Claudio De Stefani

The End of the “Nonnian School”*

dedicated to Gerda Koch (1915–2011)

The poetic production of the seventh century is marked an abrupt change in

comparison with that of the previous century. After the flourishing of enco-
miastic poems and of refined epigrams in the age of Justinian and Justin II,
and after the reign of Heraclius and his bard George Pisides, poetry goes
through a difficult period: for roughly two centuries poetry in hexameters, as
well as secular poetry, is almost silent. The disappearance of mundane sub-
jects and the absolute supremacy of sacred themes in Byzantine poetry have
been aptly described by Lauxtermann, among others, in his valuable book on
the Byzantine epigram;1 here I will confine myself to a few remarks, before
concentrating on the dying out of “Nonnian” poetry.2 The first crisis probably
occurred in the late sixth century, when the violent atmosphere against
pagans, which turned from judicial persecution (under Justinian) into pure
pogroms (especially during the reigns of Tiberius and Maurice), which have
been described so well by P. Chuvin (2009, 146–50), might have led poets to
avoid any reference to paganism, unless they mentioned pagan cults only in
order to blame them or to tax adversaries with paganism. This partly accounts
for the predominance of sacred themes in the epigrams of the (few) poets of the
age of Heraclius and the absence of pagan references, which were abundant in
the poetry of the first half of the sixth century.3

* I wish to thank Enrico Magnelli, Gioacchino Strano, Francesco Valerio and Konstantinos
Spanoudakis for help and suggestions. I am greatly indebted to Mary Whitby for improving
my English.
1 Lauxtermann 2003, 131–2.
2 By “Nonnian” I mean the whole corpus of Late Antique hexameter poetry whose style and
metre closely followed Nonnus of Panopolis: I am aware that “school of Nonnus” is a rather
old-fashioned phrase, which perhaps attaches too much importance to the role of Nonnus as
the ἀρχηγέτης of the “movement” of the Late Antique poets (a conception which probably
goes back to Gottfried Hermann, see Miguélez Cavero 2008, 94). For a thorough examination
of the problem, see Miguélez Cavero 2008, 93–96 (and passim).
3 The likeliest date for the anonymous poem in dodecasyllables on the labours of Heracles
published by Knös in 1908, a versification of Apollodorus’ handbook, is, on account of its
metre and prosody, the reign of Heraclius (see Knös 1908, 401–2; West 1982, 184 n. 72). On the
other hand, the very choice of this mythological subject might be an indirect celebration of
Heraclius, rather than evidence for the existence of pagan poetry in the early seventh century:
see Pisid. In Bonum patr. 1–7, Heracl. 65–83, In Christi resurr. 106–11, In Sev. 69–71 (see Pertusi
1959, 265).
376 Claudio De Stefani

Then, a major change took place in the ruling class of the empire, which
traditionally supplied both the writers and the readers of poetry: “the older,
leisured cultural elite quite simply lost its social prestige and its economic
standing”, as John Haldon (1990, 426) has convincingly argued. The disap-
pearance of a public was a fatal blow: if, in the sixth century, an elegant
encomiastic poem would certainly have helped the author in getting into the
emperor’s good graces,4 a century later it would hardly have found a suitable
audience.5 Although such a dramatic social change would inevitably affect all
literary culture in the course of the seventh century, one might still wonder
why the Late Antique hexameter style died out abruptly, whereas iambic
poetry survived almost without interruption during the whole history of Byzan-
tine literature. In what follows I wish to scrutinize a few aspects of the disap-
pearance of “Nonnian” hexameter poetry, and its fortuitous revival in the
Byzantine literature of the Comnenian Renaissance: thus, I will examine the
formal aspects of this change rather than its content. After all, one could have
written about sacred themes in a Late Antique style – as indeed Pisides did,
in both his De vita humana and a few of his epigrams: so, I think that the
problem of the disappearance of the Late Antique style, especially of the Late
Antique hexameters, seems to leave out of consideration the issue of the
absence of secular themes – unless we suppose that the literate related “Non-
nian” hexameter verses to paganism, a hypothesis for which, as far as I know,
there is no evidence. But, first of all, altius repetamus, and let us begin with a
few well known facts.
The Late Antique poetic style, the paramount example of which is Nonnus
and his imitators (up to the end of the sixth century CE), developed over the
course of centuries. To a certain degree, already in Hellenistic poetry elements
are present which will be found in abundance centuries later in Nonnian
poetry: just think of the luxurious employment of epithets in Antipater of
Sidon, or of the tetracola in Euphorion;6 not to mention the reduction of the
hexameter-patterns to a few types or the proportional increase of dactyls or
the trochaic caesura. Thus, the “Nonnian style” is the outcome of an age-long

4 Like Corippus, who probably obtained an imperial post as a result of his poem Iohannis
(Av. Cameron 1976, 1), and Dioscorus, who allowed his petitions to be accompanied by poems
(see e.g. Fournet 1999, 325) and became notary at Antinoupolis thanks to his verses (Fournet
2003, 71).
5 “Selection was based more than previously, it would appear, upon practical administrative,
political and military ability”, Haldon 1990, 426.
6 In the first century AD, the hexameters of Quintus Sulpicius Maximus (GVI 1924 = IGUR
1336A) begin with a sollemn tetracolon; on tetracola in late epigraphical texts see Agosti
2005a, 3–4.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 377

development. On the contrary, the “new hexameter”, that is, the adaptation of
the Hellenistic (or “Callimachean”) hexameter to word accent, is not fully
attested before Nonnus. Subsequently the so-called “Nonnian school” followed
the rules of the schoolmaster–more or less. The grounds for this success are
to be seen in the Late Antique school, especially, as far as we can judge, the
Egyptian-Gazan high-school. The papyri which transmit to us ethopoeae in a
markedly Nonnian style, the use of poetic competitions, the habit of compos-
ing verses by means of Nonnian hemistichs (even when the poet lacked com-
mand of the language, as in the case of Dioscorus), all that suggests that the
Late Antique poetic style was the outcome of a solid school education – and
we know that Late Antique poets were, very often, γραμματικοί. A modern
example might be the English school habit of translating Shakespeare or Mil-
ton into elegant Greek verses, which was in fashion until (at least) the sixties
of the last century.
That the devastations of the war against the Persians, first under the reign
of Phocas, then under Heraclius, had upset the structure of the Byzantine
eastern provinces to such an extent that school (and thus literature) became
affected by them, is unlikely, though the events are difficult to reconstruct in
detail, so that we should be very cautious in drawing conclusions.7 Certainly,
the temporary fall of Syria, Palestine and Egypt into the hands of the Persians
was a dramatic event, but apart from the fact that the enemy’s occupation was
short, our sources imply that it was in essence a quick raid which plundered
the provinces and deported many captives – already under the reign of Pho-
cas;8 Persians left contingents which controlled the occupied territories, and
which returned to Iran after the death of Chosroes II. Nevertheless, I think that
the Persian war did have an influence, at least indirectly, on the decline of
Late Antique literature, because it separated, if briefly, Palestine, Syria and
Egypt from the capital: and all this happened when in Constantinople Pisides’

7 Clive Foss, in a series of fascinating articles and books, maintained that Persian aggression
should be considered the main reason for the decline of social and cultural life in early Byzan-
tine Anatolia: see especially Foss 1975; 1975a (coventrysation of Sardis); 1979, 103–5 (destruc-
tion of Ephesus). This view was in part accepted by Haldon 1990, 103: “it seems clear from
both literary and archaeological evidence that it was the constant and regular devastation of
the seventh century which hastened the end … of the towns of both Anatolia and the Balkans”.
An accurate treatment of the last Persian-Roman war is offered by Kaegi 2003.
8 See, however, Foss 1975, 744–5 (referring to the destruction in Asia Minor): “these expedi-
tions were not mere raids”; on the deportation of populations during the Persian-Roman wars
cf. Morony 2004, especially (for the war between Heraclius and Chosroes II) p. 178.
378 Claudio De Stefani

patriotic iambic epics developed in the excited climate of the totaler Krieg
against Persia.9
Indeed, the popularity which the iambic poems of Pisides enjoyed should
be considered a crucial moment for the decline of “Nonnian” hexameter poetry
and, at the same time, an event which laid the foundations for Byzantine
poetic output. It is true that hexameters were being turned little by little into
iambics at least from the beginning of the sixth century, as Alan Cameron
pointed out in a famous article on Late Antique wandering poets;10 but the
production of Pisides seems to have exerted a great influence or even an
impulse to this process.11 George Pisides, like Nonnus, was, as it seems, a
resolute innovator. The well known analyses of Paul Maas give an insight into
an interesting development in his verses: in comparison with the Hexaemeron,
the dodecasyllabes of his panegyrics, which were earlier works, show a higher
number of infractions of (future) standard rules of the verse – and the last
parts of the Hexaemeron are more “correct” than the earlier ones.12 Although
conclusions should be drawn very carefully, we might imagine that the stand-
ard dodecasyllable developed during the life of Pisides and that it should be
considered, at least partly, as his own creation; indeed, a connoisseur like
Maas wrote of “dem von Georgios Pisides nach dem Accentprinzip reformier-
ten jambischen Vers”.13 And the fact that the first authors of dodecasyllabes

