos, although they surely must have existed.
The anacreontic part of his anthology is characterized by the same ideological
bias. There is one poem on caesar Bardas (no. 58) and no less than seven poems
on Basil I, Leo VI and Constantine VII (nos. 30–32 and 36–39). The pro–
Macedonian orientation of the Anthologia Barberina 139 strongly suggests that
the anthologist wished to flatter the reigning emperor by including anacreontics
and hymns celebrating his illustrious forebears. It is therefore very likely
that the anthology was compiled in honour of, or perhaps even on behalf of,
emperor Constantine VII. The anthologist may have presented the manuscript
of the Anthologia Barberina, together with the poem he had written himself, to
Constantine VII on the occasion of the emperor’s marriage to Helen Lekapene.
The index of the Anthologia Barberina reads as a literary history in short. It
rightly begins with Sophronios, the first practitioner of the Byzantine anacreontic.
Then we have three Palestinian poets who followed in his footsteps:
Sophronios Iatrosophistes 140 , Elias Synkellos 141 and Michael Synkellos 142 . In the
early ninth century the anacreontic left its native soil and was brought to
Constantinople by Palestinian émigrés, such as Michael Synkellos. Ignatios the
Deacon was the first Constantinopolitan to write anacreontics, just as he was
the first poet to write classicizing elegiacs after c. 800. The compiler of the
Anthologia Barberina then turns to the poets of his time: AB 28–39 are anacreontic
compositions by Arethas, Leo Choirosphaktes and the anthologist himself.
The next two sections in the Anthologia Barberina (40–57 and 58–64) are
devoted to grammarians of the early sixth and the ninth centuries, respectively.
It is worth noticing that all these poets are called grammatiköß, except for the
arch-grammarian Leo the Philosopher. Thus the compiler of the Anthologia
Barberina, whether correctly or not, connects these poets and their poems to
the Byzantine school system. These products of the Byzantine classroom are
followed by sixteen ancient Anacreontea, perhaps because they were read at
school. These sixteen poems derive from a much larger collection of Anacre-
139 See CRIMI 2001: 46–53.
140 The author should not be confused with his more famous namesake: see TH. NISSEN,
BZ 39 (1939) 349–350. Perhaps he is the Sophronios who used to teach in Edessa around
the year 800: see A. MOFFATT, in: Iconoclasm, ed. A. BRYER and J. HERRIN. Birmingham
1977, 89, n. 32.
141 Elias Synkellos probably lived in the eighth century: see LAUXTERMANN 2003b.
142 On the life of Michael Synkellos (761–846), see CRIMI 1990: 5–11.