Michael Psellos: Rhetoric and Authorship in Byzantium 9781107026223, 1107026229

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MICHAEL PSELLOS

This book explores Michael Psellos’ place in the history of Greek rhetoric and self-representation and his impact on the development of Byzantine literature. Avoiding the modern dilemma that vacillates between Psellos the pompous rhetorician and Psellos the ingenious thinker, Professor Papaioannou unravels the often misunderstood Byzantine rhetoric, its rich discursive tradition, and the social fabric of elite Constantinopolitan culture which rhetoric addressed. The book offers close readings of Psellos’ personal letters, speeches, lectures, and historiographical narratives, and analysis of other early Byzantine and classical models of authorship in Byzantine book culture, such as Gregory of Nazianzos, Synesios of Kyrene, Hermogenes, and Plato. It also details Psellos’ innovative attention to authorial creativity, performative mimesis, and the aesthetics of the self. Simultaneously, it traces within Byzantium complex expressions of emotion and gender, notions of authorship and subjectivity, and theories of fictionality and literature, challenging the common fallacy that these are modern inventions. s t r a t i s pa p a i o a n n o u is Associate Professor of Classics at Brown University. He has published extensively on Byzantine literature, especially on the history of rhetoric and literary subjectivity, and is currently preparing an edition of Michael Psellos’ letters for the Teubner Series, as well as a volume of translations with Psellos’ texts. He has co-edited Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of AliceMary Talbot (with Denis Sullivan and Elizabeth Fisher, 2011). Recent articles include: “Fragile Literature: Byzantine Letter-Collections and the Case of Michael Psellos” (2012), “Michael Psellos on Friendship and Love: Erotic Discourse in Eleventh-Century Constantinople” (2011), “Byzantine Enargeia and Theories of Representation” (2011), and “Byzantine Mirrors: Self-Reflection in Medieval Greek Writing” (2010).

M I CHA EL P S ELLOS Rhetoric and Authorship in Byzantium

STRATIS PAPAIOANNOU

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S˜ao Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107026223  C

Stratis Papaioannou 2013

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by the MPG Books Group A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Papaioannou, Stratis. Michael Psellos : rhetoric and authorship in Byzantium / Stratis Papaioannou. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-02622-3 (hardback) 1. Psellus, Michael – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Greek literature – History and criticism. I. Title. pa5355.z5p37 2013 189 – dc23 2012042714 isbn 978-1-107-02622-3 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To Samantha

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgments A note on style Abbreviations

page viii ix xi xii 1

Introduction part i: the professional rhetor and theory of authorship

27

1

The philosopher’s rhetoric

29

2

The rhetor as creator: Psellos on Gregory of Nazianzos

51

3

The return of the poet: mimesis and the aesthetics of variation

88

part ii: self-representation

129

4 Aesthetic charm and urbane ethos

131

5

166

The statue’s smile: discourses of Hellenism

6 Female voice: gender and emotion Conclusion: from rhetoric to literature Appendix: books and readers in the reception of Psellos Bibliography Index

vii

192 232 250 268 337

Illustrations

1. Seal of Ioannes Doukas, Dumbarton Oaks BZS 1955.1.4366,  C Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Washington, DC page 9 2. Michael Psellos and Michael VII Doukas, Athos, Pantokratoros C ëIer‡ MonŸ Pantokr†torov &g©ou ï Orouv 13 234, f. 254 recto,  3. The beginning of Gregory of Nazianzos’ Epitaphios for Basil of Caesarea (Or. 43), Florence, Pluteus 7.32 (late eleventh or early C Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 40 twelfth century), f. 70 recto,  4. Symeon Metaphrastes’ Menologion, December 11, the beginning of the Bios kai politeia of St. Daniel the Stylite, Florence, C Biblioteca Pluteus 11.11 (eleventh century), f. 141 recto,  Medicea Laurenziana 47 5. The beginning of Gregory of Nazianzos’ Oration on the Theophany or On the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Or. 38), Florence, Pluteus 7.32 (late eleventh or early twelfth century), C Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 76 f. 63 recto,  6. Gregory of Nazianzos as reader, Florence, Pluteus 7.24 (1091), f. C Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 95 3 verso,  7. Florence, Pluteus 57.40 (late eleventh or early twelfth century), C Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 242 f. 102 verso, 

viii

Acknowledgments

This book started sometime in the winter of 1995 as an idea for a dissertation. The inspiration came while reading a text full of surprises, Michael Psellos’ Chronographia, a work that the late Athanasios Kominis often presented as a masterpiece in his lectures at the University of Athens. No amount of foresight could have predicted the surprises, readings, and re-readings of Psellos that would follow. Nor could I have imagined the number of people whom I would be fortunate enough to encounter while writing about Psellos. The debts are many; certainly more than I can express here. The direction and infinite generosity of Wolfram H¨orandner saw this study mature from an over-ambitious dissertation to its later transformations. John Duffy’s advice and knowledge of Psellos offered exemplary guidance. Alice-Mary Talbot imparted unfailing support. Margaret Mullett provided constant friendship. The incisive judgment of Panagiotis Agapitos saved the project from numerous pitfalls during early phases of revision. Charis Messis read the entire final draft, stimulated many ideas, prevented many mistakes, and gave steady motivation and friendship. My gratitude for several others who read parts or versions is immense: Debby Boedeker, Susan Harvey, Anthony Kaldellis, David Konstan, Jim Porter, Roderich Reinsch, Adele Scafuro, and Michele Trizio. I am also grateful for the encouragement, suggestions, and support of mentors and friends: Charles Barber, Floris Bernard, Jostein Børtnes, B¨orje Byd´en, Ivan Drpi´c, Niels Gaul, Katerina Ierodiakonou, Nadia Kavrus-Hoffmann, Bill Klingshirn, Johannes Koder, Stavros Kourouses, Derek Krueger, Frank Mantello, Maria Mavroudi, Edgars Narkevics, Paolo Odorico, Sophia ˇ cenko, Ljuba Reinsch, Philip Rousseau, Papaioannou, Nancy Patterson Sevˇ Georgios Skaltsas, and the late Theone Bazeou, Tomas H¨agg, Jakov Ljubarskij, and Titos Papamastorakis. Also, I am indebted to a series of institutions whose generous funding allowed me to work and complete this project: The Catholic University ix

x

Acknowledgments

of America, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, and, of course, Brown University (especially its Classics Department) and Dumbarton Oaks; I owe special thanks to the current director of the latter, Jan Ziolkowski. Michael Sharp, Editor at Cambridge University Press, Liz Hanlon, Assistant Editor, and Christina Sarigiannidou, Production Editor, were patient and helpful throughout the publication process. I would also like to thank the two anonymous readers. In revisions, I was fortunate to have the assistance of Cindy Swain and Byron MacDougall. Martin Thacker did an admirable and swift job in copy-editing. David Konstan helped unravel some of the abstruse syntax of Psellos in translation, while Anthony Kaldellis with remarkable speed reviewed the final version and helped me unravel much of my own abstruse English syntax; I am extremely thankful to both of them. Finally, I should mention several friends (though I am bound to forget many) whose affection is tied also with the making of this book: Alexandros Alexakis, Elsa Amanatidou, Christina Angelidi, Ludmila Gordon and Vadim Altskan, Michael Gr¨unbart, Johanna Hanink, Nancy Khalek, Fotini Kondyli and Andrew Scherer, Kostis Kornetis, Caroline Mac´e, Phoevos Panagiotidis, Joe Pucci, Timotheos Romanas, Linda Safran, Kostis Smyrlis, Dennis Stathakopoulos, and, last but not least, Giannis Trikopoulos. The book would not have been written without the solace of my parents Efi and Nikos, my brother Vaios and his wife Georgia, and the hours of play with my two little nieces, @fh and Kater©na, who kept me sane and happy even when all else seemed to fail. And this book would certainly not have been written without the patience, constant inspiration, honesty, and love of Samantha Papaioannou; it is dedicated to her.

A note on style

Following other studies of Byzantine texts, I adopted a mixed system of transliteration, even if it resulted in some unavoidable discrepancies. Wellknown or well-established ancient and some later Greek names appear in their common latinized or anglicized form; e.g., Aristotle, Plato, Constantine the Great, Gregory, Dionysius, John of Damascus. Most Byzantine names, however, are transliterated; thus Nazianzos, Photios, Theodoros Prodromos , Psellos, and Ioannes Sikeliotes.

xi

Abbreviations

psellos’ texts Charikleia and Leukippe What Is The Difference Between The Texts Whose Plots Concern Charikleia and Leukippe?: ed. A. Dyck, Michael Psellus, The Essays on Euripides and George of Pisidia and on Heliodorus and ¨ Achilles Tatius (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1986) 90–8. Chron. ed. S. Impellizeri, Michele Psello, Imperatori di Bisanzio: (cronografia); introduzione di D. Del Corno; testo critico a cura di S. Impellizzeri; commento di U. Criscuolo; traduzione di S. Ronchey (Milan: Fondazione L. Valla, 1984). Concise Answers to Various Questions ed. L. G. Westerink, Michael Psellus, De omnifaria doctrina (Utrecht: J. L. Beijers, 1948). Concise History ed. W. J. Aerts, Michaelis Pselli historia syntomos (Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae. Series Berolinensis 30; Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1990). Discourse Discourse Improvised by the Hypertimos Psellos to the Bestarchˆes Pothos Who asked Him to Write about the Style of the Theologian: ed. (a) P. Levy, Michael Psellus. De Gregorii Theologi charactere iudicium, accedit eiusdem de Ioannis Chrisostomi charactere iudicium ineditum (Diss. Strasbourg; Leipzig: R. Noske, 1912) 46–63; and (b) A. Mayer, “Psellos’ Rede u¨ ber den rhetorischen Charakter des Gregorios von Nazianz,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 20 (1911) 27–100, at 48–60. Both editions are cited: the paragraph number refers to the paragraph divisions in Levy’s edition, while the numbers refer to the lines in Mayer’s edition. Encomium for a Certain Monk Nikolaos, Who Became Abbot of the Mona´ stery of the Beautiful Spring on Olympos ed. P. Gautier, “Eloge fun`ebre de Nicolas de la Belle Source par Michel Psellos moine a` l’Olympe,” Buzantin† 6: 9–69. xii

List of abbreviations

xiii

Encomium for His Mother ed. U. Criscuolo, Michele Psello. Autobiografia: encomio per la madre (Naples: D’Auria, 1989). Euripides or Pisides? Who versified better, Euripides or Pisides?: ed. A. Dyck, Michael Psellus, The Essays on Euripides and George of Pisidia and on ¨ Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1986) 40–50. G Letters: ed. P. Gautier, “Quelques lettres de Psellos in´edites ou d´ej`a ´ e´dit´ees,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 44 (1986) 111–97, at 126–97. Gautier, “Monodies” Several funerary orations: ed. P. Gautier, “Monodies in´edites de Michel Psellos,” Revue des ´etudes Byzantines 36 (1978) 83–151. K-D Letters: ed. E. Kurtz and F. Drexl, Michael Psellus. Scripta minora magnam partem adhuc inedita ii: Epistulae (Orbis romanus, biblioteca del testi medievali a cura dell’ Universit`a Cattolica del Sacro Cuore 5.2; Milan: Societ`a editrice “Vita e pensiero,” 1941). K-D i Various texts: ed. E. Kurtz and F. Drexl, Michael Psellus. Scripta minora magnam partem adhuc inedita i: Orationes et dissertationes (Orbis romanus, biblioteca del testi medievali a cura dell’ Universit`a cattolica del sacro cuore 5.1; Milan: Societ`a editrice “Vita e pensiero,” 1936). Maltese Letters: ed. E. V. Maltese, “Epistole inedite di Michele Psello,” Studi Italiani di filologia classica iii 5 (1987) 82–98 and 214–23; 6 (1988) 110–34. Letter to Ioannes Xiphilinos ed. U. Criscuolo, Michele Psello, epistola a Giovanni Xifilino (Byzantina et neo-hellenica Neapolitana 1; Naples: Bibliopolis, 1973; new edn. 1990). Letter to Michael Keroularios ed. U. Criscuolo, Michele Psello, epistola a Michele Cerulario (Byzantina et neo-hellenica Neapolitana 3; Naples: Bibliopolis, 1973; new edn. 1990). On John Chrysostom ed. P. Levy, Michael Psellus. De Gregorii Theologi charactere iudicium, accedit eiusdem de Ioannis Chrisostomi charactere iudicium ineditum (Diss. Strasbourg; Leipzig: R. Noske, 1912) 92–8. On Rhetoric ed. P. Gautier, “Michel Psellos et la rh´etorique de Longin,” Prometheus 3 (1977) 193–9; and M. Patillon and L. Brisson (eds.), Longin. Fragments. Art Rh´etorique. Rufus. Art rh´etorique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001): Fr. 49, pp. 208–12. On the Arrangement of the Parts of Speech ed. G. Aujac, “Michel Psellos et Denys d’Halicarnasse: Le trait´e sur la composition des e´l´ements du langage,” Revue des ´etudes byzantines 33 (1975) 257–75.

xiv

List of abbreviations

On the Styles of Certain Writings ed. J. F. Boissonade, Michael Psellus de operatione daemonum cum notis Gaulmini. Accedunt inedita opuscula Pselli (Nuremberg, 1838 = Reprint; Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1964) 48–52. On Tragedy ed. F. Perusino, Anonimo (Michele Psello?): La tragedia greca. Edizione critica, traduzione e commento (Urbino: QuattroVenti, 1993). Or. for. ed. G. T. Dennis, Michael Psellus. Orationes forenses et acta (Stuttgart and Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1994). Or. hag. ed. E. A. Fisher, Michael Psellus. Orationes hagiographicae (Stuttgart and Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1994). Or. min. ed. A. R. Littlewood, Michael Psellus. Oratoria minora (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1985). Or. pan. ed. G. T. Dennis, Michael Psellus. Orationes panegyricae (Stuttgart and Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1993). Phil. min. i ed. J. M. Duffy, Michael Psellus. Philosophica minora i (Stuttgart and Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1992). Phil. min. ii ed. D. J. O’Meara, Michael Psellus. Philosophica minora ii (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1989). Poem ed. L. G. Westerink, Michael Psellus. Poemata (Stuttgart and Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1992). S Letters: ed. K. N. Sathas, MesaiwnikŸ Biblioqžkh. SullogŸ ˆnekd»twn mnhme©wn tv ëEllhnikv ¬stor©av, V : MicaŸl YelloÓ ¬storikoª l»goi, –pistolaª kaª Šlla ˆn”kdota (Venice: Phoinix, 1876 = Paris: Libraires-´editeurs, 1876 = reprint; Athens: Grhgori†dhv, 1972) 219–523. Sathas iv, v Various texts: ed. K. N. Sathas, MesaiwnikŸ Biblioqžkh. SullogŸ ˆnekd»twn mnhme©wn tv ëEllhnikv ¬stor©av, v: MicaŸl YelloÓ ¬storikoª l»goi, –pistolaª kaª Šlla ˆn”kdota (Venice: Phoinix, 1876 = Paris: Libraires-´editeurs, 1876 = reprint; Athens: Grhgori†dhv, 1972) and K. N. Sathas, MesaiwnikŸ Biblioqžkh. SullogŸ ˆnekd»twn mnhme©wn tv ëEllhnikv ¬stor©av iv: MicaŸl YelloÓ —katontaethrªv Buzantinv ¬stor©av (976–1077) (Venice: Phoinix, 1874). Styles of Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa ed. Boissonade, Michael Psellus de operatione daemonum, 124–31. Synopsis of the Rhetorical Forms ed. C. Walz, Rhetores graeci, vol. v (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1833) 601–5 and also Bake, J. Apsinis et Longini rhetorica (Oxford: E typographeo Academico, 1849) 154–8.

List of abbreviations

xv

Theol. i ed. P. Gautier, Michael Psellus. Theologica i (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1989). Theol. ii ed. L. G. Westerink and J. M. Duffy, Michael Psellus. Theologica ii (Munich and Leipzig: K. G. Saur, 2002). other commonly cited texts Sikeliotes, Comm. Ioannes Sikeliotes, Commentary on the Forms of Hermogenes, ed. Walz. Sikeliotes, Prolegomena Ioannes Sikeliotes, Prolegomena, ed. Rabe. For all other abbreviations, I have followed the usage of A. P. Kazhdan (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) (itself abbreviated as ODB).

Introduction

“The greatest figure of letters in the eleventh century and, perhaps, in the entire Byzantine history”; “the most witty, playful, and original of Byzantine authors . . . one of the best kept secrets in European history”; “an interesting mixture of ´erudit, exhibitionist, and spokesman for the politically and theologically orthodox order”; “an exemplary Byzantine soul in which the highest spiritual gifts and the most absolute mediocrity of character coexist in such a disconcerting mixture”; “philosopher . . . one against all . . . poet”; “incomparable in speech”; “an unpleasant and arrogant man”; “one originating in many; yet also . . . many from one.” These sentences by modern and Byzantine writers are just a sample of the numerous, superlative, and contradictory characterizations of Michael Psellos, the eleventh-century Constantinopolitan rhetor, teacher, and courtier.1 The last phrase, from Psellos himself, rightly suggests that there are many “Pselloi.” For some readers, he is an egotistical rhetor and a typical Byzantine courtier; for them, Psellos’ name is identical to servile “rhetoric,” the verbosity with neither meaning nor sincerity, that supposedly prevailed in the Constantinopolitan court. For others, Psellos is a protagonist in Byzantine cultural history, a kind of secular saint in a medieval world otherwise bound by a (supposed) theocentric conservatism. Psellos’ writings offer them proofs of an appealing non-religious Byzantine “literature.” His thought signals some form of Byzantine “humanism,” “renaissance,” and “enlightenment.”2 Psellos is indeed a well-known figure among students of Byzantine culture. In a recent survey of his corpus, manuscript transmission, and modern 1

2

In order of appearance: Lounghis 1998: 273–275; Kaldellis 2006b: 217 and 233; Conley 2005: 680; Charles Diehl, “Pr´eface” in Renauld 1926: ii–iii; Panou 1998: 119 and 171; Theophylaktos Hephaistos, Letter 27; Michael Attaleiates, History 296; Psellos, On the Styles of Certain Writings 52.4–9. For overviews of the modern literature on Psellos: Ljubarskij 2001: 187–212 = 2004: 11–22; Kaldellis 2006b; Karpozilos 2009: 25–185 (with a focus and detailed discussion of the Chronographia). The most comprehensive study on Psellos remains that of Ljubarskij 2001 = 2004, originally published in 1978.

1

2

Introduction

bibliography, Paul Moore recorded 1,176 texts, among them 163 spurious titles (a sure sign of the aura of authority that accompanied Psellos’ name), approximately 1,790 medieval and early modern manuscripts with one or more of these texts, and c. 1,300 bibliographical items dating from 1497 to the year 2000.3 From these, one should highlight the thirteen translations into modern European languages of Psellos’ Chronographia, a historical work first printed in 1874; this is the sole Byzantine text dating after the year 600 to have attracted such international interest.4 Psellos also figures in modern non-academic writing: in Renaissance novels, in Coleridge, Seferis, Auden, and others.5 By any estimate, Psellos is thus one of the most prolific as well as popular medieval Greek authors. The appeal is no accident. Psellos wrote about nearly every subject and in just about every Byzantine genre. His philosophical texts are invaluable sources of Byzantine knowledge: from Neoplatonism and Christian theology to medicine and the occult sciences. His Chronographia is an indispensable source for the history of eleventhcentury Byzantium. The rhetorical writings, such as letters and speeches, offer us glimpses into the lives of well-known but also everyday Byzantines, while his many lectures provide unique insights into Constantinopolitan education and much more. Psellos’ appeal was partly self made. No reader of his works has failed to notice the determined presence of this Byzantine author within his writings. He rarely avoids opportunities to write about himself, introduce his life-story, emotions, and virtues, and fashion a self-portrait that capitalizes on paradox. Either loudly or tacitly, yet with sure persistence, he draws the reader’s attention away from the what, toward the who of discourse. Just the pronoun “I,” while it may not always be used in a self-referential fashion, appears approximately 1,500 times in his works. This is an extraordinary insistence, if compared to, for 3 4

5

See Moore 2005; see also my http://proteus.brown.edu/psellos/home for more recent bibliography. Latin (seventeenth century; by the French patrologist Franc¸ois Comb´efis); French (1926–8); Czech (1940); English (1953); Russian (1978); Italian (1984); Swedish (1984); Polish (1985); Turkish (1992); Modern Greek (two translations: 1992–3 and 1993); Bulgarian (1999); Spanish (2005). A new edition of the Greek text is under way by Roderich Reinsch along with a German translation by Roderich and Ljuba Reinsch; cf. Reinsch 2007 and 2011. For Renaissance novelistic literature, cf. John Lyly (England; 1553/1554–1606), Euphues and His England (1580) on which see Mentz 2004; cf. also Francisco de Quevedo (Spain: 1580–1645), Los sue˜nos, ed. I. Arelanno (Madrid 1991) 134–7 (first edition: 1627 and English translation in Francisco de Quevedo, Dreams and Discourses, transl. R. K. Britton (Warminster 1989) 62–63). For Samuel Taylor Coleridge see the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1797–8) in Fry 1999. For Seferis see ìIgn†thv Trell»v, O¬ ãrev tv “kur©av ï Ershv”, Athens 1973: 49–52. For Auden, see his Marginalia in Auden 1976: 790–1.

Introduction

3

instance, the approximately 500 times in Ailios Aristeides and Gregory of Nazianzos, admittedly two of the most self-referential authors of the post-classical Greek tradition. Rather unsurprisingly, Psellos’ writing practice merited him several pages in Georg Misch’s monumental Geschichte der Autobiographie – however unsympathetic this work ultimately is toward Psellos.6 The present study explores precisely this notorious self-centeredness. It examines Psellos’ theory and practice of authorship, his place in the history of Greek rhetoric and self-representation, and his impact on the development of literary writing in Byzantium. The goal is to avoid the modern dilemma that vacillates between Psellos the pompous rhetorician and Psellos the ingenious thinker and to understand him on his own terms and the terms of his society and discursive tradition. What is his own conception of rhetorical authorship? How does he treat the relationship between text and authorial self? In what ways does he construct his own self-portrait? What does he choose to bring to the foreground and what to silence? More generally, what is the social function and status of a Byzantine rhetor like Psellos? Who is his primary audience and what are its expectations? What is indeed Byzantine rhetoric? What were the possibilities that it opened up to an author for self-expression? Ultimately, what were the Byzantine parameters of what we might call textual subjectivity?7 That is, what were those varied elements, concepts and narratives, discursive practices, and social relations, that defined an author like Psellos in his communication and construction of himself? As the above questions suggest, this is no examination of Psellos’ psyche. As in every society, so also in Byzantium, self-representation carried the unmistakable traces of a person’s predilections, fears, and desires. Simultaneously, self-representation was conditioned by audience, occasion, and traditional discursive habits such as registers of style and genre. It is this encounter of self, social context, and cultural tradition that is examined here. Through a close reading of Psellos’ letters, speeches, lectures, and historiographical narratives, I investigate the dominant features of the rhetor’s ever-present “I,” the social predicament to which these features correspond, 6

7

Misch 1962: 760–830 with Papaioannou 2013c; cf. also Angold 1998: 225–8 (Misch and Byzantium) and Reynolds 2001: 20–5 (Misch and Eurocentrism). See further Ljubarskij 1992 and 1993 and Macrides 1996 on Psellos’ intrusion in the text of his Chronographia; cf. also Kazhdan 1983 on Psellos’ self-referential fashioning of a hagiographical Life (see, especially, Life and Conduct of Our Holy Father Auxentios on the Mountain = Or. hag. 1C.167–78). For authorship and subjectivity, see Schrag 1997: 11–41 with Benveniste 1966–74: 258–66, Ricoeur 1992, and Bynum 2001 – the latter two studies with an emphasis on premodern narrative. Useful also is Spearing 2005 (esp. pp. 1–36).

4

Introduction

and the horizons of Byzantine literature within which his self-portrait was expressed and which it refashioned. The portrait that will emerge is, admittedly, only one version of this Protean author.8 It is Psellos the rhetor, fashioned for the interests of students, learned friends, and powerful (and sometimes not so learned) patrons, that will come to light. Though only one, this version of Psellos carries, nevertheless, much significance as it was deeply embedded in the social fabric and ideology of elite Constantinopolitan culture and possessed immense potential for the history of Byzantine discourse. Psellos’ theoretical conception of the author as well as his rhetorical self-representation set the stage for a transformation of Byzantine rhetoric into literature, a discourse defined by authorial creativity and originality, the autonomy of representation, and the reader’s aesthetic gratification. a biography Psellos was born in 1018 to a middle-class family in a Constantinopolitan suburb near the monastery of Ta Narsou, located in the area south of the Forum of Theodosius toward the Sea of Marmara, the area of Beyazit in modern Istanbul.9 His surname denotes someone who “lisps as a child or a drunkard” and seems to be a personal rather than a family designation.10 When Psellos was about only eleven, his parents assumed the monastic habit, after the death of his eldest sister in 1029. The young Psellos had already obtained initial training in grammar, orthography and Homeric poetry, that began at the age of five, likely at Ta Narsou (S 135 to the metropolitan of Amaseia and Encomium for His Mother 276–363). Despite some opposition from relatives, Psellos continued his studies 8

9

10

On the futility, but also productive inability, to identify a unified Psellos, cf. the remarks of Panagiotis Agapitos in a pioneering study of Psellian rhetoric: “Psellos (as he himself pointed out . . . ) continuously shifted perspectives, adjusted himself, and rearranged his material and data according to a given situation and his textual manipulation of it. It is, therefore, a highly difficult, if not to say futile, enterprise to attempt to reconstruct ‘Psellos’ as a unified whole of consistent utterances” (Agapitos 2008a: 584 note 121). Similar cautious statements also in Ljubarskij 2001 = 2004 and Kaldellis 2007a: 191–2. Adducing evidence from the most relevant Psellian texts, this biography is based on a consensus of earlier studies with some occasional modification. For detailed accounts of Psellos’ biography with references and further bibliography, see Volk 1990: 1–48; Ljubarskij 2001 = 2004; Karpozilos 2009: 59–75; cf. also Weiss 1973; Kaldellis 2006a: 1–28; and the work of Michael Jeffreys in PBW (available at: http://www.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/; for Psellos see Michael 61). For the location of Ta Narsou, see Berger 1988: 593–595; also Gautier 1976b. For Psellos’ ‘middle’ class, see Encomium for His Mother 213–218 with Letter to Michael Keroularios 74–9; Psellos was proud of his birth in Constantinople (cf. S 95). Cf. Cheynet 2006b: iii 16.

Introduction

5

with “rhetorical discourse,” when he was eleven (Encomium for His Mother 842), and then “philosophy” (Chron. 6.36 and Funeral Oration in Honor of Niketas, Ma¨ıstˆor at the School of St. Peter = Sathas v 88.26–7). Some of these higher studies were pursued together with some future friends under several teachers, among whom was Ioannes Mauropous (c. 990–1092?).11 This was an education that provided entry to the imperial bureaucracy. At the age of twenty-three, Psellos is found as secretary in the court of Michael V Kalaphates (1041–2), a position he attained in the years of the previous emperor, Michael IV, the Paphlagonian (1034–41) – an untitled poem in which the author requests from an unnamed emperor to enter the ranks of imperial notaries can be set in this context and would thus be Psellos’ earliest surviving work (if indeed written by him: Poem 16; Bernard 2010: 133–5). Previously, he had served in the provincial administration (S 180 to the kritˆes of Philadelphia, and Encomium for His Mother 834–7; Weiss 1973). Around the year 1043, Psellos’ abilities in discourse brought him to the attention of the emperor Konstantinos IX Monomachos (1042–55). Another early text that may date to this period is an encomium for Monomachos, occasioned by the failed revolt of Georgios Maniakes (1043); this speech of 843 lines bears similarities with the later Chronographia in the historical outline it provides of the years from Basil II to Monomachos’ rise to the throne (Karpozilos 2009: 104–6). Under Monomachos’ patronage, Psellos’ career blossomed. He was offered, but declined, the position of prˆotasˆekrˆetis, chief of the imperial chancery.12 He was also granted the honorary title of bestarchˆes, seventh

11

12

Cf. K-D 45 To the Bishop of Euchaita, Kyr Ioannes , and S 183 to Mauropous. In his Funeral Oration in honor of Niketas, an old school friend and fellow teacher at the school of St. Peter, dated to c. 1075, Psellos mentions “teachers” yet with no deep respect for them and thus without providing their names (Sathas v 88.18–20 and 88.28–29). Another teacher, however, for whom Psellos shows admiration, is the addressee of three letters: K-D 13, 14, and 15 – Mauropous has been suggested by Ljubarskij 2001: 240 = 2004: 74, and Volk 1990: 424–7, but this identification is far from certain. For fellow students of Psellos (apart from Niketas), see K-D 16 and 17 (addressed to a certain Romanos), 25 and 26 (Georgios); also 11 (an anonymous “spiritual brother”). Cf. also Ljubarskij 2001: 237–48 = 2004: 70–83 on Psellos’ relation to Mauropous and fellow students. Cf. Or. min. 8 with Riedinger 2010: 47–59. Though not officially a member of the imperial chancery, Psellos drafted documents for emperors (including Monomachos, as well as Konstantinos X and Michael VII Doukas); cf. Or. for. 5, 7, and 8. See also S 155, a letter written on behalf of Monomachos, addressed to a learned catechumen before his baptism, likely a foreigner and student of Psellos. For Psellos as unofficial court “secretary,” see Weiss 1973 (esp. 91– 110).

6

Introduction

in a ranking of twenty-two courtly titles.13 During this time, Psellos functioned primarily as an acclaimed court rhetor and teacher and assumed what he calls “the position/status of teaching = t¼ tv didaskal©av scma” (Chron. 6a.11). Many public rhetorical pieces, especially speeches and texts for the emperor as well as lectures to students date to this period. These include encomia for Monomachos (Or. pan. 1–7; also S 115, To the Emperor Monomachos), a public defense of a bishop where Monomachos is praised repeatedly (Or. for. 2), and a selention, which is a speech to be given by the emperor himself (Or. min. 4). From this period comes also one of Psellos’ earliest texts, the Iambic Verses on the Death of Skleraina, a funeral poem for Monomachos’ mistress Maria Skleraina (Oikonomid`es 1980/1: 239–43), dating to c. 1045 when Psellos was twenty-seven years old (Poem 17; Agapitos 2008a). For Monomachos, Psellos composed also poems in fifteen-syllable politikos verse for the purpose primarily of religious instruction: on the inscriptions of the Psalms (Poem 1), the Song of Songs (Poem 2), Christian dogma (Poem 3), the Seven Councils (Poem 4), and also grammar (Poem 6). Likely to this period date several Psellian lectures and essays pertaining to a wide set of topics, addressing groups or individual students.14 Some of these texts describe Constantinopolitan school life in vivid detail. Psellos mediates between two competing students (Or. min. 20), complains about students who were late (Or. min. 22), who did not attend class due to rain (Or. min. 21), skipped the class on Aristotle’s On Interpretation (Or. min. 23), or were just neglectful (Or. min. 24). Because of his teaching, Psellos was given a new title created especially for him, likely around 1045: hypatos tˆon philosophˆon; the term translates literally as the “consul of philosophers” and indicates something like “the chief of teachers.”15 The honor was most likely accompanied by a salary and highlighted Psellos’ prominence among Constantinopolitan teachers 13

14

15

Cf. The Court Memorandum Regarding the Engagement of His Daughter = Or. for. 4.18–19 with Oikonomid`es 1972: 281–329 (dignities and offices related to the Byzantine state), 299–300 (bestarchˆes) and 310–11 (prˆotasˆekrˆetis) as well as the relevant ODB entries (“vestarches” and “protasekretis”). Most of them are gathered in Theol. i and ii, Phil. min. i and ii, and Or. min. See further several letters that address scientific topics: S 187 and 188 (both likely addressed to Konstantinos, the nephew of Keroularios), and K-D 187 to the kritˆes of Opsikion, 189, 197, and 203, the last three untitled. Kaldellis (2005) suggests as a likely date of the delivery and publication of Psellos’ lectures the period “between 1047 and 1054, possibly in one or two years within that range.” Rather than “president of the school of philosophy” as stated in the ODB entry on the “Hypatos ton Philosophon.” The presence in Constantinople of any university-type “school” that specialized in “philosophy” in this period is unlikely; cf. Katsaros 2003: 448–451. For Psellos as “consul of philosophers,” cf. Lemerle 1977: 193–248 (esp. 207–15) with Psellos, The Court Memorandum Regarding the Engagement of His Daughter = Or. for. 4.18–20 (written after the death of Monomachos) where

Introduction

7

in the eyes of the emperor. They, like Psellos, taught in essentially private schools which were supported partly by the emperor and located either inside urban monasteries and churches or in the neighborhoods near them; we know of five such schools in eleventh-century Constantinople.16 Psellos prided himself on his title as well as on his international fame as a teacher. In his own words, he attracted students from both the West and the Arab East: “Celts . . . Arabs . . . Egyptians . . . a man from Babylon,” he wrote some time in the 1050s (Letter to Michael Keroularios 96– 101).17 Psellos taught everything from basic grammar, Homeric poetry, and Aristotelian logic to rhetoric and philosophy. As we shall see below, he also aggressively expanded the curriculum, in terms of both method and the authoritative texts that were to be studied, commented upon, and revised. Following this success, Psellos began to create a network of acquaintances, potential patrons, associates, and clients as well as some competitors and enemies. This is the period when he established friendships with learned men and aspiring aristocrats, the primary addressees and audience of the texts discussed in this book. Psellos also faced competitors, primarily other teachers, rhetors, and monks, against whom he felt he must defend himself. Self-defense defines several writings written before 1056: speeches and letters (Or. min. 6–8), an invective poem against a monk Iakobos in the form of a hymnographical kanˆon (Poem 22: the acrostic reads: “I, Konstas, sing in rhythm about the drunkard Iakobos”18 ), a written confession of faith (Theol. ii 35), based largely on John of Damascus’ Precise Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, and an “apology” addressed as a Letter to Ioannes Xiphilinos. Two of Psellos’ friends and associates, both older than he was, rose to considerable power and became part of the ruling elite. One was a close associate of Monomachos, Michael Keroularios (1005/1010–59) who became patriarch in 1043. Despite their clearly turbulent relationship, Keroularios was close to Psellos in his intellectual and social predilections – this is apparent in the encomiastic biography that Psellos wrote in the early 1060s

16 17

18

Psellos attributes his title not simply to the emperor’s benevolence but also to his own abilities. When exactly this title was conferred on Psellos is uncertain. Attaleiates’ narrative (History 21) mentions Psellos’ appointment in the immediate aftermath of Ioannes Xiphilinos’ own appointment as nomophylax that dates to around 1045; perhaps Psellos’ title is to be dated also to that same period. For the fate of the title in later centuries, see Constantinides 1982: 113–32. Lemerle 1977: 227–35, Katsaros 2003: 452–5, Bernard 2010: 159–62. Cf. Volk 1990: 15–20. For two likely students of Psellos from Georgia (Giorgi/George, d. 1065; and Ioane Petric’i/John of Petritzos, d. after 1125), see Martin-Hisard 2011: 288–9; for the latter, see further Gigineishvili and Van Riel 2000 and Alexidze 2002 with bibliography. Cf. Conca 2001; Maltese 2004; Bernard 2010: 225–32.

8

Introduction

as well as in the eleven letters addressed to Keroularios.19 The second and most important friend was Ioannes Doukas (?–c. 1088). Ioannes became kaisar, second in command, under the rule of his brother-emperor Konstantinos X Doukas (1059–67) and remained an important political figure well into the 1080s (Plate 1).20 Though a military man, Ioannes too must have been of considerable learning – if one judges from his presentation in Psellos’ Chronographia (7c.16–17) as well as the sophisticated letters, thirty-eight in total, that he received from Psellos who was always careful to fashion his style according to his addressee.21 Other friends were fellow teachers such as Niketas or Psellos’ own teachers such as Mauropous, with whom Psellos exchanged approximately twenty letters throughout his life. Among his teachers one might also count the eunuch Konstantinos Leichoudes, an accomplished rhetor who became a close advisor of Monomachos, protovestiarios in the court of Isaakios Komnenos, and then patriarch (1059–63).22 Among his fellowteachers and close friends one should include Ioannes Xiphilinos, who specialized in law. Around 1045, Monomachos conferred on Xiphilinos a new office, nomophylax, in an act drafted by Mauropous (Novella). Later, he too became patriarch (1064–75), following the death of Leichoudes.23 Future associates were also among Psellos’ numerous students during Monomachos’ reign, often children or nephews entrusted to Psellos by 19

20

21

22

23

From the Encomiastic Speech in Honor of the Most-Blessed Patriarch Kyr Keroularios, see especially Sathas iv 309.21–312.26. The letters: K-D 208, S 57–59, 139 (?), 159, 160, 162 (?), 164, Maltese 16, and Letter to Michael Keroularios. For Psellos and Keroularios, see Ljubarskij 2001: 286–99 = 2004: 125–40. Ioannes’ granddaughter Eirene was married to the emperor Alexios Komnenos who assumed power in 1081; the Doukas family may have played an important role in the transmission of some of Psellos’ texts as we shall see below (p. 256). On the Doukas family, see Polemis 1968 (pp. 34–41 on Ioannes Doukas); on Ioannes’ relationship with Psellos, see Ljubarskij 2001: 273–279 = 2004: 111–19. The Chronographia in its present form ends with the description of Doukas (7c.16–17) who was clearly an (if not the) addressee of the work in its last form. Psellos also gave a funeral speech for Ioannes Doukas’ wife, the kaisarissa Eirene in the mid 1060s (before 1067); K-D i 21. Doukas was the owner of the earliest and most important copy of Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos’ De Administrando Imperio, the Paris gr. 2009, a parchment codex copied by Michael Roizaites, a servant in the household of Doukas; cf. Moravcsik in Moravcsik and Jenkins 1967: 15–21; Mondrain 2002. Cf. Encomium in Honor of the Most-Blessed Kyr Konstantinos Leichoudes, Patriarch of Constantinople, Sathas iv 392.12–27 (rhetoric), 402.8–15 (Monomachos’ advisor), and 420.20–3 (teacher of Psellos); cf. Chron. 7.65–66. S 28 is addressed “to the protovestiarios Leichoudes.” The encomium was written and proclaimed long after Leichoudes’ death, in the presence of Mauropous and after the death of Xiphilinos in August 1075; cf. Sathas iv 393.12–394.9. On Leichoudes, see Weiss 1973: 91–2 and Oikonomid`es 1980/1981: 243–6. Among Psellos’ letters we find eight addressed to Xiphilinos (S 37 and 44, K-D 191 and 273, G 17, 29, and 30, and Letter to Xiphilinos) as well as a speech in which Psellos defended Xiphilinos from false accusations in the late 1040s: In Support of the Nomophylax against Ophrydas = Or. for. 3.

Introduction

9

Plate 1 Seal of Ioannes Doukas, a rare case of a Byzantine seal in which the owner is also depicted. Obverse: bust of the Mother of God, nimbate, holding Christ before her; inscription: +q(eot»)ke bož[q(ei) t] s d[oÅ(l)]. Reverse: bust of Doukas wearing a jeweled crown, surmounted by a cross, division and chlamys fastened with a fibula, while his right hand holds a cross; inscription: ìIw(†nn) t eÉtucest†t() ka©sar(i). C Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Washington, DC. Dumbarton Oaks BZS 1955.1.4366, 

close friends. Three deserve to be mentioned here, since they enjoyed significant careers and were prominent addressees of Psellian texts. Pothos was the son of a megas droungarios (a military office). He later served as a tax-collector and provincial judge (To the Bestarchˆes Pothos Who Asked

10

Introduction

Who Is Beyond Encomia = Or. min. 15, Discourse . . . on the Style of the Theologian; and fifteen letters).24 Ioannes Italos, a Greek from southern Italy, came to Constantinople around 1049, attended Psellos’ lectures (Or. min. 18 and 19), and eventually succeeded Psellos as “consul of philosophers” in the 1070s.25 The most important was Keroularios’ nephew, Konstantinos, who was sent by his uncle to study with Psellos. Konstantinos and Psellos became close friends during the latter’s career in the imperial administration in the 1060s and 1070s (eighteen letters, some of them quite lengthy and personal, along with On Friendship to the Nephews of the Patriarch Kyr Michael = Or. min. 31, and Or. for. 5, a chrysoboullon pertaining to Konstantinos and written by Psellos for Michael VII Doukas).26 In this period, Psellos also began to acquire significant property. This included several monasteries, most on the Bithynian Olympos, given to him by Monomachos through the novel institution of charistikˆe.27 He also earned a house in the City, a dwelling previously owned by the Doukas family, Psellos’ future patrons (Chron. 7a.7). Further signs of Psellos’ new wealth and entry to a higher social status are evident in the letters. His luxurious bathing is narrated in a beautiful letter to the patriarch Keroularios (K-D 208; Magdalino 1988: 111–12). In another letter, Psellos expresses his hope for a private burial site in a monastic community under his patronage (K-D 177, untitled). We also read of slaves (Funeral Oration For His Daughter Styliane, Who Died Before the Age of Marriage; Sathas v 79.27) and servants – some of whom Psellos suspected of stealing from him (G 13 to Ioannes Doukas) – land (S 198 to Psephas), icons (S 184 to Konstantinos, nephew of the patriarch Keroularios), statues (S 141, likely to the 24

25 26

27

This person was perhaps related to the patrikios Pothos, commissioner of a ten-volume copy of the Menologion of Metaphrastes, of which one volume, the Patm. 245 dated to 1057 and covering the month of January, survives today; Komines 1968: 5–6. On Pothos: Levy 1912: 29f. On Italos, see Rigo 2001 (with further bibliography). On Konstantinos, see Oikonomid`es 1963: 119–20; Gautier 1970: 212–6; Ljubarskij 2001: 265–73 = 2004: 102–11; Snipes 1981: 102–3; Volk 1990: 223–7; on the chrysoboullon, see Hunger 1978: 156. For further students/associates of Psellos, see Ljubarskij 2001: 260–5 = 2004: 97–102 and Bernard 2010: 100–2 and 164–7. See S 165 to the magistros and stratˆegos of Madyta, K-D 1 to the bishop of Madyta, and 64 to the kritˆes of Macedonia and Thrace: on the basilikaton Madytou, in the theme of Thrace and Macedonia; S 29 to Zomas, kritˆes of Opsikion, and 77, untitled, K-D 125 to the kritˆes of the Aegean, 140 and 200 to the kritˆes of Opsikion, 202 to the emperor (Doukas?): on Medikion, theme of Opsikion, on Olympos; S 77 and K-D 108 and 200 to the kritˆes of Opsikion, and 273 to Ioannes Xiphilinos: on the Lavra of Kellia, on Olympos; S 77 and K-D 200 to the kritˆes of Opsikion: on Kathara, on Olympos; K-D 13, untitled to a fellow teacher: Agros. Cf. also Psellos’ four brief encomia of Mt. Olympos (Or. min. 36). On charistikˆe, see Ahrweiler 1967; Kaplan 1984; Varnalides 1985; Thomas 1987: 167–213 and 435–6. For Psellos’ property in general, see Weiss 1973: 129f.

Introduction

11

kritˆes of Hellas), an unusual pet (likely an Asia Minor leopard, a panthera pardus tulliana; K-D 198, untitled), and, of course, books, to which, as Psellos often writes, he devoted most of his time, “living around them, with lifeless conversations with their authors.”28 Things began to change in the 1050s. In 1053, Psellos attempted to secure a good marriage for his adoptive daughter Euphemia, yet without success. Her engagement to a certain Elpidios Kenchres was eventually dissolved in 1056.29 Psellos’ biological daughter Styliane died around 1052 and he wrote a moving funeral oration in her honor (Sathas iv 62–87). In late 1054, Psellos wrote a similar funeral piece, the Encomium for His Mother Theodote, a work with a strong autobiographical accent. The spectacular career of the 1040s was interrupted by an apparent change of mood in the highly competitive environment of the court.30 Psellos was forced to become a monk in late 1054 at the age of 36, changing his lay baptismal name Konstantinos (or, in short, Konstas; as in the acrostic of invective Kanˆon against Iakobos; Poem 22) to a monastic one, Michael. After the death of Monomachos in January 1055, he spent a brief time at the monastery of the Beautiful Spring in Bithynia. He returned to Constantinople during the reign of Theodora (1055–6) and would remain there until his death in (likely) 1078, retaining his monastic habit. In this second period of his life, Psellos continued to work as a teacher and public speaker and associated anew with potential patrons, though without the success he enjoyed at Monomachos’ court. After the latter’s death, Psellos’ participation in public and court life is, by comparison, somewhat irregular, as suggested by the rather reduced imperial patronage.31 Nevertheless, during this time too, Psellos accrued additional honorary titles. 28

29 30 31

See, e.g., G 25.12–13 to Eustratios Choirosphaktes, magistros and prˆotonotarios tou dromou: “zä d• perª t‡ bibl©a kaª t‡v ˆyÅcouv ¾mil©av tän suggrayam”nwn aÉt†”; cf. S 115 to the emperor Monomachos, K-D 32 to Synetos, metropolitan of Basilaion, and 261, untitled, Encomium for His Mother 1692–7, and Or. Min. 24.22–6. Letter K-D 198, untitled, with a mention of an unusual pet, was likely written at the time of Komnenos, as an allusion to the title of proedros suggests (contra Volk 1990: 12). For Psellos’ library and his interest in ancient statues, see below p. 22 and pp. 179–91 respectively. For a similar, contemporary expression of devotion to books, writing and reading, see Ioannes Mauropous, Poem 47.22–8. Or. for. 4; Jenkins in Kaldellis 2006a: 139–56; Reinsch 2008. His confession of faith (Theol. ii 35) may be placed in this context. Psellos wrote a brief encomium and a selention for the empress Theodora (dates 1055–6; Or. pan. 11 and Or. min. 1) and two encomiastic texts for her chief administrator, Leon Paraspondylos (Or. pan. 15 and 16; also nine Psellos letters are addressed to Leon). Toward the end of 1058, Psellos wrote, but never proclaimed, a lengthy accusation speech against Keroularios on behalf of Isaakios Komnenos (emperor: 1057–9). He wrote Konstantinos X Doukas’ accession-letter (Or. min. 5) and possibly some rather brief encomia (Or. pan. 9, 10, and 14). Psellos addressed four brief speeches to Romanos IV Diogenes (emperor: 1067–71; Or. pan. 18–21), for whom he also wrote a selention (Or. min. 4) and whom he followed on a campaign against the Seljuk Turks in the spring of 1069 (Chron. 7b.15,

12

Introduction

In 1057, during the reign of Isaakios Komnenos (1057–59), he became proedros, one rank superior to his earlier bestarchˆes (Chron. 7.42; S 108 to Machetarios; S 112 to the empress Aikaterina, wife of Isaakios Komnenos; K-D 198, untitled), then prˆotoproedros (this title dates to the years of Konstantinos X Doukas; S 184 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios with Oikonomid`es 1976: 126), and, lastly, hypertimos (possibly as late as the time of Romanos IV; To Those Who Begrudge Him the Honorary Title of Hypertimos = Or. min. 9). His most significant new acquaintance was an illustrious pupil, the future emperor Michael VII, the son of Konstantinos X Doukas and Eudokia Makrembolitissa (Chron. 7b.3 and 7c.4). Their teacher-student relationship is monumentalized in the only portrait of Psellos we possess from a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century manuscript (Athos, Pantokratoros 234, f. 254r; Plate 2).32 Some important works were presented to Michael, including a philosophical textbook called Concise Answers to Various Questions (a new version of an earlier work of Psellos) and, most likely, the Concise History (Historia Syntomos), a compendium of biographical vignettes of Roman rulers from Romulus to Basil II.33 During Michael’s later reign (1071–8) and at least until 1076, Psellos was quite active again. He wrote several new texts for Michael.34 Moreover, he continued and revised his Chronographia (in 7c.11, Psellos addresses Michael directly) and also wrote encomiastic texts for

32

33

34

S 176 to Aristenos, Bourtzes, and Iasites, and Snipes 1981). For Psellos’ relationships with emperors, see now Jeffreys 2010. On this portrait, see p. 255 below. Another new student in this period (1060s?) was the future archbishop of Ochrid, Theophylaktos Hephaistos (c. 1050–died after 1126) – to whom we might owe the survival of some of Psellos’ texts: see p. 250 below. For the philosophical compendium and its four redactions, the second of which was an expanded form of the first and was addressed to Michael Doukas, see Westerink 1948 (esp. 1–14); this text is usually referred to in modern scholarship as De Omnifaria Doctrina. For the Concise History, see Aerts 1990 with Duffy and Papaioannou 2003. Addressing Michael are also two short description pieces, on an image of Circe and Odysseus (Or. min. 33) and a statue of Eros (Or. min. 34), an introduction to the Psalms (On the Psalms, Their Inscriptions, Etc. to the Emperor Kyr Michael Doukas = Theol. I I 1), as well as several didactic poems that were earlier addressed to Monomachos and were now re-packaged for Michael VII; cf. Bernard 2010: 194–9. Encomia (Or. pan. 8 and 13), a selention (Or. min. 3), an interpretation of a relief and its inscription (Or. min. 32), two letters to the Norman ruler Robert Guiscard on behalf of Doukas, dated before August 1074 (S 143 and 144; see also Or. for. 8, dated to August 1074, on which Antoniadis-Bibicou 1965), a letter to the sultan Malik-Shah in c. 1073 or 1074 (Gautier 1977a; in the MS, this text is titled Proof of Christ’s Incarnation), and a rather peculiar mixture of legal document with panegyrical speech pertaining to the so-called Usual Miracle in Blachernai (Discourse on the Miracle That Occurred in the Blachernai Church = Or. hag. 4, written in July 1075). Psellos’ famous consolatory letter to Romanos IV Diogenes (S 82; written after Romanos was blinded, punished for the Byzantine defeat at Mantzikert) was possibly written by order of Michael Doukas – at least, this is the suggestion of the letter’s title in Vatican, BAV, gr. 712 (f. 61r), that dates to the mid twelfth century.