9 “An important element of George’s poetic role was to promote morale among the population
of the capital”, Whitby 1998, 251. Scholars hold that his poems were publicly read, although
we don't have evidence of public declamations of his works (Whitby ibid.).
10 Cameron 1965, 482. Cf. his remarks on Marianus of Eleutheropolis, as well as his mention
of Helladius of Antinoupolis, Cyrus of Antinoupolis and Andronicus of Hermoupolis, and his
subsequent statement: “when a Byzantine read hexameter verse, therefore, (a purely quantita-
tive metre), they did not sound like verse at all. The iambic trimeter on the other hand could
be easily adjusted to suit Byzantine pronunciation by regulating the number of syllables and
making the stress accents occupy the position of the original long syllables – some quantita-
tive iambic lines indeed automatically fulfilled these requirements”. This statement is impor-
tant: we should not forget, however, that phonetic requirements had been operating in the
language long since, and this does not allow us to see why hexameter production suddenly
stopped. The main reasons are the cultural (and economical) change, the loss of the (cultur-
ally) most advanced provinces and, as far as we can see, the collapse of the school.
11 Pisides’ new iambic panegyrics completely replaced the old hexameter encomia by picking
up and enlarging the traditional iambic proem (see below, p. 391), so that it became an autono-
mous poem (Frendo 1984, 163; id. 1986, 61).
12 Maas 1903, 289–90 (= 1973, 253–4). See also Romano 1985, 10, and Hilberg 1900, 154:
“es ist sehr leicht möglich, dass Georgios Pisides hier thatsächlich sich einen oxytonischen
Versausgang hat entschlüpfen lassen, denn so rigoros wie im Hexaëmeron war der Dichter in
dieser Beziehung nicht immer und überall, am wenigsten in den kleinen Gedichten, welche
Sternbach veröffentlicht hat”.
13 Maas 1901, 59 = 1973, 425.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 379

after Pisides, for instance the iambic Canons attributed to John Damascene,
write regular verses (according to the rules “laid down” by Pisides), makes us
guess that Pisides’ technique soon became established.
Such a prescriptive tendency of Pisides, as well as his bent for giving fixed
rules to the verse, also appears through his hexameter technique. It is usually
admitted that he was the last poet who composed “Nonnian” hexameters,
“novissimum artis Nonnianae sectatorem”, as Leo Sternbach (1893, 39) put it –
this statement especially tallies with his poem De vita humana, most recently
edited in a critical edition by Fabrizio Gonnelli.14 In fact, beyond Nonnus, we
discern the influence of Paul the Silentiary, which might be responsible for
Pisides’ breaking of a well known Nonnian rule, the avoidance of an oxytone
before the penthemimeral caesura (v. 23) – Paul the Silentiary breaks this rule,
as do a few epigraphical texts and ethopoeae.15 But the most striking feature
of Pisides’ hexameters is the almost uniform occurrence of a proparoxytone
before the trochaic caesura, which makes the rhythm monotonous and predict-
able: though already found in “Nonnian” hexameters,16 this rhythm should be
considered typical of Pisides and a further example of his tendency towards
rule-giving, which more conspicuously appears in his iambics.17 Furthermore,
as Sternbach remarked, Pisides tends to increase the percentage of dactyls
(almost all the feet are dactyls) – and this will also be the rule of highbrow
Byzantine poetry, as we shall see. Are these verses to be considered Late
Antique, apart from their unexceptionable metre? Yes and no, I would say.
Both the style, which reminds us of the boldness of a Pamprepius or John of
Gaza, but in a much more clumsy and abstruse way, and the oppressive atmos-
phere which hangs over these verses, full of mentions of the devil and of the
vanity of the mundane life, make us think of certain gloomy Byzantine
poems – we will shortly see one such composition.
Let us come back to dodecasyllables. It is reasonable to think that, in
comparison with Late Antique hexameters written in epic dialect and filled
with Callimachean (and, generically, Hellenistic) reminiscences, the new iam-

14 Gonnelli 1991; translated into English and discussed by M. Whitby in this volume p. 436 f.
15 Breaking of Tiedke’s law in Silentiarius: Wifstrand 1933, 20; De Stefani 2011, XXXIV–XXXV;
in Pisides: Gonnelli 1991, 131; Pisides’ imitations of Paul the Silentiary: Gonnelli 1991 ad Vit.
hum. 33–5, 45, 54, 66, 87; De Stefani 2011 ad S. Soph. 436–7; in ethopoeae: see (e.g.) Keydell
1941, 49 (= 1982, 243). On Silentiarius’ imitation by Pisides see Whitby in this volume, esp.
pp. 444 (metrics), 445, 447 (style).
16 Notably in the verses of the followers of Nonnus (and, among them, especially, I should
say, in Silentiarius’ hexameters).
17 See also Epigr. 94 Sternb. (= 93 Tart.) Τρισσατίοις σελάεσσιν ἕνα σπινθῆρα τυπώσας /
τρισσοφαοῦς θεότητος ἕνα σπινθῆρα διδάσκεις with the remarks of D’Ambrosi 2003, 126.
380 Claudio De Stefani

bic verses, with their much more straightforward language, would have a
much stronger impact on listeners.18 As a matter of fact, Theophanes (or his
sources) inserted a good number of verses from the panegyrics of Pisides into
his prose, almost whithout changing the word-order.19 Thus, the position of
Pisides, who was the author both of a short poem in hexameter verses and of
lengthy poems written in (almost) flawless dodecasyllables, is a unique one:
he is the last Late Antique poet – apart from a minor instance, with which we
will presently deal – and the first Byzantine. Although we don’t have signifi-
cant poetic works composed during the “Dark Ages”, when Byzantium strug-
gled for its own existence, so that we might reasonably surmise that the dying
out of Late Antique poetry occurred during those dramatic years, still we
should not forget that even before the collapse, when Heraclius restored the
unity of the Eastern Roman empire, poetry had already, with Pisides, turned
into a road which it would follow for centuries. The change had already
occurred.
When, during the last years of the reign of Heraclius, the provinces which
the emperor had just recovered, were lost again, and this time, for good (I set
aside the partial reconquests of the ninth-tenth centuries and of the Crusades),
Byzantium was bereft of the territories which, traditionally, provided the
empire with men of letters. Setting aside Egypt with its famous bent for poetry,
suffice it to remember that the rhetors of Gaza proudly maintained that their
city was the new Attica (Aen. Gaz. Ep. 18 Massa Positano): we can easily per-
ceive how ruinous was the loss of those provinces for the cultural niveau of
the empire – indeed, the description of the entry of ‘Omar the conqueror into
Jerusalem ἐνδύμασιν ἠμφιεσμένος ἐρρυπωμένοις “dressed in dirty dress”, and
biblically described by the bishop and poet Sophronius as τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς
ἐρημώσεως (Theoph. 339 De Boor) visually portrays the submission of the old,
sophisticated culture to the new world represented by the Arabic conquerors.
In fact, Sophronius’ poetic production can be considered the last breath
of Late Antique hexameter poetry, supposing that at least one of the four epi-

18 Maas (1903, 302 = 1973, 266–7) acutely maintained that the reason of the disappearance
of the hexameter must be the fact that, being read according to the word accent, and having
no fixed number of syllables, it inevitably sounded like prose and, unlike the iambic verse of
twelve syllables, could not fit the new system, based on verses consisting of a fixed number
of syllables with two main word accents (viz. before the caesura and at verse end). It should
be stressed, however, that the increasing percentage of holodactyls with a trochaic caesura
and a proparoxyton before it was bound to produce a verse which worked in almost the same
way as the dodecasyllable (see Appendix I, p. 394). With all due reverence to Maas, I think that
many cultural reasons induced the Byzantines to drop the hexameter, not least its indisputable
linguistical difficulty (in comparison with the iambic verse).
19 He expressly quotes him: καθὰ καὶ ὁ Πισίδιος Γεώργιος λέγει (298.17 De Boor).
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 381

grams which the Greek Anthology ascribes to him, really was written by the
bishop: according to the analysis of Alan Cameron (1983) in his valuable article
“The Epigrams of Sophronius”, “there is no serious reason to doubt” that AP
1.123 was written by him. AP 1.123 is a poem on the church built on the Calvary
in Jerusalem:

Πέτρα τρισμακάριστε θεόσσυτον αἷμα λαχοῦσα,

οὐρανίη γενεή σε πυρίπνοος ἀμφιπολεύει,
καὶ χθονὸς ἐνναετῆρες ἀνάκτορες ὑμνοπολοῦσι.

This is the only occurrence, among Sophronius’ genuine (or probably genuine)
epigrams, of hexameters κατὰ στίχον (following the well known Late Antique
usage, as Wifstrand brilliantly demonstrated) – the other instance, AP 7.680,
was considered spurious by Cameron.
Cameron (1983, 291) did not scrutinize the style of this epigram: he just
remarked that “the style is more fluent than the long epigram on the Miracula
and there are no metrical blemishes. But then three lines are too small a sam-
ple for fair comparison”. This text, however, is interesting, because these
verses look decidedly Late Antique, or “Nonnian”: especially the first, which
has a pattern which recalls a passage of Musaeus (whom I consider the model)
and a verse end common to Musaeus and other Late Antique authors, like the
Anonymous AP 1.10.8, the famous epigram on the Church of St. Polyeuctus:

Musae. 30 Ἡρὼ μὲν χαρίεσσα, διοτρεφὲς αἷμα λαχοῦσα

Anon. AP 1.10.8 τέτρατον ἐκ κείνων βασιλήϊον αἷμα λαχοῦσα
Anon. AP 14.34.1 (= Achill. Tat. 2.14)
νῆσος τις πόλις ἐστὶ φυτώνυμον αἷμα λαχοῦσα.

The rest of this short poem does not substantially contradict my impression:
surely the position of σε on line 2 is not classical,20 but Nonnus and his follow-
ers offer many an instance of this word order; I myself noted down a few such
cases in the index of my edition of the ecphrastic poems of Paul the Silenti-
ary – far from being a stamp of carelessness, it even gives the verse a sort of
Late Antique flavour.21

20 See, however, e.g. Philit. fr. 7.1 Lightfoot ἐκ θυμοῦ κλαῦσαί με τὰ μέτρια.
21 See Paul. Sil. Soph. 135 σήμερον οὐ σακέων με φέρει κτύπος, οὐδ’ ἐπὶ νίκην (the model
was perhaps Nonn. Dion. 4.192 εἰ μὲν ἐς ἀντολίην με φέρει πλώουσαν ἀκοίτης). Cf. Nonn.
Dion. 1.479 γνήσιον ὑμνείων με νέον σκηπτοῦχον Ὀλύμπου; 2.130 εἰ δὲ γάμοις ἀδίκοις με βιήσε-
382 Claudio De Stefani

I will not dwell on the style of the other poems, which have been carefully
examined by Cameron: I just remark here that to the metrical blunders pointed
out by Cameron in an epigram transmitted by the Vat. gr. 1607, which is the
only one, apart from AP 1.123, which he for certain considers genuine, we
should add an infringement of Naeke’s law – which Byzantines ignore, but
Late Antique poets rarely violate: but it is a proper noun (Δαμασκόν, v. 3).22
On account of the correctness of his verses (although they are not on a level
with, say, Agathias, as Cameron rightly stresses) and because of the imitation
of a precise Late Antique model (Musaeus), we can consider Sophronius as
still belonging to the Late Antique (or “Nonnian”) poets: probably the last one,
along with Pisides.23 Nec mirum: he had received his education as the old
world was still standing and, consequently, he was profoundly learned, as is
also clear from his smooth Anacreontics.
Let us now examine the presence of Late Antique, especially “Nonnian”,
poetry, in the subsequent, Byzantine, centuries: the few instances which I will
quote will prove to be instructive, I hope, for understanding the survival of
that poetry in the Byzantine world.
When Byzantium had won its struggle for existence, after enduring memo-
rable sieges and losing almost all of its eastern territories, and rose again
from the ashes of the seventh and eighth centuries, the cultural world had
dramatically changed. Although Paul Lemerle, in his deservedly famous book,
rightly pointed out that school education did not break off during the “Dark
Ages”, that the closing of the university under Phocas and, above all, its
alleged physical destruction under the iconoclast emperor Leo III should be
considered no more than tendentious rumours,24 nonetheless, we in fact wit-
ness the almost complete disappearance of secular literature and a substantial

ται, εἶδος ἀμείψω; 4.143 δέχνυσο δειλαίην με συνέστιον· ἠιθέου δέ; 4.164 ἀλλὰ πάλιν τρομέω
σε, καὶ εἰ κρύπτειν μενεαίνεις; 7.233 μὴ μία Μουσάων τις ἐμὸν πατρώιον ὕδωρ; 7.289 ζηλήμων
Φαέθων με βιάζεται; 8.132 ἀλλὰ γυνὴ χθονίη με βιάζεται, ἧς χάριν εὐνῆς; 8.291–2 αἰδέομαι
γάρ / κικλήσκειν Σεμέλης σε, etc.
22 A quick remark should be made on the text of AP 9.787.3, where the last part of the verse
is missing: ἐνθάδε νῦν προσιὼν στῆσον, ξένε, σὸν πόδα <δεῦρο> (suppl. Bruck). In fact, as Dr
Francesco Valerio pointed out to me, the first apographon of Pl (upon which Planudes himself,
as it seems, wrote his corrections), Lond. Add. 16409 (= Q) f. 55v supplies the verse end – and
it was Planudes who wrote the supplement (in a clearer ink: I checked a digital reproduction
of the ms): πλαγκτους, from which form we can easily restore πλαγκτόν, which is in keeping
with other words of the passage which all allude to the wandering of the wayfarer (ἀλωόμενος,
ἀνέστιον ἴχνος ἐλάυνων, ὁδοιπορίης).
23 I mean simply that Nonnian hemistichs and iuncturae were apparently felt as natural, not,
as in later Byzantine poetry, as an erudite embellishment.
24 Lemerle 1971, 78–9 and 89–94.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 383

indifference to careful style both in prose and in verse. As to our subject, it is

at least likely that between 650 and 800 Late Antique poetry (or hexameter
poetry tout court) did not arouse much curiosity among men of letters.25 Like-
wise, the first poetic productions of the so-called “ninth-century renaissance”,
when Leo the Philosopher was appointed to fill a chair at the Magnaura, seem
to confirm my sceptical view: just think of the trivial Homeric cento of Cometas
(AP 15.40).26 More interest is aroused by his pupil, Constantine of Sicily, who
is credited with reading Callimachus, as Paul Maas acutely demonstrated;27
however, it must be said that, on the whole, his distichs do not offer much
more than a plain imitation of Homeric iuncturae: more affected phrases are
rare.28 At any rate, I have the impression that, from now on, we should distin-
guish between texts which are utterly lacking in grammatical and metrical
background, and texts which aim at imitating the ancient style: and, among
the latter, between those which draw only on Homer (and Gregory of Nazian-
zus), and those which strive to imitate Late Antique poetry.
The first text which I deal with is fairly early and is all the more interesting
because it originated in a monastic milieu – which we might imagine rather
indifferent to precious style and rare iuncturae. It is an acrostich glorifying
Theodorus and Anatolius Studitae and is transmitted among the poems of
Theodorus (it is obviously not by him): no. 124 Speck.29 It consists of 31 hexam-

25 Lemerle reports an interesting piece of evidence from the Life of Tarasius by Ignatius (ed.
Heikel, Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae 17, 1891, 391–439): according to this, Tarasius
taught metre to Ignatius (who thanks him warmly for it), and among the metres, also ἡρώων
ποιημάτων τὰ κράτιστα [Heikel, 423.8] (cf. Lemerle 1971, 103 n. 92). As Tarasius was probably
born in 730, we have here some evidence about metrical competence before the “Studite”
renaissance. But the passage of the Life does not tell us anything about which poetry Tarasius
read with Ignatius: it is unlikely that it was Late Antique poetry.
26 It is difficult not to be sympathetic to Constantinus Rhodius’ (= J) harsh judgement (written
in the margin of P): Ἄκοσμα ταῦτα τοῦ Κομητᾶ πάντ’ ἔπη. / Κομητά, Θερσίτης μὲν ἦσθα· πῶς
δέ γε / Ἀχιλλέως πρόσωπον εἰσέδυς, τάλαν; / Ἄπαγε ταῦτα τῆς ἀμούσου καρδίας / καὶ βάλλε
γ’ ἐς κόρακας ἢ κύφων ὕπερ / τὰ κοπρίας γέμοντα σαθρίαν ἔπη (however, on the literary
qualities of Cometas’ poem see Caprara 2000).
27 Maas 1921, 302 = 1973, 419–20. It should be borne in mind, however, that Leo the Philoso-
pher was also a reader of Callimachus: see De Stefani – Magnelli 2011, 562–3.
28 See for instance the distichs against Leo the Philosopher published in Matranga 1850, 555–
6, where one of the few remarkable phrases is the occurrence of the late (in poetry) φρικαλέος:
καὶ μετὰ φρικαλέην γε θυηπολίην, μεγάλην τε, to be compared with IG XII 5 739.12 (the text
was re-edited by Peek 1930, 13–22) φρικαλέον μύσταις ἱερὸν λόγον.
29 It is by Dionysius the Studite, who collected Theodorus’ poems and “edited” them: see
Lauxtermann 2003, 70–2.
384 Claudio De Stefani

eters first published by Eustratiades in 1918, then republished (with much

more philological skill) by Silvio Giuseppe Mercati in 1953 (who also noticed
the acrostich) and then by Paul Speck. I offer the text with an apparatus: I
have checked the most important and ancient witness, Marc. gr. Z. 141 (= 487),
XI century [= M in Speck]: the poem is on f. 259v, the last folium of the ms; I
take the data of the other two witnesses, P1 (= Par. gr. 893, XIII cent.) and B
(= Μονῆς Βλαττάδων Θεσσαλονίκης 26, XIV cent.), from Speck.

Ἐπίγραμμα εἰς τὸν ὅσιον πατέρα ἡμῶν Θεόδωρον

Δῶρον ἀειζώοιο Θεοῦ, μεγάλοιο ἄνακτος,

ἱμερόεν, περίπυστον ἐπ’ εὐλαβέῃ βιότοιο,
οὔνομα Θεύδωρος, ποίμνης ἡγεύμενος ἧκεν·
νωλεμέως νυχίῃσι λιτῇς ἰδὲ τάξεσιν ἄλλαις
ὑμνοπόλων Θεότευκτον ἀγήνορα ὦρσεν ἀοιδήν, 5
Στουδίου ᾗ κλῄζουσιν ἀριπρεπέ’ ὄλβιον οἶκον,
ἱρὸν Ἰωάννοιο, Χριστοῦ Προδρόμοιο σοφοῖο,
ὅν κεν ἐπ’ ἐσθλοῖσι πλῆσεν πλείστῃς χαρίτεσσι,
στερρῇς σωφροσύνῃσι καὶ ἁγνείης φαέεσσιν.
Ἀλκιμόεντ’, ἀπέλεθρα παρέσχετο ἤθεα πᾶσιν 10
νυκτινόμων παθέων αἴσχους ἀπάνευθεν ἐόντα·
ἀγλαΐης φαέων δὲ ἀνάπλεα, πάμπαν ἀγητά
τοῖσι μυϊσκομένοισι διδάγματα Θειοκέλευστα.
Ὀκριόεντ’ ἀπόερσεν, ἀερσιπότητα δὲ εἷλεν
λευγαλέου καμάτοιο, βαρυζυγέος δέ τε ἄχθους, 15
ἴθματ’ ἔχειν πτερόεντα πρὸς οὐρανὸν ἀστερόεντα,
ὡς ἄρα Χριστὸς ἔλεξε, βροτῶν πολύολβος ἀρωγός,
ἱστίον ὀξυπόρον, περιδέξιον ἅλματι λαμπρῷ.
Τοῦδ’ ἄπο ἄλλος ἔηκεν, Ἀνατόλιός τις ἀμύμων,
ᾧ ἔνι ναιετάεσκεν ἀγαυὸν Θεῖον ἄημα, 20
ἱκόμενος Λυδίηθε μετ’ ἄλλους ἡγεμονῆας.
Οὗτος ἀριφραδέως δέμας ἤραρε νῷ Θεολαμπεῖ
μαστεύων Χριστοῖο φαάντατα ἴχνια φαιδρά,
οἷα Θεοῖο λάτρις πρήξει βιότητί τ’ ἀρίστῃ,
πάσῃ ἐπ’ εὐλαβέῃ διαπρύσιος οἷος ὁ πρῶτος· 25
ἀτρεκίην κραδίῃφι σὺν ἁγνείῃ φορέεσκε
τρισσοφαοῦς Θεότητος ἐὼν πολύαινος ἐραστής,
ῥωμαλέως τελέθων περ ἀγακλέα πᾶσαν ἐφετμήν
ἴχνια παντοδαπῶν χαρίτων Θεοειδέος ὄλβου,
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 385

δῶρον ἔχων ἀρετάς, περικαλλέα εἵματα λαμπρά, 30

ἰσοφαῆ φύτλης Θεοειδέος οὐρανίοιο.