Introduction

13

Plate 2 Michael Psellos and Michael VII Doukas; Athos, Pantokratoros 234, f. 254 recto. The original size of the figures is less than 3 cm tall.

three of his closest friends from the Monomachos years: Leichoudes (Sathas iv 388–421; the text was perhaps written earlier but revised in this period – Volk 1990: 39), Xiphilinos (Sathas iv 421–462 and Sideras 2002), and Mauropous (Or. pan. 17) – all three speeches were completed after August 1075.35 Psellos likely died in 1078, at the age of 60, after a brief return to power under the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates (April 1078–April 1081). This last information is reported in Michael Attaleiates’ History (296) about a “monk and hypertimos” Michael from Nikomedia, by which name Attaleiates perhaps refers to Psellos.36 35 36

Another funeral oration – for Psellos’ student, young Andronikos Doukas, the brother of Michael VII – dates to around 1076; ed. Gautier 1966. The issue of when exactly Psellos died has not been settled. I am inclined to agree with Gautier 1966: 159–64, Weiss 1973: passim, Volk 1990: 4 and 34, and Karpozilos 2003 who do identify Psellos with Michael of Nikomedeia, whose death in 1078 is mentioned by Attaleiates. Attaleiates’ reference to Michael as “hypertimos and monk,” a phrase commonly and in standard fashion associated with the name of Psellos in the titles of his works, substantiates the argument. Kaldellis has recently

14

Introduction tradition and innovation

As is apparent from his biography, Psellos’ life was tied to key figures and major players and events of eleventh-century Constantinople. Indeed, since much of our information on this period is derived from his texts, Psellos has come to play a pivotal role in the way this century has been viewed in much modern historiography. In this scholarship, the eleventh century has been treated as a period of change and innovation in economy, society, culture, and the literary tradition. As noted above, Psellos has been regarded as something of a cultural hero. Sometimes read together with other contemporary writers, at other times portrayed as a unique figure appearing from nowhere, Psellos is seen as introducing sweeping breaks from the Byzantine tradition with his “modern” interest in human character, erotic desire, aesthetics, and Hellenic models of writing and thought.37

37

(2011) raised the following series of important points against this identification: (1) Psellos never associates himself with Nikomedia; (2) no other contemporary writer refers to Psellos as “Michael of Nikomedia”; (3) Attaleiates mentions Psellos with praise earlier in his text (History 21); (4) Michael of Nikomedeia was Botaneiates’ “chief-of-staff” and could not have been Psellos, since we have little, if any, evidence of Psellos’ association with Botaneiates; and (5) the careers of Psellos and Attaleiates’ Michael of Nikomedia under Konstantinos X Doukas were incompatible – Attaleiates (History 180–1) reports that Michael of Nikomedia was working together with the eunuch Nikephoritzes, when the latter “served” Doukas as secretary, “e«v t†xin tän sekretikän Ëpoq”sewn,” while Psellos, who had served many years earlier as the head of Monomachos’ chancery, did not work as a mere “secretary” for Doukas. Regarding these points, however, one could argue differently, even if not definitively: (1) Psellos insists on his Constantinopolitan birth, and silences his Nikomedian origins for the purposes of self-promotion; (2) accordingly, Attaleiates refers to him as just Michael (and not Michael Psellos) and as Michael of Nikomedia so as to denigrate him; (3) simultaneous praise and blame are not uncommon among Byzantine writers; (4) it is likely that Psellos associated with Botaneiates: Psellos’ Poem on the Song of Songs (Poem 2), which, in earlier years, was presented to Monomachos and Michael VII, seems to have been also presented to Botaneiates as attested in ten of the MSS that contain the work; 5) serving in the sekretika, the financial office of the court (Oikonomid`es 1976: 135–141), does not indicate that Nikephoritzes was a mere secretary; and Psellos could be said to “have served together” with Nikephoritzes since, while he was never an official member of the imperial chancery (not even under Monomachos; cf. Riedinger 2010: 47–59), he continued to produce official documents for emperors throughout his life (for an example from the time of Konstantinos X Doukas, see Gautier 1976a; cf. also note 12 above). In a recent article, Michael Jeffreys (2013) refutes both the identification with Michael of Nikomedia and Kaldellis’ arguments and, using evidence from Psellos’ own letters (G 21 and K-D 214 to Konstantinos, nephew of the patriarch Keroularios with de Vries-van der Velden 1996), suggests that Psellos died after (“probably not long after”) the end of the spring of 1078. For the eleventh century in general, see, for instance, Kazhdan and Wharton Epstein 1985 (esp. pp. 197–230, who detail various shifts from “the ideal to the ordinary,” “abstraction to naturalism,” and “impersonal to personal” during the eleventh and, then, twelfth centuries) and Cormack 2000: 145 ff. (“the new spirituality of the eleventh century”); see also Angold 1997. For Psellos in particular, see, e.g., Ljubarskij 2001 = 2004 (the book’s subtitle reads “Toward the History of Byzantine PreHumanism”) with Tatakis 2003: 129–69, Kriaras 1968, and Kazhdan and Wharton Epstein 1985

Introduction

15

This image is partially justified. The eleventh century was for the Byzantines admittedly a period of economic growth and social change following two hundred years of gradual revival and expansion. The Constantinople of Psellos’ lifetime was a large, lively, and international city. Once again one of the most important centers of power, economy, and culture in the wider Mediterranean world, it could be rivaled only by cities such as Baghdad, Cairo, Aleppo, or Cordoba in the Arab world.38 A major manifestation of this growth was Constantinople’s vibrant literary culture, most clearly reflected in the dynamism of Psellos’ rhetorical production. All this notwithstanding, it is misleading to conceptualize Byzantium’s growth as a radical cultural shift and – what interests us – to regard Psellos as the author who personified this shift. Two factors have likely contributed to this misreading of Psellos. The first is the cultural politics of modern academia, our impulse to discover radical breaks, transgression, and subversion almost everywhere in the history and workings of culture.39 The second is the nature of the relevant textual evidence. In number, size, and availability, Psellos’ writings predominate in the cultural landscape of eleventh-century Byzantium. The survival, however, of such a large number of Psellos’ texts, though it does reflect some reality, is also the result of accidents in manuscript transmission and of choices by individual readers in later generations. The significance, for instance, accorded to the Chronographia in modern scholarship40 should be set in perspective: this text survives essentially in a single late twelfth-century manuscript and seems to have been known only within a limited and very particular group of readers. Psellos, it seems, never made an edition of his own works, a careful selection of texts preserved for contemporary and future readers.41

38 39 40 41

(esp. 197–230). See also: Kazhdan 1990 (p. 143: “the topic of human love was reintroduced in Greek literature in the eleventh century, in Psellos”); Angold 1997: 99–114 and 1998: 232–8 (p. 233: “A new stress on the individual and on the human dimension was Psellos’ specific contribution to his times” and 238: “Psellos gave the humanist ideal in Byzantium clearer definition”); Kaldellis 1999, 2006a: 1–28, and 2007a: 191–228 (e.g., p. 209: “A new humanism”). For different reactions to these views: Trizio 2007: 252–7, Karpozilos 2009: 25–185, and Bernard 2010 passim (regarding Psellos); Hinterberger 1999: 387 (for the Byzantine autobiographical tradition); Magdalino 2002, Angold 2004 and 2008, Stephenson 2005, Holmes 2008, and various chapters in Vlyssidou 2003, Angelidi 2004, Patlagean 2007, and Cheynet 2006a and 2006b: i and ii (eleventh-century Byzantium in general). On middle Byzantine Constantinople, see the succinct overviews in Magdalino 1993a: 109–79 and Mullett 1997: 43–53. See also Magdalino 1996. Cf. Kosofsky Sedgwick 1990: 44–48 for a critique of the search for “Great Paradigm Shifts” and Liu 1989 (esp. p. 751) on the recent scholarly infatuation with “transgression.” Of the many relevant statements, see Mango 1980: 245: “a masterpiece whose originality is all the more striking in as much as it is not explicable in terms of prior development.” For the manuscript transmission of Psellos’ works, see the Appendix, pp. 250–67 below.

16

Introduction

One should also be mindful of the fact that, of the numerous addressees of Psellos or learned people mentioned in his texts, we now possess the writings of basically only three: Michael Keroularios (letters pertaining to the schism of 1054), Ioannes Mauropous (poems, letters, and orations), and Ioannes Xiphilinos (a few miscellaneous texts).42 It can be stated without much hesitation that the majority of writings and speeches produced during the eleventh century, though perhaps not voluminous, are nevertheless lost to us. Regardless of how particular, original, and innovative Psellos clearly was, he was not alone in his ventures. Psellos also did not operate, as is often implied, outside or against the boundaries of an established tradition. I refer to the set of earlier texts that were available and culturally significant for rhetors such as Psellos and for their primary audience, the learned members of the Constantinopolitan aristocracy. While we will never recover the full eleventh-century production, we are in a better position to reconstruct this earlier tradition with some precision – based on extant manuscripts, information on libraries, and references in middle Byzantine texts. Because this tradition is of seminal importance for Psellos and his audience, a few remarks are here necessary. At the core of this tradition were texts of indisputable value. These included the Scriptures, among which by far the most important in private settings were the Psalms,43 as well as the discourse surrounding the Scriptures, namely commentaries, primarily those by John Chrysostom (c. 340/50–407).44 Moral advisory texts, theology, and canon law also belonged here, texts such as the following (naming just the most prominent): the sixth-century Klimax of Ioannes (to which Psellos devoted a lecture; Theol. i 30), orations by Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea (c. 329– 379), the Hodˆegos by Anastasios of Sinai (seventh century), and John of Damascus’ Precise Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (first half of the eighth century). To the core of the tradition belonged also two further, separate, but not clearly distinguished strands of discourse. The first focused on biographical narrative (saints’ Lives, chronicles, various tales), was often based on oral 42 43 44

Tinnefeld 1989 (Keroularios); Karpozilos 1982 (Mauropous); Mpones 1937: 147–57 (Xiphilinos). Parpulov 2004. Scripture and commentaries were often presented together in the MSS in the form of catenae. See, e.g., the three late tenth-century deluxe copies of the Old Testament, sponsored by Niketas, a highranking official at the court of Basil II: Turin, B.I.2 (Minor Prophets), Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 5.9 (Major Prophets), and Copenhagen, GKS 6 (Wisdom books: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Songs of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Psalms of Solomon, and Sirach); Lowden 1988: 14–21 with Belting and Cavallo 1979. See also Sinai, gr. 364, a luxury copy of Chrysostom’s commentaries on the gospel of Matthew, commissioned by Monomachos; Spatharakis 1976: 99–102.

Introduction

17

traditions, was written in simpler language, and was influenced much by the interests of the monastic world and the needs of ecclesiastic ritual. The second, often of high rhetorical style, was represented by speeches and hagiographical encomia, much poetry, and a large part of ecclesiastical hymnography (especially in the form of the kanˆon and the late kontakion). In the eleventh century, these two strands were dominated by two collections of texts that were formed during the course of the tenth century: the Menologion of 148 saints’ Martyria and Lives revised by a team of writers working under the direction of Symeon Metaphrastes (born between 886 and 912–died after 982); and the Orations of Gregory of Nazianzos (329/330–c. 390), especially the so-called collection of sixteen “Liturgical Homilies.”45 These core texts are attested in the overwhelming majority of contemporary manuscripts.46 Moreover – and this is perhaps a safer indication of popularity than the surviving manuscripts – these texts preoccupied the reading and discursive activities of contemporary writers, including Psellos. This is evident from simple citations to anthologies of quotations and from marginal notes to extensive commentaries.47 Next to the core tradition, we detect a wider discursive field, everexpanding and open ended in terms of texts and authors that could be incorporated in it, but rather limited in terms of circulation, availability and social import. These texts addressed the needs of the school tradition and, in their more sophisticated forms, represented the interests of a 45

46

47

On Symeon Metaphrastes’ Menologion and Gregory’s Orations, see pp. 46–8 below. Chrysostom and Basil, though skilled rhetoricians, important for church homiletics and Byzantine theology, and viewed, as we shall see, by Byzantine rhetors such as Psellos as models of rhetorical style, never acquired the importance and status of Gregory for the rhetorical tradition in Byzantium. Chrysostom specifically influenced primarily the tradition of Byzantine biblical hermeneutics, especially in the form of church Homilies or Didaskaliai; cf., e.g., Bonis 1937: 12 (on the influence of Chrysostom on Ioannes Xiphilinos, a nephew of Psellos’ friend, the patriarch Ioannes Xiphilinos). Beck 1959 remains fundamental for all the core Christian Byzantine texts. Take, for example, a representative sample of 141 books, dated from 1000 to 1078, produced mostly in Constantinople, and including notes with information about dating, location, scribes, and patrons (Evangelatou-Notara 1982: 144–74). Of these manuscripts, the majority are Gospels and Lectionaries (thirty-four items; notably, one in both Greek and Arabic: Paris, BNF, suppl. gr. 911, date: 1043), patristic rhetoric (38 books, mostly John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzos, and Ioannes’ Klimax), and hagiographical narratives (ten books: including Symeon Metaphrastes’ Menologion). We find only one historiographical book (the Chronicle of Logothetes), one collection of logical works, and one book of “Hellenic” rhetoric (Isocrates). Similar is the situation in extant lists of Byzantine monastic and private libraries, on which see Bompaire 1979; cf. also Evangelatou-Notara 2003. For the transmission of Byzantine texts in general, see Beck 1961. The extent of Psellos’ preoccupation with the core tradition will emerge as this study proceeds. For quotations in Byzantine writing in general, see Littlewood 1988; also Chrestides 1996. For anthologies, see van Deun and Mac´e 2011 with further bibliography. There exists no comprehensive study of the Byzantine commentary tradition; relevant texts are discussed in Beck 1959 and Hunger 1978 (especially vol. ii, chapter 1).

18

Introduction

few, highly learned writers and readers. This is the field that the Byzantines called logoi and which is also of primary importance for Psellos. For logoi, Byzantine students were exposed to manuals and model texts and authors, also often excerpted in anthologies and dictionaries. These texts pertained to subjects such as grammar (to which belonged the reading of Homer), the art of public speaking and writing, namely rhetoric, poetry and letter-writing, and also medicine, natural and occult sciences, and the arts of living and philosophy, from Aristotle’s logic to Neoplatonic metaphysics and Christianized versions of the Neoplatonic lingua franca. The bulk of this corpus was of pre-Byzantine date, even though a significant portion derived from early Byzantine writers, either non-Christian or Christian – such as orations, progymnasmata, and letters of Libanios, anything by Gregory of Nazianzos, and the rhetorical works of Synesios of Kyrene (c. 370–c. 413).48 Neither in terms of a Byzantine reader’s perception nor in terms of function would it be easy to define the boundaries and the difference between the core set of texts and the open in size but restricted in appeal sea of logoi. For the learned reader, Gregory of Nazianzos’ Orations, the Metaphrastean Martyria and Lives, Homer and Plato could all be categorized as logoi. Similarly, all these texts could often serve the same, yet multiple functions, from instruction to recreation. What unified both fields was the fact that preeminence was given to texts produced in a temporally distant past and, in a few instances, spatially distant present to their middle Byzantine readers. The culturally most important texts either dated to the first century or so of early Byzantine history or, in one notable case, derived from translation – I am referring to an eleventh-century best seller, Barlaam and Ioasaph, translated in the tenth century from Georgian into rhetorical Greek by Euthymios of the Holy Mountain (c. 955–1028), who, unsurprisingly, also translated Gregory of Nazianzos into Georgian.49 Apart from the special case of Symeon Metaphrastes’ group and its work (itself a revised edition of mostly early Byzantine hagiographical narratives, some of which circulated widely also outside of Metaphrastean menologia), relatively little recent, ninth- or tenth-century, Constantinopolitan writing is represented

48

49

For all these types of discourse, see Hunger 1978. I have not included here another field that was comprised of folk tales and storytelling (such as, e.g., the so-called Alexander Romance). This discursive field lay either outside or at the margins of the tradition of logoi and, though certainly important for some members of his audience, was of little significance for Psellos as far as we can tell. Volk 2009 (Barlaam and Ioasaph); Coulie 2000 (Euthymios’ translation of Gregory).

Introduction

19

in eleventh-century book culture or in references within eleventh-century texts.50 It is my argument that, to understand Psellos, it is imperative to set him within the frame of contemporary discourse and, especially, within the perspective of the wider, earlier discursive world that formed the horizon of expectations for his audience.51 The atavistic devotion to the distant past, and the relative disinterest toward the more recent tradition, admittedly complicates any reading of development, change, and innovation applied to Psellos. Yet innovation and change could take place in Byzantine discourse and, as will be argued here, did indeed take place in Psellos. It is just that such change was possible only with, rather than against, a distant and culturally powerful tradition. Originality and innovation were not unknown qualities to Byzantine writers; yet they insisted on these qualities only when it came to defending themselves against their competitors or immediate predecessors. In practice, originality and innovation could be achieved through choices defined by tradition: through expansion of the field of traditional texts, through mixture of the types of texts one appropriated and revised, through creative memory in narrative or creative variation at the level of discursive detail. Violation of tradition 50

51

Almost the entire epistolographic production from the early ninth to the mid eleventh century, for instance, survives in just twelve MSS (of which seven before the late thirteenth century); see Papaioannou 2012a. The same limited circulation and survival in manuscripts applies more or less to middle Byzantine historiography (Beck 1961: 426–50 and Papaioannou 2013a), funerary rhetoric (Sideras 1990: 14), poetry (Lauxtermann 2003: 58–62), and homilies (Cunningham 2008 and Antonopoulou 2008: cliii-cliv). Given the fact that a large part of this world has been insufficiently studied from a literary historical perspective, I devote significant space to the discussion of texts which were not written by Psellos, but which were clearly important for him and his readers; especially: Gregory of Nazianzos’ Orations and letters and speeches by Synesios of Kyrene. I have also examined the surviving Byzantine rhetorical production from the ninth century onward, with an emphasis on what we can reconstruct of the rhetoric that was contemporary to Psellos: rhetorical manuals, especially those of Ioannes Sikeliotes (c. 1000) and Ioannes Doxapatres (mid eleventh century), as well as a large body of rhetoric in practice: letters, speeches, and poetry (considered a sub-field of rhetoric in Byzantium) – most of these texts are listed in Gr¨unbart 2001: 7*–40* and 2005: 15–27 (letters); Lauxtermann 2003: 11–16 (poetry); and also rhetoricized hagiography, especially the Menologion of Metaphrastes (on this tradition, see Efthymiadis 2011b). No comprehensive study of Byzantine rhetoric exists except what is offered in the manual of Hunger (1978: esp. vol. i, pp. 92–196; also Hunger 1972) and several chapters in the invaluable, though rather idiosyncratic, history of Byzantine literature from 650 to about the year 1000, offered in Kazhdan 1999 and 2006. For letter-writing: Papaioannou 2009; for middle Byzantine poetry: Lauxtermann 2003; Bernard 2010; Demoen and Bernard 2012; for the homiletic tradition: Antonopoulou 1997, 1998, 2002, 2011a and 2011b; for rhetorical theory and literary criticism: Kustas 1973 (the pioneering study on the subject, though now in need of revision); and the recent brief overviews of Conley 2005; Agapitos 2008b; Whitby 2010. Some examples of literary critical work on early Byzantine writing: H¨agg and Rousseau (2000), Amato 2006, and Johnson 2006 (late antique literature in general); Børtnes and H¨agg 2006 (Gregory of Nazianzos); Pizzone 2006 (Synesios of Kyrene).

20

Introduction

in Byzantine writing was never loud nor systematic. It happened tacitly, often at the margins, and often hidden creatively behind the mask of tradition. rhetoric and the author None of the approximately 1,000 texts attributed to Psellos satisfies a modern definition of a work of literature. They were neither written nor performed with the primary or sole purpose of entertainment nor were they considered products of principally the creative and original imagination of an author. None of them can be regarded as fiction. And few of them would fully satisfy our readerly expectations of discovering the supposedly true feelings of the author expressed when we read non-literary, autobiographical writing. This situation is not particular to Psellos. More or less the same can be said about the majority of texts produced in the middle Byzantine period. It is not that the Byzantines did not include aesthetic – in the literal sense of the word – pleasure in their theories of discourse or that they did not experience it while reading. Nor is it that they failed to take into consideration imagination and fictionality or that they did not value personal expression. Far from it. But this was a world without a discursive production clearly defined as literature – a notion for which no exact equivalent exists in Byzantine Greek.52 The Byzantine term logoi, sometimes translated as “literature,” included a much larger category of texts. Logoi were written in elevated style and focused primarily on reality, or what the Byzantines regarded as objective truth (alˆetheia; Psellos, Encomium For Kyr Symeon Metaphrastes = Or. hag. 7.256–7). This truth was described, explained, and imposed upon readers through idealized models of behavior. It included the metaphysical realm and a set of moral values.53 As such, truth was an indisputable reference point for the composition and reception of logoi. By contrast, subjective aesthetics – the emphasis on the creative originality of the author, the autonomous status of imagination and representation, and the sensual pleasures of the reader, all defining features of modern “literature” – were of less importance.54 Such aesthetics were negotiated 52 53 54

For the invention of “literature” in the nineteenth century, see, e.g., Todorov 1973: 5–6. For some discussion of the Byzantine concepts of “truth,” see Kaldellis forthcoming. For this understanding of “literature,” see Iser 1993; cf. Turner 1982: 20–60 (esp. 26–28); Turner 1974; Todorov 1973 and 1978 (chapter 2). For the Western concept of subjectivity that lies behind the modern conceptions of “literature,” see the different accounts in: Jameson 1981 and 2002; Eagleton 1990; Gay 1995.

Introduction

21

carefully in discursive theory, and only hesitantly affirmed in discursive practice.55 This book investigates the emergence of such subjective aesthetics in Psellos and its presence in his tradition by looking at Byzantine rhetoric. For in eleventh-century Constantinople, it was rhetoric that came to command the production and experience of discourse and to present a field that tested the boundaries between objective values and the human subject, between truth and aesthetics – the latter understood both as socially constructed taste and as the personal focus on the senses.56 Various dimensions of rhetoric will emerge in this study, but a first definition may be offered here. The primary discipline of language in Byzantium, rhetoric provided training in proper discursive style – from the most minute to the most comprehensive aspects of linguistic expression: diction, prose and verse rhythm, figures of speech, narrative patterns such as description and impersonation, virtues such as clarity and force, specific genres such as funerary rhetoric and letter-writing, and wider categorizations of celebratory, advisory, and forensic discourse. For these aspects of style there existed descriptive handbooks and model texts revisited anew in numerous commentaries produced by Byzantine teachers and readers. Indeed, rhetoric was often just that: a set of texts conducted in a certain style and register of Greek, a certain taste, that is, and cultural capital that was to be studied carefully, alluded to, and imitated creatively.57 This cultural capital was not available to everyone – neither in the form of books nor of public recitation. It required access to advanced literacy and, therefore, created social distinctions that demarcated the educated from the uneducated person.58 Psellos distinguished between two 55

56

57

58

The absence of, specifically, fiction within the tradition of logoi in this period and its temporary revival during the twelfth century is an issue to which I will return below. Storytelling outside or at the margins of the tradition of logoi and thus beyond Psellos’ expressed interests, such as as non-rhetorical hagiographical and chronographic tales, falls outside the purview of the present study. Throughout this book, I use the term “aesthetics” in two senses: (a) views and attitudes that display a certain taste, regarding what is considered beautiful, appealing, etc.; such taste is usually associated with the power dynamics that define relations among different social groups (cf. Bourdieu 1979); and (b), more commonly, a literal emphasis on sensuous perception and material form (Porter 2010); chapters 3 and 4 below are devoted precisely to sense-oriented approaches in rhetorical theory and self-representation respectively. With neither meaning of the term do I wish to claim that we can identify in Byzantium or Psellos an “aesthetics” in the narrower, modern sense of a systematized theory and separate field of thought pertaining to the value of taste (cf. also p. 126 below). Notably, unlike western medieval Europe (cf. Irvine 1994 with Copeland and Sluiter 2009: 1–60), Byzantium did not place the same emphasis on grammar, the other primary, though less advanced, language discipline. See Patlagean 1979 and Mullett 2003: 151–70 (reprinted in Mullett 2007) with Irvine 1994 for a comparative perspective.

22

Introduction

types of readers/listeners: the few “learned” (perittoi, spoudaioi, ellogimoi) and the “average, uneducated many” (polloi, idiˆotidai akoai) setting them in clear hierarchical order (Encomium For Kyr Symeon Metaphrastes = Or. hag. 7.240–65, with Theol. i 72.3). He saw himself as belonging to, and conversing with, the former group, even if he was quite capable of addressing in appropriate diction also the latter group to which many of the politically powerful Constantinopolitans belonged. Numerous letters written in straightforward style and instructional poems written in politikos verse for Monomachos and later emperors are examples of this capability. Dependent on literacy and access to education, rhetoric was also determined by the realities of its production and availability. This was especially the case for new rhetorical texts, produced by intellectuals such as Psellos. He, for instance, makes reference to students and friends who recited and collected his works.59 He also notes that his texts were often available only in draft form (schedia), in loose pieces (deltaria) of parchment (diphtheras), small scrolls, or rollable leaves (eilˆetaria), before being turned into books (biblia) and kept in boxes (kibˆotia).60 Furthermore, he describes discursive moments and sites for set events and improvised occasions. These included the school, described in some of his lectures (Or. min. 20–24), the imperial audience – notable is Psellos’ speech for a future emperor and his entourage (Chron. 7.26–31; Reinsch 2009a: 28f.) –, Constantinopolitan churches (Encomium For the Monk Ioannes Kroustoulas Who Read Aloud At the Holy Soros = Or. min. 37), and also private households and small theatra, in Psellos’ words (K-D 223, untitled: 265.23–7). A beautiful example of the latter setting is a letter to Konstantinos the nephew of Keroularios where Psellos describes his jokes and mimicries, and presents his logoi as “after-dinner spices” (Maltese 17).61 59

60

61

Letter to Ioannes Xiphilinos 180–2: ka© moi toiaÓta bibl©a sunt”taktai p†mpolla, tv –mv yucv ›kgona, kaª pollo±v taÓta di‡ ceirän kaª di‡ glÛtthv –st©. K-D 256, To Ioannes Doukas (303.17–20): ö Hn Âte poqein¼v §n t meg†l desp»t mou t ka©sari ka© moi prose±ce t¼n noÓn kaª l”gonti kaª suggr†fonti kaª t‡v –pistol‡v perª ple©onov –t©qei spoudv kaª suggr†mmata –n bibl©oiv ˆpeqhsaÅrize. And G 5.7, To Ioannes Doukas: kaª sÆ m•n t‡v –m‡v –pistol‡v bibl©a poie±v. Boissonade 1838: 116 with S 199, to Psephas (493.6–7); cf. Atsalos 1971: 168–170 and Anastasi 1976 (esp. pp. 61–63 and 91 note 89). Unfortunately, no single book that can be attributed to Psellos’ library survives. For a reconstruction of Psellos’ legal library, see Weiss 1977. In the letters, Psellos mentions a book of Plutarch (which he requests from his former fellow student Romanos; K-D 17), a book of Aristotelian logic (S 16, untitled), and a multi-volume commentary on Hermogenes’ Staseis (On Issues) by an unnamed author (K-D 20 to Michael the patrikios). For public sites of discursive performance in Constantinople (with reference to Psellos), see further Bernard 2010: 113 as well as the remarks of Ioannes Sikeliotes in his commentary on Hermogenes’

Introduction

23

For these contexts and audiences, Psellos produced a diverse discourse, most of which is in high rhetorical style. Either satisfying or circumventing expectations of genre, his rhetorical texts were sprinkled with apparent and hidden allusions and were written in high register Greek with archaizing syntax, sophisticated vocabulary, filled with figures and tropes that would be pleasing to the ears and eyes of an educated Byzantine audience. These texts are the focus of the present study. We will look first at works that deal with rhetoric as a profession and as a body of theory of discourse, articulated in manuals on style, literary criticism, and numerous digressions on style – altogether, texts that negotiated the discursive tastes of the learned elite. Then we will turn to rhetoric as a practice and examine letters, public speeches (primarily funerary texts, a total of twenty moving pieces62 ), but also lectures, philosophical essays, and Psellos’ most important narrative text, a history written according to the demands of high rhetorical style, the Chronographia. With these texts, Psellos aggressively explored the social potential of rhetoric. This was, it should be noted, not an easy task. The contexts of rhetorical performance were competitive fields and the audiences with an appetite for rhetoric did not always accord professional rhetors a high esteem. As we shall see in the first chapter, while rhetoric as practice had social currency, it remained a contested profession, associated with mere verbosity and questionable motives, a meaning that “rhetoric” still holds today. Psellos needed to forge a new image of rhetoric and of himself as a rhetor in order to use it for the purposes of social advancement. For this refashioning, Psellos activated some deeper potential in rhetoric. As a set of stylistic virtues, a series of discursive habits, a canon of authoritative texts, and a socially powerful configuration of taste, rhetoric defined much of the field of representation produced for the Byzantine social elite. In this context, rhetoric commanded protocols of self. It had the potential to do so as it offered master narratives about idealized persons and it delimited a large but carefully framed array of subject positions.63

62 63

On Forms (Comm. 447.3–448.15 and 450.1–14; on the former passage, see also Hunger 1978: 145–6). On theatra: Mullett 1990 (repr. 2007: vi); Mullett 1997: 31–43; Gaul 2011: 22–37 (for the early Palaeologan period). The panegyrics in Or. pan.; for the funeral orations, see Sideras 1994: 111–49; Agapitos and Polemis 2002; Agapitos 2008a. What has been said of rhetoric in Renaissance England (Greenblatt 1980: 162) applies mutatis mutandis to Byzantium: “The chief intellectual and linguistic tool . . . was rhetoric, which held a central place in the humanist education to which most gentlemen were at least exposed. Rhetoric was the common ground of poetry, history, and oratory; it could mediate both between the past

24

Introduction

Rhetoric thus furnished an indispensable apparatus for the imagination of the human subject in Byzantium, an imagination which cannot be easily mapped onto linear historiographical narratives, driven by the persistent modern fallacy that the “self” (the individual, the human subject, or however one wishes to call it) was “invented” at this or that moment of Western European history.64 Focusing on Psellos, this book surveys the Byzantine rhetorical imagination of the human subject and, more specifically, given Psellos’ insistence on himself, the author as producer of rhetoric. We will look at theory: how Psellos conceives of the role of the author in the production of discourse.65 We will also examine authorial practice as self-representation: what Psellos claims about his social position, his nature, character, and emotions, how, throughout his texts, he paints his self-portrait either in contrast and competition or in conjunction with others, and how he constantly proffers subjective aesthetics. Comparison is the governing principle of my reading. This is not simply because of the historiographical goals outlined above. Comparison is necessitated also by the nature of the Byzantine imagination of oneself which was defined by a series of disparate cultural practices and, what interests us, types of discourse. Rhetoric was just one of them. There were also others: scientific and medical discourse, legal texts originating in either the State or the Church, non-rhetorical storytelling, the discourse of hymns and prayers, monastic texts, philosophical and theological writing and so on.66 These types of discourse too derived partly from earlier traditions and each one of them negotiated the limits of the individual self in relation to idealized models of identity. That is, they conceptualized the subject

64

65

66

and the present and between the imagination and the realm of public affairs . . . [I]t conceived of poetry as a performing art, literature as a storehouse of models. It offered men the power to shape their worlds . . . and it implied that human character itself could be similarly fashioned, with an eye to audience and effect. Rhetoric served to theatricalize culture, or rather it was the instrument of a society which was already deeply theatrical.” For different arguments against this fallacy, yet still with an exclusive focus on the Western medieval tradition, see: Bynum 1982: 82–109; Schmitt 1989; Patterson 1990: 95–101; Aers 1992; Stock 1994; Enterline 1995: 13; Iogna-Prat 2005; Rosenwein 2005. See further Aertsen and Speer 1996; BedosRezak and Iogna-Prat 2005. For the notion of authorship in general, see Biriotti 1993 with Compagnon 1998: 51–110, and Burke 1998; for the concept in ancient and medieval contexts, see Calame and Chartier 2004 and Pucci 1998: 7–14 respectively; also Corradini 2010. The “reader,” the other agent in the process of making oneself through text, will be examined only to the extent that Psellos presents himself as a reader. For Byzantine reading practices, see Cavallo 2006; also Hunger 1989 (esp. 125–9). A larger history of Byzantine readerly subjectivity remains a desideratum; for the Western medieval tradition: Pucci 1998; Stock 1996 and 2001. For an overview: Messis 2006a (esp. pp. 17–29 and 87–123).

Introduction

25

through the tension between self and Other, a tension created at the point where the personal and the general meet, join or rupture. Psellos’ authorship was no exception to this. Not only did he know well and employ the varied discourse of Byzantine selfhood in fashioning his own portrait. More importantly, the image of others – model authors and figures of the textual past, vilified competitors from his social present, and idealized subjects in the circles of his relatives and friends – was a screen on which Psellos projected his many masks. Perhaps paradoxically for us, he found in these masks a true voice through which he could speak about himself.

part i

The professional rhetor and theory of authorship

c h a p ter 1

The philosopher’s rhetoric

Throughout his career as a teacher and public speaker, Psellos was what we might call a professional intellectual. In eleventh-century Constantinople, this social profile was identified primarily by the terms “philosopher” and “rhetor.”1 The two terms had a long history and evoked two distinct disciplines. As practices, both could support and enhance public careers in Byzantium. As professions, however, they had a significantly different social cachet. Philosophy was clearly superior. As knowledge and guardianship of truth, philosophia with its various meanings carried a value that remained more or less unquestioned, even if people identified as philosophers were occasionally suspected of heresy. By contrast, rhetoric had almost consistently an ambiguous moral status. Capacity with words could suggest improper preoccupation with deception and appearances and thus evoke suspicion of hypocrisy. In texts of different genres and for different audiences, Psellos identified himself as a philosopher, but also as a rhetor. Most commonly and insistently, he presented himself as someone who combined the two disciplines in a perfect fashion, an insistence that was not easy to pull off. What was the history and immediate context of this idiosyncratic professional persona? philosopher-rhetor It is appropriate to begin with one of the more well-known self-representational moments in Psellos’ writings, his intellectual 1

Such terms as didaskalos (Chron. 6a.11) or ma¨ıstˆor, carried less social significance, referring more strictly to teaching as a profession. Psellos focused on neither for self-designation. For ma¨ıstˆor, cf. S 44 to Ioannes Xiphilinos, the ma¨ıstˆor; S 162 = Letter Given by the then Ma¨ıstˆor of Ta Diakonissˆes to the Patriarch, when the Former Was Requesting the School of St. Peter; S 168 = To the Ma¨ıstˆor of Chalkoprateia, when the Silver Coins Were Sent to Him from the Klˆetˆorion, but He Did Not Accept them as He Requested More; and G 18 = To the Metropolitan of Thessalonike Who Had Become Ma¨ıstˆor of the Rhetors.

29

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autobiography in the Chronographia (6.36–46). This autobiography is inserted as a lengthy digression early into the sixth book of the Chronographia, the one devoted to the reign of Psellos’ most important patron, Konstantinos IX Monomachos. As we have it, this text was likely written in the early 1060s, addressing the court and households of the Doukas family.2 Psellos narrates his gradual rise at Monomachos’ court in 1043, when he was twenty-five years old. He begins by presenting the two fundamental areas of his studies: “rhetorical discourse, in order to be able to fashion language,” and “philosophy, in order to purify the mind” (36). His contact with rhetoric, he declares, was such that he could possess its powers of argumentation (dynasthai is the verb used) without “following” rhetoric “in every aspect.” He graduated to philosophy, starting with knowledge of “nature” and reaching the “first philosophy,” i.e., theology, by way of the “middle knowledge,” namely mathematics (as may be inferred from chapter 38).3 The paragraphs that follow (chapters 37 through 40) tell of his philosophical achievements: his single-handed resuscitation of wisdom (a commonplace in self-serving rhetoric4 ) and his intellectual journey from the philosophical commentary tradition to Aristotle and Plato and then back to the philosopher/commentators Plotinos, Porphyrios, Iamblichos, and the 2

3

4

For different readings of this passage, see Kaldellis 1999: 127–41 and Pietsch 2005: 68–75. For the date of the Chronographia, see Karpozilos 2009: 72, 75–6, 79–85, and 107. Karpozilos argues convincingly that the Chronographia was written in stages (and, we might add, was never fully finished for publication; cf. Reinsch 2009a: 26). We possess evidence that it was already being written at the time of Isaakios Komnenos in 1057 (cf. S 108 to Machetarios). The first part of the Chronographia as we have it (Books 1–7) was completed during the first years of Konstantinos X Doukas’ reign (1059–63), specifically during the patriarchate of Psellos’ friend Konstantinos Leichoudes. The second part (Books 7a–7c) was written during the reign of Konstantinos’s son Michael VII Doukas and completed sometime around 1075. At one point in his narrative about Monomachos, Psellos addresses a single reader (his patron?) as “f©ltate p†ntwn ˆndrän” (Chron. 6.73), a form of address that Psellos seems to reserve for close friends (cf. Encomium for Ioannes, Metropolitan of Euchaita = Or. pan. 17.30 and 851 for Mauropous; Phil. min. ii 5 for Konstantinos [later Ioannes] Xiphilinos; and, with a slight variation, K-D 31 for Konstantinos, the nephew of patriarch Keroularios). Earlier in the text (6.22), Psellos mentions several people, both secular and ecclesiastic, who “forced” him to write his history, while in the middle of the autobiographical digression (6.37), Psellos inserts the following address: “you who today read my account.” All these people remain anonymous, though it is safe to assume (a) that the group of addressees was relatively small and (b) that this group changed over time and included members of the Doukas family (especially Ioannes Doukas, whose unambiguous praise, as noted earlier, concludes the Chronographia: 7c.16–17; cf. p. 8 above). Psellos’ terms in this chapter derive from Neoplatonism. See Psellos, Various Collected Passages = Phil. min. ii 13 (37.32–38.13) with Steel 2005 on theology as the “first philosophy”; Various Collected Passages = Phil. min. ii 13 (37.31–2) with Mueller 1990 on mathematics. Cf. Christophoros Mytilenaios (c. 1000–died after 1050), Poem 27.1–6. On Psellos’ claim, see Duffy 2002.

The philosopher’s rhetoric

31

“great harbor” of Proklos. The presentation culminates with Psellos’ declaration that he explored all knowledge, even extra-discursive theological knowledge, through his “single science of everything = m©an tän pasän –pistžmhn.” With respect to its length, detail, and self-confidence, this intellectual autobiography is a new departure for the middle Byzantine tradition.5 Though novel, the narrative is also marked by typical Byzantine features, such as its presumption of a hierarchy of knowledge. Leaving aside his early studies in grammar and poetry as too elementary to deserve mention, Psellos outlines a curriculum characterized by gradual ascent, starting with rhetoric and culminating in philosophy. It is only with the latter that he identifies himself, at least at this stage of the narrative. This primacy accorded to philosophy is no accident for philosophy provided the immediate and most compelling justification for selfrepresentation in Greek writing. The stance dated back to Plato. Provoked by a desire to carve a distinct and privileged space in Athenian society, Plato insisted on Socrates’ and, by implication, his own “philosophical” identity as opposed to other practitioners of discourse, including rhetors.6 He set the tone for presenting oneself as a “philosopher” (even if he was often read as a master rhetor, as we shall see below). Even such rhetoricians as Dionysios of Halikarnassos (first century bce/ce), Dio Chrysostom (c. 40–120), Ailios Aristeides (117–181), and Philostratos (first half of third century), who would later become models of rhetoric in Byzantium, insisted on fashioning rhetoric as a philosophical practice.7 By the end of the fourth century, with the increasing Christianization of the aristocratic, imperial, and intellectual elite of the Roman world and the Christian appropriation of the term philosophia as indicative of the ascetic way of life, the primacy of philosophy was asserted in even stronger terms.8 After the fourth century, calling oneself a “philosopher” (regardless of the disparate meanings of the term) would remain one of the most prominent selfrepresentational authorial personas. Philosophers were a “sacred thing,” 5

6 7

8

It is paralleled only by another such Psellian digression that concludes his Encomium for His Mother (1685–1931), on which see pp. 162–5 below. For comparable intellectual autobiographies in the Arabic tradition, see Reynolds 2001. Nightingale 1995; Too 1995; Schiappa 1999; McCoy 2007; Timmerman and Schiappa 2010. Dionysios of Halikarnassos, On Ancient Rhetors 1; Philostratos, Lives of the Sophists (e.g., 1.480.1–11 and 481.12–26) and Life of Apollonios 5.40; and, especially, Ailios Aristeides, To Plato, on Rhetoric (e.g., 74.1–2: “filosof©a tiv oÔsa ¡ çhtorikŸ fa©netai”). For self-representation during the Second Sophistic: Hahn 1989; Whitmarsh 2001; Schmidt and Fleury 2011. For the social and cultural value of philosophy in late antiquity, see various essays in Smith 2005. For the Christian ascetic definition of philosophia: D¨olger 1953; Malingrey 1961.

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as a Justinianic law would put it (cited in a middle Byzantine collection known as the Basilika 54.14). Similar trends are evident in Psellos’ immediate background. With the transformation and, in large parts of former Byzantine territory, the gradual disappearance of the Greek-speaking urban elite (a process that lasted from the seventh well into the eleventh century), the importance of rhetoric receded.9 In this respect, rhetoric followed the fate of other facets of GrecoRoman elite urban culture, such as the theater and sculptural portraiture.10 It is safe to assume that training in and practice of rhetoric did not disappear, yet, as far as our sources tell us, those who had access to books, writing, and public speaking did not place significant value upon the profession of rhetoric – Prokopios of Caesarea (active in the 550s) and Agathias (c. 530– 579/582) are among the last Byzantine writers before the tenth century to be designated as “rhetors.”11 Hagiography, church homiletics, ecclesiastical poetry, and biblical exegesis took the place of rhetoric, which, along with classicizing poetry, was occasionally relegated to obsolete types of discourse preoccupied with “lying.”12 Philosophia, by contrast, remained more or less intact as a claim to authority – despite the feeling of despair that can be felt in some early Byzantine pagan philosophical historiography (as in Philosophical History 150, by Damaskios, early 460s–after 538). The title of “philosopher” retains its aura whether we look to the redefinition of philosophia as the ascetic 9 10 11

12

For overviews of the fate of the Byzantine urban world in this period: Haldon 1997; Wickham 2005. For theater, see Webb 2008; for sculpture: pp. 179–82 below. See the manuscript titles of Prokopios’ works as well as references to Prokopios in Agathias, Histories 7.22 and 9.13–14, Euagrios Scholastikos, Ecclesiastical History 169.1, and Photios, Bibliothˆekˆe 63 (21b) and to Agathias in Euagrios Scholastikos, Ecclesiastical History 171.21 and 219.19. Relevant may be also the designation “the sophist” held a century later by Sophronios (c. 560–638), patriarch of Jerusalem (see Duffy 2011 with the earlier bibliography); notably, Sophronios also authored an Enkomion of Gregory of Nazianzos (Clavis Patrum Graecorum 7659: Greek fragment; full text in an unedited Georgian translation by Ephraim Mtsire [end of eleventh c.]; Lequeux 2001: 14; Efthymiadis 2006: 242). For a review of learning between the sixth and ninth century, see Moffatt 1977; mention of study of rhetoric in the hagiographical sources studied by Moffatt is rather rare and often the result of a post-iconoclastic, ninth- or, usually, tenth-century view-point. Typical is the phrase by Basil of Caesarea anthologized in the eighth-century compilation Sacra Parallela attributed to John of Damascus (PG 96 341.19–23): “ëRhtorikŸ kaª poihtikŸ, kaª ¡ tän sofism†twn eÌresiv . . . , æn Ìlh t¼ yeÓd»v –stin. OÎte g‡r poihtikŸ sustnai dÅnatai Šneu toÓ mÅqou, oÎte çhtorikŸ Šneu tv –n t l”gein t”cnhv, oÎte sofistikŸ Šneu tän paralogismän.” This conception of rhetoric is a Byzantine commonplace, especially in monastic literature; cf. Theodoros the Studite (759–826), Epitaphios on Plato, His Spiritual Father, proem (PG 99 804a); Symeon the New Theologian (949?–1022), Ethical Discourses 9.58 ff.; Niketas Stethatos (1005?–c. 1090), Life and Conduct of Our Holy Father Symeon the New Theologian 2 and 20 (though Niketas was clearly familiar with the basics of Hermogenian rhetoric; see section 78, where several rhetorical concepts are employed to describe Symeon’s style).

The philosopher’s rhetoric

33

way of life in patristic and hagiographical writings; to the association of philosophy with divination and occult practices; John of Damascus’ fundamentally Neoplatonic definition of philosophy; or the continued reading in Byzantium of Plato, Aristotelian logic, and Neoplatonic thought.13 In the writings of the educated elite, the philosopher is presented as playing a socially beneficial role. This is the sentiment behind the midtenth-century scholiastic activity on Gregory of Nazianzos’ homilies14 or in the entries philosophos and politikos in the late tenth-century Suda (phi.419 and pi.1917, citing Synesios of Kyrene); in this latter work, biographies of “philosophers” are noticeably more numerous than those of “rhetors.” Furthermore, revered writers of the early Byzantine past were designated as practitioners of philosophy – for instance, Synesios as well as Themistios (c. 317–c. 388) are remembered as “philosophers” in Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe (cod. 26 and 74) and, again, the Suda (sigma.1511 and theta.122). Photios (c. 810–after 893), one should note, spent considerable space in his Bibliothˆekˆe excerpting Ailios Aristeides’ philosophical defense of rhetoric against Plato’s criticisms, but highlighted, against the grain of Aristeides’ text, the superiority of philosophy (Bibliothˆekˆe 247, especially 415b–416a).15 Of course, throughout this period, rhetoric remained part of the learned man’s education and reading. Intellectuals such as Photios possessed extensive knowledge of the rhetorical tradition.16 During the tenth century, several manuscripts devoted almost exclusively to pre-Byzantine rhetoric were copied.17 Yet neither Photios nor others adopted a social profile of themselves as rhetors. Middle Byzantine writers before Psellos showed clearly their immersion in rhetoric in practice, but do not profess it assertively in the first person singular.18 13

14 15 16

17

18

See Duffy 2002 (esp. pp. 141–3) for a review of middle Byzantine definitions of philosophia; Byd´en 2003 for a recent account on philosophy and philosophers in Byzantium; Trizio 2007 on the historiography of Byzantine philosophy. On the profession of philosophia appropriated by ascetics in particular see, e.g., Niketas Stethatos’ Orations (ed. Darrouz`es 1961: index s.v. filosof©a). On the ninth-century revival: Lemerle 1971. On logic: Byd´en 2003: 217, note 6. On philosophia and the occult: e.g., Michael Attaleiates, History 280–1 (where the title of philosopher is also associated with the logician or dialektikos); cf. Magdalino and Mavroudi 2006 (esp. p. 13). Basileios the Lesser, Scholia 2, a note on Gregory’s Apologˆetikos = Or. 2. For Aristeides’ rewriting of Plato: Flinterman 2000–1; Milazzo 2002. Photios devoted reviews to a total of twenty-two non-Christian rhetors (see especially the positive reviews of Dio Chrysostom [209] and Lucian [128]); H¨agg 1975; Hunger 1978: 93–4. On Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe: Markopoulos 2004a; Kazhdan 2006: 10–25, where also the earlier bibliography. E.g., Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 60.3 and Paris, BNF, gr. 2951 (Ailios Aristeides, with scholia), copied by Ioannes the calligrapher for Arethas in 906/7; the mid-tenth-century Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 416 (Demosthenes, with scholia, introduced by the Life of Demosthenes attributed to Libanios); the tenth-century Vatican, BAV, Urb. gr. 111 (Isocrates). In the following self-representational moments, e.g., “knowledge” rather than rhetoric is projected: Anthologia Palatina xv.39a (Ignatios the Deacon); Anthologia Planoudea (= xvi) 281 (Alexandros of

34

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Even teachers of rhetoric presented their rhetorical models as “philosophers” and styled themselves accordingly. Ioannes Sikeliotes, for instance, a teacher active around the year 1000, is titled philosophos in the manuscripts of his commentary on Hermogenes.19 In the commentary itself, Ioannes insisted on differentiating between ancient Greek “rhetors” and Byzantine Church Fathers, such as Gregory of Nazianzos, whom he preferred to call “political” or “civic” (politikoi) “philosophers.” By the latter term, Ioannes indicated authors who cultivated rhetoric only for the purposes of improving communal and personal morality – the term politikos evokes this double meaning of both serving the polis and guiding the personal politeia of each Christian. The civic philosopher, we read (Comm. 375.20–377.12), is a rhetor who is not simply rhetor, but one who orders and adorns human ˆethˆe and leads them toward what is more rational and indeed truly human by turning licentiousness to self-mastery [sˆophrosynˆe], anger to meekness, folly to reasonableness, and simply all irrationality to its opposite and to symmetry – it is in this manner that ‘ethical’ is the name given to the discourse of holy men who raise one from the earthly mud and turn one to the heavenly life and angelic conduct.20

Psellos was thus in good company when he highlighted his deep knowledge of philosophy and distanced himself from rhetoric.21 The digression in the Chronographia, however, along with many other such instances of selfrepresentation, contains significant departures from the earlier tradition. Psellos seems anxious to include in his public image everything that can count as discursive knowledge. For Psellos, philosophy is a “single science of everything,” evoking the entire spectrum of “philosophy” as this was

19

20

21

Nikaia); Ioannes Geometres, Poem 333; Ioannes Mauropous, Poem 92.44–6. For a few exceptional cases, see pp. 49–50 below. See, e.g., Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 57.5, f. 262r with Walz 1834: viii–ix (for the manuscript titles). Sikeliotes’ work is dated during the reign of Basil II. The details of his biography are unknown, except from what one might glean from an autobiographical note he inserted in his commentary to Hermogenes; see Comm. 446.24–448.15 where he refers to speeches that he composed (none survives), one of them delivered in the Constantinopolitan suburb of Pikridion at the order (?) of Basil II. On Sikeliotes: Kustas 1973: 21 and passim; Mazzucchi 1990. See further Comm. 466.1–470.7 with 217.7–8 and 375.20–377.12 and Prolegomena 394.28–395.16 (“civic” philosophers) – some of Sikeliotes’ terms may partly originate in Hermeias, Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus 221.13–24. In similar terms, Sikeliotes prefers to regard the rhetorician Hermogenes as a “philosopher” too; Prolegomena 402.2–4 – see Kustas 1973: 10, note 2. Sikeliotes also adopts a pro-philosophical stance against Ailios Aristeides’ views (cf. note 15 above) in his own, unedited, scholia to Aristeides’ orations extant in the late eleventh-century: Paris, BNF, gr. 2950; Lenz 1964: 97–9 and 113–17. See also Phil. min. i 36.10–14 and S 110 to , kritˆes of Cappadocia (354.23–29), where Psellos projects a strict distinction between philosophy and rhetoric, safely distancing himself from the latter and its practitioners.

The philosopher’s rhetoric

35

known in Byzantium. It included exegesis of canonical texts (whether Christian or non-Christian), following the hermeneutic tradition that had its roots in Neoplatonic exegesis of Plato and Aristotle. It also included familiarity with occult practices. Finally, it referred to Psellos’ status as a monk, which, after 1054, was another “philosophical” title that he could profess.22 This desire for universality and expansion in Psellos’ self-professed intellectualism is reflected in the wide variety of topics that he covered in texts addressing his student clientele.23 It is also reflected in the way he introduces new sources and, accordingly, new perspectives on the different bodies of knowledge with which he occupied himself. Important examples in this regard are his usage of Neoplatonic categories and hermeneutical methods, especially borrowed from Proklos (410/412–485), in order to interpret the Christian theology of Gregory of Nazianzos, as well as his reintroduction of a decidedly Roman perspective on the history of the empire while writing the Concise History for Michael VII Doukas.24 More relevant for our purposes is that Psellos’ will to incorporate everything into his public image as a master of discourse led him to appropriate also rhetoric as a profession and not simply as a necessary but secondary discipline. The autobiographical narrative of the Chronographia is telling in this respect (6.36–46). After the curriculum of gradual ascent (chapters 36–40), one might not expect to encounter rhetoric again. Yet Psellos returns to rhetoric in chapter 41. In contrast to his earlier unwillingness to identify himself with it, here he states that his discourse always combines rhetoric and philosophy, a combination that, as he claims, makes him unique. Rhetoric is a fundamental constituent of the philosopher’s discursive practice and not simply preparatory to philosophy. Then, after recounting his engagement with patristic writings and repeating his unmatched contribution to the Constantinopolitan revival of classical and early 22

23 24

The references are many; some characteristic examples: Chron. 6.36–46 (attachment to the Neoplatonic tradition, Aristotle, and Plato); Phil. min. i 31.100–6 (Psellos on his own nature, insatiable for every type of knowledge); S 198 to Psephas (achievement in every conceivable field of knowledge); Discourse on the Miracle That Occurred in the Blachernai Church = Or. hag. 4.465–73 and 674 ff. and Chron. 6a.10–12 (occult “philosophy”); S 6 to Isaakios Komnenos (monastic habit and philosophia; this letter should not be dated in the years of Romanos Diogenes, as suggested by Sathas); cf. S 1 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios; Letter to Michael Keroularios; the Court Memorandum Regarding the Engagement of His Daughter = Or. for. 4; To Those Who Think That the Philosopher Desires to Be Involved in Political Affairs, and Because of This Disparage Him = Or. min. 6. For these texts, see above pp. 6–7 and 12. For the latter text: Dˇzelebdˇzi´c 2005; Markopoulos 2006a: 293–7. Similar expansions in the field of rhetorical theory will be examined in the next two chapters. Psellos’ Neoplatonic reading of Gregory remains relatively understudied.