M P1 (1–8) B
1 ἀειζώοι M | μεγάλοι M 2 ἰμ- M | βιότοι M 3 Θεύδωρος Mercati: θειόδωρος M B: θειόδωορος
P1 | ἧκεν Speck (cf. enim 19 ἔηκεν): ἧκα M P1 B: ἦκα Mercati 4 λιτῆς M | ἄλλες M 5–6 ita
interpungendum: ἀοιδήν, / Στουδίου ᾗ κλῄζουσιν … οἶκον (Mercati), non ἀοιδήν / Στουδίου,
(Speck) 6 ᾗ Mercati: ἣν M P1 B | κλήζουσιν M | ἀριπρεπ” M 7 Ἰωάννου mal. Valerio 8 ὅὐ
M | ἐσθλοῖσι Mercati: ἐσθλοῖς M (ἑσθλ- M) P1 B (ἐσθλῆς cod. M falso trib. Speck) | an ἐπ’
ἐσθλαῖσι πλῆσεν (= ἐπίπλησεν) πλείστῃς χαρίτεσσι? | πλείστη M | χαρίτεσ/ι M 9 ἀγνείης M |
φαέεσιν M 12 τ’ (pro δὲ) M 13 μυϊσκομένοις M | θειοκέλευστα Mercati: θειοεικέλευθα M:
θειοεικέλευτα B 14 ὀκριόεντ’ M, de B ambig., vd. Speck: ὀκρυόεντ’ Mercati | ἀπώερσεν M |
τ’ (pro δὲ) M | εἶλεν M 15 δέχετε pro δέ τε M | ἄχθος Eustratiades, Mercati 16 ἵθματ’ M |
h. e. ἵνα ἔχοι vel ὥστε ἔχειν 18 ἵστον M | ὁξυπόρον M, ὀξύπορον B 19 ἀπὸ B 21 λυδίηθεν
B | ἄλους M | ἡγεμονήας M 22 οὕτος M | ἀριφραδ..ος B 23 φαάντα M 24 θεοῖ M | λάτρης
B | πρήξει scripsi : πήξει M, πράξει B | βίοττ M | ἀρίστη M 25 πάσῃ scripsi : πᾶσιν M B |
h. e. εὐλαβείῃ 26 ἀτρεκείην M (hoc praet. Speck) | κραδίηφι M 27 αἰραστής M 28 ἁγακλέα
M 29 θεοειδέος Mercati: θεοείδεος M B | ὅλβου M 30 περικαλλέα εἴματα M: περι-
καλλέο..αματα B: περικαλλέα ᾄσματα vel περικαλλέ’ ἀείσματα Mercati 31 θεοειδέος Mercati:
θεοείδεος M B | οὐρανί..ο B

Mercati pointed out that the verses show “la preferenza per il dattilo (di moda
presso Nonno e Nonniani), tanto che su 31 versi ben 17 hanno cinque dattili e
8 ne hanno quattro”.30 Now it should be stressed that such a tendency to
prefer dactyls (admittedly, together with the well known Byzantine prosodic
licences), is a typical feature of lofty Byzantine hexameter poetry (we will
presently see an instance from Theodorus Prodromus), but is not in itself, I
think, evidence for assuming that the author strove to imitate Late Antique
poetry (in which dactyls predominate): it just means that he wanted to repro-
duce the characteristic rhythm of the verse. Instead, the evidence comes from
the style.
In fact, the very beginning of the poem features striking affinities with a
Late Antique text (and the imitation, if authentic, would be far from trivial):

Δῶρον ἀειζώοιο Θεοῦ, μεγάλοιο ἄνακτος

I consider it likely that the incipit draws on the similar beginning of the Orphic
Lithica:

Δῶρον ἀλεξικάκοιο Διὸς θνητοῖσιν ὀπάσσαι.

30 Mercati 1953, 225 (= 1970, 600).

386 Claudio De Stefani

Indeed, the fact that both verses are the beginning of the poems, and the
similar allure, allows us to imagine that the author of the acrostich sealed his
work with a reminiscence of another, Late Antique, incipit: a typical case of
memoria incipitaria. If there were no further clue for postulating this depend-
ence, we would reasonably think of a coincidence: but there is more.
Speck (1968, 309) numbers ἅλματι λαμπρῷ (18) and τελέθων … ἐφετμάς
(28) among the phrases which make “der Text des Epigramms … in vielen
Einzelheiten nicht verständlich und auch grammatisch nicht eindeutig
faßbar”.31 Now if we accept this opinion, we run the risk, I think, of misunder-
standing the stylistical level of the poem: indeed, Nonnus scholars would eas-
ily identify a few well known iuncturae. For ἅλματι λαμπρῷ (18): the explicit
line-end is not attested before Apollonid. AP 7.702.5 = GPh 1189 ἅλματι λάβρῳ,
which is the most likely source, as the Byzantine pronunciation of λάβρος and
λαμπρός was almost the same – although, as will be shown in Appendix III,
the “glorious leap” draws upon a rich poetic tradition. Anyhow, similar
phrases are typical of late poetry: Opp. Hal. 3.101, Or. Sib. 5.104, Orph. Hy.
55.23, Georg. Pis. Vit. hum. 86 ἅλματι κούφῳ; especially Nonn. Dion. 45.341
ἅλματι θερμῷ. Moreover, the whole verse is probably influenced by Nonn.
Dion. 5.323–4 ὠκυπόρῳ δέ / ἔτρεχεν … ἅλματι χηλῆς. For τελέθων … ἐφετμήν
(28): the verb here has an active meaning (= τελέω) as in Opp. Ap. Cyn. 4.149,
and imitates a Nonnian phrase, P. 14.79 ἐμὰς τελέσειεν ἐφετμάς; 15.52–3 αἴ κεν
ἐφετμάς / ἡμετέρας τελέσητε βιαρκέας. Lastly, μαστεύων … ἴχνια is a Nonnian
iunctura:

Nonn. Dion. 45.230 ἴχνια μαστεύοντες … Διονύσου

48.944 ἴχνια μαστεύουσα φιλοσκοπέλοιο Λυαίου.

If we only compare the acrostich with the verses of poem 96 Speck, also trans-
mitted among the Iambi of Theodorus Studites, and equally spurious, the issue
of the competition would be dramatically unfavourable for the latter text. We
just glance at it, in order to show how bad hexameters could be composed by
a Studite monk (I have collated the most important ms for this text as well [M
f. 257v]):

31 It should be emphasized that in one case the interpretation of Speck cannot be right:
verses 4–5 should be understood “he raised the grand hymn created by God of the priests, by
which they celebrate the glorious abode of Stoudios”. Speck rightly puts into his text the
correction ᾗ instead of ἥν by Mercati, but links ἀοιδήν with Στουδίου and interprets ᾗ as and
adverb “wie”, not as a pronoun referring to ἀοιδήν, misunderstanding Mercati's emendation
and depriving the text of an elegant, indeed almost Hellenistic, word order.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 387

Εἰς μοναχούς, δακτυλικὸς καὶ ἐλεγεῖος

Χαίρετε ἄνδρες ἀριστέες, τοῦ Ἀχιλῆος ὕπερθεν·

κτεῖναι μὲν Ἕκτορα οὗτος κρατερὸν ξιφέρη,
οἱ δέ, μοναζόντων θωρηξάμενοι πολιτείαν,
χεῖρε λαβόντες ἄορ εὐπειθοῦς τῆς ὁσίας,
σφάξατε τὸν Βελίαρ, σκότεος μεγαλαυχέα νοῦα· 5
ἔνθεν ἀπήρκατε εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀθλοφόρως,
δερματίδα προσαφέντες τἀνθάδε τὴν νεκρὰν μόνον.

2 h. e. κτεῖνε, quod idem sonabat 3 θεωρηξάμενοι πολιτίαν M 5 μεγαλαύχεα M B 6 ἀπε-

ίρκατε M | ἀθλοφόρος M 7 ανθάδε M

The difference between the two texts, which stem from a similar cultural
milieu, is remarkable: the author of the acrostich is well read; as to poem 96,
Speck rightly pointed out its “Primitivität des Ausdrucks”32 (this time I com-
pletely agree with him).33 But the author of no. 124 Speck is not just more
learned: by reproducing a rhythm and a series of verse ends which he evi-
dently found in Late Antique texts, he also betrays a totally different taste.
I will not dwell here on the most outstanding example of imitation of
Nonnus in Byzantine poetry, the famous tenth-century epigram from Galak-
renai, because a thorough analysis of these verses was provided by Ihor Šev-
čenko in 1987:

Τύμβος ἐγὼν προλέγων βιοτήν, τρόπον, οὔνομα τοῦδε·

Σύγκελλος Μιχαὴλ μοναχό[ς], σοφός, ὄλβιος ὧδε
ἄχθος ἀπορρίψας, βεβαρηότα δεσμὸν ἀλύξας,
ποσσὶν ἐλαφροτάτοισι διέστιχεν, ᾗχι χορεύει·
πιστότατος θεράπων μεγαλήτορος ἀρχιερῆος 5
Νικόλεω γεγαὼς πινυτόφρονος, ὅστις ἔτευξε
τόνδε νεὼν ὑψίστῳ ἐπουρανίῳ βασιλῆϊ.

32 At v. 2 the caesura breaks the pronoun οὗτος; likewise, as it seems, at v. 5 it breaks

εὐπειθοῦς (εὐ|πειθοῦς). Notice also ξιφέρη and χεῖρε instead of χειρί.
33 Certainly, most of the metrical blemishes of this text are typical Byzantine features; hexam-
eter: caesura after the third foot (1: see Scheidweiler 1952, 292–4 and below, p. 389 n. 38);
pentameter: syllaba anceps before the caesura (4: see id., 294); the uniform presence of parox-
ytone at verse end is also a Byzantine rule; see Hanssen 1883, 226 on the avoidance of oxytone
at the end of the pentameter.
388 Claudio De Stefani

The inscription, an epitaph for Michael, the Synkellos by Nicolaos Mystikos,

was found at Erenköy in 1943 and is a true “cento, made up of Nonnian
elements”, as Ševčenko put it.34 Alan Cameron acutely proposed Alexander of
Nicaea as the author of these lines – actually, they could also be by another
poet, by whom Alexander himself was celebrated in an epigram transmitted
in the Planudean Anthology: Gioacchino Strano has dealt with this subject
quite recently.35
It appears that the metre too (more or less) follows Nonnus’ rules, with
the exception of ἔτευξε and of the correption of the final vowel of ὑψίστῳ
before ἐπουρανίῳ (both pointed out by Ševčenko) and γεγαώς (Ševčenko did
not mention the presence of an oxytone word before penthemimeres). The
conclusion which we can draw is that, although Byzantine poets were not able
to write “pure” Nonnian verses, because, unlike their Late Antique colleagues,
they were not taught at school how to compose them, careful observation of
the models would sometimes enable them to produce imitations of a very high
standard.
Let us move further towards Comnenian age. Another instance of a kind
of poetry which, in my opinion, betrays an acquaintance with Late Antique
texts is the prefatory poem of the Chronicon of Constantinus Manasses: such
a competence would not be surprising, if we merely recall the erudition of the
poet (who boasts his wide readings in the first Book of the Hodoeporicon).36
Moreover, I have the impression that Manasses imitates Late Antique poetry
in his Chronicon–I have collected a few instances in the apparatus fontium of
my edition of Paul the Silentiary.37 Let us briefly examine the dedicatory poem:

Δέχνυσο τοῖον δῶρον ἀφ’ ἡμετέροιο πόνοιο,

ὀλβιόδωρε ἄνασσα, κυδίστη, ἀριστοτόκεια,
νυὲ χαριτοπρόσωπε μεγασθενέων βασιλήων,
ἣν πλέον ἀστράπτουσαν ἐϋβλεφάροιο σελήνης
εἰς γάμον ὄλβιον ἤρατο νυμφιδίοις ἐπὶ λέκτροις 5
πορφυρόπαις γόνος Αὐσονάνακτος καρτερόχειρος,
Ἀνδρόνικος μεγάθυμος, ἐϋμμελίης πολεμιστής,
ᾧ γέρα πρῶτα σεβαστοκρατορίης νεῖμ’ ὁ φυτεύσας.
εἰς τοίνυν λυκάβαντας ἀπειρεσίους ἐλάσειας.

34 Ševčenko 1987, 462. Along with Nonnian phrases, the author of the epitaph widely imitated
the epigrams of the Greek Anthology, as Ševčenko noticed.
35 Strano 2008–09, 75–6.
36 Lampsidis 1984, 101–5 demonstrated Manasses’ authorship of this text, which Bekker con-
sidered spurious.
37 Cf. De Stefani 2011, especially ad Soph. 140, 429 f., 866 f., 1008, 1012 f., Amb. 195 f.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 389

As we see, although there are a few typical “Byzantine” features (false quanti-
ties; caesura after the third foot [5]; one verse without caesura and awkwardly
tripartite [6], another is utterly ametrical [8]; Naeke’s law is twice violated and
Hermann’s once),38 not to mention all the words which a Nonnian poet would
never have placed in that part of the hexameter (e.g. ἀριστοτόκεια at the end
of the line, or the elision νεῖμ’ ὁ φυτεύσας) – although, in my view, these
are medieval, not Late Antique verses: still, I have a vague impression that
reminiscences of Late Antique poetry shine through: notice, for example, the
tetracolon at verse 2 (which reminds of the Orphic Hymns, but probably stems
from Greg. Naz. Carm. 2.1.38.9 αἰῶνος πείρημα, μεγακλεές, ὀλβιόδωρε, also a
tetracolon); the explicit ending of verse 3, which might derive from AP 1.98.2
μεγασθενέος στρατιάρχου (a sixth-century epigram); that of verse 5, which
perhaps imitates Musae. 283 ἀριγνώτοις ἐνὶ λέκτροις;39 finally, the word λυκά-
βας, a Lieblingswort of Greek poetry from the third century CE on.
This is not a remarkable text like the epitaph from Galakrenai or even the
acrostich: it consists of verses which, far from being a deliberate and consum-
mate imitation of Nonnian poetry, just pick up a few phrases or glosses; still,
they are varnished with Late Antique poetic phrases, so that prima facie they
look like a good imitation. Generalizing grossly, we would say that such a text
recalls pre-Nonnian poetry, like Triphiodorus, which gave the impression of
being Nonnian but, as Alan Cameron in the wake of Wifstrand demonstrated
(and a papyrus confirmed),40 did not follow the rules of Nonnian poetry –
with the obvious difference that poets like Triphiodorus composed correct and
elegant Callimachean hexameters, whereas our Byzantine imitators just pro-
duce halting lines which they make more glamorous by inserting into them a
few Late Antique phrases.
A serious analysis of the imitations of Late Antique poetry cannot pass
over Theodorus Prodromus, one of the most competent versifiers in Byzantine
literature and perhaps the finest connoisseur of Nonnian poetry – along with
Planudes, the scribe of the two most famous manuscripts of the Dionysiaca
and of the Paraphrasis of St. John: I do not think it fortuitous that he lived at
the height of the Comnenian age, when Byzantine poetry, as it seems, went
through a period of classicising revival, which considerably diminished the
influence of previous Byzantine authors (Constantinus Rhodius, Geometres,

38 On the caesura after the third foot as a peculiarity of Byzantine hexameters, see Scheid-
weiler 1952, 292–4.
39 See also Musae. 266 βαθυστρώτοις ἐνὶ λέκτροις (on Byzantine imitation of Musaeus, see
Kost 1971, 70–2 and ad v. 22; 59; 74; 86–95; 174; 203–4; 224; 242; 267; 268–9). The explicit
λέκτροις is not attested in poetry before the Hellenistic age.
40 Al. Cameron 1970a, 478–82.
390 Claudio De Stefani

etc.) and brought back into vogue the ancient poets. I limit myself to quoting
a few specimens of Prodromus’ poetry: it should be sufficient to illustrate his
debt to Nonnus (or to Imperial poetry tout court).41
Before examining the first instance, Carm. hist. 56 b.40–8 Hörandner, it
should be stressed that not every hexameter passage of Prodromus shows such
a remarkable density of Nonnian echoes;42 indeed, the “Bacchic” enthusiasm
which permeates these verses might be partly responsible for the imitation:

φώνεε μογγιλάλος καὶ ἠχέτα φαίνετ’ ἄναυδος, 40

χωλὸς δ’ ἆλτ’ ἐλάφοισι ταχυσκελέεσσιν ὁμοῖα
καί τε γέρων κροτάλισσεν ἀμύμονα κόρδακα παίζων,
σείετο πάντα μέλαθρα, θρόος δὲ λεὼν ἐκολῴα
καί θ’ ἱερεῖς ἀλάλαζον ἐπ’ εὐαγέος δαπέδοιο
ὀξέα γηρυόωντες· ὁ δ’ ἔνδοθι βόμβεε σηκός 45
βόμβῳ ὑπὸ ζαθέῳ· ἀνὰ δ’ αἰθέρα ὤρνυτο δοῦπος·
ὣς ἀγαθοὺς φιλέουσιν ἅπαν γένος, ὣς λαλαγοῦσιν,
ὥς ῥα περικροτέουσιν ὁμιλαδὸν ἄλλοθεν ἄλλοι.

41 ft. τανυσχελέεσσιν, cf. [Opp.] Cyn. 1.191 οἷα τανυκραίροισιν … ἐλάφοισι (et Nonn. Dion.
24.126 τανυκραίρων ἐλάφων) || 43 cf. Nonn. Dion. 45.328 σείετο πάντα θέμεθλα || 44 cf.
Nonn. Dion. 22.14 Ἀδρυάδες δ’ ἀλάλαζον, ἐπ’ εὐπετάλοιο δὲ Νύμφη | cf. Nonn. Par. Jo. 18.97
ἐν εὐαγέεσσι μελάθροις || 45 cf. Musae. 107 ὁ δ’ ἔνδοθι θυμὸν ἰάνθη | βόμβεε, ἐπεβόμβεε
pluries apud Nonnum || 48 cf. Nonn. Dion. 14.351 χερσὶ περικροτέουσα | Opp. Hal. 1.614
ὁμιλαδὸν ἄλλοθεν ἄλλοι

A further instance, Carm. 42.1–6 H., shows another, interesting feature of Prod-
romus’ engagement with Late Antique poetry: here I could not identify a single
Nonnian verse closely imitated by him; however, almost every line ends with
a word which is typical of Nonnian (or Late Antique) verse-ends.43 To be sure,
Homeric and (generally) Hellenistic reminiscences are also present,44 but the
Late Antique rhythm of these verse-ends, is, I think, undeniable:

41 One further instance of his remarkable reverence for Late Antique poetry will be dealt with
below, pp. 395–6. On Prodromus’ knowledge of Nonnus, see Magnelli 2003, 182 (and passim);
2004, 192; 2010, 140 (and passim) and Spanoudakis 2013. As to Planudes, a glance at Pontani’s
apparatus of the poem on Ptolemy’s Geography abundantly shows the extent of his imitatio
Nonniana (see Pontani 2010, 197–9).
42 I quote, along with Nonnus, a few passages of earlier, Imperial poetry (Opp. and [Opp.]).
43 See also below, p. 396 n. 63, and Magnelli 2004, 184.
44 For instance, Prodromus took from Homer the iunctura φλογέων ὀχέων; αἴγλη at verse
end is also Hellenistic, etc.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 391

Ἥλιε ἀστεράναξ, φαεσίμβροτε γίγαν ἀκάμα,

ὄρφνης ἐννυχίης τε καὶ ἠματίης πάτερ αἴγλης,
ὃς φλογέων ὀχέων ἐπιάλμενος ἡνιοχεύεις
οἶμον ἐπ’ οὐρανίην,45 χρυσῆν περὶ μάστιγα46 σείων·
ναὶ σὲ γὰρ οὔτι λέληθε ῥέγμα χθονίοιο γενέθλης,
ὄμμα πέλοντα πέλωρον, ὕπνου ὑπ’ ἄδμητον ἀνάγκης.

I end by offering an example of the influence of Late Antiquity on Byzantine

poetry as regards the very structure of some works, I mean the alternation
dodecasyllable/hexameter. In my edition of Paul the Silentiary I referred to
the Late Antique habit of introducing the hexameters with an iambic proem,
a well known fashion studied, among others, by Toivo Viljaamaa and Alan
Cameron: I pointed out that these iambic prooemia are still fashionable in
Byzantine literature, and produced a few instances.47 My impression is that
such a habit is rather late, and emerges from the Comnenian age on: there is
not any continuity with Late Antiquity. In any case, imitation stimulated poets
to compose poetic works in which the dodecasyllables and the hexameters
have the same number of lines – sometimes, the iambic proem is even longer.
I here produce a couple more instances.
In several manuscripts, the exegetical corpus to Lycophron’s Alexandra
ends:

Λυκόφρονος δύσφραστα πληρώσας ἔπη,

ἐνθουσιασμοὺς παρθένου φοιβαστρίας,
αἰνιγματωδῶς καὶ σοφῶς εἰρημένους,
θεῷ τὸν αἶνον ὡς συνεργῷ προσφέρω.