36

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Byzantine knowledge (chapters 42–3), Psellos nearly forgets his philosophical identity; his autobiographical digression concludes with three paragraphs (chapters 44–6) devoted to a disturbingly self-confident praise of his own rhetorical nature, his distinctive “natural virtue” and its enchanting effect upon Monomachos.25 This self-portrait is not limited to these paragraphs. Psellos returns repeatedly to his exceptional rhetorical abilities in the Chronographia and to his mixture of rhetoric and philosophy, the creation of a “commingled science [symmiktos epistˆemˆe],” as he once calls it (K-D 223; 265.5–6).26 It is this mixture that Psellos propagates in lectures and letters, praises in reference to close associates such as Leichoudes and Mauropous, and ascribes to his most cherished models, Symeon Metaphrastes and, especially, Plato and Gregory of Nazianzos.27 Ultimately, when writing in the first person, whether addressing a small or a larger audience, Psellos’ most frequently adopted persona is of one who perfectly unites philosophy with rhetoric: “in my soul, as if in a single mixing bowl,”28 he writes, “I mix philosophy and rhetoric together = ãsper –f’ —nª kratri t –m yuc filosof©an kaª çhtorikŸn ¾moÓ sugker†nnumi.”29 25

26

27

28 29

For a similar scene, see Psellos’ Epitaphios in Honor of the Most-Blessed Patriarch, Kyr Ioannes Xiphilinos, Sathas iv 434.17–24, where Psellos compares Monomachos to Marcus Aurelius, “the most philosophical among emperors, who would take his notebook and frequent a teacher”; Monomachos, Psellos writes, “did something greater than the philosopher: he would often sit me on the throne and take notes [hypegrammateue] as I spoke.” That Marcus Aurelius is mentioned in this context is reminiscent of his historiographical image as a learned emperor (cf. Psellos, Concise History 32) as well as the few biographical details that circulated in Byzantium in reference to Hermogenes and his advancement under Marcus; cf. Philostratos, Lives of the Sophists 2.577.3–23 and Anonymous, Prolegomena to Hermogenes’ On Issues 202.21–203.26. E.g., Chron. 7.15–16 (placed in the mouth of Michael VI); 7.31 (projected in the reaction of a large audience); 7.34 (Psellos is proud to have offered his fatherland his logos and phronˆesis). Notably, in the Chronographia, Psellos departs from Byzantine historiographical practices in including a large number of rhetorical speech-acts in direct or indirect speech, for about 40 percent of which Psellos is either the speaker or the addressee; see Reinsch 2009a: 28. Among the numerous examples: Letters S 174 and 188 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios; S 182 to Ioannes Mauropous; Theol. I 98 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1; Plato and mixture); Synopsis of Rhetoric = Poem 7.177–178; Theol. i 102.4–6; Theol. ii 6.139–40 (the last three references on Gregory of Nazianzos); Encomium For Kyr Symeon Metaphrastes = Or. hag. 7.62–70. See also Theol. i 79.73–8 (a critique of the style of Maximos the Confessor, the “philosopher”); Theol. i 47.80–9 (a critique of Ioannes Sikeliotes, who though a “sophist” in reality, titled himself a “philosopher” and attacked such prestigious “sophists” as Synesios, Libanios, and Prokopios). Cf. Encomium For a Certain Monk Nikolaos, Who Became Abbot of the Monastery of the Beautiful Spring on Olympos 141–59. An allusion to Plato, Timaeus 41d4–6? The phrase is discussed and evoked in several instances in Proklos’ Commentary on the Timaeus (see especially 2.163f.). When He Refused the Title of Proto-asˆekrˆetis = Or. min. 8.191–192. Similar examples are again numerous: Letters S 16, untitled; S 42 and G 16=M 4 to Aimilianos, patriarch of Antioch; S

The philosopher’s rhetoric

37

Two examples may further elucidate how Psellos manipulates the traditional relation of philosophy to rhetoric for the purposes of promoting himself. Both texts stem from educational practice: the first is an essay on the definition of philosophy (Phil. min. i 2), while the second is a lecture in which Psellos responds to his students’ desire that he explain the value of myth (Or. min. 25). In the former text, Psellos imagines philosophy as a “divine capacity” (theia dynamis; 89–90) and thus as an autonomous entity and a universal activity; philosophy, we are told, “is both in everything and outside everything” and “spins around together with the heavens,” mixing all knowledge together (20–8, 46–9, and 54 with an echo of Synesios of Kyrene’s Dion, 4.5–5.1). As a universal science, philosophy includes rhetoric, placed, as one might expect, toward the bottom of the ladder of knowledge. This is the traditional arrangement of disciplines and, for the purposes of this text, it is upheld by Psellos.30 Simultaneously, however, Psellos allows certain nuances in the traditional classification. When he comes to define rhetoric, he imagines this inferior discipline in terms that are strikingly reminiscent of philosophy’s qualities. Rhetoric too is a universalizing practice that mixes everything together – Psellos even posits a possible comparison of rhetoric with “the heaven that has its perfection in the infinity of its motion” (69–71 with 76–8). And, like philosophy, rhetoric too is autonomous. Psellos describes it with the neologism autonomothesia (80–4), a discipline that is regulated solely by its own principles. Psellos’ attitude in the second text, his elaborate lecture on myth (Or. min. 25) is bolder.31 The text is structured strategically in two parts of equal length. In the first half (lines 1–95), Psellos feigns a strong resistance to his students’ desire that he talk about myth. He, a philosopher, has by now “traversed matter and has ascended almost to the forms [ideai],” and thus he objects to those who want him to offer an encomium for myth and thus imitate a “sophist” like Dio Chrysostom (mentioned in l. 78; another reference to Synesios’ Dion 2, where Synesios disparages the rhetorical creations of Dio before his conversion to “philosophy”). Then, in mid-text (96 onward), Psellos changes his course entirely and offers an

30 31

186, 187, and 189 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios; K-D 35 to Pothos, kritˆes of Opsikion, son of droungarios; G 17 to Xiphilinos; G 21 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios = To the Prˆotoproedros and Epi Tˆon Kriseˆon, a Close Friend, But Who Temporarily Envied Him; Theol. i 19.81– 93; On Friendship to the Nephews of the Patriarch Kyr Michael = Or. min. 31.1–10; Monody in Honor of the Bestarchˆes Georgios the Son of Aktouarios = K-D i 212.13–18 and 212.25–213.1. For this hierarchical structure, see O’Meara 2012. The lecture is transmitted without title in the single manuscript, Vatican, BAV, gr. 672 (late thirteenth century).

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impressive defense of myth. The defense is based upon pressing further both the philosophical and the rhetorical value of myth, as advocated by late antique philosophical and rhetorical theory. According to Neoplatonic exegesis, myth can be useful as a cover of philosophical truth;32 while in the rhetorical manuals, myth prepared the acquisition of the skill of persuasion.33 For Psellos, myth is more than that: more rhetorical than rhetoric and more philosophical than philosophy. Myth is imagined as an “arrogant rhetor . . . who fashions and refashions his intended meaning in whichever way he wills” and as the “foundation” (krˆepis) of rhetoric. Simultaneously, myth is also proclaimed to be “music, superior to philosophy” (173; a strategic misreading of Socrates’ final moments in Plato’s Phaedo).34 Whereas in the beginning of the text Psellos the “philosopher” distances himself from the inferior discourse of myth, by the end of the lecture he has elevated myth (significantly personified as the “rhetor”) to unprecedented height, urging everyone to receive myth “with utter reverence” (181–8).35 The suggestive promotion of rhetoric in both the essay and the lecture does not amount to some philosophical, theoretical argument about the relation of philosophy with rhetoric and some novel rearrangement of the system of knowledge. As Psellos himself makes clear, his rhetorical fusion of the two disciplines serves rather his self-representational agenda. The first essay concludes with a wish that, in a world full of people practicing separate disciplines, there might be someone with the intellectual capacity to unify the different branches of knowledge, creating the “most beautiful living creature on earth” (97–104). Who else is that “someone” if not Psellos himself who repeatedly proclaims his proficiency in every type of knowledge and, especially, his mixture of rhetoric with philosophy? Similarly, in the lecture on myth, Psellos stages first his difference qua philosopher from his students and then his similarity qua rhetor with them, as he and his 32 33 34

35

See Lamberton 1986 with Cesaretti 1991 for the Byzantine tradition of allegory. See p. 106 below. According to Plato’s Phaedo (60d–61b), Socrates had a recurrent dream to “create music and work at it,” which he revisited during his final moments. Initially, Socrates interpreted the dream as a mere cheer for him to continue exactly what he was doing: philosophy, “the greatest kind of music” (a phrase evoked in Neoplatonic definitions of philosophy with which Psellos would have been familiar; cf., e.g., Proklos, Comm. on the Republic 1.57.8–23 and 60.24–25; David, Prolegomena 25.19–24; Ioannes Tzetzes, Chiliades 10.597). Then, however, Socrates decided that the dream was urging him to practice “music” in the regular sense; hence he turned to the making of poetry (though still without “creating myths”!). By contrast, as Psellos cites the story, it is myth that is implied as “the greatest kind of music.” For the episode in the Phaedo see Roochnik 2001. For this text of Psellos, see also Kolovou 2009. The passage is cited in full, p. 118 below.

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students meet in the ability to practice myth, that initiatory exercise in rhetoric. Again we ask; who is the personified myth/rhetor that Psellos urges his students to invite into their souls, if not someone like Psellos himself? the revival of rhetoric That Psellos viewed himself as a philosopher but also reintegrated rhetoric into philosophy has been noticed.36 His approach has been read either as a rhetorical stratagem or as a revival of an earlier topos. In reality, however, the insistence with which Psellos promotes the mixture of philosophy with rhetoric and the consequent value he invests in the inferior discipline for the purposes of his self-image are unique and carry a special meaning in eleventh-century Constantinople. Indeed, Psellos’ rhetoricization of his intellectual persona was based on a revival; yet this was a very careful, eclectic, and creative revival of the few earlier self-representational moments when a mixture of philosophy and rhetoric was entertained. As already noted, Byzantine rhetoricians before Psellos hesitated to identify fully with rhetoric in the first person. This stance can be partly explained by the way their primary models, namely Christian rhetors of the early Byzantine period, dealt with the matter. Take Gregory of Nazianzos, for instance. Gregory was well versed in rhetorical diction, style, and techniques, trained as he was in two of the best schools of the eastern Mediterranean at the time (Alexandria and Athens).37 Indeed, early in his public career, Gregory of Nazianzos worked as a teacher of rhetoric, as has been convincingly argued.38 However, he never presented himself as a rhetor; rather, maximizing earlier tropes, he consistently disparaged rhetoric as morally dangerous and pagan, “Hellenic,” discourse.39 36

37

38 39

Kustas 1973: 156–157; Anastasi 1974; Ljubarskij 2001: 348–374 = 2004: 197–224; Magdalino 1993a: 331; Kaldellis 1999: 127–154; Walker 2004; Jenkins 2006: 145–151; Bernard 2010: 186–187; Kolovou 2010. Gregory’s paideia is reflected in the eclectic nature of his allusions and references, indebted to a variety of both rhetorical and philosophical traditions. Rhetoric: Milovanovics 2005; Papaioannou 2006b; H¨agg 2006. Philosophy: Moreschini 1997: 16–18 and 22–68. For eclecticism in fourthcentury rhetoricians, see also the case of Himerios, another contemporary rhetor/philosopher, on whom V¨olker 2003 with Richtsteig 1921. The precise curriculum of the fourth-century schools is unknown. For some recent discussions: Watts 2006; Cribbiore 2007. McLynn 2006. E.g., Or. 2.46 and 104; Or. 5.35; 27.1–2 and 9–10; 28.2; 30.1; 31.15; 33.3; 36.2; 38.5–6; 41.10; 42.22; Against the Vanity of Women = Poem 1.2.29 passim (esp. 3–4 and 276–86); De vita sua 267–9; Ruether 1969: 156 ff. For the early Byzantine tradition in general and the anti-rhetorical thrust of much patristic discourse: Cameron 1991: 15–88.

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Plate 3 The beginning of Gregory of Nazianzos’ Epitaphios for Basil of Caesarea (Or. 43); Florence, Pluteus 7.32 (late eleventh or early twelfth century), f. 70 recto.

A typical example of this willed mis-recognition of rhetorical practice that came to define the Byzantine stance is Gregory’s Funeral Oration in honor of his friend Basil of Caesarea (dated to the early 380s) – one of Gregory’s longest speeches and an influential text in Byzantium (Plate 3: Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 7.32, 70r, late eleventh or early

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twelfth century).40 Gregory proclaims education (paideia), both Christian and pagan, as “the most important quality or possession [agathon]” of the Christian audience that he envisions (Or. 43.11) and offers his own speech as an example of the power of discourse, the dynamis of logos (Or. 43.1, with 13, 66, 69, 76).41 The implied “rhetoric” is here, however, recast as logos with the obvious semantic associations with Christ the Logos.42 Like other contemporaries,43 Gregory identified unambiguously as a “philosopher.” This is the force of his Apologˆetikos, an extensive text set in 361 and admired by Psellos (Or. 2: especially sections 88, 91, and 103),44 and also of a shorter speech, titled On Himself and to Those Who Claim That It Was He Who Wanted the See of Constantinople (Or. 36). In this latter text, set in 380 at the beginning of Gregory’s bishopric in Constantinople, Gregory disassociates himself from priests who have turned the holy “stage” into a theater and from “wise men, philosophers . . . and sophists” who are “hunters of public acclaim” (2 and 11–12). What distinguishes him is his “neither theatrical nor panegyrical” but truly “philosophical” way of life, his sufferings at the hands of his enemies (3), and also his “tongue,” which, though originally “trained in pagan discourse,” has now been rendered by Gregory “noble” through “Christian logoi” (4).45 Another example is the slightly later Christian rhetor, philosopher, and aristocrat Synesios of Kyrene, especially his essay Dion, named after Dio Chrysostom, the first-century Greek rhetorician. This text was on many 40

41

42 43 44 45

One of the sixteen ‘Liturgical Homilies,’ assigned to January 1st , Basil’s feast-day, this oration was canonical in monastic and ecclesiastic circles. Read as a model for funerary discourse, it was also normative for Byzantine rhetorical practice; see Agapitos 2003. Psellos evokes this oration on many occasions; see Ljubarskij 2001: 397–8 = 2004: 248–9 with Papaioannou 2011a (notions of friendship specifically). The “power” of discourse is a commonplace in earlier rhetoric; see, e.g., the introductory statements in Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ Roman Antiquities 1.1.3, Diodoros of Sicily’s Library of History 1.2.5, and, especially, Hermogenes’ On Forms 1.1. Paideia too was also a notion inherited from Greek rhetoric of the Imperial period; cf. Schmitz 1997; Whitmarsh 2004a: 139–158; Borg 2004. In the tenth century, Basileios the Lesser concurred with Gregory’s view (Scholia 24.38–25.2, a note on Gregory’s Or. 43): oÎkoun ˆtimast”on tŸn pa©deusin. oÉdamäv oÔn perifronht”on, fhs©, tŸn —llhnikŸn pa©deusin, ˆll‡ ponhroÆv kaª bask†nouv kaª ˆpaideÅtouv Ëpolamb†nein toÆv taÅthn kak©zontav, o¯tinev boÅlontai ˆs»fouv p†ntav e²nai, ¯na mhdeªv tŸn ˆm†qian aÉtän kaª ˆpaideus©an diel”gc. Cf. Poem 2.1.12.267–283; Farewell Speech = Syntaktˆerios = Or. 42.6 and 12; and, especially, Against Julian = Or. 4 passim. Smith 1995 (Julian); Vanderspoel 1995 (Themistios). Theol. ii 6 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 2.13), with extensive comments on the style of the speech (esp. lines 139–191). For further Byzantine scholia: Cantarella 1926: 5.32–7.25. Gregory uses here the metaphor of Moses transforming the bitter water of Marah into sweet drinkable water (Exodus 15), later evoked also by Psellos; Duffy 2001.

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occasions culled by Psellos46 and was widely known among Byzantine literati.47 Synesios’ case is somewhat exceptional. Like Gregory, in public settings, Synesios professed philosophy and distanced himself from rhetoric.48 Unlike Gregory, however, in his private correspondence with friends Synesios occasionally adopted a more daringly rhetorical stance, as he was less willing to reject completely his Hellenic background and outlook.49 His Dion, a speech of self-defense, is an extensive explanation of precisely this ambivalent stance toward Hellenic rhetoric by someone who identified himself as philosopher.50 Synesios alludes to opponents: contemporary ascetics and fellow rhetoricians. The former claim to be “philosophers” but negate discourse entirely; the latter submit themselves to the fickle sensual desires of their audience.51 The argument he puts forth is that, while philosophy allows one to relate to oneself and to the Divine, discourse is the tool by which the philosopher may relate to others (Dion 5.2 with 8.1–9.11; also 1.14, 2.2, 3.1). Like Gregory, Synesios prefers the term logos and, more specifically, the speech of the “civic [politikos]” philosopher who aims at moral instruction as opposed to the “rhetoric” and “poetry” that are addressed to the public settings of the festival or theater and seek merely to gratify audiences.52 Unlike Gregory, Synesios advocates for a philosopher who can also appropriate the inferior 46 47

48

49

50

51 52

See above p. 37 and below pp. 64, 73–4, 144, and 149. Of the fifty-eight surviving manuscripts of Dion, the earliest (Paris, BNF, Coisl. 249; cf. Devreese 1945: 228–9) dates to the tenth century. Its contents reveal the kinds of texts with which Synesios was associated in Byzantium and the kind of readers that he attracted – notably, several marginal scholia accompany the texts. The book begins with the works of Synesios (including his Dion, excluding his letters), followed by a Neoplatonic presentation of the ideal philosopher (Marinos’ Proklos or concerning happiness), rhetorical pieces (such as brief extracts from Dionysios of Halikarnassos and orations of Aeschines and Lysias), and concludes with Synesios’ rhetorical work On Kingship. For an eleventh-century example with contemporary scholia: Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 55.6 (see, e.g., ff. 45r and 47r). See further Brancacci 1985: 201–313 on the influence of Synesios’ Dion in Byzantium. For Synesios’ letters and Psellos, see pp. 135, 149, and 210–14 below. In its sharpest (indeed Platonic) terms, the polarity is established in Synesios’ introduction to his speech On Kingship; the text is echoed in Psellos – Graffigna 2000. For Synesios’ career in its socio-historical context: Cameron and Long 1993; Schmitt 2001; Rapp 2005: 156–66. In the first letter of his collection, for instance, Synesios argues that he “fathers” discourse not simply of the “solemn” philosophical kind, but also of the “vulgar” or, literally translated, “most public” rhetoric (Letter 1.1–5, to Nikandros); the text was evoked in Psellos, G 5.12–14 to Ioannes Doukas. The self-referentiality of the text is already recorded in its title that reads On Dion or on leading my own life according to Dion’s example; cf. Schmitt 2001: 69–73; Harich-Schwarzbauer 2001. In the cover letter (Letter 154 to Hypatia), Synesios suggests that he envisioned his Dion as an essay on the definition of philosophia. For discussions of the Dion: Treu 1958; Garzya 1974b; Aujoulat 1992; Schmitt 2001: 37–8 and 67–143. Also Roques 2006 on Synesios’ ambivalent attitude toward rhetoric. Dion 8.8–10 and 10.2; Letter 154 to Hypatia. For the opponents: Garzya 1974b; Dickie 1993. Cf. Dion 1.13, 3.8, and 4.1 on the “civic” discourse of the philosopher (also related to a beauty that is “ancient, according to nature, and appropriate to its subjects”; 3.3) with 3.2–5 on the theatricality of sophistic rhetoric and 1.4 and 3.5 on its relation to eroticized pleasure.

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discourse. The essay ends with Synesios’ portrait of himself as a performer of discourse of all kinds (including pieces of Greek tragedy and comedy; 18, cf. 5.4).53 Still, appropriation is the right term, as Synesios does not speak of any indissoluble mixture of philosophy and rhetoric. Throughout the text, rhetoric and philosophy remain distinct enterprises and the inferior art does not define Synesios’ self-portrait. Consistently with the agendas of numerous late antique aristocrats/intellectuals such as himself, Synesios’ core identity, his “divine nature” (6.1), is reserved for philosophy. Rhetoric, by contrast, is imagined as a “subordinate power” (5.2) and an “outer precinct” (5.7). This careful negotiation of the philosopher’s rhetoric was not repeated in Greek self-representational speech with the same force until the writings of Psellos. Even if the two “professions” continued to exist and thrive until at least the sixth century throughout the urban centers of the eastern Mediterranean, and even if the distinctions and tensions between “rhetors,” “sophists,” and “philosophers” continued to be palpable,54 neither selfprofessed philosophers nor rhetors seem to have felt the necessity to justify their profession to the extent that we find it in “philosophers” such as Gregory of Nazianzos and Synesios.55 Psellos capitalized on Gregory’s unacknowledged appropriation of rhetoric and simultaneously revived certain aspects specific to Synesios’ stance.56 Unlike anyone before him, Psellos was much more confident about the necessity of mixing philosophy with rhetoric and much more vocal in including the image of the rhetor in his public persona. By speaking of himself as well as his models as rhetor-philosophers, he rendered explicit the tacit rhetorical identity that structured the earlier tradition. How are we to explain Psellos’ stance? First, it should be made clear that there was nothing exceptional about the energy expended by Psellos in fashioning a public persona. As noted earlier, the fact that Psellos’ texts survive in great quantity in later manuscripts should not mislead us. The other substantial eleventh-century oeuvre, the collection of Vatican, BAV, gr. 676 that Ioannes Mauropous assembled late in his life, reveals an equally 53

54 55 56

Earlier in the text, Synesios argues that engagement with inferior types of discourse must happen either during the gradual process of philosophical education or, occasionally, while one is already a philosopher (4.1–3 and 9.6–10.1). Heath 2004 (esp. 73–83); Heath 2009. For more detailed discussion of Synesios, Psellos and the profession of rhetoric: Papaioannou 2012b. E.g., S 11 (242.21–5) with Synesios’ Dion 5.2 (the necessity of discursive communication); K-D 224 to Aristenos (267.16–28) with Dion 3.7 (“civic” and “ancient” rhetoric); Chron. 6.23 with Synesios, Letter 1 (“purification” of discourse); S 12 (245.24–5) with Dion 4.2 (discursive “play”).

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active attempt at self-fashioning (not identical, of course, to Psellos’ selfportrait either in tenor or intensity).57 We can safely assume that others pursued comparable strategies. The social climate demanded self-advertisement. In contemporary Constantinople, a new aristocracy was on the rise.58 This elite invested in the appropriation of early Byzantine Christian rhetoric, such as that of Gregory. The many expensive, illustrated books of Christian rhetoric produced in this period are a testament to this aristocratic habit.59 This elite was also willing to encourage learned men – those who could teach and explain old rhetoric and produce new rhetoric – to work loyally in its service, praise its accomplishments lavishly, and justify its predilections for sensual pleasure and conspicuous consumption. The Doukas family and, earlier, Monomachos are the most notable examples of this new eleventh-century ruling group that attracted around them a host of learned men, a phenomenon that continued and perhaps grew larger during the Komnenian era. Like others, Psellos was conscious of his dependence on the patronage of this ruling elite. For instance, much of his work focuses on advertising (in the hopes of recreating) the support that Monomachos gave to his intellectual pursuits. The extensive attention to Monomachos in the Chronographia may be explained in this way as can the three orations that Psellos produced in the time of Michael VII honoring his fellow intellectuals of the Monomachos years, Leichoudes, Mauropous, and Xiphilinos.60 Monomachos, as Psellos put it in a letter late in his career, “all but made me a man where I was once clay = m»non oÉk –k phloÓ Šnqrwpon –po©hse.”61 Patronage defined the social predicament of eleventh-century rhetors. It necessitated competition in a society that was traditionally determined by shifting networks of kinship and friendship, a remarkable social mobility, and the accompanying fragility of social positions.62 With few exceptions, 57 58

59 60 61

62

Bernard 2010: 86–8. For the codex: Bianconi 2011. For recent overviews of the Byzantine social elite: Messis 2006a: 80–2; Cheynet 2006b: i-iv; Patlagean 2007; Haldon 2009. Cf. the earlier: Angold 1984; Cheynet 1990; Kazhdan and Ronchey 1999. For court aristocracy in particular: Magdalino 2009 with further bibliography. For the rise of a new aristocracy after the reign of Basil II: Krsmanovi´c 2001; Cheynet 2006b: I. See Spatharakis 1981 (for dated illustrated MSS) and pp. 48 and 57 below. For these texts, see pp. 12–13 above. G 35 = Maltese 20 to the empress Eudokia (late 1060s). The whole passage reads as follows (lines 60–5): oÉc oÌtw. v. ¾ Monom†cov, Áv dž me m»non oÉk –k phloÓ Šnqrwpon –po©hse, psi d• to±v Šl. loiv –m»rfw. [sen]; oÉcª tän s. uggenän aÉtoÓ p†ntwn Ëp”rteron –poižsato; oÉcª f©lon me. proshg[»reu]se kaª did†skalon kaª tv o«ke©av yucv ˆntilžptora; kaª toÓto dlon –k tän pr¼v –m• gramm†tw. n. kaª suggramm†twn aÉtoÓ. Weiss 1973; Kazhdan and Wharton Epstein 1985: 126–33; Kazhdan and McCormick 1997; Haldon 2009. Also: Mullett 1999a and Neville 2004: 66–98, on friendship and kinship respectively. For

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power and material affluence rested on the competitive love of “honor” (philotimon or philotimia; cf. Chron. 7.2) and the unpredictability of influence and affection.63 As Psellos put it nicely when describing his life at the court to his friend Mauropous, “here, nothing is stable, nothing is permanent; but everything moves and changes = –ntaÓqa m•n g‡r, oÉd•n —stÛvá oÉ m»nimoná ˆll‡ p†nta kine±tai kaª metab†lletai.”64 For rhetors and teachers, without claims to high birth and family origins, uncertainty ruled. Sudden promotions and demotions were the norm – evident in the careers of Psellos himself and almost all of his associates, such as his teacher, Ioannes Mauropous.65 In texts, a sense of fragile authority prevails. Psellos recurrently complains about the limited influence of his rhetoric.66 Telling also is a statement from another rhetorician/teacher, Ioannes Sikeliotes’ brief autobiographical excursus in his commentary on Hermogenes. Rather bitterly, Sikeliotes presents himself as a poor and socially insignificant man, barely making a living, in search of a patron who is nowhere to be found. “Where is,” Sikeliotes asks, “an emperor like Marcus [Aurelius] or Antoninus or Hadrian?”67 Networks of personal relations too were fragile and required much work to be sustained. Psellos’ letters, of which 515 to more than 100 different addressees survive, are an unmistakable testimony to this.68 Psellos writes again and again in order to please friends and to remind them of their personal bonds. He also mediates for others to the ruling elite and seeks to acquire its support. To the socially inferior – the poor notary, for instance,

63

64 65 66

67

68

examples on the competitive context of educational and rhetorical practice from Psellos’ immediate past: Ioannes Sikeliotes, Prolegomena 415.13–23; Christophoros Mytilenaios, Poems 9, 10, 11, 13, 23, 36, 37, and 40 with Oikonomid`es 1990 (= 2004: xxi); cf. Beck 1978: 123 ff.; Magdalino 1993a: 316–412; Lauxtermann 2003: 34–45. Cf., e.g., Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical Discourses 4.243–6, where “fame” and “honor,” doxa and timˆe, together with “wealth,” are presented as fundamental secular possessions that grant one “freedom, joy, and enjoyment.” K-D 34 (54.13–14). Cf. Michael Attaleiates, History 20: “good fortune that comes from the emperor is of uncertain nature = t‡ tv despotikv eÉdaimon©av ˆb”baia.” On whose career, see Karpozilos 1982 and 1990. E.g., Letters K-D 49 to the bishop of Nikomedeia; K-D 79, untitled; K-D 85 to the epi tˆon kriseˆon; K-D 146 to ; S 7 and 9 to the prˆotosynkellos Leon Paraspondylos; S 198 and 199 to Psephas; G 35 = Maltese 20 to Eudokia. Comm. 444.26–445.16 and 446.24–448.15. For similar expressions of an intellectual’s social insignificance or poverty: Anonymous Professor (on whom see Markopoulos 2000), Letters 74.12–14 with 81.1, 85.37–38, 88.5, 95.10–14, 111.5, and 112.4; Symeon Magistros, Letter 9.4–7 (for the letter collection[s] of Symeon see now: Pratsch 2005b); Ioannes Mauropous, Programma on the speech on Angels = Poem 28.13. Moore numbers 542 letters; I am excluding here all which are dubious, spurious, or as yet unidentified; Papaioannou 1998.

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or the traveling monk – Psellos would offer his intervention with those who held real social authority.69 To the social superior, he provided discursive entertainment and rhetorical displays of knowledge in exchange for personal favors and material gifts.70 It is in this social setting that one should situate Psellos’ expansive and aggressively promoted intellectual persona. His mastery of discourse was the main asset that he brought to the struggle for preferment. Along with the more traditional claim to expertise in philosophy, rhetoric acquired a remarkably prominent place, becoming a constituent feature of his selffashioning. Unlike his models, Gregory or Synesios, and unlike most ninthand tenth-century Byzantine learned authors, Psellos did not have the luxury of treating rhetoric as mere style and training, as an unacknowledged sociolect, a supplementary feature of high social standing shared by members of the same group. Rhetoric was for him a significantly more vital tool of social survival. In this change of perspective, Psellos was assisted by one further feature of the fate of rhetoric in eleventh-century Constantinople, and I conclude with it. By the 1040s, when Psellos began his spectacular career, two most important developments in the history of middle Byzantine discursive culture had taken place. The first was the selection, sometime during the tenth century, of sixteen highly rhetorical homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos as sermons to be read aloud at significant feasts of the Christian church calendar – especially for the periods around Christmas and Easter.71 The second development was that in the early eleventh century – primarily among Constantinopolitan monasteries, their 69

70

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Among these letters, the majority are devoted to Psellos’ mediation between a client, usually of lower status (such as notaries, simple monks, poor relatives, and, occasionally, women) and a patron, usually a member of the imperial administration (such as provincial judges, the kritai; cf. Ljubarskij 2001: 312–24 = 2004: 154–69). Only in relatively few cases, Psellos requests a favor for himself alone; see S 51, 77, 114, 139, 171, 178, 198, 199; K-D 53, 64, 89, 95, 108, 140, and 200. A well-crafted example is Psellos’ letter to Iasites, where in exchange for his friend’s gift of a horse, in Greek a-logon, Psellos offers his discourse, his logos; S 171 with Bernard 2011a. Other examples: Letters S 3 to the emperor Romanos Diogenes; S 51 to the praitˆor of Thrakesion Xeros; S 85 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios; K-D 75 to the bishop of Parnassos; G 31, untitled. For gift-exchanges among Byzantine epistolographers: Karpozilos 1984. On Gregory’s sixteen so-called ‘Liturgical Homilies’ (namely: Orations 1, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 24, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, not arranged in this order in the manuscripts), see Somers-Auwers 2002 (esp. p. 105, on the wide diffusion of this selection of Gregory’s orations in the eleventh century). To the texts of Gregory we should add also selections from the sermons of John Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea produced in the tenth century by Theodoros Daphnopates (Haidacher 1902) and Symeon Metaphrastes (PG 32: 1116=1381 with Fedwick 1964) respectively. As noted earlier, however, Chrysostom and Basil, while considered important rhetoricians, did not acquire the same status as Gregory in the Byzantine rhetorical tradition; see p. 17 above and p. 56 below.

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Plate 4 Symeon Metaphrastes’ Menologion, December 11, the beginning of the Bios kai politeia of St. Daniel the Stylite; Florence, Pluteus 11.11 (eleventh century), f. 141 recto.

aristocratic patrons, and their affiliated persons and institutions – the texts of the Metaphrastean Menologion were adopted as the appropriate reading for these feasts throughout the ecclesiastical year (Plate 4). The texts included in the Menologion, gathered in ten volumes and

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circulating widely, were partially revised by Metaphrastes and his collaborators in a higher rhetorical register, often influenced by Gregory of Nazianzos’ language.72 Both of these developments defined what we may call the decisive rhetoricization of Constantinopolitan discursive culture during the middle Byzantine period. The increased interest in Gregory’s Logoi and Symeon Metaphrastes’ Bioi and Martyria alongside similar rhetorically inflected texts meant that a large audience in places where discourse was practiced and preserved in Byzantium – the church, the monastery, the schools, as well as the court and aristocratic households – were exposed to texts of high rhetoric. These required specially trained readers/teachers who could prepare editions, explain difficult passages, and produce new texts in a similar vein when the need arose. After the tenth century and by 1204, performance rhetoric and narrative, whether hagiographical or historiographical in nature, became largely the monopoly of professional intellectuals, specialists in rhetoric. These developments contributed to the growing self-consciousness of rhetoricians. Though being a philosopher remained the dominant persona, from the tenth century onward rhetoric too begins, albeit hesitantly, to be mentioned explicitly in the careers of learned men.73 It is 72

73

See Høgel 2002 and 2003. The Menologion survives in about 700 manuscripts “not including the fragments” (Høgel 2002: 11); of these more than 200 date to the eleventh century, when also most ˇ cenko 1990; also of the illustrated copies (altogether 43 survive) were produced – see Patterson Sevˇ Hutter 2000. The citations of Gregory in the Metaphrastean collections remain to be explored. It may be noted that Symeon included in his corpus the Life of Gregory of Nazianzos by Gregory the Presbyter with no alterations (reading for January 25) and that the two corpora of Gregory’s Orations and Metaphrastes’ Menologion were meant to complement each other; cf. a note in the table of contents for the MS Patm. 245 (completed for the patrikios Pothos in 1057; cf. 10 above) which urges the reader to “look in the Theologian” for the reading of January 18 about Athanasios the Great. For trends in hagiography that anticipated the Metaphrastean project, see various essays in Efthymiadis 2011a and Efthymiadis 2011b; cf. also Høgel 1996. For an important earlier example of highly rhetoricized hagiographical narrative, see Ps.-Nilos, Narration, also included with no alterations in the Metaphrastean Menologion. For another contemporary example, see Euthymios the Hagiorete’s Barlaam and Ioasaph, a hagiographical narrative also circulating widely (Volk 2009: 525–81), especially in eleventh-century manuscripts, several with extensive illustration. Notably, Euthymios used extensively the Byzantine models of rhetorical diction of the tenth c.: Gregory of Nazianzos, Daphnopates’ selection of Chrysostom’s Homilies, and Ps.-Nilos, Narration (Volk 2009: 115–22 and Volk 2006: 484–5). In its turn, Euthymios’ text influenced greatly the rhetorical diction of Metaphrastes’ Menologion (Volk 2003). Cf., e.g., Theophanes Continuatus, Chronographia 191.22–192.13 on Leon the Philosopher (c. 790– after 869) who is said to have studied grammar, poetry, and then “rhetoric” and philosophy and also 446.7–9 on Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos and his care for both “rhetoric” and “philosophy.” Similarly, Christophoros Mytilenaios praised a certain Niketas of Synada for being, among other things, both a “sophos” and a “rhetor” (Poem 27.38–9). For an earlier, ninth-c., yet isolated, example, see Ignatios the Deacon, Life of the Patriarch Nikephoros 149.21–6, a mention of rhetoric in a curriculum vitae that culminates with “philosophy” (150.12–15).

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in the courts of two emperors who were able rhetoricians themselves, Leon VI the Wise (866–912; emperor: 886–912) and his son Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos (905–59; sole emperor: 945–59), that, for the first time, we hear explicitly about appointment of teachers of rhetoric.74 It is also in this period that, in biographical sketches or encomia, Gregory of Nazianzos is presented as both a philosopher and an accomplished rhetor.75 Similar statements appear regarding other earlier writers.76 Moreover, it is during the course of the tenth century that we encounter the first Byzantine writers who not only practice high rhetoric but advertise it in the first person on isolated occasions. In one of his Letters dated to the 940s, Niketas Magistros (c. 870–after 946) compared himself to Odysseus “the good rhetor” with his “force [a reference to the rhetorical technical term deinotˆes] and persuasion [peithˆo]” (Letter 3). Some decades later, Ioannes Geometres (c. 935/940–1000), in his Letter Describing a Garden (Progymnasmata 2), identified with Proteus, the prototypical image of dangerous sophistry: “if in the same way as Proteus alters his face,” Geometres wrote, “I have suddenly altered the shape [morphˆe] of my discourse . . . , it is the art that demands this.”77 More significantly, in his speech To Those Who 74

75

76

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According to a passage from a biographical account about Niketas David of Paphlagonia, Niketas was invited by Leo to become “teacher of philosophy” or “of rhetoric” in 911; Flusin 1985 125.37–42 with Paschalides 1999: 96. And according to Theophanes Continuatus, Chronographia (446.11–12), Alexandros, bishop of Nikaia, was appointed by Konstantinos as head-master for the teaching of “rhetors” in 945; see Pratsch 2004 with Markopoulos 2004b. Such references continue in the eleventh century. “Most learned rhetors” are mentioned in documents prepared by Ioannes Mauropous for Konstantinos IX Monomachos (Novella 4). A (contemporary?) Nikolaos rhetor is mentioned in one of the poems of the so-called Anonymous of Sola (Bernard 2011b: 82–83). Niketas David of Paphlagonia, Encomium in honor of Gregory 3.16–26; Ioannes Geometres, Encomium for Gregory, Our Great Archbishop and Theologian, in Tacchi-Venturi 1893, p. 158; Suda (gamma.450). For Geometres’ still unedited encomium for Gregory, see Tacchi-Venturi 1893. For his biography, see now van Opstall 2008: 3–14. As Geometres’ various epigrams attest, he was also reading (in order of appearance in the poems) John Chrysostom, Plato and Aristotle, Porphyrios, Sophocles, Philostratos (whom he calls a “rhetor”), Libanios, Iamblichos, Theon the “philosopher”, and Homer (see Poems 281.4–9, 284.14–22, 309.20–2, 312.9–19, 318.16–319.4, 329.16–20, 378.23–379.4). The wording, e.g., applied to Gregory of Nazianzos in the Suda entry (“oÕtov oÉ m»non grammatik¼v kaª t‡ –v tŸn po©hsin dexi»v, ˆll‡ poll ple±on kaª –v filosof©an –xžskhto, kaª çžtwr §n ˆmfid”xiov”) is also given in the biography of Apollinaris of Laodikeia (alpha.3397). See also Ioannes Geometres, Poems 284.11–13 (Simplikios as both “rhetor” and “philosopher”) and 326.12–14 (Xenophon as “first in eloquence among the rhetors; and first in soul and mind among the philosophers”). Progymnasmata 2, p. 9.20–5; cf. also his self-referential poem (267.22–269.19; also in van Opstall 2008, no. 211), where Geometres presents himself as “discourse that flows spontaneously = l»gov aÉt»cutov.” The figure of Proteus has usually negative connotations in Greek writing; cf. Plato, Ion 541d; Philo, Legatio ad Gaium 80–1; Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 2.44. For a positive framing, see below pp. 101 (Dionysios of Halikarnassos) and 115 (Psellos) with Philostratos, Life of Apollonios 1.4.4–1.5.1 and Himerios Or. 68.63–70. Geometres’ Progymnasmata: see Demoen 2001; Agapitos and Hinterberger 2006: 129–61 and 194–5.

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Scoffed At Me For My Obscurity and an Account of What Form I Followed in My Speech, Arethas (mid ninth–mid tenth century) evoked Gregory of Nazianzos as his model, cited various ancient authors, and applied categories from rhetorical manuals, in order to defend his diverse logos for combining a variety of forms, including aesthetic appeal (what he calls “Aphrodite”) and “the leaps of Gorgias,” a metaphor for excessive rhetoric: “By as many and such things, my discursive offspring is sculpted into beauty.”78 Psellos transformed this rather hesitant affirmation of rhetoric by others in a significant set of his texts into a forceful self-portrait. His rhetorical production far exceeded the work of any other middle Byzantine author (with the exception perhaps of Symeon Metaphrastes): letters, speeches of various kinds, texts for instruction in rhetoric, rhetoricized historiography, as well as – one should add – rhetoricized hagiography which possibly included a series of encomia, reworkings of earlier Lives of old saints, for expanding the menologion in imitation of Metaphrastes.79 It is no coincidence that Psellos also wrote a hagiographical encomium for Metaphrastes and devoted much discursive production to Gregory of Nazianzos with a view to molding those earlier writers in his own image: as philosopher-rhetors, naturally talented and inimitably skilled in discourse. Anxious to defend and amplify his discursive appeal, fully aware of the new potential of rhetoric in Constantinopolitan high society, and, ultimately, an exceptionally passionate reader and gifted writer, Psellos was willing to take rhetorical liberties and rhetoricize authorial identity far beyond anything we encounter in earlier Byzantine self-referential writing. He did so in practice – in letters, speeches, and narratives, where his rhetorical self struts on the stage of his writing – and also in theory, in essays on and discussions of rhetorical style to which we turn next. 78

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For a somewhat confused discussion of this text (Scriptora minora 17), see Kustas 1973: 84–5. For Arethas’ rhetorical work: Loukaki 2007. Arethas’ student Niketas David of Paphlagonia (late ninthearly tenth century) is designated as “rhetor” and “philosopher” alternately in the manuscript titles of his works. Cf. the critical apparatus in Lebrun 1997 and Moreschini and Costa 1992, with Paschalides 1999: 95–9. As has been argued recently (Makris 2009), Psellos wrote rhetorical encomia of St. John the Baptist (presented as spurious in the most recent edition: Or. hag. 8), Panteleemon (ed. Makris 2009:113–25), Kallinikos (unedited), Laurentios (unedited), and Prokopios (unedited).

c h a p ter 2

The rhetor as creator Psellos on Gregory of Nazianzos

Byzantine Greek writing has no one, single word that corresponds exactly to our terms “author” and “authorship.” Neither is there a Greek equivalent for the Latin auctor and auctoritas with their important semantic trajectory in western medieval European languages.1 The word “rhetor” that has occupied our attention was just one among many and competing Byzantine terms. Along with it, the Byzantines inherited from their Hellenic tradition the words philosopher, sage (sophos), and poet, to which they added the Judeo-Christian designations of prophet, psalmist (psalmˆodos), theologian, apostle, evangelist, and, most important of all, the Holy Father or just Father, all words indicative of discursive agency.2 Each of these terms carried different connotations of authorship, several of which will be examined below. They converged in their emphasis on the individual author’s submission to authority. This was prevalent both in the rhetorical tradition, which promoted the imitation (mimˆesis) of model writers, and in the philosophical reading of canonical texts – such as the Bible, the Church Fathers, or ancient Greek philosophers – where the notion of inspiration and thus submission to divine authority was ubiquitous, captured in such terms as the seminal theo-logos or the rare theo-rhetor.3 Byzantine authorship was thus circumscribed by authority. Or, to put it better (since neither authorship nor authority existed merely 1

2

3

See Ziolkowski 2009 (esp. p. 422) with Dio Cassius, Roman History 55.3.4–5 (cf. Ioannes Xiphilinos, Epitome of Dion of Nikaia 98.10–16); the Greek authent(e)ia does not cover the same semantic range. On auctoritas, see further Scanlon 1994: 37–54; for Byzantium, see Mullett 1997: 225. For some of these terms: Goldhill 1991 and 1993 (the classical Greek tradition); Wyrick 2004 (the Judeo-Christian tradition). For a succinct overview of Byzantine notions of authorship with further bibliography, see Mullett 1997: 223–30; for another assessment: Odorico 2002. Though a classical word, the earliest usage of theologos in the Byzantine understanding of the term is in Philo’s Life of Moses 2.115 (on Moses). For qeoržtwr, see Lampe s.v. For early Byzantine conceptions of theological authorship, see Krueger 2004. For concise discussions of the concept of rhetorical imitation in antiquity and the western Middle Ages: Russell 1979; Ziolkowski 2001. For the Greek tradition, see especially Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ fragmentary On Imitation (Battisti 1997); for its Byzantine reception: Cichocka 2004 and 2010.

51

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or primarily as abstract notions in Byzantium), Byzantine authors operated within the defining horizons of a series of authorities, a limited number of rhetorical models or divinely inspired writers.4 Neither the lack of a single, unifying term, nor the ostentatious preoccupation with authority should be misread as disinterest in understanding, sustaining, and promoting the agency of the individual producer of discourse. Quite the contrary, Byzantium was a logocentric society, defined by various types of discourse that prevailed in the interlocking fields of representation, ritual, and exercise of power. In such a cultural setting, the author occupied a special place. Christ himself was conceptualized in Byzantium as the Logos and was usually presented visually as holding the Gospel or gesturing speech; thus he was closely associated with the production of authoritative speech. By extension, authorship mattered. Readers and listeners were trained to identify authors as figures of authority and were supposed to follow closely their examples and precepts. Similarly, writers and speakers struggled to identify ways by which their own discourse might be authorized and thereby attract audiences and patrons. Driven by such motives and unlike the producers of other forms of representation (for instance painters), authors with training in discourse displayed a high degree of self-consciousness.5 The detailed discussions of authorship, its origins, processes, and effects, that permeate Byzantine writing are a manifestation of this heightened authorial self-consciousness. Michael Psellos’ writings are no exception to this. Psellos undertook theoretical discussions of authorship in a series of texts of different scope: (a) concise summaries of earlier rhetorical manuals, (b) essays of literary criticism which offered descriptions of model authors, and (c) numerous digressions on style, authors, and rhetoric inserted in public speeches, private letters, and lectures. The majority of these texts were produced within the framework of Psellos’ activity as a teacher and offered a wide-ranging, though unsystematic perspective on rhetorical authorship. Like other rhetoricians before him, Psellos was indebted to different fields of writing in which theories of authorship were elborated in 4

5

Notably, words designating different types of what we might call “author” were usually reserved for a few writers: David (psalmˆodos), John the Evangelist and Gregory of Nazianzos (theologos), Paul (apostolos), and Homer (poiˆetˆes). For the figure of the visual artist in Byzantium, see various essays in Basilaki 1997 and Bacci 2007. I do not deal here with the issue of pseudepigrapha and forgeries, the usurpation of authority, in Byzantine book culture or with anonymous texts and the merging of the oral and written traditions of story-telling in Byzantium; these are complicated matters that deserve their own treatment. My focus is the learned discursive tradition of logoi, to which Psellos belonged.

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Byzantium. Of immediate importance to him was rhetorical theory proper: the tradition of manuals and treatises, unsystematized marginal scholia on earlier texts, and extensive commentaries. This school tradition was of somewhat limited input and circulation if compared to Christian exegesis propagated in the church, the monastery, and the school itself. Still, this rhetorical tradition possessed a rich vocabulary of authorship, a deep investment in the delineation of authorial models, and, as we saw, an increasing social cachet in the middle Byzantine period. Its origins were located in pre-Byzantine rhetorical aesthetics as these were articulated in prescriptive texts produced during the first four centuries ce. With the unfailing conservatism of the Greek educated elite, these texts became quickly canonical and remained such throughout Byzantine history.6 Three names should be highlighted in this context, listed in order of appearance in the Byzantine curriculum: Aphthonios (fourth century), Hermogenes (second century), and Dionysios of Halikarnassos.7 Prefaced by Aphthonios’ brief discussion of preliminary rhetorical exercises, or Progymnasmata, the four treatises attributed to Hermogenes – On Issues [Staseis], On Invention [Heuresis], On Forms [Ideai], and On the Method of Force [Deinotˆes] – became a unified corpus during the early Byzantine period (possibly around the year 500) and were used widely as the primary textbook for teaching rhetoric.8 Though lacking the status of Aphthonios or Hermogenes, Dionysios too was popular among Byzantine literati, from Gregory of Nazianzos (cf. Letter 180) to the late tenth 6

7

8

Greek rhetorical theory during the Imperial period, we should note, was part of the wider set of strategies by which the Greek-speaking provincial educated elite of the Roman empire (before and after the establishment of Constantinople) pursued its survival as a socially, politically, and culturally important group; hence the inherent conservatism. For the original context and ideological anxieties invested in the rhetorical/theoretical production, see Heath 2004 with Whitmarsh 2005a and Porter 2005; also Wiater 2011 on Dionysios of Halikarnassos. Aphthonios: Kennedy 2003: 89–90. Hermogenes: Patillon 1988: 13–17; Rutherford 1998: 1–10; Heath 1999b; Webb 2002; see further: Kustas 1973; Heath 1995; Kennedy 2005. For Dionysios’ biography and works: Delcourt 2005: 21–76; de Jonge 2008: 1–41. A fourth author that should be mentioned here is Menandros (late third – early fourth century), especially his treatise On Epideictic Speeches (Russell and Wilson 1981), another influential manual for Byzantine writers; Soffel 1974; Pernot 1993; Mu˜noz 1997 and 2001 (the MS tradition). The text, focused on practical advice rather than theories of discourse, did not incite commentaries (as, e.g., Aphthonios’ equally practice-oriented Progymnasmata). Rabe 1913: xv-xx; Kowalski 1947; Hunger 1978: 77. For two MSS contemporary to Psellos, see Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. gr. 60.15 (cf. Sabatucci 1908) and Milan, Ambrosianus M 066 sup.; for an important mid-tenth-century example, by the scribe Ephraim (Vatican, BAV, Urb. gr. 130), see Perria 1977–9: 82–103. For a richly annotated French translation of the Corpus Hermogenianum, see Patillon 1997. For the Byzantine commentaries of the Corpus, see Hunger 1978: 79–88; see also Romano 2007.

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century (cf. Nikephoros Ouranos’ Letter) and, as we shall see, Psellos.9 These writers defined rhetorical authorship from micro-structures such as the standard exercises in praise, description, and impersonation to the larger categories of genre and model authors, such as Plato, Homer, and Demosthenes, the undeniable favorite in this tradition.10 Psellos produced a prose summary of Hermogenes’ On Forms (titled Synopsis of the Rhetorical Forms), an epitome of the entire Hermogenian corpus in 545 verses (Synopsis of Rhetoric = Poem 7 for Michael VII Doukas; Walker 2001), and a prose synopsis of Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ On Composition (On the Arrangement of the Parts of Speech; Miller 1975 and Bevegni 2003). He also dug deeper in this tradition, offering his students a brief reworked version of Longinos’ Rhetoric (titled On Rhetoric)11 and, possibly, also a brief treatise On Tragedy – the latter text is attributed to Psellos, but without certainty. Beyond these technical treatises, Psellos also wrote literary critical essays on model authors. Gregory of Nazianzos was his favorite, portrayed as the best rhetor. The longest text is an encomium of Gregory’s style (Discourse . . . on the Style of the Theologian), which Psellos praised also in numerous digressions in the seventy-three lectures that he devoted to passages from Gregory’s Orations (ed. in Theol. i and ii). Gregory’s rhetoric is highlighted also in an essay on the styles of four early Byzantine Fathers (The Styles [charaktˆeres] of Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa) and another on various authors including Achilles Tatios, Lucian, Demosthenes, and Plato (On the Styles of Certain Writings). Additionally, Psellos wrote a description of the style of John Chrysostom 9

10 11

The two most important MSS of Dionysios’ works date to the second half of the tenth century (Aujac 1978: 29–34): the famous mid-tenth century Paris, BNF, gr. 1741 (cf. Harlfinger and Reinsch 1970 and Irigoin 1997: 171–82) which contains various rhetorical treatises including Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ On Composition, Longinos’ Art of Rhetoric, Ps.-Demetrios’ On Style, Menandros’ On Epideictic Speeches, as well as Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics (the single Byzantine testimony of this treatise). In Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 59.15 (tenth century, second half, workshop of the scribe Ephraim; Stefec 2010: 73–4), Dionysios’ On Composition and On Ancient Rhetors are grouped together with the Philostratos’ Lives of the Sophists, Kallistratos’ Eikones, and several works by Ailios Aristeides. Cf. passim below. Demosthenes as the paradigmatic rhetor: Drerup 1923; Wooten 1989; Gibson 2002; Pernot 2006. With the name Longinos, Psellos refers to Kassios Longinos, third century ce (Patillon and Brisson 2001; Heath 2002). The earliest MS of his Rhetoric is Paris, BNF, gr. 1741 (mid-tenth century; cf. note 9 above and Patillon and Brisson 2001: 100–7). Psellos refers frequently to a Longinos: Or. min. 8.194; K-D 28 (36.7); Theol. i 56.7–9; 75.117 ff.; 98.30–40 (here with a very critical view of Longinos’ critique of Plato’s Phaedrus). Another early eleventh-century rhetorician, Ioannes Sikeliotes, also knew Longinos (see Patillon and Brisson 2001: fr. 53, 56 59). It is difficult to tell whether Psellos knew the famous On Sublimity attributed to Longinos in its single Byzantine manuscript (the late tenth-century Paris, BNF, gr. 2036); for a possible allusion, see p. 81 below.