1–2 A (54r) [260.20–3 Leone] 2 σαφῶς A

ἡ δόξα Χριστῷ τῷ συνεργῷ τοῦ τέλους.

Λόγους ἀτερπεῖς πολλὰ μοχθήσας γράφεις

ἀνιστορήτως βάρβαρα πλέξας ἔπη

45 Cf. Greg. Naz. Carm. 1.1.36.12 οὐρανίην οἶμον, Anon. AP 9. 811. 4 (a 6th century epigram).
46 This is also a Nonnian word in explicit of hexameter: Dion. 11.183 μάστιγα τιταίνων: to be
sure, the quantity of the iota of μάστιγα made it impossible, for a Late Antique poet, to con-
ceive a verse end like μάστιγα σείων (or πάλλων, etc.). But the Byzantine poet availed himself
of the δίχρονος.
47 Viljamaa 1968, 68–71; Al. Cameron 1970; De Stefani 2011, XXX n. 67.
392 Claudio De Stefani

γωλειά, γρώνας, οὖσα καὶ τυκίσματα

σὺν Ὀρθάγῃ τε κρίμνα καὶ λυκοψίαν
μόνον νέοις ἱδρῶτα, μωρὲ Λυκόφρον, 5
οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν ἢ κενοὶ λήρων λόγοι48.

τήνδε Λυκοφρονέην τὴν βαρβαρόφωνον ἰυγήν

Κλειοῦς τ’ ἀλλοπροσάλλοιο49 βάκχην καλλιέπειαν
Τζέτζης Ἰσαάκιος ἐπεὶ φύγον ἐξερεείνας,
παγκρατέι μεδέοντι πανέξοχον ὕμνον ὀφείλω. 10

The first four verses are also transmitted by the most important manuscript of
Lycophron, A (Marc. gr. 476, which I have checked); the second passage is just
a metrical colophon; the text which concerns us is the third one, consisting of
six dodecasyllables and four hexameters: it is transmitted by the manuscripts
of the commentary of Tzetzes, and it is highly likely that not only the four
hexameters, but also the six abusive dodecasyllables came from Tzetzes’ pen.
It is a further example of the association of dodecasyllables and hexameters,
and, once more the “iambic” part of the poem is longer. The same structure
can be seen in a poem, also by Tzetzes, which precedes Eutecnius’ Paraphrase
of Ps.-Oppian’s Cynegetica, 171.1 Papathomopoulos:

Τὰς Ὀππιανοῦ τῆς κυνηγίας βίβλους

ἐκ τῆς σκοτεινῆς τοῦ μέτρου δυσφωνίας
εἰς πεζὸν εἶδος τοῦ λόγου μεθαρμόσας
προὔθηκά σοι, μέγιστε Καῖσαρ, ἐνθάδε,
θηρατικῆς μάθημα πάγκαλον τέχνης· 5
ἐντυγχάνων οὖν εὐκόπως τῷ βιβλίῳ
καὶ τὴν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ συλλέγων εὐκαρπίαν
πονῶν με πεῖθε μὴ κατοκνεῖν εἰς πόνους.

Οὐδὲ σέθεν γεραρὴν ἰδ’ ἐρατὴν πυκτηΐδα

ἡμιτελῆ παρέθηκα, σοφίης ὄρχαμ’ ὦσχε50, 10
Ὀππιανὲ θρυλούμενε κλυτῆς εἵνεκ’ ἀοιδῆς,
ἀλλ’ ἀνύσας θηησάμην σέο καλλιέπειαν.

48 possis Λυκόφρον· / <εἶ δ’> οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν [ἢ] κενοὶ λήρων λόγοι
49 i. e. ἀλλοπροσάλλοῐο.
50 ὦσχε is strange: it probably means κλάδε, or ἔρνος (cf. Nic. Eug. Epithaph. Prodromi 48 ὦ
σοφίης κυπάρυττε [Gallavotti 1935, 230]), but might be corrupted: Papathomopoulos quotes
Ludwich’s ὄρχαμ’ ἐσθλέ. Perhaps ὄρχαμ’ ἐσθλῆς.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 393

But the most interesting example, which I had the privilege of talking over
with Enrico Magnelli a long time ago, is the iambic and hexameter tetrasticha
of Theodorus Prodromus on the life of Gregory of Nazianzus – we now have a
recent edition by D’Ambrosi (2008). I quote the third tetrastich:

Εἰς Γρηγόριον ἐκ πάσης χώρας τοὺς λόγους συλλέγοντα

Καὶ τίς δέ σου πέφευγε τὴν πτῆσιν πόλις,

μέλιττα μούσης; κηροπλαστεῖς γὰρ λόγους
πτὰς εἰς Ἀλεξάδρειαν, εἰς Παλαιστίνην,
εἰς τὰς Ἀθήνας, εἰς τὸ Βύζαντος πέδον.

Γραμματικήν τ’ ἰδὲ μέτρα πολύτροπα θεσμά τε ῥήτρης,

θευλογίην φυσικήν τε μαθηματικήν τε σοφίην,
πάντα λόγοιο γένεθλα μετ’ ἠελίοις τριάκοντα
Γρηγόριος δεδάηκε, φορεύμενος ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα.

All the work is organized in this way. It is after all the old Late Antique tech-
nique of linking an iambic and a hexameter poem – we find this, for example,
in Dioscorus of Aphroditopolis, although in a much less consistent way. It is
at least possible that Byzantine men of letters noticed this feature in the works
of the “Nonnian” poets (John of Gaza, Paul the Silentiary, etc.), and, by imitat-
ing it, offered, along with their Homerizing dactylic lines (of whose pure
rhythm they were surely proud), a sort of precious Late Antique taste.51 But
we are now in a very recent age, and it is better to stop here.

51 Theod. Prodr. Carm. hist. 56 H. associates a poem in dodecasyllables (poem [a]), one in
hexameters (b), one in pentameters κατὰ στίχον (c), and one in anacreontics (d) on the same
theme, the praise of Alexios Aristenos: I don’t know another example of such a metrical
exploit, which should be ascribed, I think, to Prodromus’ metrical inventiveness (as a matter
of fact, poem (a) speaks of στίχων καινὴν μάχην [47]) – apart from the extravagant poems by
Euthymius Tornikes, on whose structure see Ciccolella 1991, 57–67.
394 Claudio De Stefani

Appendix 1: On the Birth of Word Accent Rules in

the Dodecasyllable

As the celebrated artice by Paul Maas (1903) on the dodecasyllable pointed

out, a typical feature of the Byzantine iamb is care about word accent before
B5 and B7. It was mentioned above (p. 378) that such a reform of the verse can
be traced back to Pisides. To be sure, a tendency to regulate word accent in
some parts of the verse is already found in late Hellenistic and Imperial
poetry,52 and it is a well known fact in Late Antique hexameters. Besides, Late
Antique iambs, like Paul the Silentiary’s and John of Gaza’s, show a remark-
able care over word accent before the main caesurae.53 But the application of
these “rules” does not seem to be fully operating before Pisides: indeed, as
his iambs, from the early Panegyrics to the Hexaemeron, show an increasing
concern for word accent before B5 and B7 and at verse end, it would not be
preposterous to think of him as the author who codified these rules by means
of his metrical technique.
But what is their significance? My impression is that they relate to a similar
feature of Late Antique, and especially Pisides’, hexameters, that is the tend-
ency to put a proparoxytone before trochaic caesura,54 exactly the kind of
word accent which, according to the new “rules”, should be avoided before
B5 in iambs. In other words, we could surmise that these two features, the
avoidance of a proparoxytone before B5 in iambs and its regular occurrence
before trochaic caesura in hexameters, meant to connote in oppositione the
two verses, the only ones still frequently used and which the habit of compos-
ing encomia had tied together in a new literary genre. I hold the same opinion
about the avoidance of proparoxytone before B7 in hexameters and its regular
presence before B7 in iambs. Pisides’ (and his models’) “reformed hexameters”
were doomed to failure, because Byzantines soon forgot how to compose
them – although, as we shall presently see, a few specimens of similarly com-
posed verses are scattered among the later production of the twelfth century.
As to his “new” iamb, it became the most popular verse in Byzantine literature.
Can we detect further examples of the kind of hexameters found in Pisides
De vita humana in contemporary or earlier poetry? I have not carried out a
thorough research, but these epigrams deserve attention:

52 See Maas 1909.

53 See De Stefani 2011, XXXII.
54 See above, p. 379.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 395

Anon. APl 45
Ῥητῆρες Θεόδωρον ἐμέλλομεν εἰς ἓν ἰόντες
χρυσείαις γραφίδεσσιν ἀειμνήστοισι γεραίρειν,
εἰ μὴ χρυσὸν ἔφευγε καὶ ἐν γραφίδεσσιν ἐόντα55

Anon. APl. 69
Ζήνωνα πτολίαρχος Ἰουλιανὸς βασιλῆα.
Ζήνωνος παράκοιτιν Ἰουλιανὸς Ἀριάδνην56

Anon. APl. 122

Τοῦτον Ἀλέξανδρον, μεγαλήτορος υἷα Φιλίππου,
δέρκεαι ἀρτιλόχευτον, Ὀλυμπιὰς ὅν ποτε μήτηρ
καρτερόθυμον ἔτικτεν· ἀπ’ ὠδίνων δέ μιν Ἄρης
ἔργα μόθων ἐδίδασκε, Τύχη δ’ ἐκέλευσεν ἀνάσσειν.

Among the hexameter productions of the Comnenian age, we occasionally find

sections of continuous verse which vaguely recall the Late Antique hexameters
with a fixed proparoxytone before trochaic caesura.57 The solemn beginning
of Theodorus Prodromus’ Συντακτήριοι Βυζαντίοις (Carm. hist. 79.1–4 H.) is a
good instance:

Χαῖρε, πόλις μεγάπυργε νεηγενὲς εὔπολι Ῥώμη,

εὔκορε καλλιάνειρα, περίδρομε τείχεσι μακροῖς,
εὐκραὲς εὐλοέτειρα φυτοτρόφε εὐπαράδεισε,58
ἠυκίων ἐρίταφρε, ἁλιστεφὲς ὄμμα πολήων.59

To be sure, these verses, though they might look primo obtutu like a careful
imitation of Late Antique hexameters,60 are not comparable to Pisides’ poem,
which is entirely built upon rigorous metrical rules – moreover, the presence

55 Between the fifth and the early seventh century: dating depends on the identification of
Theodorus, see Beckby ad loc.
56 Composed during the reign of Zeno, 474–491.
57 A holodactylic hexameter of the age of Romanos III Argyros (1028–1034) with a proparoxy-
tone before trochaic caesura, to which Magnelli draws my attention, might as well be men-
tioned here: Παρθένε σοι πολύαινε, ὃς ἤλπικε πάντα κατοθροῖ. To be sure, a single verse
cannot be considered tout court Nonnian (as Lauritzen 2009 seems to assume), unless it is a
cento (and this is not the case): but it certainly is an interesting instance. Note that hiatus at
the trochaic caesura is classical, even Late Antique (see De Stefani ad Paul. Sil. Ambo 299).
58 Φυτοτρόφος recalls the Late Antique adj. φυτοσπόρος, cf. Nonn. Dion. 41.315 ῥίζα βίου,
Κυθέρεια, φυτοσπόρε, μαῖα γενέθλης.
59 Cf. Nonn. Dion. 13.455 ἁλιστεφὲς οὖδας ἀρούρης.
60 Apart from the hiatus and the proparoxytone explicit (3).
396 Claudio De Stefani

of an ‑ειρα noun before the main caesura is more a Homeric than a Late
Antique usage.61 Nevertheless, it cannnot be denied that this passage gives an
overall impression of Late Antique style;62 and the uniform proparoxytone
before the trochaic caesura seems to be a deliberate choice of this most learned
poet: after all, the first and last part of his poem recall the Late Antique enco-
mia of the monuments of the Νέα Ῥώμη.63
But the most striking instance of Byzantine imitation of Pisides’ Late
Antique hexameters can be found in a few passages of Nicetas Eugenianus’
Dros. et Char.: indeed, he was a friend and pupil of Prodromus, and his learned
verses always betray the imitation of ancient poetry which is peculiar to the
Comnenian age.64 Dros. et Char. 3.263–88 and 297–322 did not escape Maas’
astonishing learning and perspicacity:65

Φίλεε Βαρβιτίωνα, ἐύχροε πότνια Μυρτώ.

Ἡ Ῥοδόπη ποτ’ ἄτιζε τὰ Κύπριδος ἀφρογενείης
καί ῥ’ ἐς ὅλους λυκάβαντας ἐπῄνεε συμβιοτεύειν 265
Ἀρτέμιδι, ποθέουσα κύνας ἐλάφους τε καὶ ἵππους,
τοξοφόρος δονάκεσσιν ἀν’ οὔρεα μακρὰ βιβῶσα κτλ.66

61 Late Antique poets preferred the 4th metron, like their Hellenistic models – the end of the
verse was obviously forbidden. See, however, the Nonnian parallel quoted at n. 58.
62 Theodorus Prodromus’ hexameters now and then show sections of continuous verse with
a proparoxytone before the trochaic caesura: whether this was a choice of the author or is
just chance, I cannot tell. In fact, Carm. hist. 79.1–4 seems to me the most remarkable passage,
also on account of its Nonnian reminiscences.
63 Apart from a couple of explicits which sound Late Antique (cf. 18 πολυκτεάνων βασιλήων),
I have the impression that the verses which celebrate St Sophia, besides imitating, as it seems,
a few passages of the Ekphrasis of Paul the Silentiary (which Theodorus certainly knew, as
imitations in other poems by him prove beyond any doubt), might hint at the famous anony-
mous epigram on the Chalke, cf. 25 πελώριον ὄμμασι θαῦμα ~ Anon. AP 9.656.3–5 θαῦμα …
πάντεσσιν, ἐπεὶ … ἀσκεπὲς ἐφράσσαντο πελώριον ἔργον ἐᾶσαι.
64 See above, p. 389.
65 Maas 1903, 302–3 (= 1973, 267).
66 The wide range of Eugenianus’ reading can be appreciated thanks to the rich apparatus
locorum of A. Giusti in Conca’s edition (Amsterdam 1990). It should be noticed that the two
hexameter poems recited by Barbition (3.263–88 and 297–322) are introduced by a sort of
proem in dodecasyllables (the metre of Dros. et Char.), the second one slightly reminiscent of
Agathias’ iambic proem (AP 4.3), which is followed by a hexameter poem (AP 4.4): see Eugen.
3.290–1 ἀλλ’ ἐφάπτου κειμένης / τῆς τῶν συνήθων ποικίλης πανδαισίας (Agath. 34 εἶναι το-
σαύτης ἡγεμὼν πανδαισίας); as to the following song of Barbition (297–322), it reminds me of
the second part of Theocritus’ Φαρμακεύτριαι. Anyhow, I cautiously suggest that the whole
passage could be considered a further example of the association of dodecasyllables and
hexameters (admittedly, sandwiched in a continuous narration in dodecasyllables): see above,
pp. 391–3.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 397

Dros. et Char. 6.205–35 is also a piece consisting of this kind of “Pisidean

hexameters”; I quote the verses, adding an apparatus fontium with references
(only) to Imperial poetry (most of the sources were identified by Giusti) and a
few notes:

Ἅδ’ ἐγὼ ἡ τρισάποτμος ἀπὸ σφετέροιο γενέθλου, 205

ἅδ’ ἐγὼ ἡ πολύδακρυς ἀναλθέα πήματα μίμνω.
Κεῖμαι δὲ φθινύθουσα διαμπερὲς ἐγγοόωσα·
ὡς γὰρ μοῖρα μέλαινα δυσώνυμος ἀμφεπέκλωσεν,
οὐδ’ ὀλοοῖο χόλοιο πεπαύσεται ἤματα πάντα.
Αὐτὰρ ὃν ἡ δύστηνος ἔχον πάρος εἰσορόωσα 210
ἐκ παθέων ἀνάπαυλαν ἐρωτοτόκου μελεδῶνος,
ὃν ποθέεσκον ἄκριτα, Χαρικλῆς κεῖται ἀνάγκῃ
ὀρφναίοις νεφέεσσιν ἐνειλυμένος θανάτοιο,
κεῖται νεκρὸς ἄελπτος ἀπ’ ὄμματος ἡμετέροιο,
τόν ῥα φάους ἀπέμερσε κακώνυμος, αἰὲν ἀτειρής 215
Μοῖρα, μέλαινα, φέραλγος, ἀπ’ ἔγχεος Ἀραβίοιο.
Χείλεα ἱμερόεντα, τὰ πολλάκις ἐξεφίλησα,
πῦρ μαλερὸν κατέμαρψε καὶ αἰθαλόεντα φαάνθη·
ὄμματα παμφανόωντα ἀείδακρυς ὄρφνα κάλυψε·
βόστρυχον ἡλιόωντα μέλαν λύθρον ἐξεμίηνεν. 220
Ὤμοι ἐγὼ πανάποτμος, ἀεὶ μογέουσα Δροσίλλα.
Ἔτλην φύξιν ἄελπτον ἀπὸ σφετέροιο τοκῆος·
μακρὸν δ’ ἐξεπέρησα βαρύβρομον οἶδμα θαλάσσης·
λῃστὰς ὑπεξέφυγον ἀν’ οὔρεα μακρὰ βιβῶσα·
αἲ αἴ, δακρυόεσσα Χαρικλέος εἵνεκα κούρου, 225
δούλιον ἦμαρ ὄπωπα· βίῃ δέ τοι ἐστυφελίχθην
κλοιός μ’ ἀμφεδάμαζε πυραγροφόροιο μέλημα·
οὔρεϊ ὑψικορύμβῳ ἁμαξόθεν ἔκπεσον αὖθις,
οἴδματι δ’ ἀμφεπέλασσα καὶ εἰναλίῃσι πέτρῃσι
βένθεος ἀτρυγέτοιο καὶ ἀργαλέῃ στροφάλιγγι· 230
φλοιός μ’ ἐξεσάωσεν ἀπὸ δρυὸς ὅς κεν ἐτύχθη.
Ὤμοι ἐγὼ βαρύδακρυς εἵνεκα σεῖο, Χαρίκλεις,
ὃν πάρος εἰσορόωσα διήνυον ὄλβιον ἦμαρ,
νυνὶ δὲ κρυπτομένοιο πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχω,
ἥλιον οὐκ ἐθέλουσα σελασφόρον ἀστέρα λεύσσειν.

211 cf. Diosc. 4.38 Fournet ἐρωτοτόκου μελεδῶνος | 222 cf. QS 4.453 σφετέροιο τοκῆος,
f. v. | 223 cf. Nonn. Dion. 4.117 μὴ τρομέοις ἁλὸς οἶδμα βαρύβρομον (Giusti) | 224 versus,
quem Conca corruptum habet (cf. p. 12), ft. sanus est: ad ἀν’ – βιβῶσα cf. 3.267 ἀν’ οὔρεα
398 Claudio De Stefani

μακρὰ βιβῶσα; ad metrum autem cf. e.g. Hom. Il. 2.24 οὐ χρὴ παννύχιον εὕδειν βουληφόρον
ἄνδρα (an imit. Jo. Geom. Carm. 41.10 [PG 106.927] = 61 van Opstall χεῖρας ὑπεξέφυγον ἆ
τάλας, ἀδρανίης?) | 228 cf. [Opp.] Cyn. 2.92 ὕψι κόρυμβος | 230 cf. Musae. 294–5 φρικα-
λέας δονέουσα πολυστροφάλιγγας ἀέλλας / βένθεα δ’ ἀστήρικτα (Giusti)67

In addition to these texts, two more poems of Eugenianus should be men-

tioned, which were published by Gallavotti 1935, 229–33: the longest one is an
epitaph for Prodromus, consisting of 99 verses; the other is an epithalamium,
full of Theocritean echoes. Both of them are composed of the same kind of
hexameters as those which make up the poems contained in his romance:
thus, most of the verses show a proparoxytone before trochaic caesura –
though here penthemimeres is also present. The epitaph is quite interesting,
because of a remarkable reminiscence of Dioscorus of Aphroditopolis – like
Dros. et Char. 6.211 (see above),68 but also because it imitates (v. 42) a passage
of Theodorus which I have just quoted:

ἦ ῥα, πόλις μεγάπυργε πολυκλεὲς ὀλβιόδαιμον,

τοῦδε τέκνου γενέτειρα περιπροέχοντος ἁπάντων.