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(On John Chrysostom), along with a comparison of Euripides with the popular Byzantine seventh-century poet Georgios Pisides (Who Versified Better, Euripides Or Pisides?), another comparison of the novels by Heliodoros and Achilles Tatios (What Is the Difference Between the Texts Whose Plots Concern Charikleia and Leukippe?), and, as already mentioned, an encomium for Symeon Metaphrastes (Encomium For Kyr Symeon Metaphrastes = Or. hag. 7).12 Psellos’ notion of authorship reflected in these texts owes much to Greek rhetorical theory of the Imperial period and its early and middle Byzantine reception. Simultaneously, Psellos was indebted to two further discursive traditions and their notions of authorship. One was the tradition of scriptural exegesis by early Byzantine Christian rhetors, including that of Gregory of Nazianzos himself.13 The other was Neoplatonic exegesis, from the third to the seventh century, especially the texts of Proklos and several Alexandrian philosophers whose philosophical idiom became the lingua franca of the educated elite, the early Byzantine Christian elite included.14 This tradition was concentrated on the canonical texts of Aristotle, for logic and what we might call psychology, and Plato, for psychology, ethics, and metaphysics. It also contributed to the promotion of Hermogenes’ On Forms and its Platonizing view of rhetorical aesthetics.15 Within this ambit of rhetorical manuals, Christian hermeneutics, and Neoplatonic approaches to discourse, Psellos developed his theory of rhetorical authorship. As is apparent, none of these registers of theory, either separately or combined, offered him a unified discourse, a single way by which to think about discursive agency. Rather, Byzantine systems of reading and rhetorical performance were strategically open to manipulation so as to fit a variety of contexts, audiences, and arguments.16 In 12

13

14

15

16

For the first detailed presentation of these texts, see Ljubarskij 1975 and 2001: 348–68 and 509–11 = 2004: 197–217 and 379–82. For further bibliography, see the relevant entries in Moore 2005 and various notes below. Overviews of Christian exegesis: Blowers 2007 (with an emphasis on early Byzantium); Pollmann 2008; cf. Dawson 1992 (Alexandrian exegesis); Buc 1994 (western medieval hermeneutics); McAuliffe, Walfish, and Goering 2003 (Judaism, western medieval Christianity and Islam). Middle and late Byzantine scriptural exegesis remain relatively unexplored. For Neoplatonic hermeneutics in general, see Hoffmann 2006. For Proklos: Sheppard 1980; Lamberton 1986; van den Berg 2001; Halliwell 2002: 323–34; Struck 2004: 227–53; Gritti 2008. For some discussion of the MS tradition of Neoplatonic texts, see D’Ancona 2007. See also P´erez-Mart´ın 2005 on Plato’s Byzantine manuscripts and Psellos’ seminal place in this history. The earliest commentary on Hermogenes’ On Forms dates to the fifth century and was written by Syrianos, a Neoplatonist likely to be identified with the teacher of Proklos and Hermeias and the commentator of several books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (cf. Heath 2009: 144–5). The commentary survives primarily in an eleventh-century rhetorical MS, the Paris, BNF, gr. 2923. Cf. Whitmarsh 2005a: 52–6 for the Greek tradition in the Imperial period.

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a tradition where one could oscillate between objective criteria and subjective choices, Psellos promoted a rhetorical understanding of authorship that subsumed under “rhetor” all other relevant Byzantine categories and insisted on subjective agency with unprecedented vigor. the byzantine gregory Psellos applied his conception of authorship primarily to Gregory of Nazianzos.17 Naturally so. By the eleventh century, Gregory had become the exemplary author for Byzantine readers. His diverse discursive outlook suited a variety of needs. His theological orations explained and summarized difficult issues in Christian dogma. His encomia provided models of Christian morality and sanctity as well as idealized biographies. His orations on major Christian feasts of the church calendar created a landscape for Christian imagination and memory. His archaizing poems on Christian topics provided subject matter for instruction in classical verse and sophisticated diction. His usually disparaging, yet multiple references to pagan mythology, ancient philosophy, and tropes of Greek rhetoric offered a great opportunity to introduce and preserve non-Christian antiquarian knowledge for students. Gregory’s self-referential speeches constructed, as we shall see in a later chapter, a very effective discourse in the first person. Altogether, Gregory’s discursive production could be used in any Byzantine context – the urban church, the monastery, the school, and the private home – as an inspiring and normative reading.18 Gregory became an authoritative voice almost immediately after his death. Yet the catalysts for his elevation to canonical authority were texts produced during the period of the iconoclastic debate (second half of the eighth and first half of the ninth centuries). These texts formed a basic corpus for Byzantine Orthodoxy, and Gregory was a major protagonist within them. For instance, in the most popular theological work in Byzantium, John of Damascus’ Fountain of Knowledge, Gregory is the author cited repeatedly.19 During the next four centuries, Gregory’s texts circulated widely. Wealthy patrons spent a great deal of money on the production 17

18 19

Though Psellos devoted also a brief essay to John Chrysostom and spent some lines on Basil of Caesarea, he was less indebted to, and invested in, the rhetoric of these two important early Byzantine authors. Gregory’s reception in Byzantium: Sajdak 1914; Noret 1983; Crimi 1992; Karavites 1993; Pitsakis 1994; Rhoby 2007; Papaioannou 2013b. Cf. also http://nazianzos.fltr.ucl.ac.be For the wide MS circulation of the Fountain of Knowledge, see Kotter 1959. For Gregory’s early reception see Mac´e 2006. For Gregory’s use in iconophile writing: Demoen 1998 and 2000; Louth 2006.

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and acquisition of his orations, often in deluxe illustrated manuscripts. Moreover, from at least the tenth century, a smaller collection of sixteen of his orations, the so-called “Liturgical Homilies,” became the primary reading for major feasts during the liturgical year.20 An important moment in the history of Gregory’s reception was the year 946 when the emperor Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos ordered the transfer of Gregory’s relics from Cappadocia to Constantinople. In a ceremony, featuring the emperor himself, the relics were deposited near those of John Chrysostom in the church of the Holy Apostles – perhaps the most important church for middle Byzantine imperial ideology.21 For the occasion, Konstantinos or someone writing under his orders wrote a lengthy oration in which Gregory is the recipient of profuse praise: “the vessel of all divine and human wisdom,” “the animate [empsychon] temple of the divine Trinity,” “the mouth of God, the receptacle of the Father, the sacredly fashioned instrument of the Spirit, the canon and preservation of priesthood, the inexhaustible source of theology,” and so on.22 This notion of the author as mediator of the divine presence is, of course, not Konstantinos’ own, but derives from early Byzantine hermeneutics. Two basic parameters defined this traditional concept. First, discourse is valuable in as much as it is the direct product of the Divine. As Gregory of Nazianzos once exclaimed (Or. 1.6), Christians are to focus on “ . . . not the vain logoi, which flow into air and simply reach the outward ear, but those that the Spirit writes and impresses upon tablets of stone or rather of flesh, not superficially inscribed nor easily extinguished, but inscribed very deeply, not by ink, but by grace.” The human agents who communicate this discourse are conceived of as mediators 20

21 22

See Somers 1997 on the wide circulation (over 1,500 MSS) of Gregory’s Orations with Galavaris 1969 on illustrated MSS (though the number of MSS included in this study is significantly less than the existing illustrated copies, especially eleventh-century copies, of Gregory – see Somers-Auwers 2002: 135); Brubaker 1999 (on Paris, BNF, gr. 510, the earliest example of a richly illustrated manuscript of Gregory’s Orations, commissioned around 880, most likely by patriarch Photios); Hutter 2009 (on another early, illustrated MS with Gregory’s Orations, dated to 941: Patmos 33). For the ‘Liturgical Homilies,’ see above p. 46. Gregory’s letters survive in a significantly smaller (in comparison to Gregory’s Orations), yet substantial (in comparison to other Byzantine texts) number of MSS; for the c. 250 MSS (many post-Byzantine) of the letters, see Gallay 1957. For the similar transmission of the poems: Gertz 1985 (group i); H¨ollger 1985 (groups xx and xi); for the reception of Gregory’s poetry in general, see also Simelidis 2009: 57ff. Flusin 1998 and 1999. Transfer of important relics from the south-eastern frontier is a seminal feature of imperial politics in the tenth c. Discourse on the Return of the Relics of Our Holy Father Gregory the Theologian 14–15, 84, and 711–13. The tenor is similar in the Encomium in Honor of Gregory written sometime before 907 by the rhetor Niketas David of Paphlagonia (see especially 25.36–26.40); cf. Niketas David, Commentary on the Psalms 155–9. The notion of “animation” in Konstantinos’ text is a favorite one in Gregory himself; see Or. 1.6, 5.4, 33.15, 36.15, 43.5 with Papaioannou 2006a: 97–101.

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transferring meaning from divine origins to human receivers.23 This sense of divinely inspired authority, mediated by the author, was expressed in visual terms through the numerous portraits of the four evangelists and prophets (especially David) with which Byzantine liturgical books were often decorated. The typified image of the author communicated through these portraits is that of the scribe, directed and inspired by God, the supreme authority.24 Similar are many portraits of John Chrysostom and, of course, Gregory of Nazianzos himself.25 In such theological conceptions, authorship mediates authoritative presence. Simultaneously, the Divine remains beyond discursive representation. As many late antique writers, both Christian and Neoplatonic, insist, divine meaning is ultimately inaccessible to human discourse. “To speak of God is impossible,” wrote Gregory of Nazianzos in one of his Theological Orations, referencing Plato.26 The mediation of presence and the untranslatability of divine meaning may appear mutually exclusive, yet they both operate according to the same logic.27 Authors are posited as part of a “chain” that mediates divine meaning. Yet neither the chain itself nor any of its individual parts is identical with the totality of this meaning.28 Authors, discourse, and consequently listeners and readers become forms of a content that defines as well as escapes them. Meaning suggests itself as immanent in its forms, yet remains transcendent.29 23

24

25 26

27

28

29

See Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 2.39, 32.14, and 43.65 where logos as hermˆeneus is placed between cognition (nous) and reception (akoˆe). For this view, Gregory is utilizing earlier thought; see Plato, Cratylus 407e5–408a2 and Ion 530c3–4 and 534e4 ff., with Philo, De Somniis 1.33, Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat 39.4–40.6, and De Posteritate Caini 106–109. Nelson 1980: 75–91; Cutler 2004. For a significant example, see the Paris, BNF, gr. 923 (ninth century, first half; John of Damascus’ Sacra Parallela) with multiple author portraits that distinguish divinely inspired from pagan writers; Brubaker 1999: 52–7. For other portraits of Gregory, see Galavaris 1969: 19–25. For Chrysostom: Krause 2004. For instance, in Paris, BNF, gr. 923 mentioned in the previous note, Gregory is the second most depicted figure after Basil of Caesarea; Weitzmann 1979: 228–36. See On Theology = Or. 28.4 with Plato, Timaeus 28c. Cf. Hermogenes, On Forms 1.6 = On Solemnity (246.23–247.7), a comment on the passage from the Timaeus. See also Basileios the Lesser (mid tenth century), Scholia 15.19 on Gregory’s Or. 28, for a Byzantine comment on Gregory’s passage and his debt to Plato. This tradition of thought culminated in the Christian apophaticism of the sixth century and the work On Divine Names by a Christian Neoplatonist known to the Byzantines as Dionysios the Areopagite. In this respect, I would disagree with the strong opposition between representational mimesis and symbolic/ritual reference, an opposition read into Neoplatonic writing; see Struck 2004 (e.g., pp. 227–53 on Proklos). For the metaphor of the “chain” of divine meaning, see Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 36.1 and Proklos, Comm. on the Timaeus 2.24.1–25 with allusions to Homer, Iliad 5.386 (also Odyssey 3.336 and 360). The metaphor is common in Psellos; e.g., Theol. i 62.101–22; Phil. min. i 46.119–22. What has been said of Latin biblical exegesis (Irvine 1994: 271) applies to late antique philosophical and theological hermeneutics in general: “Scripture was the supreme Text, a variegated fabric of

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This understanding of authorship privileges and perpetuates a strong sense of unquestionable authority, manifested in inspired authors and master readers.30 In the ambit of such authority, individual authorship emerges in paradoxical terms. Submitted to inspiration, authors are not authors in our sense of the word, but rather mediators or, as some texts argue, scribes.31 Yet exactly because of their full submission to divine inspiration, authors themselves become, to some degree, divine. Until the middle of the tenth century Gregory was read primarily as such a divine writer, a source of philosophical meaning. This is, for example, the focus of Niketas David’s scholia on Gregory’s Poems,32 promoting a kind of reading that would continue to the end of Byzantium and beyond. Psellos’ own philosophical interpretations of many passages of Gregory’s Orations exemplify that same tradition (despite their innovative use of Neoplatonic terms). In addition to this theological reading, we encounter a parallel interest in another aspect of the content of Gregory’s texts, this time as a source for secular knowledge. Such is the interest reflected in the Commentary on Gregory’s Poems by Kosmas of Jerusalem, the Philogregorios, i.e., “Fan of Gregory,” as the title of the commentary calls him, usually identified with the eighth-century hymnographer and adoptive brother of John of Damascus, but possibly a writer of the tenth century.33 These commentaries are themselves indebted to a sixth-century commentary on

30 31

32

33

multiple discourses, some manifest, but many hidden. This Text can never signify its totality . . . but continuously promises and postpones this totality through dissemination in a limitless chain of interpretations.” See further Stock 1996; Chin 2008. For a discussion, see Lim 1995 (esp. pp. 149–81). Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 43.68 (Basil as a scribe of the Spirit); Niketas Stethatos, Life and Conduct of Our Holy Father Symeon the New Theologian 37 (Symeon as an “instrument” of the Spirit; cf. sections 136 and 150 on Niketas himself as divinely inspired). Interpetation of the Arcane Poems of the Great Gregory the Theologian By Niketas David, the Servant of Christ, the Philosopher. Niketas wrote also prose paraphrases of fourteen poems of Gregory (PG 38 685–841; cf. Searby 2003). The emphasis on the theological content of Gregory’s text is evident also in the various epigrams on Gregory (most dating before the eleventh century) discussed in Kalamakis 1989. Collection and Interpretation of the Stories [historiai], From Both the Divinely Inspired Scripture and the Pagan Poets and Writers, Mentioned by the Divine Gregory in His Writings in Verse. Kazhdan 1991 proposes a tenth-century date, while Crimi and Demoen 1997 and the most recent editor of the text, Lozza 2000: 5–11, return to the traditional eighth-century dating. Kosmas’ text survives in two Byzantine MSS (Lozza knows only of the later one): the Athens, EBE, 2209 (dated to the year 1018; passages from Kosmas’ commentary in ff. 409v–414v; cf. Kotzabassi 2004: 27–31) and Vatican, BAV, gr. 1260 (dated to the twelfth century). For commentaries on Gregory in Byzantium in general: Sajdak 1914 and 1929–30; Lefherz 1958; Trisoglio 1983. To the commentaries we should also add various middle Byzantine lexika (the oldest dating to the mid tenth century) explaining difficult archaizing words in Gregory’s orations (L”xeiv –k toÓ Qeol»gou, from the MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Baroccianus 50, ed. J. Sajdak in Latte and H. Erbse 1965: 170–188; for the MS see Ronconi 2008) and poems (Kalamakis 1992; cf. Simelidis 2010).

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Gregory’s Orations, attributed by the Byzantines to Nonnos and circulating widely in the tenth and, increasingly, in the eleventh century.34 Within these texts, the main interests are content, meaning, and knowledge rather than form. Niketas David, for instance, inquires into Gregory’s view of ontological “principles [archai],” the “triadic monarchy,” and “rational substances,” while the commentary of Kosmas collects and explains stories (historiai) pertaining to “divine Providence” or “virtue.”35 Comments regarding Gregory’s value as a rhetorical stylist are infrequent. Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos, for instance, notes but does not elaborate on the fact that Gregory joined “philosophy” with the “art of discourse” and produced “one image shaped by varied forms [ideai]” (Discourse on the Return of the Relics of Our Holy Father Gregory the Theologian 525–9 and 592–6). Similarly, in his Encomium in Honor of Gregory (25.36–26.40), Niketas David mentions only once and in passing the stylistic qualities of Gregory, evoking Hermogenian terminology. Comparable are the remarks in the introduction of Kosmas’ commentary on Gregory’s poetry.36 During the course of the tenth century, however, as rhetoric was revived as a professional discipline in Constantinople, another strand in the reading of Gregory began to acquire prominence. The trend first becomes visible in new, widely circulating commentaries on Gregory’s Orations. The most important among them was composed for Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos by a bishop of the Cappadocian city of Caesarea, Basileios, who refers to himself as elachistos, the Lesser. Basileios’ scholia are often transmitted in the manuscripts combined with those of two other tenth-century writers: Georgios of Mokesos (another Cappadocian city) and a certain Theophilos, an otherwise unknown figure.37 34

35

36

37

Commentaries on four of Gregory’s Orations have survived (Or. 4, 5, 39, and 43); Nimmo Smith 1992 and 2001. Two manuscripts of ps.-Nonnos’ commentaries are accompanied by illustrations: Jerusalem, Taphou 14 (eleventh century, second half ) and Vatican, BAV, gr. 1947 (twelfth century); cf. Weitzman 1984: 6–92; Vokotopoulos 2002. Other early Byzantine scholia on Gregory’s Orations: Nimmo Smith 2000 and 2010. Niketas David, Interpetation of the Arcane Poems of the Great Gregory the Theologian, discourses 1 and 6; Kosmas, Collection and Interpretation of the Stories Mentioned by the Divine Gregory in His Writings in Verse, discourses 52 and 117 (pp. 155–60 and 231–2), 119 (233–60). After establishing that it is God who speaks through Gregory, Kosmas notes that Gregory’s books provide a threefold “benefit” to their readers: “experience in diction [lexis] and the muse of eloquence,” the ability “to traverse the heavens through the divine and heavenly content [ennoia]”; and the encounter of “narratives [historia]” which offer pleasure by their “variety [poikilia]” as well as “experience” and “training in speaking,” part of which is proper “delivery [hypokrisis]” (Collection and Interpretation of the Stories Mentioned By the Divine Gregory in His Writings in Verse 63.7–67.13, esp. 66.10 onward). The commentaries by Basileios, Georgios of Mokesos, and Theophilos have not been edited in their entirety; a partial edition of several notes: Puntoni 1886: 133–80 and 207–46; Sajdak 1914 (see esp. pp. 61–3 on Georgios and Theophilos); Cantarella 1925 and 1926; Basileios’ commentaries on Orations 4, 5, 8, and 25: PG 36.1073–1204; cf. Schmidt 2010. Thomas Schmidt (2001) has edited

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In his introductory letter, Basileios provides some information regarding the context and aims of this scholiastic activity. As he claims, he wishes to expand on the content of some of Gregory’s passages and provide guidance for the accurate oral delivery of Gregory’s texts, the hypokrisis, as he calls it, that will not distort the ˆethos of Gregory’s speech.38 His scholia indeed explain content – predominantly in terms of theology but also with regard to Hellenic references – and discuss matters of punctuation in order to enable the proper recitation of Gregory’s speeches.39 Beyond content and punctuation, however, Basileios claims that in certain cases he will also explain Gregory by reference to schˆemata and ideai (Letters 44–5; ed. Schmidt 2001). Using rhetorical terminology – often from Hermogenes – Basileios makes occasional comments on rhetorical figures and forms and discusses the rhetorical genre of Gregory’s speeches (whether, for instance, a speech belongs to the symbouleutikon or panˆegyrikos type).40 A similar attitude informs the scholiastic work of an author familiar to Psellos, Ioannes Geometres.41 His commentaries on four of Gregory’s speeches survive. There, as much as one can glean from this largely unedited work, the Byzantine writer discusses rhetorical matters such as the distribution of Gregory’s speeches into the various types of rhetorical genres.42 It is not a coincidence that Geometres also wrote an Encomium for Gregory of Nazianzos as well as a commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata and, possibly, on the Hermogenian corpus as well.43

38 39

40

41

42

43

Basileios’ dedicatory letter and scholia on Gregory’s On the Theophany = Or. 38. For the eighty-four MSS (the majority of which from the eleventh century) that transmit Basileios’ Commentaries, see Schmidt 2000. On Georgios and Theophilos: Sajdak 1929–30: 272; Lefherz 1958: 135–7; Trisoglio 1983: 224–5. Letter 40–41 and 46–56, (ed. Schmidt 2001). The mention of hypokrisis, also in Kosmas’ commentary (see note 36 above), perhaps corroborates a later, tenth-century date. See the discussion in Schmidt 2001: xxi-xxiv. The Anonymous Professor’s Letter 88 and his discussion of manuscript copying, collation, and correction specifically in matters of punctuation and proper delivery also belongs in this context; the professor’s mention of “the father” (line 49) is a reference to Gregory of Nazianzos. Basileios, Scholia 8.23–27 and 12.30–35, and the discussion in Schmidt 2001: xx-xxi. Similar notes are also in Georgios of Mokesos’ scholia; Cantarella 1926: 13.11–13; 18.25–19.8 (where a reference to “Hermogenian” rules); 20.4–7 (another reference to Hermogenes). For Geometres’ biography and encomium for Gregory, see p. 49 above. Psellos mentions Geometres by name twice, with some apparent dislike: Theol. i 47.80–105 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 40.42) (where Psellos opposes Sikeliotes for his criticisms of Geometres though still finds Geometres “quite burdensome and faulty”); 82.100–4 (Geometres copied earlier writers, though presenting their views as his own). See Sajdak 1914: 89–95 with partial edition of Geometres’ commentaries on Gregory’s Or. 1, 19, 38, and 45. The commentaries are transmitted in only three manuscripts, of which the most important is the late eleventh-century Vatican, BAV, Palatinus gr. 402; cf. pp. 63 and 258 below. Geometres’ commentaries on Aphthonios and possibly Hermogenes have not survived, though Geometres is cited repeatedly as an authority in Ioannes Doxapatres’ Commentary on Aphthonios, dated around the middle of the eleventh century – on Doxapatres, see pp. 71–2 below.

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It is to these tenth-century scholiasts that later Byzantine writers owed the fusion of canonical Greek rhetorical theory of the Imperial period (Hermogenes and Aphthonios) with canonical early Byzantine patristic rhetoric (Gregory of Nazianzos) and thus the full reintegration of rhetoric as a theoretical apparatus by which to think about authorship. Until this period, the extant Byzantine rhetorical manuals keep the traditions of pagan rhetorical theory and Christian writing clearly apart. For instance, in the commentaries on Hermogenes’ On Issues by Sopatros and Markellinos (fourth century?), Hermogenes’ On Forms by Syrianos (fifth century), and Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata by Ioannes of Sardeis (mid ninth century), Christian writing is never mixed with rhetorical theory.44 Byzantium lacked a “systematic Christian rhetoric” something like Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana for the West, an early and authoritative tradition, that is, wherein rhetoric embraces comprehensively “preaching . . . scriptural interpretation, grammar and theories of the sign, and the spiritual disciplines of reading and meditation.”45 The tenth-century scholiasts, however, introduced a fusion of the two traditions that, by the end of the century, developed into a full-scale theoretical project. This is evident in Ioannes Sikeliotes’ massive commentary on Hermogenes’ On Forms where Gregory’s speeches are extensively used as models. After Sikeliotes, Hermogenian rhetoric is Christian rhetoric and the reading of Gregory (and Christian rhetoric in general) through Hermogenes becomes a constant habit.46 Many of the details of how Gregory began to be read through the lenses of Imperial Greek rhetorical theory remain arguably unknown;47 perhaps its origins lie in the study of Greek Christian rhetoric in Syria and Palestine during the so-called 44

45

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47

The early Byzantine texts are transmitted in basically two manuscripts contemporary to Psellos: Paris, BNF, gr. 2923 (Sopatros, Markellinos, and Syrianos) and Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 433 (Sopatros). For these commentaries, see Kustas 1973 passim; for Ioannes: Alpers 2009 (pp. 15–16 for the manuscript transmission). Copeland and Sluiter 2009: 47–51 (Augustine in the West). The effort of Apollinaris in the fourth century to produce a “grammar in Christian form [typos]” was met with no success; cf. Sokrates Scholastikos, Ecclesiastical History 3.16.1–7. On Sikeliotes, see pp. 22–3, 34, 46 above with Conley 2003 (at pp. 146–7 on Sikeliotes’ sources, among which Dionysios of Halikarnassos is prominent). For the use of Gregory in Greek rhetorical manuals: Poynton 1934; Bady 2010. Psellos had read Sikeliotes, whom, however, he criticized for his faulty reading of Gregory of Nazianzos (Theol. i 102.20–3; on Greg. Naz. 1.1) and for not being a true “philosopher” (Theol. i 47.80–105; on Greg. Naz. Or. 40.42). The main MS for Sikeliotes is Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 57.5 (fourteenth century). Kustas devotes a rather general note on the subject (1973: 25 note 1). In his view, the tenth-century rhetorical turn to Gregory lies at the peak of “a process which must have accelerated following the resolution of the iconoclastic controversy and the fusion of classical and Christian interests for which that resolution paved the way.”

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“dark centuries.”48 What is certain, however, is that Gregory’s rhetoric as a rhetorical and not only a theological achievement becomes increasingly important for members of the Byzantine educated elite. psellos on gregory With the tenth-century rhetorical reading of Gregory, the stage was set for Psellos’ further rhetoricization of authorship. By the mid eleventh century, Gregory was undeniably in vogue. This is the century from which most of the manuscripts containing Gregory’s Orations date: an impressive number of 409 books.49 Among these, we also find the largest number of surviving commentaries and a significant portion of illustrated books.50 Psellos’ concentrated focus on this particular early Byzantine author therefore had significant social currency in a fervent cultural market – as one may infer from the disagreements among Gregory-, Basil-, and Chrysostom-fans mentioned by Psellos’ teacher Ioannes Mauropous.51 For a rhetorician such as Psellos, a dedication to Gregory was a means of self-promotion. The most eloquent example of this is Psellos’ main 48

49

50

51

Notably, Gregory is assumed as a model of rhetoric in the work of the Syriac writer Antony of Tagrit (datable anywhere between the late eighth to the twelfth century); on several occasions, Antony cites and evokes Gregory whom he characteristically calls “the greatest of the sophists,” “the greatest of rhetors and prince of sophists”; see Watt 1986 (esp. pp. 47, 55, 58, 62, and 66) and Watt 1995 – I thank Aldo Corcella for bringing these passages to my attention. One should also add that in Michael Synkellos’ early ninth-century grammar, which addressed a Greek audience in Arab-ruled territory (Donnet 1982), Gregory’s Orations are cited as examples of syntax. To be compared with the 62 manuscripts from the ninth, 213 from the tenth, and 316 from the twelfth century; the data from Somers 1997. A nice example of an eleventh-century Gregory manuscript that someone like Psellos might have possessed is the Vatican, BAV, Palatinus gr. 402 (late eleventh century, 240 x 155 mm). This expensive parchment book contains the full corpus of Gregory’s Orations along with marginal notes, Geometres’ scholia to Or. 1 and 45 (Sajdak 1914: 89–95), and his Encomium for Gregory (Tacchi-Venturi 1893); at a later date also Psellos’ Discourse on the style of Gregory was added. See p. 258 below. Cf. p. 57 above. The epigrams that Byzantine intellectuals/readers added to their manuscripts of Gregory’s Orations are telling of their tastes and interests; for some notable examples: Somers 1999; Mac´e and Somers 2000. Mauropous was responsible for the establishment of a common feast of the “Three Hierarchs” and wrote a speech for the occasion: Discourse on the Three Holy Fathers and Teachers, a text that, unlike most of Mauropous’ works, circulated widely. Earlier in his career, Mauropous devoted some work specifically to Gregory; Ioannes Mauropous, Poem 29 = On the Discourses of the Theologian That Are Not Read (on which cf. Mossay 1983), and Letter 17 with Psellos, Encomium For Ioannes, Metropolitan of Euchaita = Or. pan. 17.288–98 (Psellos observes that Gregory was Mauropous’ model of rhetoric). For the context and discussion of the feast of the “Three Hierarchs,” see Agapitos 1998b; also Bonis 1966. Ioannes Sikeliotes alludes to similar debates over the interpretation of Gregory’s rhetoric: Prolegomena 403.16–404.11. The first joint depiction of the three hierarchs dates to 1066, a miniature in the so-called Theodore-Psalter (London, Add. 19352, f. 35v; cf. Krause 2004: 3).

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essay on Gregory’s style, the Discourse Improvised By the Hypertimos Psellos to the Bestarchˆes Pothos Who Asked Him to Write about the Style of the Theologian, on which my discussion will focus. The Discourse is addressed to the student and friend Pothos; its date is uncertain. Psellos provides an encomium of Gregory’s style, enriched by a diverse intertextual tradition. There were similar earlier texts; most important for Psellos were Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ essay on Demosthenes as well as his On Composition which touches on some of the same ideas (this latter text was summarized by Psellos), several sections of Philostratos’ Lives of the Sophists, and Synesios of Kyrene’s Dion, itself a response to Philostratos’ view of Dio Chrysostom in the Lives.52 Psellos engages with the premises of these earlier texts and introduces further concepts from Neoplatonic hermeneutics to Gregory’s own theological aesthetics. This diverse intertextual tradition is woven into the fabric of Psellos’ text, so much so that one of the two editors of the Discourse regarded the text as an empty repetition of older thought-patterns, a repetition useless for Quellenforschung.53 The excessive, eclectic, and multilayered rhetoric of the text is certainly different from the systematic exposition of Aristotle or Hermogenes. Yet Psellos’ rhetoric is strategic. It allows the promotion of novel ideas through a discourse that would have seemed traditional to contemporary eyes. Simultaneously, Psellos’ elaborate rhetoric serves to identify him as a perfect rhetor. Rather than citing and analyzing Gregory’s texts in any systematic way, Psellos speaks for him rather than about him, and, in effect, becomes interchangeable with Gregory. Indeed, much of the theoretical richness and originality of this text resides in the tension between Psellos’ attempt to present Gregory as a generic model and his effort to promote individual, inimitable authorship, whether Gregory’s or his own.

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53

Psellos mentions Dionysios twice in his essay by name (§ 12: 107–8, a reference to Dionysios’ preference for Demosthenes and Lysias, and § 14: 131–4, a reference to “the eminent Dionysios” and his study of composition); he also alludes to his writings on many occasions (see below). Similarly, Psellos quotes directly from Synesios’ Dion; cf. Levy 1912: 41 and Mayer 1911: 72 note 2 and also pp. 73–4 below. As is evident from the Discourse as well as the Chronographia (see Carelos 1991) and his lectures (e.g., Theol. i 98.15–21, on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1) Psellos had direct knowledge of Philostratos’ Lives of the Sophists, whose earliest MSS date to the tenth century (Stefec 2010): Vatican, BAV, gr. 99 (tenth century, first quarter); Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 59.15 (second half; cf. p. 54 above). Mayer 1911: 60–61: “Der Gewinn f¨ur die Geschichte der antiken Rhetorik ist ein sp¨arlicher . . . bei Psellos dagegen la¨uft die ganze koplizierte Machinerie so gut wie leer.”

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imitation? The Discourse is a carefully structured text.54 Psellos begins with an introduction on Gregory as a model of rhetoric (§ 1–7: 1–59) and then devotes the first half of his essay to Gregory’s word selection and composition (a traditional topic; § 8–25: 60–234). After a momentary digression on the varied content of Gregory’s discourse (§ 26–33: 242–303), Psellos returns to Gregory’s treatment of the three genres of rhetoric: deliberative, judicial, and, especially, panegyrical (§ 33–34: 304–85). He continues with some general remarks: on Gregory’s paradoxically lucid obscurity, mixture of stylistic virtues (the Forms), and figurative style (§ 47–54: 386–435). The essay ends with a brief review and an epilogue addressed to Pothos (§ 56–57: 436–54). Two major concerns preoccupy Psellos: from where does Gregory’s discourse originate; and what is the nature as well as effect of Gregory’s style, a topic to which we will return in the next chapter. In the first two paragraphs of the essay, Psellos treats successively the two primary sources of authorship in its Byzantine conception: imitation and divine inspiration. Here is Psellos’ opening (§ 1–3: 1–24): Mž qaum†sv, P»qe moi f©ltate, e« tän pr¼ –moÓ çht»rwn kaq’ ™na toÆv sofist†v te kaª filos»fouv, Âsoi glÛtthv –scžkasin –pim”leian, pr¼v t¼n tv —rmhne©av carakthris†ntwn Þra·sm»n, –gÜ t¼ plqov suste©lav, e«v ™na kaª m»non Šndra tŸn psan toÓ l»gou t”cnhn kaª dÅnamin suneiloc”nai –pikece©rhka. o¬ m•n g‡r, –peª t‡v tv pr†xewv ˆret‡v oÉk e«v ™na tän p†ntwn, ˆll‡ par’ Šlloiv Šllav teqewržkasin (–boÅlonto d• mŸ ¡mitel tŸn kr©sin toÓ caraktrov e«senegke±n, ˆll‡ tele©an kaª ˆphrtism”nhn), di‡ toÓto Šllo ti par’ Šllou pr¼v t¼ e²dov sunhran©santoá . . . –gÜ d•, –peidŸ toÓto mllon par’ –ke©nouv eÉtÅchka, ™natän p†ntwn «de±n, t¼n tv qeolog©av –pÛnumon, fhmª Grhg»rion, t‡ par’ —k†stoiv –ke©nwn –xa©reta ˆkrib”steron –n to±v —autoÓ l»goiv kataker†santa, ãste mŸ doke±n kat‡ zlon –ke©nwn taÓta sunagage±n, ˆll’ aÉt¼n –x —autoÓ gen”sqai ˆrc”tupon logikv c†ritov Šgalma, di‡ taÓta, tän par’ —t”roiv ˆf”menov «deän toÓ l»gou, toÓton m»non soi proeil»mhn carakthr©sai. Rhetoricians before me identified the style [charaktˆerizein] of each orator and philosopher (those attentive to language) with a view to their elegance of discourse. My dearest Pothos, do not be amazed that I, by contrast, 54

The Greek text used here is that of Levy 1912, though Mayer’s edition (1911) has also been taken into consideration. In brackets, I give the number of paragraphs as divided in Levy and the number of lines as given by Mayer. Bibliography, editions, manuscripts: Moore 2005: item 1011. Translations: Miller 1975: 161–171 (Russian); Solarino 1988 (Italian).

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The main thrust of this preamble is to situate Psellos’ view of Gregory above and against earlier rhetorical theory. Psellos argues that, unlike other rhetoricians – such as Dionysios of Halikarnassos and Philostratos, both named later (§ 12; 107–11) – he devotes his essay to a single as well as singular author. This claim is based on another assertion that Psellos will repeat throughout the essay: Gregory’s discourse is superior to the rhetoric of anyone before him and, consequently, lies beyond imitation, as this concept was understood in rhetorical manuals. The essay is filled with comparisons between Gregory and earlier Greek rhetors. Plato is the most mentioned among them (eight times by name), followed by Demosthenes and Isocrates (six times each). Psellos owes the pre-eminence accorded to Plato to Neoplatonic exegesis, while the repeated reference to Isocrates and, especially, Demosthenes is certainly due to Dionysios of Halikarnassos and Hermogenes.56 Psellos’ claim is consistent: Gregory cannot be explained by reference to a pre-existing tradition. As he writes, a few lines after the quoted passage, Gregory did not emulate others, but found in himself the sources, the “streams,” of each rhetorical virtue (§ 5: 38–45): î O g‡r mhdeªv tän p†ntwn ˆf’ —autoÓ mhd• pr¼v t‡v –pª m”rouv ˆret‡v ›schken, oÕtov mŸ kat‡ zlon ˆrca©wn, ˆll’ ˆp¼ tv o«ke©av phgv 55

56

Except when Psellos is clearly alluding to grace, the Christian version of charis, I translate the word as charm, a common term in non-Christian aesthetic vocabulary; see e.g., Dionysios of Halikarnassos, On Demosthenes 13.9. Other authors mentioned more than once are, in order of appearance: Lysias (4), Thucydides (3), Herodotus (3), Aeschines (2), Dio Chrysostom (2), Plutarch (2), Aristotle (2), and Ailios Aristeides (2). For the post-classical reception of Isocrates, see Pinto 2003.

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¾moÓ te p†nta ˆnastomÛsav kaª pr¼v m©an diaulwn©sav logikŸn sÅrigga kaª šn t¼ plqov pepoihkÜv kaª t Ëp†t tŸn m”shn parasun†yav kaª taÅthn t Ëperbola©, e²ta dŸ noeräv plžxav kaª toioÓton m”lov sav t b©, o³on oÉd• t¼n kÅknon fas©n, ¾p»te m”lloi, Þv mÓqov, par‡ t¼n o«ke±on qe¼n ˆpodhme±n, tŸn fÅsin ËperefÛnhsen. Gregory achieved that which no one had ever achieved on his own account, not even with regard to particular virtues. Without emulating [zˆelos] the ancients, he opened up each and every stream from a source within himself, channeled them into one discursive set of pipes, turned the multitude into one, attached the highest to the middle and this in turn to the lowest, then struck up a spiritual tune and sang during his life such a melody as not even the swan sings, when, as the story goes, it is about to migrate toward its own god. With all this, Gregory out-voiced nature.

Or, as Psellos remarks in the middle of his essay (§ 24: 228–32), Gregory possessed all the virtues of rhetoric in his “own soul” and, thus, “did not produce his discourse by looking at a model [paradeigma], but was himself an archetypal stylistic model [charaktˆer] for himself = oÉ pr¼v par†deigma bl”pwn ˆpet”lei toÆv l»gouv, ˆllì §n aÉt¼v —aut ˆrc”tupov caraktžr.”57 This view has ramifications for Psellos’ conception of authorship, if placed in the horizons of rhetorical theory and its promotion of mimˆesis, the imitation of authoritative rhetors. Though universal, this promotion was not without qualifications; in certain rare instances, exceptional authors were said to operate beyond imitating others. The nearest instance to Psellos’ formulation was put forward by Dionysios of Halikarnassos at the end of his introductory remarks in the On Demosthenes (8.13–31; cf. 33.16–28): ëEn¼v m•n oÉqen¼v  x©wse gen”sqai zhlwtŸv oÎte caraktrov oÎte ˆndr»v, ¡mi”rgouv tin‡v Œpantav o«»menov e²nai kaª ˆtele±v, –x ‰p†ntwn d’ aÉtän Âsa kr†tista kaª crhsimÛtata §n, –kleg»menov sunÅfaine kaª m©an –k pollän di†lekton ˆpet”lei . . . t¼n caraktra toÓton ˆpod©dwmi aÉt t¼n –x ‰p†shv mikt¼n «d”av. Demosthenes did not deem it worthy to become an emulator either of a single style [charaktˆer] or a single man, since he considered them all to be half-worked and incomplete. Instead, he selected and wove together from everyone the most powerful and useful elements and thus brought into completion one idiom from many . . . This is the style I attribute to him: the one mixed from every kind of form [idea]. 57

For a similar claim regarding John Chrysostom, see On John Chrysostom § 3–5.

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Dionysios’ wording here is similar to the one used by Psellos.58 Indeed, Psellos seems to follow generally Dionysios’ approach who structured his essay by comparing Demosthenes somewhat polemically to the earlier rhetorical tradition so as to demonstrate his superiority. Yet the conception of authorship is not identical in the two passages. Unlike Psellos, Dionysios does not abandon the notion of imitation altogether. Rather, he substitutes for it the idea of mixture and unity. In Dionysios’ conception, the best rhetor lies at the end of a tradition that he filters, mixes, and then fuses into a perfect single discursive idiom (mia dialektos). The dependence upon authoritative models is thus not discarded but simply placed within a larger teleological field. Demosthenes cannot exist without the tradition before him, just as the tradition cannot reach its inherent and natural potential without Demosthenes.59 Dionysios’ attitude, expressed in this passage, is symptomatic of a larger tension embedded in Greek rhetorical theory. The tension lies in the rhetoricians’ indecision as to whether to promote a model rhetor (such as, for instance, Demosthenes) as a particular and unique author irreducible to rhetorical models and principles or to present ideal style as the perfect manifestation of all rhetorical virtues and thus as a generic impersonal type that can be imitated by future individual rhetors. The vacillation is ultimately one between description and prescription. The word charaktˆer, which Psellos uses in imitation of Dionysios, is crucial in this respect. When referring to other rhetoricians, the word indicates generic style, the product of selection among a variety of rhetorical virtues exemplified by multiple authors who contributed to the creation of an ideal, imitable charaktˆer. When referring to Gregory, however, Psellos employs the verb charaktˆerizein and then later the noun charaktˆer in order to signify the individual unique traits of Gregory’s rhetoric as the products of his own agency, not the imitation of others. 58

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See Dionysios’ “oÉqen¼v  x©wse gen”sqai zhlwtžv,” “¡mi”rgouv tin‡v Œpantav o«»menov e²nai kaª ˆtele±v,” and “m©an –k pollän di†lekton ˆpet”lei” with, respectively, Psellos’ “mŸ doke±n kat‡ zlon –ke©nwn . . . mŸ kat‡ zlon ˆrca©wn,” “–boÅlonto d• mŸ ¡mitel tŸn kr©sin toÓ caraktrov e«senegke±n, ˆll‡ tele©an kaª ˆphrtism”nhn,” and “pr¼v m©an diaulwn©sav logikŸn sÅrigga kaª šn t¼ plqov pepoihkÜv.” Psellos’ earlier phrase “elegance of discourse = t¼n tv —rmhne©av . . . Þra·sm»n” is also reminiscent of the beginning of Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ On Composition (1) where Dionysios refers to the love for discursive beauty that characterizes the impulsive yet inexperienced youth: “–pt»htai g‡r Œpasa n”ou yucŸ perª t¼n tv —rmhne©av Þra·sm»n.” Dionysios’ diction is reminiscent of the Aristotelian language of natural telos, both in the cited passage but also later in On Demosthenes (cf. 14.1–5 and 33.16–28). For the emphasis on “nature” as the teleological horizon of discourse in Aristotle (Rhetoric 1404b18–23 and, especially, Poetics 1448b4ff., 1455a32–33, 1449a15, 1450b27–28, and 1460a3–5), cf. Ricoeur 1975: 13–61.

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The ambiguity is recurrent in Psellos’ writings.60 It also is a seminal concern with theorists of rhetoric. While the general tendency, deep-rooted perhaps in the very nature of rhetorical manuals, was to adopt a prescriptive mode and promote generic and universal virtues, rhetoricians drew attention to the issues concerning authorial subjectivity raised by such an approach. Dionysios touched upon the topic of Demosthenes’ particular style (idios charaktˆer) in a significant passage of his On Demosthenes (50). Similarly, Hermogenes (using the equally ambiguous term idea: form) discussed the problem of whether to focus on Demosthenes’ specific style (idea) or on generic virtues (ideai) in his introduction to On Forms (pp. 213–26). Byzantine commentators, inspired by Hermogenes, dwelled on the same problem, often juxtaposing the term idea, signifying generic virtues, and the ambiguous word charaktˆer, which could indicate individual style.61 The passages are many, the views complex, and the nuances of emphasis subtle. Psellos – our focus here – presents the tradition in a rather crude way. In his view, other theorists have a universalizing perspective on style, while he has come to offer a new, individualizing perspective. To some extent, this is a misrepresentation of the tradition and Psellos has an obvious agenda in adopting it.62 But his view is not entirely unjustified. For, in truth, it would be difficult to identify writers who, before Psellos, place the author’s individual style so unequivocally and emphatically beyond the rhetorical tradition. Maximizing the tension between objective virtues (ideai or generic charaktˆeres) and subjective authorship (charaktˆer), Psellos chooses to accentuate an authorial subject who seems to stand entirely on his own. inspiration? That this view of authorship was not simply rhetorical fireworks, but one that Psellos was willing to follow through is evident from the way he proceeds to discuss the source of discourse. Since Psellos declares that 60

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See further Psellos, Charikleia and Leukippe 66–8: “the book on Leukippe was polished in imitation (pros mimˆema) of her (i.e., Charikleia; the book of Heliodoros), but the painter (i.e., Achilles Tatios) did not transfer all the elements of his archetypal painting (“–n t ˆrcetÅp graf”) to his own style (“pr¼v t¼n ­dion caraktra”).” Also Theol. i 79.75–7, on Maximos the Confessor. See Kustas 1973: 30–4 for a discussion. For instance, Psellos downplays the primacy of Demosthenes that is evident in both Dionysios and Hermogenes. The latter theorist is significantly not named in the Discourse, even though elsewhere Psellos shows his awareness as well as approval of Hermogenes’ preference for a single author; cf. In support of the nomophylax against Ophrydas = Or. for. 3.279–82 and Theol. i 19.81–4 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 40.24 – on this text see also pp. 83–5, 94, and 253 below).

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Gregory’s rhetoric operates beyond the principles and models of rhetorical art, we might expect him to then argue that Gregory obtained his exquisite discourse directly from God, through inspiration. This would be the typical Byzantine attitude. Psellos, however, continues with a different thought (§ 4: 27–38): E« m•n oÔn ¾ m”gav –ke±nov ˆnŸr, ãsper t‡v tv filosof©av ˆrc‡v Šnwqen e­lhfe, pr¼v t‡v ˆswm†touv kaª qe©av «d”av t¼n noÓn ˆgagÜn kaª ˆp¼ tv —nia©av phgv toÆv tv gnÛsewv aËt ˆpomeris†menov ½cetoÅv, oÌtw dŸ kaª t¼ tän l»gwn k†llov kaª kr†tov –ke±q”n poqen ˆporržtwv par”spase kaª to±v —autoÓ suggr†mmasi kat‡ l»gouv mousikv kre©ttonov sunek”rase, kain¼n toÓt’ ‹n e­h t¼ n»hma,63 kaª ta±v ˆphriqmhm”naiv phga±v –k toÓ oÉranoÓ sunna”tw kaª l»gou phgž, ˆf’ ¨v –ke±nov met‡ tän Šllwn e«v k»ron spas†menov toÆv potamoÆv ¡m±n tv logikv –p”cee c†ritov. e« d’ oÉd•n  ti mŸ qe±on –ke±s” –stin, t‡ d’ Šlla k†llh –ke©nwn mimžmata –k tän yucikän £ fusikän ˆrcän proerc»mena, kaª oÌtwv ¾ qaum†siov oÕtov ˆnŸr t¼ Ëp•r fÅsin ˆpenegk†menov fa©netai. That great man had received the first principles [archˆe] of philosophy from above, by uplifting his mind toward the incorporeal and divine forms [ideai] and taking a portion of the streams of knowledge from that unitary source [heniaia pˆegˆe]. One might then suppose that he also seized the beauty and power of his discourse in an ineffable way from some heavenly source and mixed it with his writings according to harmonies of a superior music. This would be a novel idea and one would then have to add to the heavenly sources, which have already been enumerated, a source also for discourse. From this source, along with the others, Gregory drew his fill and poured the rivers of his discursive charm [logikˆe charis] over us. If, however, only divine things exist in heaven and all other kinds of beauty64 are imitations of those heavenly things and flow from first principles [archˆe] in the soul or in nature, even so this amazing man appears to have obtained what is beyond nature [to hyper physin].

While Psellos adopts the notion that Gregory is a divinely inspired author in what pertains to his theology, the content of his speeches (cf. also § 32: 288–295 where Gregory is compared to the Apostle Paul), he is unwilling to accept that Gregory’s style too is divinely inspired. For, in this essay, Psellos is not particularly interested in promoting Gregory as a Christian rhetor, a theologian. Notably, he devotes only twenty lines of his Discourse to “theology” (ll. 280–303) and, even there, he is often interested in sensual beauty rather than theology per se – writing, for instance, of dogmas as 63 64

“N»hma” is the reading of the MSS, adopted also by Mayer; Levy proposes “nma.” Psellos refers to the “beauty of discourse [logoi]” (cf. § 4: 30).

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“beauties of roses.” Psellos’ aim is, rather, to show Gregory as a unique rhetor, irreducible to either rhetorical tradition or divine inspiration. What is then the source of Gregory’s style? Psellos first entertains a certain supposition. Perhaps, we are told, one should assume that Gregory “ineffably seized the beauty and power of discourse from some heavenly source,” and one should thus postulate the existence of such a heavenly “source for discourse.” This is not a new supposition. In middle Byzantine writing, we encounter the idea that rhetoric, as form and style distinct from content, originates directly in God. Such a notion is first attested in Photios, in a letter arguing the superiority of Paul’s discursive “wisdom, power, and force” over the ancient rhetors. In Photios’ view, the origin of this superior rhetorical style (and not just content) was divine “grace.”65 During the eleventh century, similar ideas appeared in an extensive commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata by Ioannes Doxapatres, an author whom Psellos perhaps knew but never mentions by name.66 In his introductory lectures to the commentary, Doxapatres spends several pages on the question “whether rhetoric exists” and concludes that “rhetoric both exists and is from and in God = kaª –k qeoÓ kaª –n qe.”67 Comparable is the argument put forward by Psellos’ teacher, Ioannes Mauropous, in his speech on the three hierarchs – Basil of Caesarea, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom. Mauropous insists on the divinely inspired power of the three Fathers’ rhetorical style.68 65

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Letter 165, to Georgios, metropolitan of Nikomedia, dated to 867–872: Kustas 1961–2 and 1962; Afinogenov 1995. Comparable trends are evident earlier in the western Christian tradition: Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana 3.84 and 87, 4.25–6, 4.31 ff., and 4.59; also Auerbach 1993: 47 (on some eighth-century texts). Doxapatres’ commentary (Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata): Walz 1835; the introductory Homilies also in Rabe 1931. The commentary (or at least parts of it) must post-date 1042, since, in it (pp. 508.18–509.3), we encounter a model ˆethopoiia in the voice of the emperor Michael V Kalaphates, “after he was deposed from kingship,” an event dating to April 1042; cf. Rabe 1907: 580–1. Doxapatres also wrote commentaries on Hermogenes’ On Issues, On Invention, and On Forms, all still unedited, with the exception of their Introductions, ed. in Rabe’s Prolegomenon Sylloge (1931). On Doxapatres: Kustas 1973: 25–6; Gibson 2009. In K-D 20 to patrikios Michael (26.2 ff.), Psellos mentions a well-composed, well-inscribed, and multi-volume commentary on Hermogenes’ Staseis (On Issues) that he sent to his friend Michael. He does not give the name of the author of this commentary, yet describes him as “the wise teacher of ours, the learned and great rhetor = toÓ sofoÓ didask†lou toÓ ¡met”rou, toÓ log©ou kaª meg†lou çžtorov”; could this be Doxapatres? Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 83.1–93.15, at 93.13–15. Doxapatres’ question is reminiscent of early Byzantine theological debates as to whether “there was a time when the Logos (Christ) did not exist” (cf. Athanasios, De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi, passim). This kind of questioning was standard also in Neoplatonic thought regarding the “existence” of philosophy; cf. Westerink 1962: xxix with Psellos, Response Regarding the Types of Philosophy = Phil. min. i 49.48–51. Discourse on the Three Holy Fathers and Teachers 108 (the voices of the Fathers equal that of the Spirit); 113 (on Chrysostom’s divine, rather than human, discourse); 115 (the discourse of the Fathers

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In response to such contemporary theories, Psellos entertains the possibility – or the “new” thought, as he calls it – that Gregory might have seized the beauty of his discourse from some heavenly source. However, he does not seem to endorse it. Rather, he immediately counters it with another, more likely scenario, consistent with his own Neoplatonic ontology. According to this view, existence is layered hierarchically in a chain of ontological strata that begin with God and proceed downwards through various intermediary levels in the following order: mind (nous), soul, nature, body, and, finally, matter.69 The first three layers, from mind to nature, are regarded as secondary causes of motion and, hence, each is seen as partially the origin of the layer immediately below it. Psellos, therefore, can speak of the soul and nature as “first principles” and locate, in the cited passage, the most immediate origin of the “beauty of discourse” in these two middle layers. The divine realm remains a distant referent of “imitation,” and is not postulated as a direct source.70 Will this second supposition explain Gregory’s rhetoric? Psellos is quick to dismiss this view as well. In his opinion, even in such a version of (as one might call it) the theological ontology of discursive beauty, Gregory must be regarded as unique, “having obtained what is beyond nature,” thus operating beyond the natural course of causation and origins: “Gregory achieved that which no one ever had achieved on his own account . . . by opening up simultaneously every stream from a source within himself [my italics], . . . Gregory out-voiced nature.” Rather than seeing him as Godinspired in either a direct or indirect fashion, Psellos prefers to see Gregory, the rhetor, as a kind of metaphysical creature himself, who operated beyond the usual patterns of inspiration. The close parallelism of authorial subjectivity with divine agency is signaled by Psellos in a variety of ways. For instance, several of his phrases either derive from or allude to the imagery applied to Divinity in early Byzantine Neoplatonic and patristic discourse: the reference to Gregory’s “own source” (§ 5) and the image of him as the musician who unites all pitches in order to produce his song (§ 5) are reminiscent (Commentary on

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is like that of the Apostles: “spiritual,” “God-inspired,” and “natural”); cf. also p. 116 (perfect mixture of content and form, “mind with logos, words with things”). See also Mauropous’ Poem 22. Psellos returns recurrently to this hierarchical scheme; see, e.g., the order of presentation in his Concise Answers to Various Questions: God (discussed in chapters 1–20), nous (21–9), psychˆe (30–56; with four appendices 194–7), physis (57), and then topics relating to the body and matter (58–193). For the Neoplatonic tradition: Siorvanes 1996: part 3 (with a focus on Proklos). Cf. also Psellos, On Eternity 2–12 (ed. Westerink 1948: appendix 2) on the absence of discourse in the heavenly, extra-temporal realm.

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the Timaeus 1.319.3–9 and Commentary on the Republic 2.4.15–20); Psellos’ comparison of Gregory to a “heaven” whose “beauty and grandeur is by itself sufficient to astonish every soul” (§ 13: 123–5) alludes to Gregory of Nazianzos’ image of God (Or. 40.41). Likewise the intertext of the following later passage (§ 15: 138–42): íWsper g†r fasin o¬ fil»sofoi ˆf†ntasta dÅo taÓta e²nai, t¼n noÓn kaª t¼n qe»n, t‡ d’ Šlla Ëpop©ptein ta±v –nno©aiv ¡män, ˆmudräv m•n Âsa tv yucikv oÉs©av, tŸn d• fÅsin –pª mllon kaª t‡ Ëp’ aÉtŸn sÛmata, oÌtw dŸ kaª ¡ tän l”xewn toÅtou sunqžkh tŸn fantas©an Ëperekp©ptei ¡män. The philosophers argue that only two things are unimaginable: intellect and God. All else remains within our purview: that which concerns the substance of the soul is only dimly comprehensible, while nature and bodies (which are below nature) are more manifest. Gregory’s composition is like the intellect and God, for it too falls beyond and outside our imagination [phantasia].

An “unimaginable” nature is a distinctive feature of God according to Gregory of Nazianzos.71 Psellos evokes it to explain the uniqueness of Gregory’s art. We may probe deeper. The passage where Gregory is depicted as a musician who turns “the multitude into one” and sings like the “swan” in his parting moments contains further allusions. One is Synesios’ image of the perfect “philosopher” who turns “the multitude into one” and like Apollo sings “his sacred and ineffable melody” (Dion 5.1).72 Another is the imagery used with reference to Plato by two sixth-century Alexandrian texts, the Commentary on the First Alcibiades by Olympiodoros and the Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy by an anonymous Christian teacher.73 The two texts, introductory courses into Platonic philosophy and Neoplatonic exegesis, presented anecdotal information in which Plato was identified with the singing swan, the symbol of Apollo in Neoplatonic theology.74 Such stories 71

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Cf. Gregory of Nazianzos, On the Theophany = Or. 38.7 (on this text see pp. 75–6 below), an elaborate description of divinity where we read of God’s essence as “extending beyond [hyperekpiptein] conception” and providing “images [phantasiai]” impossible to capture; these phrases are cited verbatim in Psellos, Concise Answers to Various Questions 15 (a chapter on “Who is God”) and alluded to in his Oration on the Annunciation = Or. hag. 2.12–14 (Christ’s immaculate conception). See Levy 1912: 40 on Psellos’ debts to Synesios in the Discourse and p. 64 above. See Westerink 1982 and 1962. On the two authors, of whom the latter is heavily indebted to the former, see also the introduction in Jackson, Lycos, and Tarrant 1998; also Westerink and Laourdas 1962. Psellos alludes to both texts several times; cf. the indices in Phil. min. i and ii. Olympiodoros, Commentary 2.29–31, 83–6 and 155–62 with Anonymous, Prolegomena 1.20–38 and Riginos 1976: 9–38 for a discussion. Neoplatonic curriculum: e.g., Siorvanes 1996: 114–7.

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made a case for Plato’s actual divinity, the kind of divinity that Synesios too imagined for his philosopher.75 Psellos was well aware of the Neoplatonic association of Plato with Apollonian genealogy (Theol. i 106.110–113; Phil. min. i 46.49; Phil. min. ii 19 p. 89.15–16); indeed, in a letter Psellos suggests that the Platonic metaphor of the “swan’s song” might apply to himself (S 176 to Aristenos, Bourtzes, and Iasites; 454.21–25). The passage from Synesios’ Dion too was a favorite one (5.1): beyond the allusion in the Discourse, Psellos cites the passage verbatim in a funerary text, the Monody in Honor of the Prˆotosynkellos and Metropolitan of Ephesos Kyr Nikephoros (K-D i 206–10; at 208.6–9). There is a crucial difference, however, between the quasi-deification of the author in these earlier texts and Psellos’ view of Gregory. The Neoplatonists attribute divine qualities to the ideal philosopher in order to underline the authoritative content of philosophical discourse. Psellos, by contrast, uses similar wording in order to delineate Gregory’s style. While the Neoplatonists were attempting to substantiate the unquestionable authority of a philosopher’s message, Psellos employs their theological argument to underscore the value of an author’s rhetoric. the author as creator If neither inspiration nor imitation can adequately describe Gregory, how is Psellos’ reader to conceive of this unique rhetor? Without developing a fully delineated theory, Psellos makes a potent suggestion in the Discourse and a series of other texts as to what actually comprises model authorship in his view. This suggestion is already present in the passages that preface the Discourse. The vocabulary and imagery there borrowed from theological and philosophical discourse are not simply evocative of divinity but additionally stem from discussions devoted explicitly to cosmology, the process by which the world came to existence. The metaphor of the superb musician evokes Proklos’ description of the cosmic Chorus-leader who unites all with his “divine harmony” (Comm. on the Republic 2.4.15–20). Similarly, Psellos’ comparison of Gregory with God as well as the intellect that are “beyond our imagination” alludes to the central role that the divine nous is given in Neoplatonic cosmology; the idea is prevalent again in Proklos 75

“Plato was a divine [theios] man” the Anonymous proclaims early in his text, just as he concludes his lengthy essay with the words “the most divine Plato”; see Prolegomena 1.20 (cf. 5.1) with 28.14–15. Similarly, Synesios speaks of gradual initiation of those who, “filled with inspiration,” may enter the “temple” of the author; Dion 5.7, 6.1, and 10.9.

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and his Commentary on the Timaeus (1.306.31–207.14 and 2.98.14–99.9).76 More importantly, Psellos’ references to Gregory’s being “beyond nature” and his ability to “out-voice nature” (§ 4–5: 37–45) hint at a specific characteristic of divinity, indeed the most typical characteristic of God in the Christian tradition: God’s metaphysical position in relation to the created world.77 That it is creation which Psellos evokes here becomes clear when we read the cited references alongside another passage from Psellos’ exegetical lectures, inspired by a phrase from Gregory’s Oration on the Theophany or On the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Or. 38; Plate 5), one of the sixteen ‘Liturgical Homilies’ read on Christmas Day, and the most commented upon and cited text in Psellos’ lectures (Theol. i 90.66–76; on Greg. Naz., Or. 38.11): ëO d• tr»pov tv dhmiourg©av oÕtov Šllov –stª par’ Án o¬ tän ëEllžnwn fil»sofoi –peis†gousin· . . . Þv m•n g‡r –ke±noi poioÓsin, ˆkolouq© douleÅei fÅsewv ¾ qe»v· Þv d• oÕtov dogmat©zei, Ëp•r tŸn fÅsin aÉt t¼ dhmiourge±n p”fuken. oÌtw goÓn kaª –n t kosmogon© ›stin oÕ tŸn fÅsin Ëperfwne± ¾ qe»v. This manner of creation is different from the one that the Hellenic philosophers introduce . . . As they have it, God works in conformity with nature; but as he [i.e., Gregory] dogmatically asserts, God’s creative activity is by His nature beyond nature [hyper tˆen physin]. Thus it happens that, during the creation of the world, God occasionally out-voices [hyper-phonei] nature.

Psellos discusses in this passage the difference between Gregory’s understanding of creation (dˆemiourgia) and that of the “Hellenic philosophers.” Two conflicting ontological models are presented: “Hellenic” monistic cosmology, according to which God operates within the boundaries of nature, juxtaposed to the Christian notion of the divine Creator who works beyond nature. Remarkably, it is the latter ontological model of an absolutely free 76

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See further Proklos, Platonic Theology 1.124.12–20, 3.61.3–8 and 5.59.18–28; Commentary on the Parmenides 764.1–16; Commentary on the Cratylus 106.1–10. With Psellos, On the Forms about which Plato Speaks = Phil. min. ii 33 (113.9–114.24) (on the demiurgic nous, referencing primarily Plotinos’ Enneads 5.9). On the Neoplatonic nous as appropriated by Psellos, see further Pontikos 1992: lxvii-lxix and O’Meara 1989: 62–4. Among countless statements, see John of Damascus, Precise Exposition of the Orthodox Faith with Psellos’ Theol. i 69 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 39.13); the latter is an important text for Psellos’ understanding of physis – in lines 84–94, Psellos demarcates the difference between human and divine nature in Christ with the following words: “being superior to fate, the incorporeal element is by nature [pephyke] superior also to nature and is rather God, who not only out-voiced nature, but is also himself its creator [dˆemiourgos].”

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Plate 5 The beginning of Gregory of Nazianzos’ Oration on the Theophany or On the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Or. 38); Florence, Pluteus 7.32 (late eleventh or early twelfth century), f. 63 recto.

and creative agent that Psellos transfers to Gregory, the author. Like God the Creator, Gregory “out-voices” nature.78 78

Similar wording and notions of authorship also in Theol. i 7.9 (David); cf. K-D 105 (134.14–15) (Ioannes Mauropous).

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Approximately at the middle of the Discourse, Psellos introduces precisely a narrative of creation in order to describe Gregory’s authorship (§ 25: 234– 41): O«konome± d• toÆv l»gouv oÉc ãsper o¬ polloª mŸ prolab»ntev t‡v Ëpoq”seiv to±v logismo±v, ˆll’ Þv Pl†twn fhsª t¼n –ke©nou qe¼n t‡v «d”av sustžsasqai. temÜn g‡r t¼n l»gon kaª ˆpart©sav kat’ ›nnoian oÌtw pr¼v tŸn sÅmfrasin ›rcetai. di‡ taÓta toigaroÓn promemelethm”non –stªn aÉt kaª t¼ aÉtosc”dion. –n brace± g‡r proeÛrake, kaª ¾ noÓv ˆcr»nwv sced¼n diadramÜn  m•n ˆfken,  d• –n”krinen, e²q’ ¡ Ëphr”tiv glätta oÌtw t¼ parhgm”non to±v ˆkroata±v dies†fhse. Unlike the many who do not anticipate the theme of a speech in their own thinking [logismos], Gregory manages his speeches like the god who Plato says created [systˆesasthai] the forms: having divided the speech into sections and having worked out its meaning in his mind [ennoia], he then proceeds to give expression to his thoughts. Therefore, even his improvised speech is premeditated. In a brief moment, Gregory has foreseen everything; his mind almost atemporally runs through the text, leaving some elements out, while approving others, and then his obliging tongue reveals what has been produced [to parˆegmenon] to the listeners.

Gregory, we are told, creates his discourse just like Plato’s god, who first creates the forms outside the dimension of time and then proceeds to the production of the material world. So does also Gregory: first he thinks of meaning and then proceeds to expression. The reference to Plato in this passage is slightly misleading. Plato nowhere speaks of God as creating or “putting together” (synistanai) the forms, those eternal and uncreated original paradigms after which all perceptible things are created.79 What Psellos evokes is not a direct reference to Plato but rather Christianized Platonism. The key text in this tradition was Plato’s Timaeus and the later revisions of its influential narrative of creation.80 Plato refers to a “demiurge” (also called: architect, maker, father, and god) as the mediator who follows an already existing, eternal, intelligible paradigm and thereby orders or “puts together” the originally chaotic world of pre-existing matter.81 Plato’s dˆemiourgos is a subjective 79 80 81

Apart perhaps from a single idiosyncratic reference in the Republic (597b5–7), well discussed in Burnyeat 1999: 245–249. For the reception of the Timaeus: Reydams-Schils 1999; Baltes 1976. Cf. the introduction and notes in Brisson 1992; for cognates of the stem syn-istˆemi, see Timaeus 29d1, 30b5, 30c3, 31a1, and 31b7.

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and necessary presence in the workings of the cosmos, but not its primary origin, since the cosmos exists prior to any act of creation.82 The demiurge is first given ontological priority in the works of Philo (early first century ce), a Jewish thinker influential for Christian patristic writing and cherished by Byzantine readers.83 In several of his texts, Philo retold the Genesis story of creation in Platonic terms. As exemplified, for instance, in his On the Creation of the World According to Moses, Philo’s scheme is that God, like an architect, first conceives, thinks (dianoeisthai and noein), and thus creates (synistanai) the intelligible world. This world is termed the “forms [ideai]” or “imprints [typoi]” of God and is ultimately subsumed in one entity: God’s mediating thinking or reason (logismos or logos). Only with the intelligible world conceived by Him does God create the perceptible world.84 This view shaped patristic discourse on the topic of creation as it cohered well with the Christian belief in a creation ex nihilo and the mediatory creative function of Christ, the Logos. Gregory of Nazianzos’ homily On the Theophany, mentioned above, is a good example of the Christianization of Platonic and Philonic views. According to Gregory, God the Father “thinks” the creation, while the “Creator” Logos puts this “thought” to work with the help of the Holy Spirit (Or. 38; esp. chapters 9–11). Psellos was well aware of Platonic doctrine and its difference from the Philonic/Christian view of creation.85 It is the latter that he evokes with reference to Gregory: Gregory first conceives the content of his discourse (logismoi, ennoiai) and then proceeds to its materialization. Creation takes place initially in the mind of the author and is then performed on the 82

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This reading of the Timaeus is most eloquently argued in Kalphas 1995, where also further bibliography. Similarly monistic is the Neoplatonic reading of the creation narrative; cf. Gersh 1978: 262–4; Cleary 2006; Martijn 2006 (Proklos’ reading of the Timaeus). Photios praised Philo’s style and regarded him as a convert to Christianity (Bibliothˆekˆe 105); in the relevant Suda entry (phi.448), Philo is exalted as being equal in both “content and style” to Plato. Philo’s works are excerpted recurrently in the Sacra Parallela (cf. the introduction to the text PG 95 1040.22–32), while, in the Paris, BNF, gr. 923 (cf. p. 58 above), Philo’s portrait – in most cases as a Christian bishop – appears seventy times, being the fourth most represented author after Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzos, and John Chrysostom; see Weitzmann 1979: 252–5. A manuscript with Philo is mentioned among the books of Eustathios Boilas in his Testament (lines 141–166, at 161), dated to April 1059. On Philo in Psellos, see e.g., Encomium For the Monk Ioannes Kroustoulas Who Read Aloud At the Holy Soros = Or. min. 37.134 ff. and pp. 114 and 144 below. On the Creation 19 and passim. It is a matter of debate whether Philo was the first to conceive of the “Forms” as specifically God’s “thoughts” and whether he subscribed to a view of a creation ex nihilo; see Dillon 1996: 95, 255, 410, and 439–41 with Radice 1991 and 1999. On Philo’s use of the Timaeus: Runia 1986. For two explicit statements, see Psellos, Letters K-D 189 and 220, the latter addressed to Pothos; see esp. p. 261.17 ff., with a reference to Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 38.9. Cf. Arethas, Scholia on Albinus’ Epitome (Westerink and Laourdas 1962: 112–15).

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matter of discourse. Most importantly, creation is completely free from anything that might pre-exist it – Psellos stresses how “in a brief moment, Gregory has fore-seen [pro-eÛrake] everything” and how “his nous almost atemporally goes over the text.” Another passage discussing rhetorical authorship confirms this reading. In his Funeral Oration in honor of the patriarch Ioannes Xiphilinos, written after August 1075, Psellos devotes several words to his friend’s rhetoric that are worth citing here in extenso (Epitaphios in Honor of the Most-Blessed Patriarch, Kyr Ioannes Xiphilinos; Sathas iv 455.6–456.13): %nq”lkei me ¡ tän l»gwn t”cnh, ¥n –ke±nov par‡ p†ntav zhlÛsav Ëp•r p†ntav –g”neto· oÉ g‡r oÌtwv tŸn çhtorikŸn di rei ãsper o¬ ple©ouv tän çht»rwn žqhsan de±n . . . ˆll‡ p†sav aÉtv t‡v dun†meiv kaª t‡v ˆrc‡v –feÓre . . . t©v d• t‡v «d”av p†sav ˆllžlaiv e«v fil©an suneker†sato . . . kaª o³on šn säma poižsav dirhm”non te kaª ˆdia©reton, t¼ m•n ta±v ¾moi»thsi, t¼ d• ta±v diafora±v, kaª t¼ m•n t –mmele± m©xei, t¼ d• t ˆkribest”r diair”sei; t©v d• oÌtw l»gouv –m”ris” te kaª –qeÛrhsen, oÉk ›xw tiqeªv ˆmfo±n t¼ par†deigma, ˆll’ –f’ —autoÓ ¬st‡v, ãsper ¾ par‡ Pl†twni dhmiourg¼v kosmopoiän t l»g e«s†getai (–ke±n»v te g‡r –n —aut –schkÜv t¼ aÉt»zwon, t‡ m”rh dhmiourge±, kaª oÕtov tŸn «d”an tän «deän –n t aÉtoÓ prolabÜn yuc tŸn t”cnhn –dhmioÅrgei); MŸ g‡r –c”twsan pl”on o¬ par’ í Ellhsi qeoª kaª t‡ pl†smata, mhd• semnun”sqwsan ta±v prÛtaiv «d”aiv o¬ perª Pl†twna, e­te dhmiourgik‡v oÉsiÛdeiv –nno©av taÅtav poio±en e­te tin‡v —t”rav ¾l»thtav tän tde –xrhm”nav kaª –f’ —autän —sthku©av, mhd• pleonekte©tw Pl†twn ¡män perª taÅtav pragmateu»menov, kaª pantodapäv —rmhneÅwn t¼ Ànoma, kaª oÉ p†ntwn a«t©av –ke©nav poioÅmenov· a¬ g‡r par’ ¡män tecnikäv eËrhm”nai, e« kaª mŸ t¼ semn¼n ›cousi tv ˆnup†rktou Ëp†rxewv, ˆll’ ˆlhqe±v ge kaª eÉqub»lwv nooÅmenai. What draws my attention is the art of discourse, which, more than anyone else, Xiphilinos pursued zealously, surpassing all others. He did not divide rhetoric in the way that most of the rhetors thought necessary . . . Rather, he invented all of its powers and principles . . . Who else mixed all of the forms with one another into unity . . . as if creating one body both divided and indivisible – indivisible through likenesses, divided through differences, using melodious mixture for the former, and precise division for the latter? Who has arranged into parts and contemplated speeches in the way Xiphilinos did: without setting an exterior paradigm for either activity but standing on his own, in the same way as Plato’s demiurge when creating the world? (That demiurge, already possessing in himself self-existence,86 created the 86

For this usage of autozˆoion, see Psellos, Summary Exposition of the Ancient Doctrines of the Chaldeans = Phil. min. ii 40 (151.7–8) with Proklos, Comm. on the Parmenides 1193.40–1194.7 (on Plato’s “demiurge”).

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The professional rhetor and theory of authorship parts of the world, while Xiphilinos created the art of discourse having first conceived the form of the forms in his soul.) Let not the gods of the Greeks and their fictions be considered superior! Do not let Plato’s followers pride themselves for those first forms (whether the Greeks consider the first forms to be essential creative thoughts87 or some other totalities separated from earthly things and existing by themselves). Do not let Plato have the advantage over us. When discussing the forms, Plato interprets the term in a variety of ways and does not consider the forms as the causes of every single thing. By contrast, the forms that have been invented by us through the art of discourse are true, having been conceived in a straightforward manner, even if our forms do not possess the supposed dignity of the non-existent existence .

As with Gregory, Psellos parallels the Platonic creator of the world and his “forms” to the discursive creator, Xiphilinos, and his rhetorical forms. This explicit juxtaposition of Platonic to Hermogenian forms and Psellos’ surprising preference for the “true” forms of rhetoric rather than the “fictitious” forms of Platonic philosophy are remarkable. What interests us is Psellos’ insistence on the autonomy of the discursive creator. Xiphilinos, we are told, “creates” rhetoric having the “form of [rhetorical] forms” already captured in his “soul.” The rhetor does not create following a “paradigm” set outside himself, such as “forms” that, in one Platonic interpretation, “exist by themselves.” Rather, Xiphilinos creates while “standing on his own.”88 In Psellos’ view, the rhetor operates in a self-sufficient manner, driven solely by his own will. This latter quality, another typical attribute of the divine agent (e.g., in Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 29.2 and 6, passages on the divine “will”), is evoked throughout Psellos’ essay on Gregory. For instance, in his initial supposition regarding the origins of Gregory’s discourse Psellos insists on using verbs that indicate activity. Gregory, we read, “seized” (paraspan) or “snatched” (spasthai) the heavenly streams of discourse, “mixed” them with his own writings, and “poured” them over his audience (Psellos was to say something similar about his own treatment 87 88

For this notion, cf., e.g., Proklos, Commentary on the Parmenides 895.1–13. See further K-D 190 to Mauropous, where Psellos in a playful manner compares his friend (whom Psellos names here “Plato”) to the Creator, the one who is “self-substantial, self-moving, Being, One.” “You do not create [dˆemiourgein],” Psellos writes (213.9–22), “and mold us like the Platonic demiurge by looking at the exemplary cause, but by looking back turned toward your own nature [oikeia physis] . . . You are beyond nature [hyperphyˆes] because of the serenity of your nature.” See also K-D 189, untitled (211.20 ff.) and Chron. 6.62.

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of Proklos: “I seized from him all science and exactness of intellections.”89 ). Later in the Discourse, Psellos refers to Gregory as having “invented” his own “arts” (§ 43: 359; cf. § 41: 342–3), as fashioning diction “according to his own will [boulˆema]” (§ 42: 355–8), and as producing discourse “by his own will and design [epiboulˆos]” (§ 55: 436–40; cf. § 23: 223, § 41: 350, and § 53: 426–8). Similar statements can be found elsewhere in Psellos’ writings in reference to other model rhetors and, unsurprisingly, Psellos himself. For instance, in the essay on John Chrysostom Psellos highlights the fact that Chrysostom spoke without being measured “by the clock” but only by his own authority (kat’ exousian; On John Chrysostom § 11; cf. § 20 on Chrysostom’s “will”). Another notable example appears in Psellos’ paraphrase of Dionysios’ On Composition where Psellos emphasizes the rhetor’s own “will” in “transforming” the various parts of speech (On the Arrangement of the Parts of Speech 2: 261.5–9). Such emphasis is not to be found in Dionysios’ original text, where the stress is, rather, placed on “nature” and its impersonal “will” (On Composition 5).90 Ultimately, the very word “to will/wish [boulesthai]” is used characteristically frequently in Psellos in the first person, much more frequently than any other self-referential Byzantine author (including Gregory himself ). Beyond free will, Psellos’ author is equipped with self-exemplarity. Gregory’s model of discourse is, we should remember, simply himself: “Gregory himself became from within himself an archetypal image [agalma] of discursive grace”; and “Gregory did not produce his speeches by looking at a model, but was himself an archetypal style [charaktˆer] for himself.” Such phrases reinforce the view of Gregory as a creative agent. Being an archetypal image, either agalma or charaktˆer, is also the attribute of God, that singular kind of creative and autonomous subjectivity in theological and philosophical tradition. Philo, for instance, wrote of Logos as the intelligible “archetypal seal [archetypos sphragis]” that leaves its “imprint [charaktˆer] on every visible being and of God as the “archetype of all rational [logikos] nature.” Similarly, in the Areopagitic corpus, written by an unknown Christian Neoplatonist of the Proklean tradition in the sixth 89

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Chron. 6.38. Are we to discern here an echo from ‘Longinos’ who speaks of Demosthenes as the one who “seized” for himself his extraordinary stylistic virtues as if “some kind of God-sent gifts” (On Sublimity 34)? Indeed, Dionysios uses the verb boulesthai in reference to the rhetor only once (On Lysias 17.43), while it is usually objective entities such as types of style or nature that do the “willing”; cf. On Lysias 17.8–9 and On Demosthenes 18.16–18.

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century, we read of the “one and total and same archetypical essence = tv miv kaª Âlhv ˆrcetup©av,” which is set in juxtaposition to created things that are merely its “dissimilar impressions.”91 Psellos, who was quite familiar with such philosophical phrasing, employs it for his exemplary author.92 It is in this light that we must view another quality that Psellos ascribes to Gregory: self-similarity. Toward the end of the Discourse, Psellos claims that Gregory “is similar to himself in his entire discourse = Âmoi»v t” –sti di‡ pant¼v —aut toÓ l»gou” (§ 56: 441–2). Earlier, while discussing Gregory’s art of composition (sentence structure, rhythm, etc.) and how it is experienced by the reader, Psellos similarly remarks (§ 23: 214–5): T¼ d” ge qeologik¼n kaª ¡m”teron präta m•n Âmoion —aut –sti pantac. k‹n kat‡ fÅsin –p†rx toÓ l»gou, t¼ –pi»n soi fane±tai kallirrhmon”steron kaª glukÅteroná ‹n d’ ˆnapod©zein –q”loiv, e«v t¼ aÉt¼ katalžxeiv, Þv e²nai t¼n aÉt¼n kat‡ t¼ aÉt¼ Âmoion kaª ˆn»moioná kall©wn g‡r proba©nwn kaª ˆnapod©zwn –st©n. , however, of our Theologian’s speech is, firstly, overall similar to itself. If you begin reading his texts in the natural order, whatever comes next will seem better spoken and sweeter to you. If you wish to go backwards [anapodizein], you will end up [katalˆegein] with the same conclusion, as if the same author is both similar and dissimilar in an identical fashion. For he becomes better whether he moves forwards or backwards.

Whatever sequence of reading he might follow, the reader of Gregory’s beauty reaches an identical result. Despite the growing approval of his audience as his speech unfolds, the author, Psellos tells us, remains “selfsimilar = Âmoion —aut.” In the tradition from which Psellos emerged, self-similarity was understood as the author’s consistency and self-agreement, primarily in terms of content and only occasionally in terms of style. This is, for instance, how the Neoplatonists spoke about Plato and Socrates in order to accentuate the unity and consistency that marked their thought.93 This is also 91

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See Philo, On the Creation 18, 34 and 134 with Eusebios, Preparation for the Gospel 11.24.4 and Popa 1999. For Dionysios the Areopagite, see On Divine Names 2.6 (pp. 129.12–130.4). Related is the concept of Christ as the unchanged “imprint” of the archetypal Father; Gregory of Nazianzos Or. 38.13 and also 30.20. Phil. min. ii 113.17–20 (the demiurgic idea as archetypon being); Theol. i 27.30–2 and 61–2 (Christ and God as archetypon); 91.42–3 (the Creator and His archetypia); Theol. ii 5.58 (nous as archetypon). E.g., Proklos, Commentary on the Republic 1.252.21–2, Commentary on the Timaeus 1.438.20. The notion can be traced back at least to Numenios’ view of Plato (Fr. 24.72–3); O’Meara 1989: 11–12 note 10.

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a feature that such Christian commentators as Maximos the Confessor, Niketas David of Paphlagonia, and Psellos himself discovered in biblical, theological, and, specifically, Gregory’s writing.94 The quality of being “similar to oneself,” however, carries a different import in the Discourse. The image of the reader who encounters a self-similar author is intriguingly identical with that which Psellos uses in reference to God’s creation. In a lecture titled On the Prepositions Which Are Irregularly Affixed to the Holy Trinity, Psellos discusses the Trinity as the cause of all things and this notion relates to the various types of cause defined by Plato and Aristotle. After having established that in the Christian theological tradition God is Cause in all respects, Psellos examines how creation appears to human perspective (Theol. i 113.47–9): %nalÅwn g‡r t‡ gin»mena kaª –f’ ™teron –x Šllou ˆnapod©zwn, e«v aÉt¼ katantžseiv t¼ präton pl†sma kaª dhmioÅrghma, Á dŸ –x oÉk Àntwn geg”nhtai. If you dissolve created things into their constituents and start going backwards [anapodizein] from one creature to another, you will encounter the same first creature which was brought into existence from non-existence.

In whichever way he might approach the created world, its viewer encounters the same first original moment of creation or, as Psellos remarks a few lines earlier, the “same [auton]” creative agent, who is simultaneously an “efficient, creative, and final cause = kaª poihtik¼n a­tion kaª dhmiourgik¼n kaª telik»n” (39–40). This experience of the created world is precisely the one that awaits the reader of Gregory’s discourse. At the end of each and every different reading, one is always bound to find only the same rhetor, Psellos’ “self-similar” Creator. One last example from Psellos’ lectures on Gregory further highlights his view of authorship as creation. Having analyzed a difficult phrase in Gregory’s Oration on the Holy Baptism (Or. 40.24), Psellos proceeds with an excursus on Gregory’s unique ability to mix “philosophical thought [ennoia]” with rhetorical “charm [charis]” (Theol. i 19.49–93). In this, Gregory is proved to be superior to the classical models of discourse: both Demosthenes, who is lacking in ennoia, and Plato, deficient in “diction [lexis].” Psellos argues (56–69): 94

Maximos the Confessor, Questions and Answers 12, 161 and 190 (the Bible “agreeing with itself”); Niketas David, Interpetation of the Arcane Poems of the Great Gregory the Theologian, Proem 73–77 (absence of “self-disagreement” or disagreement with each other in the writings of true theologians); Psellos, Theol. i 105.5–8 (Gregory’s self-similarity, i.e., consistency, in his treatment of the Trinity).

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The professional rhetor and theory of authorship ï Eoiken oÔn ¾ l»gov aÉt oÉ t Kal†midov ˆgalmatopoi©, ˆll‡ t Daid†lou kaª Polukle©tou· [¾ m•n] g‡r ta±v –pitucoÅsaiv Ìlaiv tŸn t”cnhn –napem†tteto, o¬ d• oÉk  x©oun –n Šll g”nei [ . . . . . . .] ¢per –x %qhnän t¼ ˆkrib•v tän morfän –pide©knusqai. toioÓton oÔn kaª t¼ toÓ patr¼v Šgalma· [¤] te g‡r Ìlh m†la lampr‡ kaª diafanŸv kaª tv %ttikv stilpn»thtov ˆpost©lbousa, ‰bra© te g‡r l”xeiv kaª ˆxiwmatikŸ semnolog©a, kaª p†nta ¡rwik†· t» te e²dov, Âper –stªn ¾ fil»sofov noÓv, oÌtw95 proshnäv t Ìl prosžrmostai, kaª oÌtwv tŸn –myuc©an –mpne±, Þv –oik”nai zn aÉt¼ kaª mime±sqai t», ¯n’ oÌtwv e­pw, qeoe©kelon Šgalma. His discourse does not resemble the sculptural art of Kalamis but that of Daidalos and Polykleitos. The former fashioned his art on randomly found materials, while the latter two would not deem it worthy to display the exactness of forms in any other material than that which came from Athens. Such is also the statue of the Father [i.e., Gregory]. Its material [hylˆe] is quite brilliant and transparent, emitting Attic brightness: the words are graceful, solemnity is dignified, and everything is heroic. Its form [eidos] – which is the philosophical mind [nous] – is so gently attached to matter and breathes animation [empsychian] into it in such a manner that the statue seems to be alive and to resemble, in a manner of speaking, the “god-like statue.”

In his typical way, Psellos has brought together fragments of texts, tokens of divergent patterns of thought. The comparison to ancient sculptors alludes directly to a passage in Dionysios of Halikarnassos where Isocrates is compared to Lysias (On Isocrates 3.33–45): Dionysios juxtaposed Isocrates’ “more sublime and . . . dignified expression,” “the great sublimity of his construction, belonging more to the nature of heroes rather than humans,” and compared his “rhetoric” that resembles “the art of Polykleitos and Pheidias in its solemnity, grandness of art, and dignity” to Lysias’ superior “charm” in diction that, “because of its fineness and charm, is like the art of Kalamis and Kallimachos.”96 In Psellos’ text, Gregory is a perfect mixture of both styles. In addition to Dionysios’ comparison of the two rhetors, Psellos evokes also the metaphor of the sculptor who enlivens his statue, a common 95 96

Gautier reads the manuscript’s “Âtw” as “Ât,” which, however, makes little sense; if corrected into “oÌtw,” the word anticipates the “oÌtwv” of the following phrase. P”fuke g‡r ¡ Lus©ou l”xiv ›cein t¼ car©en, ¡ d• ìIsokr†touv boÅletai. taÅtaiv m•n dŸ ta±v ˆreta±v Ëstere± Lus©ou kat‡ goÓn tŸn –mŸn gnÛmhn. protere± d” ge –n ta±v melloÅsaiv l”gesqai· Ëyhl»ter»v –stin –ke©nou kat‡ tŸn —rmhne©an kaª megaloprep”sterov makr kaª ˆxiwmatikÛterov. qaumast¼n g‡r dŸ kaª m”ga t¼ tv ìIsokr†touv kataskeuv Ìyov, ¡rw·kv mllon £ ˆnqrwp©nhv fÅsewv o«ke±on. doke± dž moi mŸ Špo skopoÓ tiv ‹n e«k†sai tŸn m•n ìIsokr†touv çhtorikŸn t Polukle©tou te kaª Feid©ou t”cn kat‡ t¼ semn¼n kaª megal»tecnon kaª ˆxiwmatik»n, tŸn d• Lus©ou t Kal†midov kaª Kallim†cou tv lept»thtov ™neka kaª tv c†ritov.

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metaphor in ancient writing though rarely applied specifically to rhetors as sculptors. This is Psellos’ claim, in reference to Gregory’s rhetorical artistry.97 Furthermore, Psellos employs philosophical and theological vocabulary in order to accentuate the author’s ability to enliven the finely sculpted body of his discourse. The artist’s skill that gives form to the matter of diction is identified in Neoplatonic idiom as the “form [eidos]” or the creative “mind [nous]” of discourse that enlivens bodies through “animation [empsychia].”98 More significantly, the enlivened object of Gregory’s discourse is presented as being created just like the creature par excellence in Byzantine perspective: Adam, the “god-like statue” of patristic theology, the human body created and animated by God.99 Psellos affixes here ontological depth to the argument of earlier rhetorical theory that was focused on material form and, simultaneously, an aesthetic accent to the theological cosmology of early Byzantine writing. In Dionysios, the emphasis is on artistry and its power; in Psellos, discursive sculpting is about creation, the bringing to life of the material body of speech. In Neoplatonic and Christian writing, animation and creation are reserved for the making of the visible world and the fashioning of humanity by God. Psellos transfers their force to a new conceptualization of the work of discursive art. The author takes the position of the Creator God. ∗∗∗ Psellos’ model rhetor is an autonomous, self-determined, free, and willing agent. His Gregory submits neither to the requirements of art, nor to the demands of nature, nor does he merely reflect the Divine. In what pertains to the making of rhetorical form, this Gregory functions like a creative divine agent. What has led Psellos to this understanding of rhetorical authorship – however unsystematic his 97

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For a rare instance, see Lucian (?), Encomium for Demosthenes 14: m»nov g” toi tän çht»rwn, Þv ¾ Lewsq”nhv –t»lmhsen e«pe±n, ›myucon kaª sfuržlaton pare±cen t¼n l»gon. For Daidalos and his animate statue-making: Morris 1992; Frontisi-Ducroux 1995; Steiner 2001: 44–50, 139 and passim. On Polykleitos, see e.g., Philostratos, Lives of the Sophists 2.20.24–28; on the Attic style of Daidalos’ statues, see Philostratos, Eikones 1.16.1. Eidos: a Neoplatonic notion with Aristotelian background; cf. Aristotle, On the Soul, passim with, e.g., Ioannes Philoponos’ Commentary, passim. Nous: Proklos, Commentary on the Timaeus, passim and pp. 74–5 above. See also Proklos, Commentary on the Republic 2.212.20–6 (on the divine demiurge creating the agalma of the world). For the Stoic/Epicurean term empsychia and its adoption and subsequent transformation by Neoplatonists into the notion of “embodied soul,” which derives but is separate from the transcendent, immortal soul (the intellective soul: nous/logos), see Karamanolis 2007. Anastasios of Sinai, Hexaemeron 10.749–50. Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Protreptikos 12.121 and Suda, alpha.425.

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treatment of the matter – is the rhetorical task at hand. Driven by the need to persuade his readers that Psellos’ models are unique rhetors and, accordingly, that he himself is unique in explaining their rhetoric, Psellos insists on discursive agency. So much so, that he departs from any similar earlier treatment of authorship, whether rhetorical, philosophical, or theological. Despite the level of authority they accorded to specific rhetors, philosophers, or theologians, earlier treatments reserved autonomous and creative discursive agency for God alone. Only in rare instances did writers compare authors to God as Creator. Three writers stand out and anticipate Psellos’ approach. Proklos once paralleled Plato’s making of the Republic with the “divine creation/poetry [poiˆesis]” of the divine dˆemiourgos and, on another similar occasion, urged human poets to imitate the “cosmic poet,” namely Apollo – though in none of these cases does dˆemiourgos refer to an entirely autonomous creator.100 One century later, in a brief discussion of Plato’s disavowal of writing in the Phaedrus, an anonymous Christian Neoplatonist to whom we owe an introduction to Plato, the Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy , set Plato’s writings in direct parallelism with the “creation” of the world by “the Divine.”101 Finally, in the early eleventh century, Ioannes Sikeliotes made two similarly cursory remarks: that Gregory of Nazianzos “imitates” the divine Creator when discussing the creation of the world and that Hermogenes “fashioned” the “body” of rhetorical theory “like that of a maiden of hidden beauty” and that, “just like some God = kaq†per tiv qe»v,” he gave breath to the body of discourse by implanting in it the forms, i.e., the Hermogenian stylistic virtues.102 These statements are admittedly noteworthy antecedents of the Psellian view. Yet they remain isolated instances amidst elaborations of authorship preoccupied with how the Divine is continuous with the authoritative meaning of philosophy and theology. In Psellos, by contrast, the author’s stylistic autonomy is essential for the delineation of a unique rhetor. Psellos increases the personal agency of the author and expresses what had 100

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Proklos, Commentary on the Timaeus 1.60.1–11 with Commentary on the Republic 1.68.3–69.19 and 2.8.15f.; for a discussion of the latter passage see Kustas 1973: 177–9. See also Psellos, Theol. i 98.36–40, on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1: oÉk ˆkoÅeiv Pr»klou toÓ meg†lou Àntwv filos»fou diarrždhn boäntov Þv e­ ge –boÅlonto o¬ kat’ –ke©nouv qeoª suggr†mmata suntiq”nai £ l»gouv çhtorikoÅv, kat‡ tŸn Pl†twnov ‰rmon©an te kaª sunqžkhn taÓta ‹n sunet©qento; Prolegomena 13 and also 15.1–7; for the Anonymous’ likely Christianity, see Westerink, Anonymous, xlix–l. James Coulter viewed this passage, wrongly in my view, as a Neoplatonic commonplace, a “theory of literary creation”; Coulter 1976. By contrast, Westerink (Anonymous, xxxv) rightly remarked that Anonymous’ view is “curious,” and atypical of the Neoplatonic perspective. See Comm. 476.15–477.7 with Prolegomena 398.2–399.9 (cited also in Kustas 1973: 176–177).

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remained, and what was to remain for a long time, a hesitant possibility in premodern theories of discourse, both in the Greek and – one might add – the Latin tradition: the notion of authorship as free creation.103 What Psellos’ author makes of this freedom is the question that we must pursue next. 103

As Alastair Minnis has shown (Minnis 1984), a new concept of authorship came about in the western medieval Latin commentary tradition in the thirteenth century. Through the application of the Aristotelian theory of four causes, the author came to be regarded as the “efficient cause” of texts, a human agent or auctor in the process of creation; see, further, Andersen 1998; Coxon 2001. Even in this case – we should note – the author is by no means considered the primary agent of discourse, nor is he set free at the level of style. For an earlier conception of authorship as creation, cf. Bernardus Silvestris’ mid-twelfth-century Cosmographia where “human poetic artifice is understood as an extension or reflection of divine making” (Copeland and Sluiter 2009: 26–7).

c h a p ter 3

The return of the poet mimesis and the aesthetics of variation

When Ioannes Sikeliotes presents Hermogenes as a creator who fashions and animates the female body of rhetoric, he goes on to describe the kind of soul that Hermogenes breathed into “the maiden of hidden beauty.” Rhetoric is provided a proper psychic apparatus: cognitive powers, such as mind, opinion, and imagination, as well as a series of virtues, the rhetorical virtues of style, the ideai. Sikeliotes equates Hermogenes’ rhetorical forms with moral virtues such as receptivity to teaching, censoriousness toward those who live immorally, noble behavior, love of God and civility, and self-mastery (since rhetoric, we read, must be like a “pure wife” of “manly” temper). Ultimately, discourse must be infused with prudence (phronˆesis), equivalent to the rhetorical form of force (deinotˆes). Prudence, Sikeliotes claims, teaches what is morally expedient, induces proper order (taxis), and hides, when necessary, the kinds of knowledge that are not appropriate for the many (Prolegomena 398.2–401.22; cf. Comm. 144.1–17 and 189.16–19). What lies beneath this moralization of Hermogenian rhetorical theory is the anxiety to control authorship in at least two ways: Sikeliotes wishes to promote a rhetoric that in both nature and aims is moral rather than merely aesthetic. The sentiment is ubiquitous in Byzantium and beyond. Discourse has inescapable exterior, sensual aspects: it relies on appearance, opinion, and images, its delivery employs the methods of spectacle and theater, its effects are likely to include pleasure and the seduction of the audience’s senses. This intrinsic aesthetics of discourse – not simply as rhetorical taste, but as the sensualism and materialism of discourse – raised fundamental moral concerns.1 The theological tradition that Byzantium inherited was decidedly anti-aesthetic. Patristic writing was permeated with criticism against 1

For this understanding of aesthetics as sensualism and materialism (as opposed to formalism and idealism), cf. Porter 2010 with further bibliography and p. 21 above. As Porter rightly remarks (p. 65): “Aesthetics is a dangerous area precisely because it is considered to be a contact zone between the primitive levels of sensation and the higher, more cultivated levels of taste.”

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sense-oriented rhetoric and the world of “Hellenic,” i.e., pagan, culture to which rhetoric belonged. Gregory of Nazianzos, for instance, even if fully immersed in Greek rhetoric, did not miss any opportunity to express fierce criticism against different opponents, when it came to their use of rhetoric, whether pagans, such as Julian, or fellow Christian bishops; to their rhetorical artistry, Gregory opposed his vision of the true theologian who can speak of God and propagate morality.2 For such attack on rhetoric, Church Fathers could find strong allies within the Hellenic tradition. Lucian’s critique of theatricality and Plutarch’s moral prescriptions for the reading of poetry, for instance, were as vigorous as those of Gregory of Nazianzos and Basil of Caesarea.3 Take also Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ preference for Demosthenes. Dionysios saw in Demosthenes a rhetor who adhered strictly to “what is useful and true” and contrasted him to Plato, whose style, in Dionysios’ view, “pursues nothing beyond beautiful appearance [eumorphia]” and whose “beauty” is “in things that are not true.” Against Plato’s “florid field” of “pleasant resting-places and shortlived delights” which he compares to “weak bodies,” Dionysios promoted Demosthenes’ manly, virile, and generative style (On Demosthenes 32.1–15).4 That rhetoricians such as Dionysios negotiated Plato’s place in the rhetorical tradition was no coincidence.5 It was Plato who, through much of his writing, instigated the fundamental anxiety over material aesthetics and discursive performance, the philosophical fear of rhetoric, poetry, and what he notoriously termed mimˆesis. Indeed, the shadow looming over the entire Greek tradition of discursive theory (Byzantine theory included) was that famous Platonic outsider, “a man, able by cunning wisdom to become anything and imitate all things [mimeisthai panta chrˆemata]” who arrives at the ideal City and, though being “holy and admirable and pleasurable” and thus worthy of some veneration, is asked to depart (Republic 398a).6 At the heart of Plato’s critique of the “man able to imitate everything” was 2 3

4

5

6

For citations, see pp. 39–41 above. See, e.g., Lucian’s On Dance and Teacher of Rhetors with Gunderson 2000. Plutarch’s How a Young Man Should Study Poems and Basil of Caesarea’s Address to Young Men as to How They Might Benefit from Pagan Learning make similar arguments. The reference to and preference for “what is useful and true” stems from Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1355a21–2 and 37–8), which Dionysios quotes also in his To Ammaeus (6.11–7.13); cf. further On Demosthenes 23, 25, and 26 (also against Plato’s theatricality). For a similar critique of Plato, see Photios, Letters 156 and 165.185–90. Cf. Kustas 1973: 28 note 2 for the persistent presence of Plato in rhetorical theory and scholia (with an emphasis on the Phaedrus, the Timaeus, and the Gorgias). For Dionysios’ reading of Plato’s style, placed in a wider tradition, see Hunter 2012: 151–84 (the passage cited above is discussed in 178f.). The passage is echoed in much later writing; see, e.g., Josephus, Against Apion 2.256–258 (on Plato imitating Moses in expelling Homer from his ideal city and thus retaining the polity “pure” [katharon]). Cf. Weinstock 1926–7; Halliwell 2002: 263 note 2; also pp. 123–4 and 246 below.

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mimesis. The term is employed here not in the narrower technical sense of imitation of rhetorical models (as discussed in the previous chapter), but in the wider sense of discursive representation and performance.7 Plato’s stance with respect to mimesis as well as the long tradition that this stance initiated is a notoriously complex matter. What interests us is that one encounters in Plato a decisive ambiguity regarding mimesis that, along with moral anxiety, became a standard feature of premodern writing. While Plato was fiercely critical of the material and theatrical aesthetics of mimesis, especially when replicating and inciting the wrong emotions, he was also willing to accept the value of mimesis as representation, discursive representation in particular.8 More importantly, he was willing to practice a highly aestheticized discourse, rhetorically and performatively rich, a style that troubled even rhetoricians such as Dionysios of Halikarnassos who, to some extent using Plato’s own categories, preferred the more austere style of Demosthenes. The ambivalence persisted. Plato’s concerns about the morality of discourse were echoed repeatedly in later writing. Tellingly, mimˆesis and its cognates – a ubiquitously used word-stem – , are employed in early Byzantine discourse in a reversed, positive, ethical meaning. To imitate is, in most cases, understood as the praiseworthy emulation of models of virtue. Simultaneously, mimesis as valued discursive representation formed the basis of rhetorical performance and philosophical reading practices. For the latter, one need look only at Neoplatonic hermeneutics. Proklos, for instance, equated Plato (surprisingly perhaps) with the prototypical poet, Homer, by explaining away their practice of discursive mimetic multiplicity as merely masking unity.9 The rhetorical tradition of Hermogenes went a step further and used some Platonic, philosophical premises in order to produce a detailed system of rhetorical virtues focused on the material form of discourse.10 Even in Sikeliotes’ Commentary on Hermogenes – with its strong philosophical, theological, and moral accents – a clearly aesthetic understanding of precisely discursive mimesis is, on 7

8

9 10

Lyons and Nichols 1982; Halliwell 2002; Ferrari 2004; Ford 2004; Konstan 2004. On the originally performative meaning of mimesis, see Halliwell 2002: 13–22. For Plato, specifically: Ferrari 1989; Nehamas 1982; Too 1998: 51–81; Haliwell 2002: 37–147. The appreciation of “likely/plausible” discourse (diˆegˆesis, mythos, logos): Phaedrus 246a4–6; Phaedo 114d1–7; Republic 506e3–4, 514a1, and 515a4; further mythos: Timaeus 29b–d, 31a–b, 59c and 68d; logos: 48d, 52c6, 53d, 55d, 56a, 68b, 90e; Brisson 1998: 95; Gill 1993. See also Laws 817a7–c1 and d4–5 on legislative philosophy as producing a “mimesis of the most beautiful and best life,” a “most truthful tragedy”; cf. Halliwell 2002: 98–117; Ferrari 1989: 113, 121–2, and 144. Proklos, Commentary on the Republic 1.47.24–48.1 and passim. On Proklean discursive aesthetics, see pp. 55, 58, and 74–5 above. The Neoplatonic emphasis on unity: Beierwaltes 1985. Kustas 1973: 8–19 and passim.