Accordingly, I am tempted to surmise that Eugenianus, a pupil of Theodorus,

composed his noteworthy “Late Antique”, Pisides-like hexameters in the wake
of his master.69

Appendix 2: On the Replacement of Hexameters with

Political Verses

As we said above, Byzantines imitated the Late Antique habit of joining

together iambic and hexameter poems. This might account for a scheme which
is found in Byzantine poetry, especially, as it seems, among less sophisticated

67 Lastly, every Nonnus scholar would sense that Χαρικλέος εἵνεκα κούρου has a clear Late
Antique sound, although it does not, as far as I know, imitate a particular imperial explicit.
To the references of Conca – Giusti’s apparatus Hom. Il. 3.154 πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν
(ad 234) and 3.255 ὥς κεν ἐτύχθη (ad 231) should be added.
68 See Diosc. 4.20 Fournet πολυήρατον εὖχος Ἐρώτων and the epitaph. 10 πολυήρατον εὖχος
ἀνάκτων. Should we infer that Byzantines read his poems?
69 At verses 81–3 of Eugenianus’ poem Homer himself appreciates Prodromus’ skilfulness in
composing hexameters: αὐτίκα πρῶτος Ὅμηρος ἐν ἀγκαλίδεσσι λάβοι σε / δεξιτερὴν φιλέων
σου ἐνιδρυμένου ὑπένερθεν / ἄνδρα ἐν ἠρῴεσσι μέτροις προφερέστατον εἰδώς.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 399

poets, the association of an iambic poem with another written in political

verses: Byzantines apparently felt the politikos stichos to be a practical, up-to-
date substitute for a verse which they found difficult to compose, and of simi-
lar length (the epic dialect, which hexameters required, might also be a deter-
rent). An example of this use from a poem of “Manganeios Prodromos” edited
by Bernardinello (1975, 63 and 69) may suffice:

Ἐγὼ δὲ τίνα σοι καινόν, ὦ καινουργὲ μονάρχα,

καὶ ποῖον ὕμνον ᾄσομαι καὶ ποίαν εὐφημίαν
ἐπὶ τῷ καινοτέρῳ σου τροπαίῳ μελετήσω; κτλ.

οὐ νήθω στήμονα φαιόν, οὐ κρόκην κεχρωσμένην 150

τὸ τῶν λόγων ὕφασμα λευκόν σοι φέρω·

τὸ τοῦ κράτους ἔνδυμα λαμπρὸν εἰργάσω,
οὐκ ἐκ συνήθους πορφύρας βεβαμμένον,
οὐδ’ ἀπὸ λύθρων αὐτερύθρου κογχύλης κτλ. 155

τοῖς ἀσθενοῦσι σὺ δοκεῖς εὐεξία, 200

διψητικαῖς δὲ φιλοκάλων καρδίαις
Ὑμηττὸς αὐτόχρημα νεκταροβλύτης.

δέξαι καὶ τοῦτο προσηνῶς, ἡ συμπαθὴς καρδία,

ὡς ἔδεσμα καρυκευτὸν τρωκτοῦ παρηλλαγμένου·
οὐ γὰρ ἁπλῆν σοι τράπεζαν παρατιθέναι πρέπον κτλ. 205

Appendix 3: On the Meaning of ἅλματι λαμπρῷ in [Theod.

Stud.] Iamb. 124.18 Speck

According to Paul Speck, [Theod. Stud.] Iamb. 124 contains a few awkward
phrases, which he could not account for: “z. B. 18 ἅλματι; 19 ἔηκεν; 28 f.
τελέθων”.70 Now, as we have seen above (p. 386), ἅλματι λαμπρῷ and
τελέθων … ἐφετμήν are imitations of iuncturae which occur in Late Antique
poetry; as to the form ἔηκεν (19), it should be explained as a sort of Zerdehnung
of ἧκεν “came, arrived” (cf. 3 ἧκεν),71 a licence which Byzantine poets appar-

70 Speck 1968, 309; see above, p. 386.

71 Speck rightly translated “kam”. Should we read ἕηκεν?
400 Claudio De Stefani

ently allowed themselves – though the only other instance of this kind which
I can quote is Balsamon 29.15 and 36.2 Horna γεηρ-.
Instead, let us examine the iunctura ἅλματι λαμπρῷ, which is by far the
most interesting among the passages which Speck considered “nicht verständ-
lich”. As pointed out above, it draws upon a Late Antique hexameter explicit:
but what is its exact meaning? An illuminating passage is Syn. Hy. 1.708–14:

δός με, φυγοῖσαν

σώματος ἄταν,
θοὸν ἅλμα βαλεῖν
ἐπὶ σὰς αὐλάς,
ἐπὶ σοὺς κόλπους,
ὅθεν ἁ ψυχᾶς
προρέει παγά.

Thus, the “glorious leap” refers to the flight of the soul after death to para-
dise – a flight which is thought to be so quick72 that it is assimilated to a leap:
the whole passage, however clumsy and strange it might sound, is a dense
and vigorous sentence, which owes the image of the ἅλμα to a well established
tradition.73 As Samuel Vollenweider pointed out, the theme of the “Sprung in
die geistige Welt” usually refers in Synesius to the soul, as in our text, and in
one case to Christ (Hy. 8.55–61).74 This metaphor has a few parallels in the
Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition, as María José Zamora (ad Greg. Naz. Carm.
1.2.2.455) rightly pointed out, and is probably connected to the traditional con-
ception of the soul as a winged essence, a topos carefully studied by Pierre
Courcelle: such a philosophical background probably influenced the learned
bishop.75
But it also was a purely poetic image, and as such it is found in epigraphi-
cal poetry before him: see e.g. GVI 1146.5–6 = IGUR 1329 (Rome, II–III AD)

ψυχὴ μὲν πρὸς Ὄλυμπον ἀνήλλατο, σῶμα δὲ πρὸ[ς γῆν]

καὶ λυθὲν ἐξεπόθη καὶ οὐδὲν ἔχω πλέον ὀστῶ[ν.

72 See Jo. Chrys. Pan. Dros. 2, PG 50.685 συμβήσεταί ποτε καὶ αὐτὸν ἴσως τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ
φιλανθρωπίας καταξιούσης, τοιαῦτα ἅλλεσθαι ἅλματα, καὶ ἀθρόον πρὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναβῆναι.
73 The comparison of Christ to a sail which is, as far as I know, quite rare: see e.g. [Chrys.]
Hom. 6, PG 64.22 = [Athan.] Qu. script. 105, PG 28.761 ὁ τῶν ψυχῶν κυβερνήτης Χριστός, καὶ
στήσας τὸ ἰστίον τοῦ σταυροῦ.
74 Vollenweider 1985, 150. For Christ as the subject of the spiritual jump, see e.g. Greg. Naz.
Carm. 1.1.3.31 ὅτ’ ἐκ χθονὸς ἆλτο σαωτήρ.
75 Courcelle 1975, 562–623. See Vollenweider 1985, 150 n. 147.
 The End of the “Nonnian School” 401

A possible parallel for one of the verses of Synesius quoted above (711) could
be GVI 1325.2–5 (Nicosia, Cyprus, II–III AD)

τὸ δὲ σῶμα καλύπτει
γαῖα λαβοῦσα γέρας τοῦθ’, ὃ δέδωκε πάλαι·
ἡ γάρ μοι ψυχὴ μὲν ἐς αἰθέρα καὶ Διὸς αὐλάς,
ὀστέα δ’ εἰς Ἀίδην ἄτροπος εἷλε νόμος.

At v. 4 something like ἥλατο, or διέπτη,76 or ἦξε,77 should be understood.78

Along with [Theod. Stud.] Iamb. 124, two further Byzantine poetic passages
which are likely to draw on the image of the soul’s flight to the paradise can
be quoted – though they belong to a different context: Georg. Pis. Hex. 748–9
νῦν δὲ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἅλλεται (sc. ὁ νοῦς) πρὸς αἰθέρα / καὶ πτηνὸς ἀρθείς κτλ.
and Jo. Geom. Carm. 211.17 van Opstall ποσὶ κούφοις ἅλμασιν αἰθέρα βαίνων.

Appendix 4: A Crux in Nicetas Eugenianus’ Poem on

the Death of Theodorus Prodromus

I reproduce the text of Gallavotti, vv. 62–4:79

ὀστᾶ, πῇθι (?) πύθεσθε, Ἐλισσαίου προορῶντος

ἀγχόθι καὶ Προδρόμοιο νεηταφέος προτάθητε,
καὶ τάχα κεν γαρύσαιτο, φάος δ’ ἐπὶ ὄμματα δέρκοι.

The editor of the poem offered an interpretation of the passage, in which Prod-
romus’ grave, like Elisseus’, becomes a miraculous place: “è chiaro … che i vv.
62–64 alludono al miracolo fatto dal profeta Eliseo dopo la morte, di risusci-
tare un uomo morto messo casualmente a contatto con le sue ossa (come è
raccontato nei Re IV, xiii, 21”.80 As to the crux πῇθι, I would suggest:

76 See e.g. SGO 17/08/04.4 (Sidyma, Lycia, imperial age) πνεύματος ἐκπταμένου, GVI 881.3–
4 (Athens, III AD?) γῆ σῶμα κρύπτει τῇδε γ’, ἀλλ’ ἐς αἰθέρα / ψυχὴ διέπτη καὶ σύνεστιν οἷς
τὸ πρίν, Quint. Smyr. 7.42 ψυχή οἱ πεπότηται ἐς ἠέρα, σῶμα δ’ ἄνευθε / πῦρ ὀλοὸν κατέδαψε.
77 See e.g. Dittenberger’s supplement at GVI 1349.11 (Corfu, I BC) [αὔραις δ’ οὐραν]ίοισι
μετάρσι[ος ἀίξασα].
78 The image can be found as early as Sappho fr. 55.4 V., see Cavallini 1990.
79 On this poem see above, p. 398.
80 Gallavotti 1935, 229.
402 Claudio De Stefani

ὀστᾶ, τίπτε πύθεσθε81; Ἐλισσαίου προορῶντος

ἀγχόθι καὶ Προδρόμοιο νεηταφέος προτάθητε·
καὶ τάχα κεν γαρύσαιτο82, φάος δ’ ἐπὶ ὄμματα83 δέρκοι.

81 Eugenianus might well scan πύθεσθε with ῠ, like the following γᾰρύσαιτο.
82 scil. ὁ Πρόδρομος.
83 scil. νεκρῶν.