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three occasions, introduced into the very definition of rhetoric. In Sikeliotes’ view rhetoric itself is mimetic, mimˆetikˆe, by which he meant the ability of metrical rhythm to represent character primarily in poetry and secondarily in prose.11 This identification of rhetoric with mimesis was a rather unique statement in pre-modern Greek writing. Mimˆesis, when conceived as dramatization, enactment, or performance, was since Plato and Aristotle an exclusive and defining property of poetry and, when defined as representation, was reserved for arts such as painting, statue-making, or dancing, but not rhetoric.12 Moral anxieties, especially in the terms instituted by Plato against discursive mimesis as representation and performance, thus formed for Byzantine rhetors a defining horizon.13 Within it, however, various purely aesthetic approaches could be pursued. Detailed examination of these is beyond my present goal,14 yet their continued presence in Byzantium amidst a tradition of thought which could be vehemently anti-aesthetic should be kept in mind as we turn to Psellos and his view of the nature and effects of authorship. My exploration below takes as its main text again Psellos’ Discourse on Gregory of Nazianzos’ style, read against the background of the wider tradition. the aesthetics of reading Occasionally, Psellos seems to make concessions to traditional moralizing lines of thought. “The beauty of Gregory’s speech,” he writes in the Discourse, “is not like the one practiced by the more carnal among the sophists. This beauty is not a matter of display and theater” (§ 7: 53– 61). In his comparison of the novels by Heliodoros and Achilles Tatios, 11 12

13

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Sikeliotes, Comm. 103.24–25, 248.3–7, and 329.28–330.1. For mimesis as performance in poetry, see pp. 89–90 above. For mimesis as visual representation cf. Psellos, Phil. min. ii 33 = On the Forms about Which Plato Speaks (114.20–24) with Plotinos, Enneads 5.9.11.1–15 and Vorwerk 2001: 146–56. See also Synesios, Encomium of Baldness 9.10–12 (poetry and sculpture). As far as one can tell, the only other instance where rhetoric is referred to as “mimetic” is found, though with negative connotations, in Sopatros (fourth century?), Commentary on Hermogenes’ On Issues 17 (Walz 1833): Sopatros defends Hermogenes as opposed to Plato, who supposedly disapproved of rhetoric as being “mimetic.” For the similarly moral trajectory of discursive theories in other medieval societies, cf. Kemal 2003 (esp. pp. 174–221: for the Arabic tradition) and Copeland and Sluiter 2009: 53–60 (for the western medieval tradition) with Minnis and Scott 1991 (especially pp. 12–36 on Western European eleventh-century literary criticism). It should be noted that within the Latin western tradition the preoccupation with morality (cf. Aertsen 1992 and Gillespie 2005) was much more pervasive than it ever seems to have been in either Byzantium or the Arab world. Two seminal discussions, for the Byzantine and the Ancient Greek tradition respectively: Agapitos 2002; Porter 2010.

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Psellos admires Heliodoros for managing to maintain the “self-mastery” of his heroine (Charikleia) in “such a steamy and languid text” and mildly accuses Tatios for allowing unseemly sights for the sake of “discursive pleasure” (Charikleia and Leukippe 49–53 and 89–92).15 Yet such statements are rather rare. Already amidst his concessions, Psellos departs from what the tradition would demand. He claims, for instance, that Heliodoros, while guarding the virginity of the female protagonist, has still put forth a “steamy [hygros]” text. As Psellos remarks earlier in this brief essay, Heliodoros’ logos luxuriates in “flowers of charm of all sorts,” including narratives that “breathe an erotic charm,” the charm of Aphrodite [aphrodisios charis] (Charikleia and Leukippe 49 with 29–35).16 Similarly, in the cited passage from the Discourse, Psellos may reject “carnal” and theatrical beauty, but this is not out of ethical concerns: we hear nothing of the moral effect of Gregory’s discourse. What concerns Psellos is still aesthetic beauty, kallos.17 That aesthetics is Psellos’ preoccupation is confirmed by another passage in the Discourse (§ 6: 46–53): ï Egwg’ oÕn ¾s†kiv aÉt –ntugc†nw, prosomilä d• qam†, prohgoum”nwv m•n filosof©av ™neka, parepom”nwv d• yucagwg©av, ãrav ˆmuqžtou plhroÓmai kaª c†ritová kaª katalimp†nw poll†kiv perª Á –spoÅdaka kaª t¼n noÓn tv qeolog©av ˆfeªv t çodwni –near©zw tän l”xewn kaª kl”ptomai ta±v a«sqžsesiá kaª gnoÆv Âti k”klemmai, e²ta dŸ ˆgapä kaª katafilä t¼n sulžsanta. k‹n ˆnacwrsai tv fr†sewv –pª t¼n noÓn biasqä, ˆlgä Âti mŸ kaª aÔqiv sulämai kaª Þv st”rhsin tŸn prosqžkhn ½dÅromai. As for myself, whenever I read him – and I do this often, initially for the sake of philosophy but soon after for entertainment [psychagˆogia] – I am filled with indescribable beauty and charm. On numerous occasions, I even abandon what I have been studying and, leaving behind the intended meaning [nous] of his theology and being deceived by my senses [aisthˆesis], I enjoy spring in the rose-gardens of his words. Realizing that I have been deceived, I adore the plunderer and cover him with kisses [kataphilein]. If I am forced to depart from the phrasing and return to the meaning, I feel 15

16

17

See also Encomium For Kyr Symeon Metaphrastes = Or. hag. 7.241–2 (on the importance of moral benefit as opposed to sophistic “display”) and 256–7 (on truth). Cf. K-D 136 to the metropolitan of Amaseia, where Psellos praises “simple and artless beauty.” Similarly, Psellos shows some admiration for Tatios’ “most theatrical” diction (69–71). For aphrodisios charis, cf. Psellos, Encomium for His Mother 644–53 with Tatios, Leukippe and Kleitophon 2.3 and Lucian, Amores 12. Cf. § 24: 224–5 on Gregory’s actual and (in Psellos’ view) praiseworthy pursuit of what is “more pleasurable.”

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pain because I am not still being plundered, and I lament the addition as though it were a privation.

It is aesthetics in the literal sense – that is, sensual pleasure – that matters here for Psellos. Temporarily suspended in a sensuous discursive space, he looses interest in the philosophical content or “meaning” of Gregory’s texts. Forced to return to what lies beyond and above the surface of the text, Psellos suggests that he is in pain, regretting the loss of the text’s pleasures. This affirmation and prioritization of the reader’s pleasure is exceptional. Compare Psellos’ passage with a similar statement in Gregory of Nazianzos’ widely read and influential Funeral Oration on Basil of Caesarea (Or. 43.67): í Otan tŸn —xažmeron aÉtoÓ metaceir©zwmai kaª di‡ glÛsshv f”rw, met‡ toÓ kt©stou g©nomai, kaª ginÛskw kt©sewv l»gouv, kaª qaum†zw t¼n kt©sthn pl”on £ pr»teron, Àyei m»n didask†l crÛmenov. í Otan to±v ˆntirrhtiko±v –ntÅcw l»goiv, t¼ Sodomitik¼n ¾rä pÓr, tefroÓntai glässai ponhraª kaª par†nomoi . . . í Otan to±v perª PneÅmatov, eËr©skw Qe¼n Án ›cw, kaª parrhsi†zomai tŸn ˆlžqeian, –pibateÅwn tv –ke©nou qeolog©av kaª qewr©av. í Otan ta±v Šllaiv –xhgžsesin, . . . pe©qomai mŸ m”cri toÓ gr†mmatov ¯stasqai, mhd• bl”pein t‡ Šnw m»non, ˆll‡ kaª perait”rw diaba©nein kaª e«v b†qov ›ti cwre±n –n b†qouv, Šbusson ˆbÅss proskaloÅmenov kaª fwtª fäv eËr©skwn, m”criv ‹n fq†sw pr¼v t¼ ˆkr»taton. í Otan ˆqlhtän –gkwm©oiv prosomilžsw, perifronä t¼ säma kaª sÅneimi to±v –painoum”noiv kaª pr¼v tŸn Šqlhsin diege©romai. í Otan  qiko±v l»goiv kaª praktiko±v, kaqa©romai yucŸn kaª säma, kaª na¼v QeoÓ g©nomai dektik»v, kaª Àrganon krou»menon PneÅmati kaª qe©av Ëmnd¼n d»xhv te kaª dun†mewv· toÅt meqarm»zomai kaª çuqm©zomai kaª Šllov –x Šllou g©nomai, tŸn qe©an ˆllo©wsin ˆlloioÅmenov. Whenever I take his Hexaemeron in my hands and voice it through my tongue, I become joined with the Creator and I learn the causes of creation and I admire the Creator more than before, using sight alone as my teacher. When I read his refutations, I see the fire that burned Sodom, by which evil and lawless tongues are reduced to ashes . . . When I read his speeches on the Spirit, I discover who the God is that I have, and I speak openly the truth relying on his theology and contemplation [theˆoria]. When I read his other exegetical works . . . I am persuaded not to stand still at the letter nor simply to gaze at the things above, but to penetrate further and advance into the depth of the depth, calling one abyss after another abyss [Cf. Psalms 41.8 with Job 38.16 and Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 28.12], and finding light through light, until I reach the farthest one. Whenever I encounter his encomia of the martyrs, I disregard my body and I am one with those who are praised and I am aroused toward martyrdom. When I converse with his ethical and ascetic speeches, I am purified in my soul and body, and I

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Gregory’s theological view of discourse is summarized in this passage. According to this view, Basil’s texts afford a direct vision of the Divine. They also immediately incite their reader toward action: whether in words (Gregory is encouraged to speak the truth) or in deeds (Gregory is urged toward martyrdom). Reading has ultimately little to do with aesthetics or, indeed, discourse. What prevails is, rather, a twofold unity of divine presence and human moral behavior. It is a twofold unity, to put it differently, of non-discursive content and non-aesthetic form. By presenting himself as the proper reader of such idealized discourse, Gregory establishes here what might be seen as a model readerly subjectivity.18 It is no surprise that the passage inspired later Byzantine writers to rehearse it. Both Niketas David of Paphlagonia, in his Encomium for Gregory, and also Psellos himself, in one of his exegetical lectures on Gregory, assume Gregory’s voice and describe their own reactions to, this time, Gregory’s texts, but replicating Gregory’s words for Basil almost verbatim.19 Psellos thus knew this passage of Gregory and its theological import. In the Discourse, however, he chose a different image for the experience of reading. Compared to Gregory’s vertical continuum of divinity and morality, Psellos finds himself suspended in the horizontal plane of the text. Instead of Gregory’s life-changing experience, Psellos is offered a momentary, sensual one, a deception by his “senses [aisthˆeseis].” Gregory is altered continuously; Psellos defers spiritual ascent, wishing to remain at the material level of style. And while Gregory is urged to neglect “the body” or “pleasure,” Psellos wishes to abide, as long as possible, precisely there in entertainment, in psychagˆogia. That this pleasure is sensual should be stressed. Psellos does not speak here of any kind of spiritualized pleasure, commonly promoted in Byzantine writing.20 Rather, it is eroticized pleasure that takes center stage, the 18

19

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Gregory is depicted as a reader in some of the author portraits that begin manuscripts with his Orations. For an example, see Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 7.24, f. 3v., dated 1091 and written by the scribe Euthymios Xiphilinos, a monk; Plate 6. See Niketas David, Encomium in Honor of Gregory 25.36–26.40 with Psellos, Theol. i 19.70–93 (cf. pp. 83–5 above); cf. Theol. i 60.75–92. Similar is also the reaction to Gregory’s readings described in Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos’ Discourse on the Return of the Relics of Our Holy Father Gregory the Theologian (lines 542–84). Cf. John of Damascus’ entry on the Scriptures in his Precise Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (90), where the Scriptures are presented as a “most beautiful paradise, fragrant, and most delightful,

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Plate 6 Gregory of Nazianzos as reader; Florence, Pluteus 7.24 (1091, written by the scribe Euthymios Xiphilinos, a monk), f. 3 verso.

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kind of pleasure that the Byzantines reserved only for the semi-private sphere of letter-writing or poetry.21 Take the following example from a Psellos himself, who is admittedly the most vocal representative of this eroticized language (G 16.29–36 to the patriarch of Antioch Aimilianos): ëH d• a­sqhsiv – ˆll‡ päv ‹n t¼ taÅthv p†qov diakribÛsaim© soi; – Þv t ãr tän gegramm”nwn pros”bale, kaª Þv t¼ dihnqism”non e²de tän l”xewn kaª tŸn sunqžkhn tän toÓ l»gou mor©wn di”gnwke, kaª Þv p†nta kat‡ l»gouv ‰rmonikv –pistžmhv sunt”qeitai katen»hsen,  l†lax” te Âson  dÅnato kaª ãsper o¬ deinoª tän –rastän Âlh prosecÅqh t gr†mmati –pafwm”nh tŸn l”xin, aÉtŸn tŸn sunqžkhn, kaª –f’ —k†st l»g kaª çžmati periptussom”nh t¼ gr†mma kaª peritiqe±sa –gk†rdion. As for my sense of perception [aisthˆesis], how might I describe her22 experience [pathos] with any precision? When she dashed against the beauty of your writing, when she saw the flowering of your words, discerned your composition of the parts of speech, and understood that everything had been composed according to the science of harmony, she cried as loudly as she could. Like the most intense and skilled of lovers [erastˆes], she poured her self entirely over the letter, touching the words, the composition itself, embracing the letter’s each and every word and phrase, and placing it into her heart.

Reading is here imagined as a consummation of desire, a pursuit of sensory, eroticized gratification. Psellos, the reader, indulges in the material pleasures of writing.23 The approach in the Discourse is similar. Psellos’ metaphor of being “abducted,” the pursuit of pleasure in a rose-garden, and speaking of kissing in the first person derive from the language of sexual desire.24

21 22 23 24

twittering our ears with the varied songs of intellectual god-bearing birds.” The metaphor may remind us of Psellos’ “rose-gardens” and the sensory experience that they incite. Yet John of Damascus’ scriptural garden is not exactly aesthetic; rather, sensory pleasure is appropriated in order to serve spiritual needs, the reader’s exposure to the majestic content of the Bible. For a similar emphasis on spiritual pleasure (incited by listening to and remembering the Lives of saints), yet with stronger aesthetic connotations and thus anticipating Psellos, see the digressions in several of the revised Martyria and Lives in Symeon Metaphrastes’ Menologion, and the brief discussion in Høgel 2002: 143. Cf. Bernard 2010: 58–61. I replicate the feminine gender of the Greek; cf. the discussion below, p. 204. For further examples, see pp. 150 and 194 below. Worthy of comparison also: Or. min. 37.198–210. See Gregory of Nazianzos, Poem 1.2.10 and Symeon the New Theologian, Hymn 24.146–54 (with Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 24.9) and Ethical Discourses 6.216–33 on “being robbed” by the senses; Prokopios of Gaza, Declamation 2.74–97 for an erotic scene in a “rose-garden” (rhodˆonia) with Plutarch’s Amatorius 770b that criticizes the inconsistent boy-lovers who, like soldiers, “pass the spring of the year [enearizein] in regions that are lush and blooming and then decamp as though from a hostile country.” Psellos’ verb kataphilein is used in the first person primarily in contexts of erotic desire: Achilles Tatios, Leukippe and Kleitophon 2.7.5 and 2.9.3; Symeon the New Theologian,

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For Psellos, the material appearance of Gregory’s discourse – which, we should remember, offered authoritative statements of dogma and morality and not just texts of the private sphere – becomes an erotic object. The result of this eroticization is that ideal style gains an unprecedented autonomy that supersedes its function as mediation of content. This autonomy is not temporary, simply recalled during an enthusiastic moment. In the remainder of his treatise, Psellos spends considerable energy to describe the aesthetic appeal of Gregory’s style. Where earlier theorists insist on the “power” of discourse, he is set on charm, beauty, pleasure, and resistance to its satiety.25 When, for instance, Psellos describes word selection and composition, the kind of discursive process whose theorization he attributes to Dionysios of Halikarnassos, he devotes most of his examination to two metaphors, in which Gregory’s words are compared to precious stones. Gregory is a collector who travels laboriously in search of gems as well as an exquisite artist who embroiders jewelry.26 Aesthetics is also conveyed by another metaphor inserted in the very first paragraph of Psellos’ essay, discussed previously. Gregory, we read (§ 3: 22–3), “has himself become from within himself an archetypal statue [agalma] of discursive charm.” The word agalma was often used by classical writers in order to describe discourse and to highlight, among other things, its aesthetic appeal.27 In philosophical and rhetorical theories of discourse, however, the metaphor was used in restrictive ways. Two such instances may be compared to Psellos. In a letter accompanying his Dion (Letter 154), Synesios likened his essay to the grotesque Athenian statues (agalmata) that depicted Silenuses and Satyrs yet also hid within them “Aphrodite and the Graces and such beauties of gods [or better: goddesses] = %frod©thn kaª C†ritav kaª toiaÓta k†llh qeän.” Synesios’ intention in the Dion was precisely to hide, behind the grotesque surface of discourse, “inviolable dogmas” that only the enlightened reader could see. The metaphor alluded to the wellknown image of Socrates’ Silenus-like appearance, concealing within it “statues of gods,” an image attributed in Plato’s Symposium to both Socrates and his speeches, his logoi (215a6-b3; 216d5–217a2; 221d7–222a6).

25

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Hymn 18.115–7; Eumathios Makrembolites, The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias 3.7, 4.21, 5.11, 7.3, 9.18. Discourse § 23: 216, § 24: 225, § 31: 283, § 41: 346–8, § 44: 369–70. Cf. Styles of Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa 126.28 (Gregory’s “tongue that never causes satiety”) and 127.2 (Gregory’s pleasure effect). §§ 8–19: 61–94 and 148–80; 65 lines altogether, 14 percent of the entire text. Steiner 2001: 251–94 (the statue/discourse parallelism from Homer to Isocrates); also Ford 2002: passim.

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The second example is found in Dionysios’ On Demosthenes (51). There, Dionysios defended his model rhetor from accusations that he had introduced into “political” discourse elements such as “melody, rhythm, and meter” that did not belong to civic rhetoric but to “music and poetry.”28 Dionysios compared Demosthenes’ practice to that of Plato and Isocrates, and their “sculpted” discourse, and also evoked the work of “sculptors and painters” who demonstrated their “manual skill” by laboring intensely on the accurate depiction of “ . . . even small veins, young plumage, the bloom of the first down, and the like.” Such labor, Dionysios claimed, is necessary for the creation of the kind of perfect art that a “civic artisan” such as Demosthenes had put forth in order to “leave behind immortal monuments [mnˆemeia] of his genius.” In both cases, sculpture, though carrying sensual connotations, is evoked in order to ultimately serve ends that transcend mere sensuality. In Synesios, Plato’s metaphor expressed an understanding of discourse as aesthetic surface that could provide mediation as well as concealment of true meaning; a typical metaphor for late antique hermeneutics.29 In Dionysios, aesthetic artistry mediates the power of an author of the glorious Attic past; Demosthenes’ sculpted discourse manifests a monument of enduring genius. Psellos maximizes the inherent sensuality of these earlier passages and advances a different meaning. The “archetypal statue” of Gregory’s style is associated emphatically with aesthetic appeal, with “discursive charm [charis].”30 The direct intertext of Psellos’ phrase archetypon agalma is telling. The only other time that this exact phrase is used in premodern Greek is in Heliodoros’ Charikleia (as Psellos called the late antique romantic novel Aethiopian Tale). There, it is the female protagonist who “draws all eyes and minds to itself like an archetypal statue” (Aethiopian Tale 2.33.3).31 It is also telling how Psellos employs the metaphor of sculpture later in the Discourse. When describing Gregory’s skill at putting together various words and mixing superior with inferior word-matter, Psellos makes the following remark (§ 17–19: 163–87): 28 29

30 31

The translation of Stephen Usher in the Loeb series; cf. a similar passage in On Composition 25.180ff. Similar usages of the metaphor in Neoplatonic exegesis: Proklos, Commentary on the Republic 1.73.12–30 (myths as statues); Commentary on the Republic 2.107.25 ff.; Platonic Theology 1.124 (the names of gods as “speaking statues”); cf. Saffrey 1981. See also Maximos the Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium, prol. 21–45 (logos fashioned by the Spirit as a “divine statue”). For further discussion of Synesios’ letter: Harich-Schwarzbauer 2002 (esp. p. 103 ff.). Cf. Synesios’ remark that the statue hidden within is of “Aphrodite and the Graces [charites].” Cf. also how Psellos finds Euripides to be “full of delight [agalmatias, literally “statue-like”] and charming” in all of his dramas; Euripides or Pisides 64–5. For the function of the image of the statue in Heliodoros: Whitmarsh 2002b (esp. at 116–9).

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E« d” tiv ‰rm»ttein o²de paralabÜn di†fora m»ria kaª t‡ ple©w toÅtwn kaq’ —aut‡ mŸ timÛmena, ›peita sunqeªv o«ke©wv kaª eËarm»stwv kaª Šllo pr¼v Šllo –mmeläv param©xav, ›sti m•n Âp t‡ meg”qh to±v mikrot”roiv –xÛgkwsen, ›sti d’ Âp kaª to±v –lac©stoiv k»smon tin‡ di‡ tän meg©stwn parebi†sato, m”soiv diastžmasi t‡ diaf”ronta pepo©hken Âmoia kaª t ˆnomoi»thti tän Ëpokeim”nwn sumfwn©an ˆr©sthn e«rg†sato. o²d’ Âti oÉk ˆnaneÅseiv, ˆll‡ kaª katayhf©seiv mou t parade©gmatiá e« d• mž, ¾ Feid©av –l”gxei se, Áv crusoÓn t¼ säma tv %frod©thv pepoihkÜv m”lan† tina l©qon t tÅp tän ½mm†twn –nžrmose . . . t d” ge meg†l toÅt patrª kaª m†lista diafer»ntwv tän Šllwn ¡ ‰rmon©a tän l”xewn –spoÅdastai, kaª ›stin oÕ tän l»gwn aÉtoÓ ˆfel tina çžmata kaª mhd•n eÉm”geqev ›conta poik©laiv ta±v m©xesi tosaÅthn eÉstom©an e«rg†sato, Âshn oÉdeªv ˆp¼ tv tän çhm†twn kain»thtov suneisžnegken. Let us suppose that someone who knew how to join elements together were to take different parts, most of which had little value in themselves. He would then arrange them aptly and fittingly and mix them one next to another in proper proportions. In some places, he would increase the larger parts through the smaller ones. In other places, he would enforce adornment upon the most insignificant stones through the greater gems. Through mediating distances, he would render similar what is different, while working a perfect concord through the dissimilarity of the materials before him. Not only will you not deny my example, but, I know, you will approve of it. For if you do not accept it, Pheidias will prove you wrong. Having made the body of Aphrodite of gold, he attached a dark stone to represent her eyes . . . As for this great Father, he has treated word-harmony with great care and, in comparison to others, quite distinctly. In some places within his speeches, through varied mixtures of simple words of no grandeur, Gregory created such eloquence that no one else contributed more, even with novel words.

Gregory is compared to a jeweler who combines disparate matter in order to produce a perfect aesthetic harmony and also with Pheidias who used elements of stark contrast in order to sculpt the “body of Aphrodite = t¼ säma tv %frod©thv.”32 That Psellos has evoked the latter image in 32

Psellos is likely referring to the statue of Aphrodite Ourania that Pheidias made for the Eleians, according to Pausanias (6.25.1). Psellos’ reference to Pheidias’ insetting of dark-stone eyes for this particular statue is, however, unique, not attested in any other ancient source; for a possible influence see Plato, Hippias major 290a-d where a discussion of Pheidias’ making of the eyes of Athena not of gold but from stone – has Psellos replaced Athena with the more erotic Aphrodite? Another possible influence could be Plato, Republic 420c-e where Socrates argues that, though an inferior color, black applied to the eyes of a statue contributes to its overall beauty. For the statue of Aphrodite at Elis

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this context and in this manner is remarkable. The statue with which Psellos compares Gregory’s discourse is of a female deity, a deity of desire, Aphrodite. Pheidias’ much more famous Zeus at Olympia might have been a more expected comparison,33 or, at least, the less erotically charged statue of Athena Parthenos, Pheidias’ other famous work.34 Psellos’ reference to Aphrodite’s body is also significant. Gregory’s statue-like “body” is not like the virtuous and “manly” maiden to which Sikeliotes compared Hermogenes’ rhetoric, as we saw above. Rather, Psellos thinks of Gregory’s discourse as the paradigmatic object of desire.35 “I know,” Psellos had reminded Pothos, “that being passionate for sensible exterior beauty, you often weave around a desired body some forehead ornament, a neckpiece, or a band” (§ 16: 148–62). Set in the frame of Pothos’ desire, Gregory’s discourse is unexpectedly paralleled with the desirable body of a woman.36 rhetorical variation and the poet-rhetor Gregory’s “statue” of discursive delight is a potent metaphor for the kind of aesthetic subjectivity that Psellos envisions for his author as an agent of style. It also sets the stage for another dimension of his rhetorical aesthetics: the ability of the artist to shape material form and alter his own appearance. Suspended on the erotic site of representation, constrained by no apparent moral obligations and preset references, the author is affirmed further as an actor. Psellos insists throughout the Discourse on the author’s unlimited capacity for stylistic variation. The theme makes its first appearance one third into the text in the discussion of synthˆekˆe lexeˆos, word arrangement or composition. There, we read about the ideal artist’s mastery at making “differing” elements “similar” and producing a perfect symphony through the “dissimilarity of underlying matter.” This ability is manifested in 33 34 35

36

and its few and brief descriptions see Lapatin 2001: 90–5; Lapatin knows Psellos’ passage from Keil 1904 and, wrongly, doubts Psellos’ authorship. Cf. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 12 where Dio compares proper discourse to Pheidias’ Zeus; on this statue: Lapatin 2001: 88–90, and chapters 6 and 7. Psellos knew about Pheidias’ Athena: Boissonade 46.19–20 with Strabo 58.10–12; cf. Rhoby 2001. It is notable that of the ancient and Byzantine references to Pheidias’ Aphrodite, the one that comes closest to Psellos in relating Pheidias’ Aphrodite with desire is a scholion on Gregory of Nazianzos, Poem 1.2.10 (On Virtue; PG 37 742, where the name of Pheidias is mentioned) from a tenth-century MS with the poems of Gregory of Nazianzos, Oxford, Bodleian E. D. Clarke 12 f. 63: “Feid©av . . . ˆgalmatopoi¼v Šristov . . . tŸn d• %frod©thn ˆn”qhken Þv p†nta t¼n ¾ränta e«v –piqum©an ™lkesqai sunous©av”; ed. Gaisford 1812: 36, cited in Lapatin 2001: 166 from Overbeck 1868: 739. Speaking of a desired body, Psellos toys also with the name of his addressee: Pothos, i.e., Desire; cf. Levy 1912: 29.

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Gregory’s art of “re-making” words into “versatile figurations” and working his eloquence “through varied mixtures” (§§ 17–19; ll. 167–9, 176– 8, 185–6). When Psellos, at the end of the Discourse, reviews and concludes his presentation, he focuses on how Gregory is “multiform,” how he “alters” or “transposes himself toward greater variety” (§ 56: 441–5). As the essay unfolds, Psellos ascribes to variation an accelerating, almost dizzying importance. “Similarity” joined with “dissimilarity,” “multiformity,” “variation,” “change,” “alteration,” “variations of figures,” “versatile figuration,” “fashioning and re-fashioning,” “self-transposition,” “mixture of forms,” and “double-speaking,” are paraded before the reader. Adjectives such as anomoios, diaphoros, heteros, pantodapos, poikilos, and polyeidˆes, verbs such as allattein, alloiousthai, dia-poikillein, epamphoterizein, meta-ballein, meta-poiein, meta-plattein, and meta-tithesthai, and nouns such as schˆema and schˆematismos prevail within Psellos’ apparatus of critical terms.37 Such fascination with variation is not limited to this essay or in reference to Gregory alone. Regardless of content, genre, pagan or Christian author, Psellos accentuates stylistic variability in a manner unprecedented in rhetorical theory. Rhetoric itself is synonymous with variation: it “varies in its forms and mixtures = poik©lletai to±v e­desi kaª ta±v kr†sesi,” Psellos claims in a speech dedicated to the emperor Monomachos (Discourse to the Emperor Kyr Konstantinos Monomachos = Or. pan. 1.112–14; dated to 1053–4).38 This appreciation of variation was much indebted to earlier rhetorical theory. From Dionysios’ Demosthenes whose style is a “mixture of every form,” like Proteus who “assumed every form of shape,” to Hermogenes’ Demosthenes who, while remaining “the same everywhere,” is also “different” depending on the type of discourse, and finally to Sikeliotes’ mimetic rhetoric that “performs every subject that it encounters,” changeability and variety, metabolˆe and poikilia, are regarded as seminal ingredients of persuasive discourse.39 Psellos extends this appreciation further. So much so, that he pays relatively little attention to the moral primacies by which the flexible system of rhetorical variety was usually held together in 37 38

39

§§ 20, 23–4, 27, 30–1, 36, 41–2, 44–6, 51, 53; ll. 190–2, 217–18, 221–2, 224–6, 254, 279, 283, 287, 315–16, 347, 352–8, 368, 411–12, 428–30. For some further examples on Gregory of Nazianzos: Styles of Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa 126.16–17; Theol. i 68.31 ff. on Greg. Naz. Or. 39.12 (cf. Theol. i 75.117–37 on Ioann. 1.1); Theol. i 98.109–33, on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1. See also: Poem 2.1213–4 and 53.684–720 (Old Testament prophets); On John Chrysostom § 13–15 (Chrysostom); Theol. 1 06.114–19 (Aristotle); Charikleia and Leukippe 15–18, 29–35, 43–9, 59–65 (Heliodoros). Dionysios, On Demosthenes 8.13–31; Hermogenes, On Forms 2.9 = On Force (372.8–18); Ioannes Sikeliotes, Comm. 329.28–330.1; also Arethas, Scripta minora 17 (cf. pp. 49–50 above).

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previous rhetorical theory. While such theorists as Dionysios, Hermogenes, and Sikeliotes expressed their appreciation for rhetorical variation, they simultaneously delimited it by reference to stable principles such as appropriateness, naturalness, inner unity, and truth. Variation, they argued, is acceptable, pleasurable, and indeed expected of the rhetor. Yet neither should it work against the inner unity and harmony of discourse – often seen as a “natural,” rather than an artistic feature – nor defy the pursuit of truth and usefulness. Principles and conditions extraneous to the author ultimately defined the directions of his stylistic versatility. Style may be remarkably flexible, yet the rhetor could not be an entirely free agent of it.40 Psellos is aware of such regulatory constraints exerted upon variation – especially, for example, of the most open-ended such constraint: kairos, the rhetorical demand to heed appropriateness to specific contexts.41 However, he usually refrains from evoking external or internal moral obligations that might limit Gregory’s (or, as we shall see, Psellos’ own) variability. If something causes variation, this is usually no other than the author’s own will. Take this among the many examples (§ 42: 355–8): íWsper g‡r –n stigm t‡v Ëpoq”seiv sune©rwn, pr¼v t¼ o«ke±on boÅlhma taÅtav metaceir©zetai, tupän kaª metapoioÅmenov ãsper tin‡ khr¼n eÉdi†cuton, sumpi”zwn to±v daktÅloiv kaª metapl†ttwn kaª pr¼v t¼n pantodap»n metab†llwn schmatism»n. Stringing subjects together as if but for a moment, he handles them according to his own will. Fashioning and remaking them as if they were supple wax, he compresses them with his fingers so as to refashion [metaplattˆon] and transform [metaballˆon] them into versatile figures.

40

41

Appropriateness (prepon), its early history, and moral force: Kustas 1973: 41–42; in Dionysios of Halikarnassos in particular: e.g., On Demosthenes 47.11–17 and On Composition 12.59–63 with Heath 1989: 71–89. Naturalness (kata physin or physei) in Dionysios of Halikarnassos: de Jonge 2008: 250–73. Cf. Hermogenes, On Forms 1.1 = Introduction (221.5–23: on Demosthenes), 1.12 = On Beauty (296.15–297.14), 2.2 = On Character (320.25–321.10), and 2.9 = On Force (368.23–369.24): on the mixture of forms delimited by such principles as correctness or orthotˆes, necessity or to deon, appropriateness or prepon, naturalness or physis, unity or to hen, and totality or to holon; cf. Kustas 1973: 15–16 on Hermogenes’ flexible system yet with an emphasis on “natural harmony.” Usefulness and truth: Dionysios of Halikarnassos, To Ammaeus 6.11–7.13 with Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1355a21–22. Moral usefulness in particular: Ioannes Sikeliotes, Comm. 419.17–420.7 with 482.13–483.2. For the importance of “truth” in Byzantine conceptions of discourse in general: Kustas 1973: 27–9. Cf. § 55: 439–41: “In proofs, he is capable of all that he wishes [boulesthai] and he is powerful in the elaboration of his arguments. He does not present, however, all of his arguments, but whichever ones happen to be measured out by timeliness [kairos].” Cf., e.g., K-D 28 to Kyritzes (35.26–36.8 and 39.22–6), where Psellos invokes Greek rhetoric of the Imperial period in order to both insist that discourse must “transform itself” according to audience and occasion, and justify his own constant “metamorphosis.” On kairos, see further Kinneavy 1986.

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The changeability of discourse at the hands or, rather, the will of the author is stressed here. The exemplary author is characterized by the will to vary his style.42 ∗∗∗ This prevalence of variation, dictated primarily by the author, is further strengthened by a seminal innovation that Psellos introduces into the portrait of Gregory: his view that Gregory excelled in panegyrics. The innovation is again remarkable if set in its wider Byzantine frame and deserves an extensive excursus. A subtle but persistent way by which Greek rhetorical theory restrained authorial freedom was by the limited value it accorded to the “panegyrical” mode, identified as pleasure-focused and display-oriented discourse. Hermogenes’ On Forms is telling in this regard. The work closes with a distinction between two types of discourse: civic discourse, politikos logos, and festive or panegyrical discourse, panˆegyrikos logos (On Forms 2.10–12). Civic discourse in Hermogenes denotes the three traditional genres of oratory as defined earlier by Aristotle in his Rhetoric (1.3 = 1358a36–1359a26): advisory/deliberative (symbouleutikos), forensic/judicial (dikanikos), and again “panegyrical” (equivalent to Aristotle’s “epideictic” discourse), here understood in the narrower sense of display oratory that deals with civic matters. Though mentioned, this third category actually disappears from Hermogenes’ purview, since it was not practiced by his model, Demosthenes.43 Its name and semantic force, however, are transferred to the second major type of discourse, panˆegyrikos logos proper. Despite its name, which alludes to discourse for ceremonial occasions, panˆegyrikos logos includes primarily written discourse, meant to satisfy the need for entertainment rather than practical purposes. Hermogenes places under this type the genres of dialogue, historiographical narrative, and poetry and argues that panegyrical discourse is best exemplified by Plato and Homer, in prose and verse respectively.44 42

43

44

Cf. further Discourse § 23:223–4, § 41:350, § 51:419, § 53:426–8, § 56:447–9; On John Chrysostom § 20; Euripides or Pisides? 26–7. See also On the Arrangement of the Parts of Speech 2 (p. 261.5–6): t¼ metaschmat©zein t‡ ‰rmott»mena pr¼ Á boÅloit» tiv (the italicized phrase is Psellos’ addition to the original Dionysian passage = On the Arrangement of the Parts of Speech 6.1–9; cf. p. 81 above). The metaphor of discourse as “supple wax” goes back to Plato; see Republic 588d1–2 with Suda kappa 1537 and pi 1693. Apart from speech itself, Psellos also regards the human voice of a performing reader as “more supple than wax”; Encomium For the Monk Ioannes Kroustoulas Who Read Aloud At the Holy Soros = Or. min. 37.316 on the reader Ioannes (cf. pp. 114–15 below). Demosthenes, as Dionysios of Halikarnassos had already observed, did not excel in panegyrics; On Demosthenes 44. For the influence of Hermogenes on the Byzantines’ frequent disregard for the term “epideictic,” see Lauxtermann 1998: 532–534. In aligning epic poetry and rhetorical prose, Hermogenes is influenced by Dionysios; cf. de Jonge 2008: 329–366. On the origins of this alignment, see Walker 2000.

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Importantly, Hermogenes’ implied preference is for civic discourse, especially its first two subcategories of advisory and judicial rhetoric. Indeed, his work as a whole is largely devoted to a description of Demosthenes’ civic style as the norm. This preference is no accident. In Hermogenes’ view, civic discourse aims at persuasion and is governed primarily by the principles of clarity and truth. By contrast, panegyrical discourse is directed toward pleasure, employs sweetness, and is open to fictional and mythological content and a performative mode of representation – what Hermogenes calls the “mimesis of all subjects,” an exclusive feature of poetry, Homer in particular.45 Though not absolute, the distinction between civic and panegyrical logos manifested a more general anxiety about any type of discourse that might not obey the moral demands and address the practical needs of the civic community, but rather focus simply on display and entertainment. It is not a coincidence that “dramatic” poetry – I mean performance-oriented poetry such as tragedy and comedy – is conspicuously missing from Hermogenes’ otherwise comprehensive account of the earlier discursive production.46 Byzantine theorists inherited this Hermogenian preference for civic discourse, which ultimately had its roots in Aristotelian notions (e.g., Rhetoric 1365a25). Politikos logos became a synonym for rhetoric itself, now defined as discourse with an avowedly “political” function.47 Indeed, Byzantine rhetoricians, who had a slightly different understanding of what politikos might mean in a Christian as well as Imperial context, proceeded even further in demarcating proper rhetoric from pleasure-, display-, and fiction-oriented discourse, namely from the rhetoric that we might regard as “literary” discourse – indeed, if there is a term in Byzantine theory of discourse that comes closest to our term for “literature” this would be the category of panˆegyrikos logos. Sikeliotes’ response, for instance, to Hermogenes’ distinction between political and panegyrical discourse was to restructure it further. Wishing to canonize Gregory, an author who unlike Demosthenes did excel in “panegyrical” speeches (such as, for example, Gregory’s celebrated epitaphios 45

46 47

On Forms 2.10 = On Civic Discourse (391.1); cf. 2.12 = On the Simply Panegyrical Discourse (408.19– 20: on Herodotus’ “most poetic” mimesis of characters and emotions). On the distinction of civic and panegyrical discourse in general (though not with the perspective adopted here), see Rutherford 1998: 37–53 with Patillon 1988: 279–84 and 294–300 (mimesis and fiction); also Lindberg 1977: 112–20. Other than Homer, poets play a minor role in On Forms; see Rutherford 1998: 54–63. Cichocka 1994: 1–51; Schouler 1995; Cichocka 2010 (esp. 35–7). On the similarly “political” direction of Roman rhetorical theory and its Ciceronian background: Copeland 1991: 16f.; Copeland and Sluiter 2009: 56–7.

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logos in honor of Basil of Caesarea),48 Sikeliotes formally does away with the bipartite distinction of Hermogenes. According to Sikeliotes, there is just one type of discourse: “civic” discourse. The adjective is now redefined in order to fit writers such as Gregory who actually practice “non-civic” discourse, preoccupied with “beings” and “true wisdom” and not with trivial civic matters.49 In Sikeliotes’ view, the Fathers “joined civic discourse” with what is “absolutely necessary” for man’s communion with God and thus “raised our nature to the nature of eternity.” “This,” Sikeliotes states, “is the true civic discourse [politikos logos], the one that grants lawfulness to the powers of our souls, those intelligible cities [poleis] . . . introducing peace . . . and transferring us to that original polity [politeia] from which we were snatched away.” This “true” civic discourse is then divided by Sikeliotes into three kinds, which reinstate the Aristotelian division: deliberative/advisory, forensic/judicial, and panegyrical discourse. In order to accommodate Hermogenes’ distinction, Sikeliotes proceeds to divide the panegyrical kind into three further sub-categories: (a) the civic panegyrical type “which is expedient for the polities” (practiced by Gregory of Nazianzos), (b) the speech-writing or logographikos type (Plato’s dialogues, and also “the antirrhetical speeches of the saints”), and (c) the “poetical” type (best exemplified by Homer, with, again, little mention of other kinds of poetry). As Sikeliotes makes clear, it is admonitory, judicial, and civic panegyrical discourse that takes precedence; indeed, of the three, it is Gregory’s achievement in the properly “civic” genre of dikanikos logos that fascinates Sikeliotes and is best exemplified in Gregory’s Syntaktˆerios (Or. 42), the speech most cited and praised in the Commentary.50 At the opposite end lie the genres of speech-writing and epic poetry, which, while not expelled from Sikeliotes’ world, are clearly inferior. Subordinated under the “true” civic rhetoric in service of Christian morality and theology, the traditional panˆegyrikos logos and its orientation toward sensual pleasure are here further demoted. The sentiment is shared by the other important rhetorician of the eleventh century, Ioannes Doxapatres. Doxapatres stressed the superiority of morally defined civic discourse, favoring the advisory genre. 48 49 50

Following Dionysios and Hermogenes, Sikeliotes asserts that Demosthenes did not excel in panegyrics; cf. Comm. 292.25–7. See Comm. 466.17–470.7 where also the cited phrases that follow. See also Prolegomena 393–4 where the three genres of civic discourse are defined in explicitly moral terms. See, e.g., Prolegomena 414.29–415.6; Comm. 198.7–199.34 and 462.8–463.12 (part of Sikeliotes’ discussion of Gregory’s deinotˆes); cf. Conley 2003: 148. Psellos too admired Gregory’s Syntaktˆerios; see Theol. i 2.68–70.

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Symbouleutikos logos, in his view, is the most ancient, demanding, and comprehensive type of speech, the most useful genre for both the community and one’s own way of life.51 Typical in this respect is Doxapatres’ attitude toward that type of “panegyrical discourse” that was explicitly distant from “truth” and the preoccupations of politikos logos: namely myth (mythos), non-Christian mythology. Byzantine students encountered myths in their readings of poetry and rhetoric, especially in Homeric poetry, which continued to be primary school material, but also in the rhetoric of the Church Fathers, most notably in Gregory of Nazianzos’ texts.52 They also dealt with myths while learning basic skills in rhetorical composition: mythos, namely fable, was the first in a series of school exercises, the progymnasmata. In his commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata, Doxapatres dwells considerably on the problem of why mythos, which is “by nature false,” is included in the preliminary exercises of a Christian rhetor’s training. Doxapatres justifies practice in myth as preparatory for one’s excellence in the socially and morally useful genre of advisory rhetoric and separates clearly the myth of rhetors and that of poets. Rhetorical myth is “not for entertainment” or “display,” Doxapatres writes, but for training in persuasiveness. Such ability to persuade will be necessary once the student advances – rather quickly we might add – to “true subjects” and the remaining progymnasmata, “which follow truth closely” (Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 145.7–154.14; cf. Ioannes of Sardeis, Commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata, 4–14). Beyond rhetorical manuals and the specialized concerns of teachers of rhetoric, the preference for “civic” discourse in Byzantium was reflected in the very constitution of middle Byzantine rhetorical and book culture and its quite particular attitude toward fiction, namely the most “panegyrical” type of discourse, the one most exemplified by Homer and his “mimesis of all subjects.” Fiction in this sense did not include simply non-Christian mythology, but also any type of writing that was explicitly the product of literary imagination and was acknowledged by both its authors and its readers as fictional – what Byzantine rhetoricians termed plasma and drama.53 51

52 53

See Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 149.15–151.27 (ed. Rabe) with 108.1–4 and 129.1–131.10 (ed. Rabe). See also the conclusion to Doxapatres’ introduction to his commentary on the On Forms (Prolegomena 426.21–6); in this introduction, Doxapatres evokes the authority of Sikeliotes recurrently. Homer: Browning 1975; Dyck 1983. Gregory: cf. the widely circulating sixth-century commentaries by Ps.-Nonnos (ed. Nimmo Smith 1992), cited pp. 59–60 above. Types of Byzantine narrative, such as hagiography or historiography, that, though often fictional from our perspective, were not acknowledged as such by the Byzantines are not included here. For plasma

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It is not that the tradition of logoi as well as rhetorical theory and practice were sanitized from fiction.54 Quite the contrary. Educated readers continued to own and read ancient fiction: beyond Homer, more advanced readers were exposed to novels such as those of Achilles Tatios and Heliodoros, rhetorical quasi-fictional texts such as Lucian’s dialogues, rhetorical pieces by Philostratos, and fictional letters; they also continued to read Athenian drama (especially Euripides) and ancient poetry, which often had fictional content.55 After all, exposure to such texts was part and parcel of the cultural capital of erudition, logiotˆes. Moreover, Byzantine rhetoricians themselves reflected on the concept, and occasionally justified the practice, of fictionality. They had to do so in order to deal with Homeric poetry56 and such notions as that of logo-poios, speech-maker – which Sikeliotes defined as the “creator of non-existing things [mˆe onta], such as myths, declamations [meletai], and prose dramas [dramata]” (Comm. 487.1–2). Fiction was justified also in elaborations of rhetorical techniques such as the feigning of spontaneous sincerity discussed in the chapter on the relevant Hermogenian form (On Form 2.7 on “–ndi†qetov kaª ˆlhqŸv kaª o³on ›myucov l»gov”) and in a chapter “On Pretense” in the pseudo-Hermogenian treatise On Forceful Speaking (17). Rhetoricians also trained their students in aspects of fictionalizing discourse: fictional narratives such as mythos and, additionally, dramatikon or plasmatikon diˆegˆema, and impersonation such as prosˆopopoiia, a sub-category of ˆethopoiia (“character-making”) dealing with imaginary personae.57 The very practice of mimesis, in the sense of performative, representational, and, ultimately, fictional mode, continued to form an essential part of rhetorical practice. The exercise of ˆethopoiia, a type of dramatic monologue, was defined as an “imitation of an underlying person = m©mhsiv ¢qouv Ëpokeim”nou prosÛpou.” Similarly, the exercise of ekphrasis, descriptive narrative, required the rhetor to “vary with different figures and, in general, imitate the things described = diaf»roiv poik©llein to±v

54 55 56 57

as a technical term, see Ioannes Doxapatres, Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 136.19–137.5 (ed. Rabe) discussed in Agapitos 2012. For the terms drama and plasma as indicating fictional discourse, see various references in, e.g., Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe or Eustathios’ Parekbolai on Homer’s Iliad. For a brief definition of drama, see Suda delta.1498: Drma: po©hma, prgma. Þv kaª drsai, prxai. l”getai d• drma kaª t‡ Ëp¼ tän qeatrikän mimhläv gin»mena Þv –n Ëpokr©sei. For a thorough discussion of fiction and fictionality in Byzantium, especially from the twelfth century onwards, see Agapitos 2012. See also Kaldellis forthcoming. For the reading of novels: Agapitos 1998a; Agapitos 2012. For poetry: Lauxtermann 2003. Porter 2011 on Eustathios. Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 1–2 and 34 with, e.g., Ioannes of Sardeis, Commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 15.11–17.13 and 201.12–26.

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scžmasi kaª Âlwv ˆpomime±sqai t‡ –kfraz»mena pr†gmata.”58 Such definitions and their openness to fiction as dramatization permeated the practice of rhetoric and even of politikos logos. Menandros urged future writers of encomia: “if you are able to create a fictive account [plasai kai poiein] . . . do not hesitate” (On Epideictic Speeches 371). Ioannes Sikeliotes claimed that drama and mimˆesis are needed even in “civic discourse” given that “ . . . it is necessary to adopt the form/shape [morphˆe] of the underlying persons” (Comm. 482.18–483.2). And Psellos would clarify: rhetoric is “adorned by its persuasive lying and its ambiguity towards subject-matters” (Chron. 6.197bis.14–26). Regardless of these smaller, larger, conscious, or habitual exposures to fiction and “literary” discourse, no explicitly fictional texts, such as novels, dialogues, or fictional letters, either in prose or in poetry, were written from the ninth century to the early twelfth century. After the prose of Heliodoros, the poetry of Nonnos, and the letters of Aristainetos and Theophylaktos Simokattes, drama and fiction consciously produced and read as such virtually disappeared.59 It seems as if writers hesitated to produce discourse of this most “panegyrical” kind in the Hermogenian sense of the term. Though they wrote encomia, funerary speeches, and historiographical narrative and worked on other, more playful panegyrical genres such as epigrammatic poetry and rhetoricized letter-writing, they resisted the production of fiction. They resisted, that is, what the rhetorical theorists defined as the Homeric kind of mimesis. It is without doubt that Psellos knew that proper rhetoric was to be configured as “civic” rhetoric and that one should refuse the demands of spectacle or theater and resist this type of mimesis (cf. K-D 27 to Kyritzes and 224 to Aristenos). Nevertheless, while in the Discourse he uses the term politikos in its general sense as a synonym of the adjective “rhetorical” (§ 24: 224–7), Psellos does not make much of the morally civic character expected of proper rhetoric. He does not introduce the distinctions and implicit devaluation of sense-oriented, performative, and open-to-fiction speech which we find in Hermogenes, Sikeliotes, and Doxapatres. By 58

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Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 34.2–3 and 37.21–38.2; also Suda eta.157. Such commentators as Ioannes of Sardeis (Comm. on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 194–230) and Ioannes Doxapatres (Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 493–509; ed. Walz) added lengthy discussions of the performatively mimetic requirements of rhetoric. For the gradual disappearance of fiction: Bowersock 1994: 142–3; on theater: Barnes 1996; Webb 2008. For the rather particular and only indirectly attested case of a drama, though without a fictional content, written by John of Damascus (Drama of Susanna, two verses; PG 136.508), see Lauxtermann 2003: 134–5. The fictionalizing dialogue Philopatris, sometimes dated to the tenth century, belongs in my view to the twelfth-century revival of Lucianic dialogue.

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contrast, Psellos presents Gregory as most accomplished in “panegyrical discourse” (§ 37: 320–4),60 the kind of speech on which Psellos too prided himself; indeed the most significant part of his own rhetorical production belongs to this category.61 At the level of theory, Psellos’ praise of Gregory’s panˆegyrikos sets him apart from the tradition described above. As quickly becomes clear to the reader, Gregory’s panˆegyrikos in Psellos’ view is not of the sanitized kind of Sikeliotes’ “civic panegyrical,” the one “by which we praise God and those who are His and we attack and condemn those who oppose Him,” the type of speech associated with the exhortation to morality and inculcation of theology.62 Rather, in terms of its stylistic form, Gregory’s panˆegyrikos in Psellos’ perspective is much like Hermogenes’ panegyrical type of discourse: the one associated with Plato and, especially, Homer. To begin with, Psellos insists on comparing Gregory primarily to Plato rather than Demosthenes – Plato is the author most often cited by name (a total of eight times).63 Moreover, Psellos evokes not the philosopher Plato but the excessively rhetorical Plato censured by rhetoricians such as Dionysios of Halikarnassos. As Psellos writes elsewhere, Plato is an author who “performs Socrates,” is “playful,” “recreates [ana-plattein] with his discourse” elaborate metaphors, and “without hesitation creates a drama as if on a stage.”64 Beyond this comparison with Plato, it is Psellos’ insistence on stylistic variability and materiality, free from constraints, that manifests what kind of rhetoric he wishes to ascribe to Gregory as the best rhetor. Instructive in this respect is a lengthy passage in the Discourse, from that part of the essay describing Gregory’s panˆegyrikos logos (§ 43–6: 359–85): 60 61 62 63

64

Cf. Styles of Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa 125.28–126.7 and 130.25–6. Cf. the in Honor of the Wisest Metropolitan of Melitene, which is introduced by Psellos to his students as a model for “panegyrical discourse” (ed. Gautier 1966; cf. lines 1–21). The citation in Comm. 467.10–12; see also 453.21–454.14, where Sikeliotes praises Gregory’s panegyrical speeches with an emphasis, however, on their theological and moral content. See especially Discourse § 31: 284–8. See also Theol. i 98, on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1 (esp. 43–7) and On the Styles of Certain Writings 51.18–28: “Plato is divine . . . and if Gregory . . . did not challenge Plato . . . I would grant to the latter the position of being beyond comparison to any other philosopher and rhetor.” Also Theol. i 88.74 ff. (on Greg. Naz. Or. 38.8), where Gregory is said to be an “imitator” of Plato’s allusive description of the soul in the Phaedrus, and also Theol. i 98.35–40, on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1, with Dionysios of Halikarnassos, On Demosthenes 23; on this lecture by Psellos, see also Bossina and Fatti 2004. To the Slanderer Who Dropped a Defaming Leaflet = Or. min. 7.143–6; cf. Theol. i 88.74–78 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 38.8 = 45.4); In Support of the Nomophylax Against Ophrydas = Or. for. 3.199–225; S 174 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios (441.16–23); Letter to Ioannes Xiphilinos 3–4. On Psellos’ rhetorical reading of Plato, see also pp. 119 and 175–8 below.

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The professional rhetor and theory of authorship OÉdamoÓ d• ˆnhqopo©htov, ˆll‡ pantacoÓ –nargŸv kaª to±v Ëpokeim”noiv Âmoiov, –rrwm”nov te kaª ›myucov kaª ta±v metabola±v kainot”rav eËr©skwn ¾rm†vá t‡v d• dihrthm”nav –nno©av ta±v sumplhrwmatika±v –nno©aiv kaª katastatika±v –pisun†ptei kaª sunarm»zetai, Šrqron toÓto tän dialelum”nwn poioÅmenová t†v te dihgžseiv proeisod©oiv tisªn ãsper Šnqesi katakosme±, ›peita m”ntoi kaª taÅtav to±v merismo±v te kaª pl†sesi ta±v te diaskeua±v kaª proswpopoi¹aiv ˆkor”stouv poie± to±v ˆkrowm”noiv £ ˆnaginÛskousin. ¾po±on d’ ‹n –mp”soi t l»g pr»swpon, eÉqÆv toioÓt»v –stin ¾ tosoÓtová metat©qetai g‡r pr¼v t¼ p†qov toÓ l”gontov, kaª nÓn m•n –pit”ggei dakrÅoiv toÆv ½fqalmoÅv, nÓn d• eÉqume± te kaª stefanhfore± kaª propompeÅei lampräv –f’ Œrmatov e« tÅcoi crusocal©nou, nÓn d• scetli†zei kaª potnitai kaª katakltai to±v ½durmo±v. ‰pantacoÓ d• ¡ megalhgor©a kaª ¾ toÓ l»gou Àgkov kaª t¼ fusik¼n m”geqov kaª t¼ ˆnepitždeuton k†llov. kaª o²da m•n Þv ¾ toioÓtov caraktŸr ˆpaqŸv kaª ˆschm†tistov p”fukeá di‡ taÓta t  qik katorqo± kat‡ fÅsin ¾ –fermhneÅwn kaª mhdamoÓ –pitethdeum”nouv toÆv l»gouv poioÅmenov ∗∗∗[gap in the manuscript]∗∗∗ ˆll’ oÕtoi m•n par‡ m”rov katorqoÓntev par‡ m”rov kaª ‰mart†nousiná ¾ d” ge patŸr e«v taÉt¼ t‡ ˆsÅgklwsta q”menov t†v te ˆmfot”rwn ‰mart©av diap”feuge kaª t‡ par’ —kat”rwn katorqoÅmena Âl pžcei kaª palaist Ëperb”bhke. Gregory always delineates his characters [oudamou anˆethopoiˆetos] and is everywhere vivid [enargˆes] and assimilated to his subjects [homoios tois hypokeimenois]. He is both vigorous and animated [empsychos] and by his transformations he invents more novel points of departure. He weaves together and harmonizes suspended thoughts with those that are complete and settled, thereby creating a connection between thoughts that are scattered. He adorns his narratives with various preludes as if with flowers. Then, through the distributions of parts, fictions [plasis], constructions [diaskeuˆe], and personifications [prosˆopopoiia], he makes these narratives the kind of which his listeners or readers can never have their fill. Gregory, a man of such majesty, immediately assumes whatever persona happens to be introduced in his speech. For he changes himself and adopts the emotion [pathos] of the one who is speaking: at times he wets his eyes with tears; at times he is full of cheer and wears a wreath of victory, leading the procession, shining on a chariot with gold-studded bridle (if it so happens); and at times he complains, implores, breaks down in lamentations. Yet everywhere, there remain his grandiloquence and the weightiness of his discourse, his natural grandeur and unembellished beauty. I know, of course, that this kind of style [charaktˆer] [namely the style defined by magniloquence et cetera] happens by nature to be without display of emotion [pathos] and figures of speech; for this reason, only the rhetor who speaks naturally and nowhere makes his speeches overwrought succeeds in the style that displays character [ˆethikos]. ∗∗∗{gap in the text, where Psellos presumably discussed the opposite kind of

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rhetor, successful in the pathˆetikos style, the one that displays emotion}∗∗∗ These two, however, partially succeed and partially fail. By contrast, the Father joined what is incompatible,65 escaped the failures of both types of rhetor, and simultaneously exceeded ‘by an entire cubit and a hand’ the successful points of each.66

Glancing at Psellos’ vocabulary, it seems at first that he has simply applied to Gregory two traditional virtues of style as attested in Dionysios of Halikarnassos: imitation of characters (ˆethopoiia) and excitement of emotion (pathos). Dionysios assigned the former to Lysias, while he attributed to Demosthenes the ideal mixture of both “character-focused [ˆethikˆe]” and “emotional [pathˆetikˆe]” style.67 The two qualities (imitation of character and excitement of emotion) could be said to be most appropriate for the world of the spectacle and theater, the world of panˆegyris. Nevertheless, Dionysios placed them firmly within that discourse which later rhetoricians such as Hermogenes would describe as “civic.” Lysias is Dionysios’ model for the judicial genre (On Lysias 16), while Demosthenes is presented as a model of speeches “for actual contests, whether in the law-courts or in the assembly,” that address people who look for “instruction and benefit,” rather than the crowds who gather at festivals (panˆegyris) seeking “deception and entertainment [psychagˆogia]” (On Demosthenes 44). Accordingly, so as to remove the possibly negative connotations of ˆethopoiia and pathos, Dionysios protects the rhetor from the moral dangers of character impersonation and representation of emotion. According to him, the rhetor must evoke emotion; he occasionally might be overcome by it; but he should rather not represent emotion.68 65 66 67

68

From Synesios, Against Andronikos, to the Bishops = Letter 41.270–1: politikŸn ˆretŸn ¬erwsÅn sun†ptein sugklÛqein –stª t‡ ˆsÅgklwsta. A cubit equals 6 palms, each one of which equals the length of 4 fingers. On Demosthenes 8.13–31: regarding Demosthenes’ “mixed” style that joins ˆethikˆe and pathˆetikˆe lexis – these, in Dionysios, denote styles with a moral and emotional effect on the audience (cf. Gill 1984: 158 with On Demosthenes 22 where Dionysios describes his “ethical” reaction to Isocrates’ rhetoric and his “pathetic” response to Demosthenes’ speeches). And On Lysias 7–8 and 13: Dionysios praises Lysias’ “vivid” and character-presenting style. Dionysios’ wording is invoked almost verbatim by Psellos; cf. Dionysios’ “›cei d• kaª tŸn –n†rgeian pollŸn ¡ Lus©ou l”xiv . . . ˆpod©dwm© te oÔn aÉt kaª tŸn eÉprepest†thn ˆretžn, kaloum”nhn d• Ëp¼ pollän  qopoi¹an. ‰pläv g‡r oÉd•n eËre±n dÅnamai par‡ t çžtori toÅt pr»swpon oÎte ˆnhqopo©hton oÎte Šyucon” with Psellos’ passage cited above. Unlike ˆethos, pathos is almost never associated with the producer of speech in Dionysios’ works, with the exception of two passing references (on Thucydides and Lysias: Epistle to Pompeius Geminus 3.18 and On Lysias 7.10–12) and a particular case (On Demosthenes 22; also sections 53–4) where Dionysios praises Demosthenes for his highly emotional and emotionally effective oral delivery (hypokrisis), understood however as experience of genuine emotion and not as representation of emotion. The emotions experienced by both Demosthenes and his audience must be real so as to be ideologically potent; see Porter 2005 (esp. pp. 308, 314, 321–2, 329–34, 340).

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Similarly, though ethos might in theory be open to all types of character, the best rhetor according to Dionysios must produce steadfast character in his audience and represent only characters that are “virtuous, reasonable, and measured” so as to “depict . . . the truth of nature” (On Lysias 8; cf. 13). Dionysios’ concern for truth, morality, and restrained emotion is typical of a tradition that followed Aristotelian and, especially, Platonic patterns of thought.69 This is the tradition that was systematized by the elevation of “civic” discourse over and against “panegyrical” writing, the tradition from which Psellos departs. Though he uses Dionysios’ words, Psellos introduces in reference to Gregory the Byzantine progymnasmatic understanding of ˆethopoiia as dramatic monologue divided into three types: “ethical” (introducing character) “pathetic” (which “shows emotion in everything” and is best exemplified by female characters), and “mixed” (a combination of both types; Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 34.2–3 and 35.1–10). Psellos transfers this rudimentary understanding of ˆethopoiia in preliminary training to the description of perfect style and advocates a performatively capable rhetor. As Psellos argues at the end of the passage, his Gregory thus achieves a new mixture of ˆethos with pathos given that he is best at representing and performing the character as well as the emotions of others. Indeed, representation of emotion provides the very fabric for the rhetor’s ability to assume a variety of personae. Psellos anticipates criticism: such highly representational and performative rhetoric, he argues, does not challenge Gregory’s inner morality, for he remains throughout of “unembellished beauty.” Yet impersonation is not then submitted by Psellos to ethical scrutiny. Neither impersonation nor its moral implications for an audience are in any way restrained. Psellos alludes to the “insatiability” that Gregory produces in his listeners and readers, just as earlier (§ 6: 46–53) he had praised Dionysios’ disparaged psychagˆogia.70 And Psellos’ emphasis is on such rhetorical devices as “fictions, constructions, and personifications” and on such theatrical virtues as similarity to personae and their emotions, 69

70

Gill 1984. For Plato, see, e.g., the section of the tenth book of the Republic (604a f.), where the fear is expressed that the poet who imitates a “varied ˆethos” might induce an “evil polity within each soul” (605b7-c4). “Poetic mimesis,” we read, cultivates all passions of pain and pleasure within the soul (606d1–7); by contrast, what ought to be imitated is a “prudent and quiet ˆethos, which is nearly always the same, and is neither easy to imitate nor, when imitated, easy to learn, especially by people in a festival [panˆegyris] and the people of all sorts that gather in the theater” (604d1–5). Cf. pp. 92–4 above. Dionysios’ priorities persisted. In his commentary on Aphthonios, for instance, Doxapatres implied an inferior value for psychagˆogia, which is presented as the intention of poets when they use myths, as opposed to “instruction,” the goal of rhetoricians; Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 145.14–16 and 173.13–174.15 (ed. Walz).

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vividness (enargeia),71 and animation (empsychia). The last concept refers here to animated performance of character as Psellos makes clear in one of his letters where he associates empsychia with his own rhetoric and juxtaposes it to the inferior, though truthful, ˆethopoiia that Dionysios praised in reference to Lysias.72 Psellos’ Gregory is rather different from the models of “civic” style advocated in rhetorical theory. His style is a novelty; as Psellos suggests, Gregory has “invented the arts” by which his panegyrics are constructed.73 Departing from Dionysios’ Lysias and Demosthenes, Hermogenes’ Demosthenes, and Sikeliotes’ civic philosophers, the Gregory constructed by Psellos joins the Plato and Homer of rhetorical theory, those practitioners of pleasureoriented, emotional, and mimetic discourse, which has fictional potential. For it is in his discussion of Plato’s logographia and especially Homer’s mimetic poetry that Sikeliotes – to cite the author closest in time to Psellos – insists on the features that Psellos finds essential in Gregory: representation of pathos (Comm. 492f.), readerly pleasure (Comm. 485.1–5 with 483.29–484.2), imitation of every persona (Comm. 481.1–5 and 482.1–5), indifference to morality (Comm. 467.25–9 and 469.23–5), authorial freedom (Comm. 489.25–490.2), and variability (Comm. 468.1–2, 484.26, and 495.27–8). Psellos has taken discursive features that were clearly inferior and only hesitantly included in the tradition, and has turned them into the descriptive apparatus of exemplary authorship. ∗∗∗ We do not need to explore further the ruptures inherent in the earlier tradition in order to explain Psellos’ insistence on rhetorical transformation and his valuation of the panegyrical mode, performative mimesis, and what we might call literature. Elsewhere in his writings, the various features ascribed to Gregory in the Discourse are related explicitly to what is presented as mimetic speech. Variation of appearance, pleasure, and unique individuality are, for example, what Psellos admires in oral delivery. Familiar with the earlier appreciation of hypokrisis as “mimesis of character and emotion,” Psellos elevates hypokrisis as oral delivery to “the most beautiful part of rhetoric.”74 71 72 73

74

For the theatricization of the concept of “vividness [enargeia]” in this passage, see Papaioannou 2011c. Letter to Nikephoros Keroularios (Maltese 17.26–52), citing the passage from Dionysios’ Lysias mentioned above, note 67. See also the previous paragraph of the Discourse (§ 41: 342–4): “The great Gregory, as if being the very first to invent such an artistic form [eidos] and then, using this form as a model, apply it [eidopoiein] to the entire art, has completed the form to a perfection [telos] which cannot be superseded.” See On Rhetoric 61–3 = 73–6 with Longinos, On Rhetoric 567.14–17. For the Byzantine tradition see, especially, the tenth-century commentators of Gregory who were quite sensitive to the theatrics of

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The best testimony to this is provided by a lengthy encomiastic speech that Psellos wrote in praise of the reading abilities of the monk and chartoularios Ioannes Kroustoulas. The speech, of an uncertain date, was occasioned by the crowds attracted to Kroustoulas’ reading during an ecclesiastical service. The full title reads Encomium for the Monk Ioannes Kroustoulas Who Read Aloud at the Holy Soros (Or. min. 37). The location of the lesson was the famous Constantinopolitan church of the Chalioprateia, and Kroustoulas must have read some Martyrion or a saint’s Life – for instance from Metaphrastes’ Menologion – as suggested by Psellos’ description (lines 287–93).75 Psellos’ text is a rare source for this kind of activity, which must have been ubiquitous and prominent in eleventh-century ecclesiastical life, and a rare source indeed for the aesthetics of public reading in the eyes of the educated elite. Typically for Psellos, the text is woven with multiple references and allusions – Plato (Phaedrus and Timaeus), Philo, and Gregory are the most conspicuous.76 Though morality does feature in this text, it is the aesthetics of variation that are again at the forefront.77 The encomium presents many descriptions of Kroustoulas’ constant variation in reading aloud and “the pleasure that has no end,” which he incites (lines 145–75, 257–72, 301–6, 311–17). Like Gregory’s discourse, Kroustoulas’ performance is compared to a “garden” that provides variegated treasures to each listener (199–210). Furthermore, Kroustoulas is said to have, like Gregory, “gathered together and observed” perfectly the traditional directions for reading, but to have also superseded them by “inventing” his own manners – notably Psellos lists directions pertaining to the reading of classical poetry, tragedy, comedy, elegy, epic, and lyric (176–90; citing Dionysios of Thrace, Art of Grammar 2). Kroustoulas is presented as a unique, “inimitable,” agent (143–4; also 185–6). Indeed, like Gregory, Ioannes is compared with the god presented by Socrates as impossible to define: “that he exists, I know; what he is, however, I do not know” (307–17 with Plato’s Timaeus 28c3–5).

75 76

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discursive performance. Basileios the Lesser, e.g, writes about the accurate oral delivery (hypokrisis) of Gregory’s speeches; Scholia 7.21–3 (with a reference to contemporary “comedians,” namely mimes and gelˆotopoioi) as well as 11.16–21, 14.27–30, and 18.1–5. See also Anonymous, Prolegomena to Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 1–4 (for directions of proper loud reading); the text post-dates the late tenth century as it mentions and cites Ioannes Geometres on several occasions (pp. 41.11–13, 50.25–51.2, and 57.8–9). On Soros, a reliquary casket containing relics of the Virgin Mary, see ODB 1929. For Psellos’ text, see further Gautier 1980–1982. See especially lines 99–102 and 307–11 (a mention of Plato and references to Phaedrus and Timaeus respectively); 134–7 (Philo), and 263–4 (an acknowledged citation from Gregory’s Letter 175; cf. also lines 257–8 where an allusion to Gregory’s Or. 28.24). On morality: 420–433 (Psellos praises Kroustoulas’ Christ-like humility); 277–81 (the moral effect of Kroustoulas’ reading).

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Mimesis as representation and performance is placed at the front of this text. Beyond the presence of theatrical vocabulary (for example: hypokrisis, metabasis, dokˆesis, ˆethos, metallagˆe, hypodyesthai, anorcheisthai), we read of “imitations,” the “mimicking of voices,” and of Kroustoulas’ natural ability to “imitate easily,” his eu-mimˆeton.78 Kroustoulas possesses an “easily fashionable soul” as well as a “voice more supple than wax” and thus can assume every form (126 and 316). Psellos reacts with amazement (120–4): ëWv d’ oÔn –gÜ t¼n Šndra toÓton ˆposkopeÅsav79 thnikaÓta teq”amai, oÉc ¾ aÉt»v moi poll†kiv, k‹n aÉt»v, katefa©neto, ˆll’ o³† ti Libuk¼n qhr©on tecnikäv metemorfoÓto kaª diepl†tteto kaª t¼ pr»swpon e«v «d”av ˆnomo©ouv metžllatten, ãsper kaª t¼n Prwt”a l»gov e«v e­dh poll‡ kaª pantodap‡ diall†ttesqai . . . When I saw him, aiming my gaze upon him, he often did not seem to me to be the same, even if he was the same. Like some Libyan wild creature, he transformed and refashioned himself, altering his face into different [anomoios] forms [ideai], just as that famous Proteus would change into a variety of forms [eidˆe].

Like Dionysios’ Demosthenes (On Demosthenes 8.13–31), Kroustoulas is a Protean figure, a creature of variation and otherness.80 According to Psellos, Kroustoulas remains the same, but also becomes other: “whenever he is with us,” Psellos writes later in the speech, “he seems to be the same [autos] and not another [allos]; yet whenever he will enter a church and approach the book, take a candle, and start narrating, he seems to be some other [heteros] nature, other [allotrios] than human” (325–31). Similar in its emphasis on mimetic performance is the way Psellos reads ancient drama. Performance, we should note, refers in this case to the rhetorical texture of tragedy given that, for Psellos, as for any other Byzantine, Greek dramatic plays are read as texts and not as scripts for theatrical staging.81 Among middle Byzantine writers, Psellos is the first to devote considerable critical energy to the discussion of ancient drama. Important in this respect is a comparative essay on an unlikely – for us – pair of poets: Euripides and the late antique Byzantine poet Georgios Pisides (died c. 631–4).82 Apart from the same two last syllables in their names, these 78

79 80 82

Cf. 148–50, 207–10, 287–92, 314–16, and 120–39 on eumimˆeton – this rare word appears also in Plato’s Republic (605a5–6) with a passive meaning (“the condition of being easily imitated”) and a negative connotation. A word from Gregory of Nazianzos Or. 45.1? The relevant passage is discussed in Psellos’ Theol. i 103. 81 Dostalova 1982: 76–8. On the figure of Proteus, see pp. 49 and 101 above. For the treatise On Tragedy that survives in the late thirteenth-century Oxford, Bodleian Library, Baroccianus 131 and was likely written by Psellos, see Perusino 1993 with the discussions in Agapitos 1998a and Porter 2010: 109–112.

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two poets share, according to Psellos, also their achievement in the same meter, iambic. Psellos’ attempt to answer the question of Who Versified Better, Euripides or Pisides? gives him the opportunity to display his knowledge of ancient drama and again, now perhaps in proper context, to praise performative variation. The relevant Psellian vocabulary is by now familiar to us and appears also in this text: difference, variation, alteration, aesthetic charm, the ability to imitate (mimˆesasthai) and perform (hypokrinesthai) various characters, especially typical ‘others’ such as female and foreign persons (Euripides or Pisides? 21–32, 78–83, and 132–5). Most of all, it is in the representation of pathos and emotional effect that Psellos’ Euripides thrives (33–41 and 54–68): ëO goÓn EÉri.[p©dhv tŸn] po©hsi.n. Þv [oÉdeªv] Š. llov ˆ. kribws†menov, e« mž tiv aÉt. [oÓ] prok[r]©noi t. [¼n So]f. okl. ”[a, di‡ tŸn poikil©an qaum†siov kaª] p†n[ta mime±sqai dunat»v·83 kaª] pot• m•n eËržseiv t. ¼. n. [poihtŸn] d. i.qura[mb©]z[on]ta kaª [n”a zhloÓn]ta te kaª prokr©nonta, pot• d• kaª tän Šllwn car©twn kaª semno. [tžtwn –x†]rc[onta] kaª to±v cori†mboiv kosm. [oÅ]menon kaª pantodap¼n t poižsei gin»menon, kaª  qikÛtaton m•. n. [Ànta o³]v [d]e± [§q]ov –nse[mn]Ånesqai kaª aÔqiv paqhtikÛtaton ›nqa p†qh tän peponq»twn Ëpo[kuma©nei], –peª kaª t¼ teleÛtaton kef†laion tv tragikv poižsewv t¼ p†qov –. st© . . . EÉrip©dhv d• ½gdožkonta £ kaª ple©w sunqeªv dr†[ma]ta, ‰pantacoÓ ˆgalmat©av kaª car©eiv –st©n, oÉk –n ta±v c†risi m»non toÓ l»gou, ˆll‡ kaª –n aÉto±v to±v p†qesi· kaª poll†kiv ge toÆv %qhna©ouv –pika©rwv dramatourgžsav e«v ple±sta katžnegke d†krua· onto g‡r t‡ leg»mena ¾rn Þv gin»mena. Euripides, having perfected poetry as [no one] else (unless one prefer Sophocles) [is admirable for his variation] and capable of imitating anything. Sometimes you will find him writing dithyrambs and [striving for] and preferring [novelties], sometimes taking the lead in other charms or solemnities and adorning himself with choriambs, assuming every form in his poetry. He becomes a master of delineating character, in those cases where character [ˆethos] must be rendered solemn, and again a master of representing emotion, when emotions [pathˆe] stir his subjects – as emotion [pathos] is indeed the ultimate component of tragic poetry . . . Euripides, having composed eighty or more plays [dramata], is everywhere full of delight [agalmatias, literally, statue-like] and charming, not in the charm of discourse alone, but in the very emotions [or passions, pathˆe] themselves. Many times, having 83

Dyck’s conjecture seems to me quite likely as it would evoke Plato’s Republic 398a, also echoed in a phrase later in Psellos’ same passage: “ . . . pantodap¼n t poižsei gin»menon.” For the Greek text of the essay on Euripides and Pisides, see now also Kambylis 2006.

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created a drama based on a contemporary event, he drove the Athenians to an outpouring of tears – for they thought that they saw happening in reality what was being said.84

Representation of emotion is posited as a defining characteristic of tragedy.85 That Gregory too thrives in this kind of discourse, as he too “changes himself, adopting the emotion” of the personae that appear in his speeches, suggests that the best rhetor is quite similar to the tragic poet. The implied similarity is consistent with the fact that poetry is read in Euripides or Pisides? under the rubric of rhˆetorikos logos (line 29) – the trend is evident not just in Psellos but is typical in the Byzantine reading of tragedy and, especially, Homer, from marginal scholia in manuscripts of classical texts to Ioannes Tzetzes’ and Eustathios of Thessalonike’s interpretation of Homeric epic through the lenses of Hermogenes.86 With Psellos’ tragedian-like rhetor, however, the inferior type of dramatic poetry, which both rhetorical and, more forcefully, philosophical theory had chosen to expel or set aside, invades the definition of rhetoric itself. In Psellos, Gregory, the model rhetor, is to some extent defined by the skills of the dramatic poet. The figures of the poet and the rhetor come further together in a lecture, discussed also earlier, where Psellos addresses the insistent desire of his students that he speak on myth and its playfulness (Or. min. 25 and pp. 37–9 above). Expanding on traditional arguments of rhetorical and philosophical theory, Psellos offers an unprecedented defense of the value of myth, consistent with his claim that he combines rhetoric with philosophy. He finds value in the dual nature of myth, namely “charm” and “exhortation,” and in its ability to combine true content with fictional form (lines 139–40 and 146–7). He also praises the contribution of myth to the acquisition of the “the power and art of persuasion” (142 with 187–8). Yet, as we saw, Psellos takes a step further, elevating both the philosophical and rhetorical value of myth. Myth is presented as “superior to 84 85

86

Translation by Dyck, slightly modified. The emphasis on representation (rather than merely incitement) of emotion as a characteristic feature of tragedy is a non-Aristotelian sentiment; it is, nevertheless, consistent with the reading of Greek tragedy recorded in later scholia (Heath 1987: 10; Porter 2010: 111, note 163). The notion is articulated emphatically also in the likely Psellian treatise On Tragedy (1–18): ëH tragd©a . . . Ëpoke©mena m•n ›cei,  dŸ kaª mime±tai, p†qh te kai pr†xeiv . . . t‡ d• p†qh mllon mime±tai £ t‡v pr†xeivá t¼ g‡r prwtagwnistoÓn –n psi to±v tragiko±v dr†masi t¼ p†qov –st©. Lindberg 1977; cf. Copeland and Sluiter 2009: 39 on the similar rhetoricization of the reading of Virgil. Notably, Aristotle’s Poetics survives in Byzantium within the framework of rhetoric rather than logic as in the Arabic and Western European traditions (Black 1990; Minnis and Scott 1991: 277–313); the Greek text of the Poetics is preserved following Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the tenth-century Paris, BNF, gr. 1741 (ff. 120–200), a rhetorical manuscript (see p. 54 above).

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philosophy” and, simultaneously, as primary for the achievement of good rhetoric. What interests us is that, initially imagined as the offspring of “poets and rhetors” (149), by the end of the speech myth becomes the “foundation” of both poets and rhetors (179–80). Psellos almost dissolves the distinction between poetry and rhetoric by portraying myth, which was traditionally a distinctive feature of poetry, as a kind of rhetor (143–8): ëH d• toÓ piqanoÓ dÅnamiv oÉk Šll t Þv t mÅq –gk”kruptai· toÓto g‡r aÉt¼ kaª komyeÅsetai kaª ›stin o³»n tiv ˆlazÜn çžtwr e«selhluqÜv m•n Þv p†ntwv yeus»menov, biaz»menov d• o³v yeÅsetai tŸn ˆlžqeian . . . ˆlhqeÅein m•n dokän –n o³v Ëpokr©netai, Ëpokrin»menov d• –n o³v ˆlhqeÅsein doke±, pl†ttwn d• kaª metapl†ttwn Þv ‹n –q”l t¼n noÓn. Nowhere else is the power of persuasion hidden as it is in myth; and this is precisely what it will ingeniously invent and display. It is like an arrogant rhetor who has appeared in order to completely lie, but enforces the truth with his lies . . . He seems to tell the truth in the case of those things which he merely enacts [hypokrinomenos]. Yet he merely acts in the case of things where it seems that he intends to tell the truth. He fashions [plattein] and refashions [metaplattein] his intended meaning in whichever way he wills.

Again the similarities with Psellos’ presentation of Gregory are astonishing. Psellos’ myth is like the rhetor Gregory. The two share in their proficiency of all knowledge. More significantly, they both meet in the fundamental changeability and autonomous creativity of their discourse. These two features are, for Psellos, the most notable features of poetic myth-making. Theatrical changeability as well as poetic license (what Psellos calls exousia or autonomia) are recurrently associated with fictionalizing poetry; this is the idea, for instance, behind passages in the Chronographia, where Psellos presents the poet as “turning the narrative into a stage” and “transforming himself in various ways” (v 24) or praises Homer for his “authoritative power [exousia] . . . to fashion [sym-plattein]” (vi 125 and 126).87 87

On the “autonomy” of myth, see further S 184 (468.24–5; positive and in reference to Psellos himself ), K-D 28 (40.14–15; negative in reference to false accusations), and Encomium For Ioannes, Metropolitan of Euchaita = Or. pan. 17.674 (negative on pagan myth-making); see also Concise Answers to Various Questions 138, Allegory on Tantalos = Phil. min. i 43.66–7, and Allegory about the Sphinx = Phil. min. i 44.19–20. For the earlier tradition, cf. Menandros, On Epideictic Speeches 335.19–20, 339.1–2, 341.11–13 (all discussing the poetic origin of authorial freedom, exousia); cf. also Himerios, Orations 9.5 and 248–50 and, for the Latin tradition, Copeland and Sluiter 2009: 35 (on Lactantius, fourth century and the notion of modus poeticae licentiae); also Miller 1986. In philosophically minded authors, poetic autonomia was considered negative and possibly dangerous (though for different reasons): see Gregory of Nazianzos (Or. 28.15 and 39.7) and, earlier, Ailios Aristeides (who valued prose more than the absolute freedom of poetry; On Sarapis 47.3 and 50.18–28).

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The subversion of this surprising conflation of myth and the rhetor is underscored by a literary allusion that Psellos has inserted in this passage. Psellos’ personified myth who “ingeniously invents and displays” is an echo of the way the young Phaedrus, at the very beginning of the Platonic dialogue named after him, presents the rhetor Lysias and his inventive speech to his interlocutor Socrates.88 As it turns out at the end of Plato’s Phaedrus, this is the type of rhetor that Socrates disparages.89 By contrast, as the conclusion of Psellos’ lecture suggests, myth, “having just come out from behind the curtains of rhetoric,” deserves indeed a hearty welcome: “Should we not receive it,” Psellos asks (181–8), “with utter reverence? Dine it with the best that we have? Let it rest in our soul as if in a house, providing it with our mind as its bed, entirely covered with beautiful sights? If we let it inhabit us in this manner, it too will return the honor and give us the starting points of fictions [plasmata] and the art and power of persuasion.” The myth/poet/rhetor is decisively welcomed back. ∗∗∗ In his closing review of Gregory’s discursive practice, Psellos accentuates once more his appreciation of rhetorical variation with the following observation (Discourse § 56: 441–5): PolueidŸv àn ta±v metaceir©sesin Âmoi»v t” –sti di‡ pant¼v —aut toÓ l»gou kaª p†lin ˆn»moiov, t¼ m•n mhdamoÓ tŸn t”cnhn ˆfe©v, t¼ d• ˆlloioÅmenov –n o³v oÉk ˆf©hsi. di‡ taÓta t‡v m•n prooimiak‡v –nno©av «scurot”rav kaª baqut”rav prot©qhsin, e«v d• tŸn Ëp»qesin kataba©nwn pr¼v t¼ poikilÛteron metat©qetai. While being multiform in his manner of treating a topic, he is similar to himself throughout his discourse and, yet again, dissimilar: he never abandons his art and, simultaneously, he alters himself exactly in those instances where he does not abandon art. Thus, while the thoughts of his prefaces are more powerful and deep, he transforms himself with greater variety when proceeding to the subject-matter.

Psellos’ emphasis on variation is summarized in this passage with an admittedly rhetorical but noteworthy expression. In his constant transformation, Gregory is said to be “similar to himself . . . and, yet again, dissimilar.” At the very moment in which Gregory’s discursive style can be identified with a consistent and uniform art, Gregory changes himself to something else. 88

89

See Psellos’ “toÓto g‡r aÉt¼ kaª komyeÅsetai” with Plato, Phaedrus 227c6–7, “aÉt¼ dŸ toÓto kaª kek»myeutai,” an allusion not noticed by Littlewood. See also the relevant comment by Hermeias, Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus 21.23: “T¼ d• kek»myeutai, Âti p†nta t‡ ›nula komy‡ kaª ˆpathl†.” Cf. Ferrari 1987: 206 ff.

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Though in tune with Psellos’ excessive rhetoric, the presentation of a self-similar as well as self-dissimilar Gregory is somewhat strange. We encountered above the traditional virtue of authorial consistency or “self-similarity,” which in Psellos indicates creative subjectivity.90 Selfdissimilarity, however, is another matter altogether. Whether in philosophical or rhetorical writing, the notion was treated universally as a vice and a defect. Self-dissimilarity was an attribute ascribed to inferior layers of existence (in patristic and Neoplatonic views), to defective bodies (in Galen’s medical writing) and characters (emperors such as Monomachos in Psellos’ portraiture), as well as to deficient rhetors (such as Plato, in Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ view).91 At the root of this negative understanding of dissimilarity, we find again Plato in whose Timaeus Byzantine readers would have read the following: “The demiurge bestowed on the universe . . . the shape of a sphere . . . which is the most perfect and the most self-similar of all shapes, as he considered the similar infinitely more beautiful than the dissimilar = p†ntwn teleÛtaton ¾moi»tat»n te aÉt¼ —aut schm†twn, nom©sav mur© k†llion Âmoion ˆnomo©ou” (Timaeus 33b). In light of this tradition, Psellos’ attribution of self-dissimilarity to Gregory appears dissonant. It may be explained by the logic of combined opposites that drives Psellos’ rhetoric and pervades the Discourse: mixture of ˆethos and pathos, nature and art (§ 43–46: 359–85), clarity and obscurity (§ 47–50: 385–409), apparent and hidden meaning (§ 53–54: 425–35), and also similarity and dissimilarity in Gregory’s handling of difference (§ 17: 167–9) and in the way his rhetoric is experienced by the reader (§ 23: 214– 18). Alternatively, Psellos’ approach to self-dissimilarity may be explained by the presence of the combination of similarity and dissimilarity in a very specific context within a segment of Psellos’ readings: Neoplatonic discussions of the “one” as a combination of opposites. In Plato’s Parmenides, the foundational text for such discussions, the question was raised if the “one” is “both similar and dissimilar to itself and to the others?” (147c; cf. 157a). This unlikely combination (one of several posited in the Parmenides) puzzled later exegetes, who read the Parmenides not as a mere exercise in logic but as a seminal discussion of the realm of the Forms. In Proklos’ 90 91

See pp. 82–5 above. Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus de sancta consubstantiali trinitate, PG 75 105.41–3 (the impossibility of attributing “self-dissimilarity” to the Divine); Galen, De difficultate respirationis 7 754.2–4 (“contrary to nature” as “self-dissimilarity”); Psellos, Chron. 3.6 and 1.187 (Monomachos: “—terognÛmwn d• tŸn yucŸn àn kaª mŸ p†nth —aut Âmoiov”); Dionysios of Halikarnassos, On Demosthenes 23.27–8 (Plato “becoming other to himself,” by not remaining consistent with his “philosophical dignity” when attempting to elaborate his style).

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reading – the most important for Psellos – opposites such as similarity and dissimilarity coexist in the One only with respect to it being the primary cause of the existence of everything else. In and by itself, the One is only self-similar.92 One can never be certain how much to read into a Psellian expression. Is Psellos alluding to the Parmenides and redirecting its Neoplatonic readings, which he knew,93 or is he simply continuing his series of joined opposites? Rhetorical argument and philosophical formulation do not exclude each other and both are at work here, with the former in the foreground and the latter in the background. However this might be, we must acknowledge the fact that, in the context of rhetorical aesthetics, Psellos has uttered an idea, the appreciation of self-dissimilarity, whose unequivocal expression seemed more or less impossible previously.94 This is consistent with Psellos’ attempt to define authorship through a positive valuation of mimesis as discursive representation and performance. Similarity and dissimilarity are, we should remember, seminal terms in the discourse of mimesis from Plato onward. They alluded to the fundamental ambiguity of mimesis understood as a trope that may lead through similarity to identity or through dissimilarity to difference.95 Psellos’ projection of the ambiguity upon the author fits well with his insistence that, while Gregory remains the same as the primary agent behind his style, he 92

93

94

95

Commentary on the Parmenides 738.9–18 and 739.4–13; also Commentary on the Timaeus 2.262.18 ff. On Proklos’ layers of modes of existence, see Siorvanes 1996: 56 ff. and 121 ff.; on Proklos’ reading of the Parmenides: Saffrey 1984; van den Berg 2001: 23–27. For later texts influenced by this approach, see Ps.-Dionysios the Areopagite, On Divine Names 9.7 (the relation between God and creation) or John of Damascus, Orationes de imaginibus tres 1,9.3–6 and Theodoros the Studite, Letters 409.18–21 (the relation between the “prototype” and its artistic representations; cf. Barasch 1992: 192–8, 259–61, and 269). See Various collected passages = Phil. min. ii 13 (38.28–39.6) and Theol. i 50.16–18 (on Greg. Naz. 28.8). On Parmenides, Proklos’ reception, and Psellos, see further Benakis 1987: 258–9. Notably, Plato’s Parmenides is mentioned in the Discourse (§ 38: 328–31); cf. Theol. i 98.115–116 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1). Psellos’ phrase perhaps provoked some surprise in later copyists of the text. Three of the manuscripts of the Discourse read “similar” (homoios) instead of “dissimilar” (anomoios) in the passage under discussion, which would then translate as “ is similar to himself and yet again similar” (sic). If a corrective intervention, this change of the text by later readers/copyists of Psellos’ text would be in accordance with the continued primacy given to stylistic “self-similarity”; cf., e.g., Theodoros Metochites’ praise of Aristotle for those occasions in which Aristotle is “truly similar to himself” in his writings, while generally he is “not the same” but “drifts in different directions” and “double-speaks” (Sˆemeiˆoseis gnˆomikai 3). See, e.g., Synesios, Letters 31 with Plato, Republic 500b8-d8, on mimesis as productive of identity, and Proklos, Commentary on the Timaeus 1.63.13–65.32 (esp. 65.15 ff.) with Plato, Republic 388c2–3, on mimesis as productive of difference; cf. also the following lines of Plato’s Theaetetus (159a6–8): “If anything happens to become similar or dissimilar to something, either to itself or to something else, shall we not say that in becoming similar [¾moioÅmenon] it becomes the same [taÉt»n] and in becoming dissimilar [ˆnomoioÅmenon] it becomes another [™teron]?”

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also undergoes a process of constant transformation, assuming the various appearances of his subjects. In Psellos’ vocabulary, change, metabolˆe, indicates “a transposition [metathesis] of something similar to something dissimilar”;96 this is precisely what happens to the author. An examination of one last paradoxical pair of characterizations that Psellos assigns to Gregory confirms this reading. The relevant passage is from the description of Gregory in Psellos’ essay The Styles [charaktˆeres] of Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa. As its title suggests, the essay aims to establish the four early Byzantine authors as models of style. At the conclusion of the presentation of Gregory of Nazianzos, to whom the larger part of the essay is devoted, Psellos summarizes the superiority of Gregory in comparison to various classical models such as Demosthenes, Lysias, and Ailios Aristeides (128.6–19): E« m•n oÔn ãsper t‡v piqžkouv ¾rämen —to©mouv e«v m©mhsin, oÉ tän –latt»nwn, ˆll‡ kaª tän meiz»nwn, oÌtw dŸ kaª e« l”wn tiv –geg»nei sÛzwn m•n —aut kaª t¼ blosur¼n –piskžnion, e­ta dŸ kaª pr¼v t‡ ¢qh kaª scžmata tän —t”rwn qhrän meqhrm»zeto kaª –mime±to xÅmpanta, mŸ kataba©nwn toÓ ˆxiÛmatov, aÉt¼ ‹n toÓto §n ¾ qe±ov ˆnžr. ›sti m•n g‡r t¼n l»gon ¾p»sa kat‡ fÅsin t l”onti, ˆxiwmatik»v, fober»v, blosur»v, ˆpr»sitov to±v pollo±v £ duspr»sitová ›peita d• kaª psan mime±tai qhr©ou fwnžn, kaª pr¼v ™kaston dieschm†tistai t e­dei, t ¢qei, t scžmati, —k†st d• dial”kt t¼ o«ke±on parempl”ketai brÅchma. Let us suppose a lion were to appear, who, while keeping his97 virile brow and never descending from his dignified rank, would attune himself to the character [ˆethos] and figure [schˆema] of other beasts and imitate [mimeisthai] them all, just as we see monkeys at the ready to imitate [mimˆesis] both those inferior and superior. The divine Gregory was exactly such a creature. His discourse is everything that the lion is by nature: dignified, formidable, virile, nearly impossible for the many to approach. Furthermore, he imitates [mimeisthai] any beast’s voice and transforms himself into the form [eidos], character [ˆethos], figure [schˆema] of each, while weaving his own roar into each new voice.

Psellos attributes to Gregory the performative type of mimesis that he only implies in the Discourse with a cumulative series of suggestions. In this passage, authorship indicates a dramatic or theatrical performance. Gregory 96

97

On the Psalms, Their Inscriptions, Etc. to the Emperor Kyr Michael Doukas = Theol. ii 1.116–19; see also the important discussion in Theol. i 82.2–69 (on Philippians 2.7) on the double effect of similarity (either leading to identity or, in the case of impersonation, to otherness). I keep here the gender of the Greek. The lion’s “maleness” is especially important as in the Greek it is juxtaposed with the “monkeys” for whom Psellos uses the feminine article.

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assumes the voice, shape, character, and form of all possible personae. The author becomes a novel kind of mime that both remains stable and selfdetermining in his elevated leonine status but also descends into all sorts of impersonations.98 As one might expect, variation and sense-oriented discourse dominate this presentation of Gregory also. In the remainder of the essay, Psellos presents Gregory as someone who “varies his agonistic discourse with alterations and metaphors” and excels in the panegyrical genre (126.3–7 and 16–17). Gregory’s discourse is “both uniform [monoeidˆes] in nature, like the rose rising from the womb of the earth along with its natural color, but also multiform [polyeidˆes], if one were able to divide the color (as if it were some kind of mixture) into different tones and shades from which one might artistically reproduce it” (128.2–6). And Gregory again creates “insatiable” gratification as “his eloquence in words, his punctuated discursive composition, and his ornate figures do not let any listener tear himself away from pleasure” (126.27–127.2). Psellos’ aesthetics does not conform to moral preoccupations. For instance, the metaphor of the mimicking monkey that Psellos subsumes in the leonine Gregory was in other texts – including Gregory himself – a metaphor for empty rhetoricality and wickedness.99 Similar were the moral connotations of “multi-formity”100 and “imitation of all,” a practice associated with the flatterer, the devil, Julian the Apostate (that paradigmatically evil figure of the Byzantine past), the mime, and – in Psellos’ own writings – with the lowest level of existence, matter.101 Of these concepts, “imitation of all” is perhaps the most significant for it brings us back to the core of the anxiety about mimesis as this was expressed in Platonic writings. Mimesis of everything is the quality that characterizes the foreign poet who arrives at Plato’s ideal politeia, 98

99 100 101

Cf. On the “Be Shrewd as Serpents and Innocent as Doves” (Matthew 10.16) = Theol. ii 16.3–19 where, echoing an idea from Aristotle’s Poetics (1448b4–8), Psellos argues that man is the most imitative of animals both by nature and learning; human nature is presented as an amphidexia physis, an ambidextrous, ambiguous nature with respect to its imitative animality. On this latter text, see also Bevegni 2003. On Gregory and imitative “performance,” see also Theol. ii 8.1–6 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 39.12). Cf. Gregory, Or. 26.10, 28.2; also Or. 4.94, Letter 156.1. Similar expressions in Plato, Republic 590b3–9; Plotinos, Enneads 1.1.7.19–21; Proklos, Commentary on the Republic 2.319.4–9. Plato, Phaedo 80a10-b6; Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 6.13; Attaleiates, History 50.12 ff. Plutarch, How to Tell the Flatterer from the Friend 53c (on the flatterer; notably, Psellos quotes another part of this same paragraph in K-D 233, 281.21–282.1; cf. pp. 132–3 below); Athanasios, Life of Antony 5.26–8 (on the devil) with 7.9 (the devil as lion) and 9.36–7 (imitation of the shapes [morphas] of animals); Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 4.62 (on Julian who “was all and became all” like the “sophist” Proteus); Chorikios, Apology For the Mimes 2.26 = Opera 32 (the mimes who “imitate all”); Psellos, Theol. i 56.26–7 (matter which “performs [hypokrinetai] everything”) with Philo, On the Creation 21–2 (matter which can “become everything”).

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“A man . . . able to become many things and imitate all things: mime±sqai p†nta cržmata” (Republic 398a). This all-mimetic poet, who represents “varied ˆethos” and incites all sorts of emotions, though “holy and cause for wonder and pleasure,” must be escorted away. Otherwise, he might contribute to what threatens most both the politeia of society and the inner politeia of the soul: variation, multiplicity, the dissolution of order into “a varied beast . . . able to change and grow from itself the head of all animals” (588c7–10).102 Psellos, who was well aware of Plato’s treatment of the poet, has found in Gregory a new perfect mimic.103 In Psellos’ fascination with the multifarious workings of mimesis then, this rhetor, performer, poet, or author cannot but be an insider, the archetypical model, a matter of discursive delight. the mimetic author This chapter began with Plato’s ambivalent stance toward the imitative author and the repercussions and transformations of this stance in later theories of discourse. Arguably, Psellos’ description of the model rhetor does not resolve the Platonic vacillation between objective order and disruptive potential, between, as it were, the “city” and the “poet.” Yet Psellos’ refocused attention on the author intensifies the potential of this fundamental indecision within premodern aesthetics. With Psellos’ Gregory, the author takes on the role of both, so to speak, the city’s laws and the poet’s imitational freedom. The author is the single source and norm of style and, simultaneously, expected to assume freely any form and incite pleasure. Psellos’ author thus transcends both traditional types of model authorship: both the civic rhetor of school rhetoric and the divinely inspired writer according to patristic and Neoplatonic philosophical writing. Described in the vocabulary of the theological discourse of creation, Psellos’ Gregory is imagined as a self-referential and creative agent, an author that resembles the divine Creator. Simultaneously, this Protean Gregory is also like the marginal and inferior figures of rhetoric: the tragedian, the myth- and 102 103

Cf. Too 1998: 51–81; also Ferrari 1987: 117; Heath 1989: 28–9. For Psellos’ knowledge of the passage in the Republic and its image of “expelling” see the Funeral Oration on the patriarch Ioannes Xiphilinos, in Sideras 2002: 122, ll. 25–9 (Xiphilinos expels astrology); Encomium for His Mother 1785 ff. (Psellos “sends away” the occult sciences); Encomium for Ioannes, Metropolitan of Euchaita = Or. pan. 17.310–14 (Mauropous knows rhetoric but, nevertheless, “sends it away”); Encomium For a Certain Monk Nikolaos, Who Became Abbot of the Monastery of the Beautiful Spring on Olympos 305–7 (on Orpheus and Homer who should be “crowned with woolen fillets, but then sent away”).

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fiction-maker, performers of varied characters and emotions, creators of pleasurable speech. Psellos is part of a rich tradition. His conception of the author required the appreciation of variation in Greek rhetorical theory of the Imperial period and the value placed upon form as a mediator of divine presence in late antique writing. Nor could Psellos be imagined without the Byzantine attention to the pleasures of writing and the continued value placed upon performative delivery, rhetorical training, and discursive aesthetics. Psellos’ author, however, is not merely an eclectic pastiche of past theories. His shift in perspective results in a series of ruptures that he alone puts to work: the unequivocal primacy given to panegyrical discourse, the near-collapse of the boundaries between rhetoric and poetry, the delimiting of discursive form from discursive content, and the accentuated prevalence of aesthetic principles over the moral imperatives of earlier theorists. The most notable rupture is the distance that separates Psellos from the understanding of discourse evident in his early Byzantine model author, Gregory. While Gregory pronounces a theological view of language, Psellos promotes rhetorical artistry, materiality and theatricality. It is not that Psellos renounces early Byzantine theology, Gregory’s theology specifically. Far from it. Psellos’ Gregory can function as the ultimate model of rhetorical authorship precisely because his theology is undeniably authoritative for both Psellos and his audience. It is just that as a mere philosopher Gregory is not enough. Enriched by the Demosthenes, Plato, and Homer of rhetorical and philosophical discourse, Psellos’ Gregory is also a perfect rhetor. Psellos’ reading of Gregory is therefore simultaneously deeply embedded in the various traditional strands in which Psellos was schooled and creates the potential for breaking away from those traditions. His emphasis on an ambiguously mimetic author enables the conception of authorship as aesthetic, self-referential, and creative agency, namely a literary conception of authorship not evident earlier, either in Greek, or, we might add, Latin and comparable western medieval writing.104 This constitutes Psellos’ first step toward a potential transformation of rhetoric into literature that this book argues. I write of a “potential” for two reasons. First, Psellos remains rooted in the early Byzantine theological tradition that carried much cultural capital in his socio-historical setting. Psellos’ audience was, we should remember, the aristocratic and educated Christian Constantinopolitan elite – with, of course, nuances and gradations in piety, nobility, and education. Thus, 104

For the later Western European tradition: Enders 1992; Olson 2005.

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while Psellos posits Gregory as a free and varied rhetor, he also retains the idea of Gregory as a divinely inspired philosopher. And, though Psellos separates material form from theological content in order to promote the rhetorical side of authorship, it is the mixture of rhetoric and philosophy that he wishes to advance. Secondly, Psellos does not develop a comprehensive theory of aestheticized authorship or, for that matter, what we might call “aesthetics,” namely a discrete and autonomous field for the intellectual inquiry into the value of taste as postulated in modern European writing.105 My analysis above has focused on several pregnant metaphors – an eroticized encounter in a figurative rose garden, the comparison with the sensuous body of a statue, Gregory as a mimicking lion, and so on – as well as a persistent vocabulary that either transfers cosmological theories of creation onto authorship or links the author with performative variation that evokes theatricized public reading, dramatic writing, and fiction. Psellos’ discussions of rhetorical authorship thus amount to a cumulative trend, interrupted by occasional concessions to tradition; this is a trend, both fragile and potent, but not a systematic treatment. What drives Psellos’ rhetorical theory is his personal investment in the description of authorship. It is self-representation rather than systematic treatment that matters most, a concern signaled by Psellos’ identification with the exemplary author whom he praises. The subject of an encomium can be easily turned into an alter ego of the encomiast, and this is what Psellos has done with Gregory.106 By opting to remain at the level of rhetorical descriptions (rather than, for example, include any specific cases of the kinds of virtues that he assigns to Gregory), Psellos turns the early Byzantine Father into a receptacle of those virtues with which Psellos wishes to construct his own image. And not only with Gregory; in both his 105 106

Cf. Eagleton 1990. Self-praise is already incipient in the title of the Discourse. Psellos’ “improvised” Discourse corresponds to Gregory’s achievement in “improvised” speech (25: 234–41); see, further, Discourse § 50: 406–9, On Friendship to the Nephews of the Patriarch Kyr Michael = Or. min. 31.6–11; Phil. min. ii 82.7t-8t; Theol. i 23.139–40; 58.109–11; 114.11–16 where Psellos promotes his own ability in improvisation. For more examples of Gregory’s attributes assumed by Psellos himself, see Or. min. 6.28 (where Psellos uses the verb ‘to out-voice’ in the first person); S 176 to Aristenos, Bourtzes, and Iasites (454.18–30; on Psellos’ “swan’s song”); Theol. i 57.118–119 (Psellos’ “polyphony”); Theol. i 90 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 38.11=45.7) ends with a comparison between Gregory and Plato, which is then turned into a comparison between Plato and Psellos himself: like Gregory, Psellos is shown to be better, and prior (!) to Plato and is thus to be regarded as an archetypon for imitation by his students (ll. 88–95). For this rhetorical practice in general, cf. Dugan 2005: 80–1 (Cicero and his rhetorical models); Penella 2000 (Themistios); Efthymiadis and Featherstone 2007 (esp. 23–5; Theodoros Studites); Minnis and Scott 1991: 376 (Dante).

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rhetorical essays and, as we shall see below, his self-representational writing, Psellos activates a series of more or less authoritative voices in either the present or the past to fashion an image of his own self. In a perhaps unwitting manner, Psellos admits to this himself. In a brief essay titled On the Styles of Certain Writings, he presents a list of the texts and authors he culled in order to create his rhetoric. First come the “Muses”: the books of Demosthenes, Isocrates, Ailios Aristeides, Thucydides, Plato’s dialogues, Plutarch, Lysias, and “our” Gregory “the Theologian” who is the “ultimate summit of the best achievements in both serious and graceful writing.” Then follow the “Graces [Charites]”: “the book of Leukippe and that of Charikleia, and anything else that is full of pleasures and charm such as the writings of Philostratos of Lemnos, and whatever Lucian produced in idleness and playfulness.” Having set this background for his own authorship, at the end of the essay Psellos introduces himself (52.4–9): Kaª e­ ge de± kaª toÉm¼n e«pe±n, tv m•n —k†stwn ˆpol”leimmai ˆretv kaª dun†mewv, poik©lletai d” moi di‡ p†ntwn ¾ l»gov kaª t‡ par’ —k†stwn e«v m©an «d”an sugk©rnatai. kˆgÜ m•n –k pollän e³vá e« d” moi tiv ˆnaginÛskei t‡v b©blouv, polloª –x —n¼v g”nointo. If indeed I might also say something about myself, I am inferior to the stylistic virtue and power of all these authors. My discourse, however, is varied and adorned by all of them and what comes from each one of them is mixed into my single form [idea]. I am one originating in many. Yet if someone reads my books, many from one might appear.

It is here, in Psellos’ own introduction of the one-but-many Psellos, that we must leave behind his view of authorship in order to examine more closely how Psellos, the author in practice, creates himself through rhetoric.

part ii

Self-representation

c h a p ter 4

Aesthetic charm and urbane ethos

Byzantine rhetorical practice allowed neither large-scale autobiographical narratives nor profuse expressions of emotion, except in the special domain of explicitly fictional writing. Before the late Byzantine period, we encounter little that resembles histories of one’s life, lyric poetry, journals or diaries, the modes of ‘self literature’ that command private and public discourse in the Western world since, at least, the nineteenth century.1 Even in Psellos, comparatively few texts explicitly have the author’s self (life, behavior, body, and soul) as their primary and main topic – despite the fact that of all Byzantine authors until at least the eleventh century and from what we can conclude from the surviving texts, he was the most self-referential.2 Usually, Psellos enters the foreground of a text through some violation of audience expectations and the laws of genre. Otherwise, though ever present, he lurks in the background: implied in his teaching tone, language, and allusions, and juxtaposed to the main characters that populate his texts. What follows is an attempt to explore Psellos’ self-representation, his preoccupations, and their formal expression, and to situate his self-portrait against the background of his theory of authorship and within the wider Byzantine tradition of the rhetoric of self. In a series of texts for an audience of learned students, friends, and patrons, Psellos departs from the moral accents of the earlier Byzantine first-person rhetoric, advertises an identification with aesthetics, and, in doing so, expands significantly the Byzantine discourse of urbanity. Unlike the usual Christian frame of discursive identity, Psellos chooses a Hellenic persona. And despite Byzantine models of masculinity, Psellos adopts a voice which he regards as being by nature female. 1 2

For a survey of modern ‘self literature’ with further bibliography: Gay 1995. For Byzantium, see below. As already noted (pp. 2–3 above), just the pronoun “I” appears approximately 1,500 times in the works of Psellos, exceeding other writers by far.

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The examination proceeds in several steps. After a brief general overview of self-representation in Byzantium, we will turn first to a survey of Psellos’ projected character and, in the following chapter, to its Hellenic attire. His treatment of emotion, channeled through the frame of gender identity, will be examined next, before we turn to a final evaluation of both the social function of Psellos’ self-portrait and its potential to transform rhetoric into what we might call literature. the byzantine tradition of self-representation Greek rhetoric and Christian ethics demanded that one speak and write about oneself with considerable restraint, if at all. From the perspective of rhetorical convention, to speak about oneself, periautologein and periautologia, and self-praise, to heauton epainein, were considered “burdensome.”3 “If the reader does not find me burdensome [phortikon],” Psellos writes before the autobiographical account of the Chronographia, “but will allow me to speak, I will add the following concerning my own activities, something that will only move those of superior judgment to praise me = Kaª e« mž m” tiv fortik¼n –nteÓqen nom©zoi, ˆll‡ sugcwre± dŸ t l»g, kaª toÓto dŸ tän –män prosqžsw, Á dŸ kaª m»non m†lista e«v eÉfhm©an toÆv spoudaiot”rouv kinžsei” (6.37).4 This concern not to offend the audience with self-praise was intensified by a Christian anxiety against directing admiring attention to one’s own self, what the Byzantines regarded as “arrogance” and disparagingly called phil-autia.5 “I am not deceived by self-love [philautia],” Psellos adds in the same section of the Chronographia, “nor am I ignorant of my own limits [metron] = oÉ g‡r –k filaut©av  p†thmai, oÉd• t¼ –m¼n m”tron  gn»hka” (6.42); and, in another instance, he acknowledges that “each person loves flatterers, because each one is also a lover of oneself [philautos] = ™kastov g‡r filok»lax Âti kaª f©lautov” (G 15.32 to the Patriarch 3

4 5

For self-praise, see Dionysios of Halikarnassos, Epistula ad Pompeium Geminum 11 (on Plato): “¾p»te oÔn Pl†twn t¼ fortikÛtaton kaª –pacq”staton tän ›rgwn proel»menov, aËt¼n –paine±n.” For the Byzantine tradition, see Gregory of Nazianzos, Funeral Oration on Basil = Or. 43.14 (Gregory is about to speak about himself ): “d”doika d• t¼ fortik¼n tv –gceiržsewv.” On periautologia: Hinterberger 1999: 132–49. Also: Chronographia 6.46 and Encomium for His Mother 259–62 (both passages offer defenses of periautologia). E.g., Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 32.6 and 41.7; John of Damascus, Sacra parallela, Letter phi, chapter 13 (PG 96 420.20 ff.); Ps.-Maximos the Confessor, Loci communes 63, p. 930–937; Suda phi.305, which defines philautia simply as “arrogance [hyperˆephania].” On periautologia as “speaking with arrogance,” see Suda pi.1075 line 1: Periautologe±n: perª —autoÓ l”gein· tout”sti met‡ Ëperhfan©av. See also the comments of Arethas on Ailios Aristeides’ Sacred Tales, discussed in Quattrocelli 2008.

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of Antioch ).6 Instead of philautia, Byzantine rhetors recurrently projected humility and, generally, avoided writing about themselves.7 Though viewed with suspicion, periautologia was considered necessary and expected in a limited number of specific situations. The two most prominent within rhetorical practice were letter-writing and speeches of self-defense or apologia. These addressed the needs of the private and public realm respectively – though private and public should be regarded in their Byzantine context where most texts were expected to circulate among at least a small circle of readers, and where most texts were produced within the “cozy proximity of author, reader, and audience” that marked the experience of discourse in a manuscript world.8 The letter was defined as an “image [eikˆon],” a “mirror,” and, as Psellos once argued, an “imprint [typos]” of the writer’s “soul.”9 The letter was thus supposed to reveal the personality of its author, an expectation to which numerous examples of Byzantine letters paid tribute.10 Self-defense had its natural home in judicial or forensic discourse.11 It traced its roots in Socrates’ Apology and Demosthenes’ On the Crown (Or. 18), two texts with lasting influence in Greek rhetoric.12 Apology permeated a variety of rhetorical genres: speeches such as Gregory of Nazianzos’ Apologˆetikos (Or. 2) and Arethas’ Apologˆetikos (Scriptora minora 25); letters such as Theodoros the Studite’s To the Emperors Michael and 6 7

8 9

10 11

12

Quoting Plutarch, How to Tell the Flatterer from the Friend 49a: “¾ g‡r loidoroÅmenov filok»lax sf»dra f©laut»v –sti.” Cf. also Aristotle, Rhetoric 1371b. For formulaic expressions of humility: Gr¨unbart 2005: 131–7 and Karlsson 1962: 142–3 (the letterwriting tradition); Pratsch 2005a: 22–34 (the hagiographic topos of modesty). Some examples: Ignatios the Deacon, Letters 16.5, 20.26–7, 33.54–5, 38, and 42; Symeon Magistros, Letters 8, 9, and 20. Ziolkowski 1996: 528. Karlsson 1962: 94–97; Thraede 1970: 86–91 and 157–161. In Psellos: e.g., K-D 159 to the kouratˆor of Cyprus and S 11, untitled; cf. Papaioannou 2004; Ljubarskij 2001: 234–6 = 2004: 68–70. For the letter as “mirror,” see, e.g., Theodoros the Studite, Letters 558.11–12; Photios, Letter 291.5–12. Papaioannou 2009. In rhetorical theory, apologia was considered a main sub-division of the dikanikon eidos, namely judicial/forensic rhetoric. In Ioannes Doxapatres’ Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 130.16–131.3 (ed. Rabe), advisory rhetoric is divided into dissuasion (protropˆe) and exhortation (apotropˆe), panegyrical rhetoric into praise (enkˆomion) and blame (psogos), and judicial/forensic rhetoric into accusation (katˆegoria) and apology (apologia). There exists no comprehensive study of Byzantine apologia. For the influence of Plato’s Apology, from its immediate aftermath to the Roman period, see Hunter 2012: 109–150; for its later influence, see various references below; for Demosthenes’ On the Crown, see Psellos, Theol. i 6.45–46 and also pp. 147, 167, and 264 below; the two texts as models of apology (but also accusation, self-enkomion, and advice): Ps.-Dionysios of Halikarnassos, Art of Rhetoric 8 = On Figured Speeches (the pseudonymous Art is the first text included in the mid-tenth-century Paris. gr. 1741; the text dates likely to the early second century; Heath 2003). For the Greek tradition of apologiai in the first centuries ce (Nikolaos of Damascus, Josephus, Ailios Aristeides, and Lucian): Whitmarsh 2005a: 79–83.

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Theophilos . . . an Apologia (Letter 532), Photios’ Letter to Nikolaos, Pope of Rome (Letter 290), Ioannes Italos’ Apologetic Letter, and Psellos’ Letter to Ioannes Xiphilinos; and poems such as Konstantinos the Sicilian’s Apology. Indeed, apology was the primary excuse for self-representation and it is to self-defense that we owe the relatively few (compared to other medieval literatures) extant Byzantine autobiographical narratives. Such narratives are sprinkled throughout hagiographical13 and historiographical texts (Psellos’ Chronographia is the most notable case, but there are others, such as parts of the History of Michael Attaleiates, a contemporary of Psellos: c. 1025–1080s14 ), entire poetic collections (such as the one by Psellos’ teacher, Mauropous), and even legal documents such as private wills and testaments.15 This latter kind was further rhetoricized by Anna Komnene in the twelfth century who made direct allusions to Psellos’ autobiographical idiom.16 Rhetorical manuals identified a set of expectations that circumscribed the appearance of the author’s self in such texts. The first was truthfulness configured as sincerity and authenticity. The underpinnings of the definition of the letter as an “image of the soul” are telling in this respect. As manuals and numerous expressions in Byzantine letters suggest, writing becomes an image of the soul to the extent that it mediates the true inner self of the writer through the avoidance of excessive rhetoric.17 “These are the things one should especially observe in letters,” Gregory of Nazianzos wrote, “to avoid pretentious adornment and remain as close as possible to being according to nature = ToÓto kˆn ta±v –pistola±v m†lista thrht”on t¼ ˆkallÛpiston kaª Âti –ggut†tw toÓ kat‡ fÅsin” (Letter 51, to Nikoboulos). “Nature” is here a metonymy for authentic selfhood. The notion that discourse authentically can and should mediate the writer reflects a wider rhetorical approach to authorial subjectivity: texts reveal their authors. This notion derived from classical antiquity, and was not limited to letters or writing. It was reiterated throughout post-classical and Byzantine texts and, of course, Psellos himself.18 Here belongs, for 13 14

15 16 17 18

Efthymiadis 1996: 63–4 and passim; Hinterberger 2000 and 2004a. History 128–31, 135–6, 162 (Attaleiates highlights his positive influence in Romanos IV Diogenes’, ultimately failed, military campaigns); cf. Hinterberger 1999: 303 and 306; Cresci 2000. Tsolakis 2011 places the death of Attaleiates in the 1090s. For authorial presence in middle Byzantine historiography in general: Macrides 1996; Ljubarskij 1992. On the apologetic nature of the Chronographia, specifically: Karpozilos 2009: 110–112. For Mauropous’ collection of poetry: Bernard 2010: 86–88. For testaments: Hinterberger 1999: 384. Anna Komnene, Preface to the Will and Testament; Papaioannou 2011b. Cf. K-D 45 to Ioannes Mauropous. Isocrates, Nikokles (3.7) and Antidosis (15.7, here in a self-referential fashion; also 15.255); ps.-Demetrios, On Style 223–35; Dionysios of Halikarnassos, Roman Antiquities 1.1.3; Plutarch,

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instance, the recurrent reference to authorship as fatherhood according to which a text becomes equivalent to a biological extension of its agent; as Psellos wrote in a letter to Ioannes Doukas, alluding to a letter of Synesios of Kyrene: “my own offspring – I mean my discourses [logoi] = t‡ –m‡ gennžmata, toÆv l»gouv fhm©.”19 Aiming for authenticity and integrity, Byzantine self-representation was simultaneously constrained by morality. Discourse, whether about others or oneself, was expected to reflect virtues and thereby set moral standards.20 This additional requirement affected Byzantine self-representation to such an extent that premodern sincerity is often unrecognizable to modern readers who often search for authentic character and views.21 Unlike its modern variety, premodern sincerity did not translate into an emphasis on individuality as originality and difference – though, as we saw in the previous chapters, the Byzantines did think of discourse as expressive of the particular self.22 Expected to reflect their “souls,” premodern writers were inclined to present themselves as moral, imitable types rather than particularized subjects.23 The few theoretical discussions about when one is allowed to praise or speak about oneself stress this very point: periautologia is valuable when virtue is at stake.24 In this rhetorical tradition, to be oneself was in effect to also be another. It meant that one must reenact a set of typoi and topoi, generic rhetorical types

19

20 21

22 23

24

Cato Maior 7.3.4–6 (with the discussion below, pp. 166–7); Plutarch, Alexander 1.2 with Duff 2000: 14–22. For Byzantine references: Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 7.16; Himerios Orations 23.10–12 and 32.36–45; Ps.-Maximos the Confessor, Loci communes, p. 365; Nikolaos Kataskepenos, Life of Saint Cyril Phileotes 46.11: “Discourse [logoi] provides an image of the beauty of the soul. In mirrors, the individual character of one’s appearance is visible, but, in speech, that of the soul = Yucv g‡r k†llov e«kon©zousi l»goi. ìEn g‡r to±v kat»ptroiv ¾ tv Àyewv, –n d• t ¾mil© ¾ tv yucv caraktŸr fa©netai.” In Psellos: G 6 to Ioannes Doukas; Praise of Italos = Or. min. 19.24–5; On John Chrysostom § 3. G 5.12–14 to Ioannes Doukas with Synesios of Kyrene, Letter 1.1–4 and 18–19. Cf.: Theol. i 64.174–9; In Support of the Nomophylax Against Ophrydas = Or. for. 3.62–72; Theol. i 79.127.32 (with references to Plato Phaedrus 236b3–4 and Synesios, Letter 104). Further examples: Arethas, Scriptora minora 32, p. 268.8 and 270.29–31; Anonymous Professor, Letters 21.4, 27.17, and 101; and, especially, Gregory of Nazianzos, Letter 52.3: kaq†per eÉgene± t»k, to±v l»goiv ¾ patŸr ˆeª sunemfa©netai· oÉc ¨tton £ to±v swmatiko±v Þv t‡ poll‡ caraktrsin o¬ fÅsantev. Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe 143 98b and Leon Choirosphaktes, Letters 10–11 are eloquent examples. Psellos, of all Byzantine writers, has been the target of much such reading; cf. the otherwise fine study of Ljubarskij 2001 = 2004: “understanding the inner world of Psellos” (pp. 236 = 70); “confession” and “sincerity of emotions,” and “aesthetism” as the “views” of Psellos (pp. 270–3 = 108–11). For authorship and authenticity (gnˆesiotˆes), see, e.g., Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe 1 1a and 204 164b. For a characteristic example, see the preface in the Godly Rule Or Ordinance of Our Holy Father Christodoulos 1; the text dates to 1091. For the premodern typification of self-representation: Misch 1949: 65–72 = 1951: 59–66; Momigliano 1985; Gurevich 1995 (esp. pp. 154–5); Miller 2000. Plutarch’s On Praising Oneself Without Giving Offence; (Ps.-)Hermogenes’ On the Method of Force 25; Hermogenes, On Forms 2.7 = On True Speech; Ailios Aristeides’ Concerning a Remark in Passing. Discussions in: Radermacher 1897; Rutherford 1995; Gleason 1995: 149–50; Hinterberger 1999: 138–40; Fields 2009. Psellos knew, at the very least, Hermogenes’ treatises.

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and patterns, for presenting subjectivity.25 The Byzantines learned this well, whether through their rhetorical training (whose basics were articulated in pre-Byzantine times) or through the reading practices that were applied to biblical discourse. In the former tradition, character-making or ˆethopoiia occupied a seminal position; aspiring rhetoricians learned rhetoric by staging the first-person speech of stock characters, thus imagining themselves as another.26 Letter-writing was, in fact, occasionally regarded as belonging to or, at least, related to this type of discourse; to write a letter was to stage a character, though of oneself.27 Biblical exegesis also promoted identification with the characters of biblical stories. The Bible was regarded as a “mirror” of oneself as its readers were urged to fashion themselves according to model biblical figures.28 These constraints, elaborated in rhetorical theory and reading practices, were further pronounced in model authors. Byzantine rhetors learned the language of self-representation above all through the works of Gregory of Nazianzos. We have seen Gregory as a model of rhetorical style. He was also a model of self-representation. Indeed, this canonical figure whose influence extended from the Constantinopolitan center to the periphery happened to be one of the most self-referential writers in the Greek tradition. A member of the rising new Christian aristocracy of the late Roman world, a professional rhetor made bishop – first in a small town of his native province Cappadocia and then briefly in Constantinople – Gregory found himself in constant need of selfdefinition in direct competition with others.29 Through letters, poems, and speeches, Gregory created a nuanced self-portrait. In their polished versions – Gregory rewrote and rearranged his texts during his final decade 25

26

27 28

29

Curtius 1948 and Constantinou 2006 (topoi); Messis 2006a (esp. pp. 107–14: typoi). The same tension between type and individuation, with an emphasis on the former, is evident also in Byzantine visual representation; cf. Dagron 2007: 111–49. Stowers 1994; Bloomer 1997; Amato and Schamp 2005; also pp. 107–8 above. Notably, Plato’s Apology too was regarded as an ˆethopoiia; see Apsines (third century), Art of Rhetoric 388 (this treatise too survives in Paris, BNF, gr. 1741). Theon, Progymnasmata 115.11ff. with Kustas 1973: 45–54; also Nikolaos the Sophist, Progymnasmata 66.16–67.9; see further Malosse 2005. Cf. Athanasios of Alexandria, Letter to Markellinos 11–12 (PG 27 24), a passage often used in prefaces to Byzantine Psalters, and thus a well-known text; cf. Hamilton 1980 and Parpulov 2004: 256. See further Athanasios, Life of Antony 7.13 and Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical Discourses 10.350– 65 and 426–49 with the discussion in Papaioannou 2010a. For the earlier tradition, see Plutarch, Aemilius and Timoleon 1.1–3 with Duff 2000: 30–34 and Whitmarsh 2002: 177–80; also: Lucian, How to Write History 50. For Gregory’s biography, see McGuckin 2001 and Van Dam 2002, 2003a, and 2003b. For the competitive social context of Gregory’s world: Cameron 1991; Brown 1992; Amato 2006; Bowden, Gutteridge, and Machado 2006.

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at the family estates in Cappadocia – his rhetorical pieces targeted primarily an audience of like-minded Christian aristocrats, or aspiring “philosophers,” as he might say (Or. 26.10). Gregory aimed at sustaining and expanding a social network, at whose center he wished to be.30 From Gregory’s pen, Byzantine authors and readers learned the codes for how one should speak about oneself in private and public settings. For the former, they had Gregory’s final will and testament which circulated within Byzantine legal manuals (PG 37.389–96; Daley 2006: 184–9), 249 letters, and voluminous poetry (some 17,000 lines), especially the several poems To Himself. Most importantly, for public settings, Byzantine readers could read Gregory’s fourty-four speeches, many of which focus on Gregory himself. Three brief examples of the latter will suffice to show some of Gregory’s influential patterns of self-representation. In the Apologˆetikos (Or. 2), set at the moment when Gregory assumed priestly duties in Nazianzos in 361 and a text whose style Psellos admired,31 Gregory defended his previous decision to retreat into solitary philosophical theˆoria and his original reluctance to enter the priesthood and thus public political praxis – a familiar topic among contemporary rhetors.32 The authorial “I” enters the speech hesitantly. At first, Gregory is portrayed as imperfect, suitable only for private philosophy – his preference “from the beginning” (Or. 2.6). Later, we learn that Gregory was also “called” to the priesthood “from youth,” indeed “from his mother’s womb” (77). By the concluding paragraphs, Gregory becomes a quasi-prophetic figure like the biblical Jonah, Moses, and Jeremiah, called to service from above and unable to deny his calling (104–15). On Himself and to Those Who Claim That It Was He Who Wanted the See of Constantinople (Or. 36) offers a similar defense of Gregory’s prominent ecclesiastical authority, while he also styles himself partly as the Socrates of Plato’s Apology.33 Gregory advertises his inner unwavering desire for the good, his sole interest in “being” and not in merely his “appearing” (7–9). “The man who honors the good for its own sake,” Gregory writes in an important passage (9), “ . . . desires the good unwaveringly, as he desires 30 31 32

33

For Gregory’s insistence on self-representation: McLynn 1998; Papaioannou 2006b; Demoen 2009 (esp. pp. 50–4). See p. 41 above. Cf. Synesios’ Against Andronikos, to the Bishops = Letters 41 (on which more below, pp. 149 and 213), Julian’s Letter to Themistios, John Chrysostom’s On Priesthood (a popular text in Byzantium; extant in eighty-three MSS from the ninth to the sixteenth century; Krause 2004: 84), and, for a later example, Theodoros the Studite, Great Katechesis 101 = Parainetik¼v kaª e«v —aut¼n –k tapeinÛsewv kat†gnwsiv, kaª t¼ ¾po±on de± e²nai t¼n proestäta –n ˆdelf»thti. On Gregory and the necessity of ascetic retreat, see Elm 2000b. Vinson 1993. Cf. also Gregory of Nazianzos, Letter 32 and p. 41 above.

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what is also stable; so that, experiencing something divine, he is able to utter that phrase which belongs to God: ‘As for myself, I am the same and I have not been altered’ [Malachi, 3.6]. Therefore, he will neither be remodeled, nor transformed, nor will he undergo a change along with changing times and circumstances, becoming constantly other . . . He will remain the same always, steady in what is unsteady, unturning among turning things; a rock, I think, unshaken by the attacks of wind and wave.”34 As Gregory implies, he is precisely such a figure of inner steadfastness against external change. Finally, in his Farewell Speech (Syntaktˆerios = Or. 42), one of the sixteen liturgical orations, read out on Gregory’s feast-day on January 25, and a speech much admired by rhetoricians such as Sikeliotes and Psellos, self-defense acquires an even stronger force.35 Set at the moment of his resignation from the Constantinopolitan see in 381, the oration presents Gregory as man of virtue and Christian discourse (aretˆe: 12; logos: 6 and 12) and a biblical figure who suffers unjust persecution. Though he pays tribute to the classical and Socratic language of apologia (Or. 42.2 and 19), Gregory recurrently adopts the first-person voice of the apostles Paul (paragraphs 1, 2, 12, and 27) and Peter (14), various Old Testament prophets (2, 3, and 6), and even God (7, 8, and 27).36 Such self-referential discourse gave the impetus, the code, and, most importantly, an additional excuse for Byzantine rhetors to talk in the first person without fear of offending the decorum of humility. In most middle Byzantine rhetoric, the author’s personal authority is simply implied, with no particular need to be constructed in detail. This is the case, for instance, in many of Photios’ letters and speeches where Photios instructs, castigates, and guides others by assuming a seemingly uncontested voice of authority.37 Yet middle Byzantine writers, like Gregory and often in Gregory’s words and apologetic habit, also ensure that their Christian ethos 34

35 36

37

ëO d• aÉt¼ di’ —aut¼ timän . . . –peidŸ toÓ —stätov –r , —stäsan ›cei kaª tŸn perª aÉt¼ proqum©an· ãste qe±»n ti p†scwn, kaª t¼ toÓ QeoÓ dÅnasqai l”gein· ìEgÜ d•, ¾ aÉt»v e«mi, kaª oÉk  llo©wmai, OÎkoun metapoihqžsetai, oÉd• metateqžsetai, oÉd• summetapese±tai to±v kairo±v kaª to±v pr†gmasin, Šllote Šllov gin»menov . . . mene± d• ¾ aÉt¼v ˆeª, p†giov –n oÉ pephg»si, kaª –n strefom”noiv Šstrofov· p”tra tiv, o²mai, pr¼v –mbol‡v ˆn”mwn te kaª kum†twn, oÎte tinassom”nh. For Gregory’s Farewell, see Elm 1999 and 2000a. For Psellos and Sikeliotes, see p. 105 above. Similar adoption of the “I” of biblical figures in, e.g., the Apologˆetikos: Or. 2.57–68, 92, 103–9, and 114, 22.8 and 16, 42.2–3, 19, and 27. For Gregory’s biblical exemplary characters/narratives see Demoen 1996. It should be noted that first person biblical discourse itself invited such re-creation of its textual subjectivities; Harrill 2005. For similar late antique examples: Krueger 2006 and 2010; Jeanmart 2006. See, e.g., Letters 1, 52–54, 68, 69, 73 with Kazhdan 2006: 34–5 on the Homilies. Cf. also the letters of Alexandros of Nikaia or Leon of Synada, Letters 10 and 11.

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and “inner self” (the “›sw Šnqrwpov,” a Pauline expression) is put on display, especially virtues such as remaining the same and being of unwavering will.38 After all, Byzantine rhetoricians applied Gregory’s insistence on a divinely determined “nature,” unchanging ˆethos, and model typos – evident especially in Gregory’s presentation of Basil in the Epitaphios – to the men they praised and, like Gregory, implicitly to themselves.39 In this respect, they rehearsed Gregory’s practice of praising oneself alongside the encomium of others, the synepainein heauton, as Ioannes Sikeliotes once remarked in reference to Gregory’s Epitaphios on Basil (Comm. 326.29).40 Like Gregory, they also adopted the voice of model speakers, usually biblical figures such as Paul or David.41 Photios, to cite again his example, recurrently set himself as a paragon of patience, suffering unjustly at the hands of others by using as a model Paul: a “rhetor of truth” (Letter 250.2), with an inborn discursive perfection, able to “judge,” “chastise,” Paul displays his inner “ˆethos.”42 It is not that attention to the external self is completely absent from middle Byzantine rhetoric. Such qualities as bodily beauty, urbanity, and an aesthetically charming ethos occasionally dot encomia and biographies: for contemporary personalities,43 for figures of the recent

38

39

40 41

42

43

Unchanging self: Ignatios the Deacon, Letter 64.7–10; Konstantinos the Sicilian, Apology 9–10; Anonymous Professor, Letter 43.56 and 47.46; Nikephoros Ouranos, Letter 13; Philetos Synadenos, Letter 4.35–44; Ioannes Mauropous, Letter 9.19–21 and Poems 89.29–31. See further Mauropous’ Letter 27.7–8 (freedom of will, gnˆomˆe), with Gregory of Nazianzos, Letter 10.3 and Psellos, Encomium for Ioannes, Metropolitan of Euchaita = Or. pan. 17.398–9. For the recurrent phrase “inner man” (Paul, Romans 7.22 and Ephesians 3.16), cf. the definition of the Suda (epsilon.3170): “ ï Esw Šnqrwpov: kat‡ t¼n %p»stolon ¡ yucž· ›xw Šnqrwpov, t¼ säma.” See Or. 43.13, 16–17, 27, 64 with, e.g., Ignatios the Deacon, Anthologia Palatina xv.30; Photios, Letter 221.92–3; Niketas David of Paphlagonia, Letter to the Abbot Paul = Arethas, Scriptora minora 86, p. 165.12–31; Anonymous Professor, Letters 13.6–7, 16.2–4, 43.36–37, 47.56; Theodoros Daphnopates, Letter 24.16–21; Alexandros of Nikaia, Letter 12.2–3; Theodoros of Nikaia, Letter 7.7–8 and 32.15–17; Symeon Magistros, Letters 8.6–7, 14.1–2, 24.9–10, 25.1, 26.3, 32.15 and 19, 41.3, 76.2–3; Leon of Synada, Letter 38.12–13; Nikephoros Ouranos, Letter 35. For a notable case of synepainein heauton, see Niketas Stethatos’ Life and Conduct of Our Holy Father Symeon the New Theologian, passim. E.g., Arethas, Apologia = Scriptora minora 1, Pr¼v toÆv filoskÛmmonav ¡mv o«om”nouv = Scriptora minora 20, Apologˆetikos = Scriptora minora 25 passim; cf. Theodoros of Nikaia, Letters 18. Also Mauropous, Letter 5 (self as Jonas) with Gregory of Nazianzos Or. 2.5 and 43.26; and Mauropous, Letter 21.32–5, on turning one’s attention to oneself. Letter 165.235–7 and 248–67 (on this text see also p. 71 above); cf. Letter 156.19–30; Photios’ interest in Paul is followed by his self-identification with other models such as David, Christ, and once Socrates – see Letters 3.17–23 and 70–3, 98.9–15, 146, 174.81–4 and 243–7, 188.8–11, 221.7–10 (Socrates). Leon VI the Wise, Epitaphios on His Parents = Homily 14.160–163, 170, and 240–1; Christophoros Mytilenaios, Poem 44 (his brother Ioannes); Michael Attaleiates, History 237–8 (Michael Botaneiates).

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past,44 and also for earlier male saints (when it comes to beauty),45 and for earlier Christian models of erudition, such as John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzos himself, in reference to urbanity.46 In letter-writing too, authors sometimes commend a perfect soul when matched by a charming bodily appearance, manners, and speech or writing. 47 Yet exterior appearance matters for these writers only when it displays a virtuous soul within. The references in encomia are enveloped by more traditional discourse that avoids drawing attention to the exterior aspects of its idealized subjects. More importantly, the avoidance of identifying explicitly and in the first person with aesthetics is rather consistent and only rarely interrupted.48 If the self-examining, confessional, and soliloquist self, inspired by Augustine’s Confessions and the Soliloquia, characterized western medieval autobiographical narratives,49 in Byzantium Gregory’s apologetically exhibited morality with its careful negotiation between individual self and normative Other and its palpable emphasis on the inner man prevailed. It is within this horizon that we should situate Psellos’ rhetorical self-representation. psellian charm Let us begin with an example of a semi-public text, a speech of selfdefense titled To the Slanderer Who Dropped a Defaming Leaflet = Pr¼v 44 45

46

47

48 49

Theodoros of Nikaia, Encomium For Saint Peter, Bishop of Argos 6; Theophanes Continuatus, Chronographia, Book 6.54: 468.15f. (on Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos). Bodily beauty is ascribed to a number of male saints in the Metaphrastean versions of earlier saints’ Lives; see, e.g., Symeon Metaphrastes, Life and Conduct of our Holy Father and Confessor Symeon the Younger 2560–1. For further discussions of corporeal beauty, its valuation or devaluation in Byzantium: Messis 2006a: 363–88; Hatzaki 2009. I am not dealing here with beauty as a typical feature of women, especially in the context of secular praise (cf. p. 206 below), also present in hagiographical rhetoric; see, e.g., Symeon Metaphrastes, Martyrion of Saint Martyr Eugenia (PG 116 609c); cf. also Messis and Papaioannou 2013. Niketas David of Paphlagonia, Encomium in Honor of Gregory 20.59–60 (Gregory of Nazianzos’ urbanity: “ˆste±ov d• kaª dexi¼v tŸn fÅsin”); John of Damascus (?; the text could also be later, written perhaps in the tenth century), Encomium for John Chrysostom 13.5–6: “T¼ §qov m•n c†rien, ˆste±on d• t¼ toÓ prosÛpou meid©ama.” Theodoros of Nikaia, for instance, praises patriarch Theophylaktos for his “serene gaze, gently smiling face, calmness of character [ˆethos], indicating a manly and unswerving soul, pleasing in words, . . . flowing quietly like a stream of oil.” Further examples: Anonymous Professor, Letters 73.8–10; Theodoros of Kyzikos, Letter 56.5–8 (ed. Lampros); Theodoros Daphnopates, Letter 23.17– 20; Symeon Magistros, Letter 92; Nikephoros Ouranos, Letter 47.20–22 and 46–52 and Letter 31.13–14; Philetos Synadenos, Letter 11.7–17. For three exceptional cases in Niketas Magistros, Ioannes Geometres, and, especially, Arethas (though in reference to rhetorical skill alone, and no other aspect of aesthetic appeal), see pp. 49–50 above. For the Augustinian tradition in the West: Schmitt 2010: 44–66; Dekkers 1988 (on the pseudoAugustinian Soliloquia); also Stock 2010. For the traditions of “self-examination” and “confessional” self-writing, see Zak 2012.

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t¼n lo©doron ç©yanta c†rthn (Or. min. 7.105–20). Psellos addresses an opponent who, having chosen to remain anonymous, smeared him with a “cursing and slandering book” (line 25), a common practice in Byzantium it seems.50 Psellos knows who the patron of his opponent is: a “high-brow” consort of the court, with claims “to high honors,” a man who like a “dramaturge” directs the slanderer (234–41). Psellos produces a sarcastic invective against his accuser and a detailed defense of himself. It is possible that the text was meant for more than one addressee. We can imagine this logos being read in front of the emperor, the patriarch, or both – apparently, the accuser slandered them as well; Psellos praises both, also without mentioning their names (224–9).51 The speech takes us to the middle of Constantinopolitan court life. Courtiers and their associates compete for access to authority. Psellos wishes to lay claim to a high place in this constantly shifting social network, yet neither his standing nor his distinction seem to be beyond challenge. He is accused of a continued involvement in the matters of the City (162–202) that contradicts his claim to be a “philosopher.” This profession indicates generally a learned man with discursive skills and superior knowledge (including astronomy and other occult sciences; 205–17; also 242–4), and also, more specifically, a monk, a philosophos in the Byzantine sense: “This, of all accusations, you bring against me,” he writes, “that, though I have chosen to be a philosopher, I have not yet left the life of the City [politeia] = E« d• filosofe±n —l»menov oÎpw tv polite©av ˆf”sthka, kaª toÓt» moi tän p†ntwn –pif”reiv ›gklhma” (181–2). We are dealing with an apologia, as Psellos himself acknowledges (line 103), which justifies both the fierce attack against his opponent – nearly half of the speech – and Psellos’ elaborate self-praise. What stand out, especially if compared to Byzantine first-person discourse delineated above, are both 50

51

That such slanders, which circulated in writing, were common is suggested by both Byzantine narrative and Byzantine law; according to the latter, this crime was severely punished. For a case of a “slandering book,” cf. Theodoros of Nikaia, Letter 2.63–4 and 24.3; also Anna Komnene, Alexiad 13.1.6–7, where we find another instance of “written slanders.” For examples of what these slandering texts contained, see Psellos’ own defaming logoi: To an Arrogant Tavern Regular, Posing as Philosopher = Or. min. 13; To an Arrogant Tavern Regular Who Became a Lawyer = Or. min. 14; To His Own Priest = Or. min. 16; To His Own Secretary = Or. min. 17; Kanˆon against Iakobos = Poem 22. For Byzantine law, see, e.g., the legal synopsis by Psellos’ contemporary, Michael Attaleiates (P»nhma nomik¼n 1053–6): Perª fluar©av [a word used by Psellos at the beginning of his text: Or. min. 7.2] c†rtou. ëO eËrÜn fluar©an –n c†rt e­te –sfragism”n e­te ˆsfrag©st, mhdenª —t”r leg”tw tŸn dÅnamin aÉtoÓ· ˆll‡ diaèçžxei aÉt¼n £ kaÅsei. ëO d• mŸ taÓta poižsav kefalik timwr© Ëpoblhqžsetai. ëO d• toioÓtov c†rthv tŸn kaq’ oÕ –t”qh Ëp»lhyin mŸ bl†yei. It is difficult to decide who this pair of emperor and patriarch might be and thus date the text securely; the latter couple Konstantinos X Doukas and Leichoudes seems perhaps most likely.

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Psellos’ rather exceptional confidence in himself and the near absence of the Byzantine vocabulary of inner moral authority. Psellos is certainly preoccupied with promoting his character, indicated through the words ˆethos and gnˆomˆe; character, in Psellos’ view, originates in both nature (physis) and intention (gnˆomˆe alludes to precisely this aspect), and is manifested in behavior (conveyed by the words tropos as well as ˆethos and, in the plural, ˆethˆe). Instead, however, of traditional virtues, Psellos projects in the speech To the Slanderer what one might call an aestheticized ethics. By this I mean that Psellos introduces as distinguishing traits of his personality ethical aspects that relate to appearance and its emotional appeal to others. It is what Psellos calls “charm = c†riv,” a term and a notion that defined Psellos’ theory of authorship, but which he also recurrently ascribes to himself in the context of self-representation. A passage toward the middle of the speech To the Slanderer summarizes Psellos’ accent on aesthetics well (Or. min. 7.105–20): E« m•n oÔn oÉdem©a t©v –sti c†riv –n ¢qesin, ˆll‡ t¼ skai¼n o²den ¡ fÅsiv m»non kaª dÅstropon, mhd’ aÔqiv ˆf”x tv kaq’ ¡män loidor©av. e« d• Šnwqen ¡ fÅsiv t†v te ãrav to±v e­desi kaª t‡v eÉarmost©av to±v sÛmasi kaª t‡v kr†seiv to±v m”lesi kaª t‡v c†ritav to±v ¢qesin –pen»hse, mllon d• oÉ psi kaq’ ™na p†nta ˆll’ o³v ‹n dwrtai qaum†zetai, t© moi t¼ ˆste±on diasÅreiv tv fÅsewv; e« m•n g‡r eÉtrapel©an di”gnwkav, e­ me ˆka©rwv teq”asai stwmull»menon, e« Šllo ti toioÓton me kaqeÛrakav, poll crä kaª p†lin t loidoržmati. e« d” t© moi Šnqov ¡ fÅsiv –bl†sthse, t¼ m•n –pª glÛtthv, t¼ d’ –pª tän  qän, aÉt»maton o³on kaª Štecnon, kaª oÎte l”gwn kaq”sthka fortik¼v oÎte diamart†nw mimoÅmenov, ˆll’ ãsper ›nia tän ˆgalm†twn aÉt»cuton £ sfuržlaton t¼n g”lwta ­scei oÉd•n pr¼v toÓto mhcanhsam”nhv tv t”cnhv, oÌtw dŸ kˆm• ¡ prÛth pl†siv eÎcarin t¼ §qov –po©hse, t© moi diasÅreiv t¼ kal¼n toutª bl†sthma kaª Á polloª zhloÓn m•n –q”lousin, ˆpotugc†nousi d• sÅmpantev; ›sti g‡r –moª toÓto ãsper t¼ eÎpnoun to±v ç»doiv. If there exists no charm [charis] in people’s character [ˆethos], but nature [physis] knows only rudeness and waywardness, do not refrain from slandering me from now on. If, however, from the very beginning, nature [physis] contrived beauty for our looks, harmony for our bodies, tempering for limbs, and charm for our characters (and if, furthermore, each one of these features is admired not in everyone, but in whom nature grants them), why do you ridicule the urbanity of my nature [physis]? Again, if you discerned empty wit, if you have seen me chattering at inappropriate moments, or witnessed me doing anything of that sort, you may apply ample slander against me. If, however, nature [physis] has opened in me a blooming flower (a spontaneous one, not cultivated by means of an art), whether on my

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tongue or in my manners (and I have not been burdensome in speaking nor been off the mark in performing [mimoumenos]), but my initial formation made my character charming, just as certain statues possess a smile that flows spontaneously rather than having been chiseled (with art having contributed nothing), why do you ridicule this, my beautiful blossom? Many wish to compete with me, but all fail, since I have this just as roses have their sweet smell.

Psellos’ self-confidence is immediately apparent; everyone fails, we read, when competing with him. The insistence on the aesthetic aspects of the self is equally conspicuous. Aesthetics, he argues, is not only a matter of the body, its beauty and appeal. It is also a matter of character, ˆethos, to which the term “charm” applies. The charm of character is divided into two aspects. First, there is discursive appeal: “speaking” and what I translated above as “performing” and for which Psellos uses the verb “to imitate,” mimeisthai. Then, Psellos refers to “manners,” behavior. The latter seems to include “wit” to which the verb mimeisthai might also apply in the sense of “mimicking,” making fun of different characters. There are two more elements. The overarching category that describes this kind of ideal person is “urbanity,” to asteion. And this person, exemplified by Psellos himself, possesses all of his qualities by nature, a nature that works like perfect art. This minute self-portrait exemplifies Psellos’ main preoccupations in first-person speech where aesthetics prevails. It is not that morality is entirely absent. Psellos was capable of applying to others and occasionally (though admittedly rarely and for specific audiences) to himself the discourse of Christian morality52 – and we should not be too quick to discard this as simply him paying lip service to the tradition. Yet this traditional discourse is overshadowed by Psellos’ insistence on charm and urbanity. His “public” self-defense speeches, for instance, cultivate this insistence. Along with the speech To the Slanderer (Or. min. 7), we possess another four: To Those Who Think That the Philosopher Desires to Be Involved in Political Affairs, and Because of This Disparage Him (Or. min. 6); When He Refused the Title of Proto-asˆekrˆetis (Or. min. 8); To Those Who Begrudge Him the Honorary Title of Hypertimos (Or. min. 9); and To Those Who Are Jealous of Him (Or. min. 10). Each of these texts has its own immediate objective, written at different moments of Psellos’ career and for 52

Cf. K-D 57 to the Neokaisarites (on a monk and self-sameness) and his critique of changing selves in Chron. 4.13–14 (the eunuch John, brother of the emperor Michael IV) and 5.9 (Michael V). In his Accusation of the Patriarch Keroularios, Psellos declares about himself: “I do not make a display of my wisdom, nor do I create myself and beautify myself like a statue = oÉk –p©deixin sof©av poioÅmenov oÉd’ –maut¼n kataskeu†zwn kaª kallÅnwn kaqapereª Šgalma” (Or. for. 1.1273–5); cf. S 159 to the patriarch Michael Keroularios.

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different addressees. The competitive context of public discourse, however, reflected in the modalities of the text, stays more or less the same. The preeminent metaphor is politics as a stage – theater, stadium, or battlefield – in which the speaker excels “by his nature” (most eloquently in the passage above, but also: Or. min. 10.103–7 and 6.52–7). Psellos addresses accusers whom he leaves always anonymous, and simultaneously invokes patrons (usually the emperor) who remain, or are expected to remain, beneficial to Psellos (Or. min. 8.135–43 for the best articulation of this expectation). The most common accusation pertains to his continued presence in the life of the court and his social advancement, which is evident in Psellos’ titles, either newly acquired (Or. min. 9) or ostentatiously rejected (Or. min. 8). Charis and Psellos’ “urbane nature = t¼ ˆste±on tv fÅsewv” (7.105– 15) carry the argument.53 These qualities are intensified by his ability to “mix” austerity with charm (7.125–31) and to combine politeia with philosophia (8.121–34). Psellos displays a remarkable changeability and adaptivity (“eɆrmoston, eÎplaston, eɆgwgon”); the last two qualities are aspects of what he calls his “waxen” soul (7.121 and 152–3) – a frequently used Platonic metaphor, present in Philo and Synesios, Psellos’ references.54 Additionally, rhetorical skill, the most sense-oriented of Psellos’ traits, is elevated to an essential feature of the self. He takes pride in his “discourse” (logos) and its material dimension: his “tongue” (glˆotta).55 The latter functions as a substitute for bodily beauty to which he does not refer in relation to himself as he does in his portraits of others.56 Psellos’ charm in discourse and comportment is presented as spontaneous, nearly automatic; a natural and most distinctive feature which 53

54

55 56

Or. min. 9.6–8 and 64 on urbane ˆethos and 8.143 and 10.23 on urbane gnˆomˆe; also 6.37–44. In Psellos, asteios carries, apart from simply “joking” (e.g., Or. min. 17.17–19 and Chron. 6.126), the connotation of aesthetic beauty. Cf. Charikleia and Leukippe 5–6: k»rai kaª t¼ e²dov ˆste±ai kaª t¼ §qov kat‡ polÆ kre©ttouv. See Plato, Theaetetus 191c8–11 and 194c4-d7 with Psellos, In Support of the Nomophylax Against Ophrydas = Or. for. 3.205–25: “Âper pa©zwn ¾ Pl†twn fhs©n ¾ tv yucv khr¼v a­tiov· ›sti g‡r –n —k†st khr¼v ãsper tÅpouv dec»menov t‡ maqžmata”; Philo, On the Creation of the World According to Moses 18 and 166 and On Agriculture 16 and 167 with Psellos, Encomium For the Monk Ioannes Kroustoulas Who Read Aloud At the Holy Soros = Or. min. 37.125–41; Synesios, Dion 18.4 with Psellos, Discourse to the Emperor Kyr Konstantinos Monomachos = Or. pan. 1.125–9. Logos: Or. min. 10.62; cf. 8.121–34 and 199–205, and 9.6–8. Glˆotta: 6.27 and 7.100, 113, 156–62, and 169. On one occasion (Encomium for His Mother 717–27), Psellos suggests that he was a beautiful child, at least in the eyes of his parents (I thank Anthony Kaldellis for this reference); he also mentions aspects of his own bodily appearance; cf. Concise Answers to Various Questions 8: –gÜ m•n e«mª makr»v, mel†gcrouv, Ëp»yellov. See further Volk 1990: 6–8.

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makes him, as he claims, unique (Or. 7.131–4). A negligible dimension for others is thus turned by Psellos into an essential feature of his physis. Tellingly, nature and metonymies of nature – flowers, roses, instinctive physical reactions of inanimate objects – are a recurrent trope in these texts and beyond. They appear, for instance, in the Chronographia. This historiographical text is handled by Psellos as a vehicle for self-representation: like the texts of self-defense, this text too has a semi-public character; its explicit addressees were a relatively small audience of potential patrons;57 these could be supportive of Psellos, yet they could also be critical of him, influenced by a wider circle of competitors in the court – hence the definite apologetic tone of the Chronographia. Psellos’ “nature” is prevalent especially in the book devoted to Konstantinos IX Monomachos. Consider the passages, discussed in a previous chapter, where Psellos highlights the value that Monomachos placed on his rhetoric. These statements are framed by references to the “natural” origin of Psellos’ rhetoric: “natural pleasures,” we read, drop from his tongue (6.45). A later passage spotlights how he is “varied [pantodapos],” able to “live as a philosopher as much as is possible but also to adapt and transform toward Monomachos in an artistic manner.” These qualities are then, “with boasting pride,” attributed to his “natural competence = ¡ tv fÅsewv –pithdei»thta” (6.197bis). In his letters, the other major type of first-person discourse, Psellos often pursues similar themes, this time addressing close friends or, rather, those presented as close friends; these may be classified by Psellos as either socially inferior (such as students), or socially superior to him. Here are three examples. In a letter to Xiphilinos, Psellos portrays himself as an “urbanite” (astikos), excelling in discourse by nature: “because of the very versatility of my nature = di‡ t¼ tv fÅsewv poluk©nhton” (Letter to Ioannes Xiphilinos 123–30 and 208–13); and in a letter to Michael Keroularios, Psellos identifies as “his” distinctive properties the following: “tongue (glˆotta) improvising speeches, rhythmically patterned diction (lexis), moderate manner (tropos), philosophical ethos (ˆethos), modest and downgazing character (gnˆomˆe) = scedi†zousa glätta toÆv l»gouv, l”xiv –rruqmism”nh, tr»pov –pieikŸv, §qov fil»sofon, t¼ pez¼n tv gnÛmhv kaª Ìption” (Letter to Michael Keroularios 93–5).58 Finally in a letter addressed collectively to three close friends who are different in their individual traits (in, as Psellos writes, physis, gnˆomˆe, ˆethos, idiˆoma, and “the mold of their character = t¼ scma toÓ ¢qouv”), Psellos declares that he 57 58

See pp. 8, 12, and 30 above. See also K-D 198, untitled, on Psellos’ urbane ethos.

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is able to match them both individually and collectively. He is not simply one, but he is by “nature” many both in ethos and discourse (S 176 to Aristenos, Bourtzes, and Iasites; 453.10–12 and 454.13–15): “I am not an entity that is principally one (so that my nature would be indivisible), but an entity made up of many parts . . . Indeed, though I know well how to produce a song of the soft muse, my nature [physis] is well prepared for the severe, high-pitched song too, and I am also not deprived of their mixture.”59 That Psellos attributes rhetorical skill and changeable appearance to nature is, of course, itself a rhetorical maneuver. By claiming that nature is the cause of his variability, he deflects any suspicion of conscious mendacity that might be leveled against him, a self-proclaimed “philosopher.” Such a maneuver is not new among Byzantine rhetoricians. To ascribe to an inescapable force acts that are inappropriate to one’s own status is common. We have seen it earlier in Gregory of Nazianzos who, for instance in his Apologˆetikos, appealed to his divine calling as a justification for assuming public duties and abandoning the life of philosophy, which is what he would have preferred. What is new in these texts of Psellos is that he actually identifies entirely with the life of the world. He highlights the naturalness of his “charm” and, simultaneously, does not reduce the role of his own will in this respect. Naturally inclined toward discourse and possessing a protean character, Psellos presents himself as also willing to actively embrace his natural inclinations. The speech To the Slanderer is typical in this respect. Psellos switches from active to passive discourse in speaking about himself and alternates between evoking his physis and his gnˆomˆe. “I am,” he maintains, “divided between both ways of life [referring to philosophy and politics] and, while God tuned my nature [physis] in that way, I applied practice and used my will [gnˆomˆe] to the fullest toward what is better . . . It was not a wicked life that assisted and contributed to my constitution, but a well-practiced life, the studied pursuit toward what is superior, and a diligent love of labor” (Or. min. 7.200–5). And, earlier, he asks: “I mix into the austere and weighty characters [ˆethos] certain charm [charis] . . . why do you not admire my mixture, but rather reproach it, whether it is a studied work of intention [gnˆomˆe] or an invention of nature [physis]?” (Or. min. 7.128–31). 59

OÉ g†r e«mi t¼ kur©wv ™n, ¯na moi ˆdia©retov ¡ fÅsiv Ëp†rc, ˆll‡ t¼ –k plei»nwn sugkekrothm”non . . . –gÜ g†r toi kaª tv ‰palv moÅshv liga©nein ti m”lov –p©stamai, eÔ d” moi ¡ fÅsiv ›cei kaª pr¼v t¼ sÅntonon, kaª tv ˆp’ ˆmfo±n kr†sewv oÉk –st”rhmai.

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Psellos follows the same approach in To Those Who Are Jealous of Him (= Pr¼v toÆv baska©nontav aÉt: Or. min. 10).60 The rhetorical construction of Psellos’ unique and inimitable self, both his nature and his will, is at the forefront. Early in the text, Psellos pretends that he “intentionally” avoids the changeable appearance required by political matters (lines 21–3): “If someone were to examine my intention [gnˆomˆe], he would find that I greatly neglected public tasks, not only now for the first time when I am in decline, but also during the peak of my career.” Later on (63–6), he makes a similar remark about his nature: “by nature [physei] I am whatever I am, yet I also become [ginomai] an actor, assuming another’s form [allotria morphˆe]. One would not blame those on stage – e.g., if some Sarambos would perform [mimeisthai] Kresphontes.61 But one would blame me, or rather be jealous of me, because I impersonate an inferior form [morphˆe].” Read outside their context, these two statements might suggest that Psellos regards his involvement in politics as some kind of theatrical performance, the playing of an inferior character on stage, an act which is identical neither with what he is by nature nor with what he intends. Context suggests otherwise. Psellos contends that his unwillingness to become politically active should not be read as lack of power [dynamis] to excel in public affairs (23–48). Indeed, others claim – as Psellos proudly affirms – that he is a “norm [kanˆon] of political activity,” the perfect model of statesmanship, a quality, as he adds, of his “nature [physis].” “Why on earth do you wish,” Psellos asks (67–70), “that I am not of this nature [physis] and that I should not know the enharmonic melody, while I master the tense diatonic one62 . . . The creative science [i.e., God] has anticipated you and has made me, as you see, exactly like this.” Similarly, while early in the text he declares that politics was not his intention, he then goes on 60

61

62

Littlewood suggests the early 1060s as the date for this text, though one could push the date possibly as late as the reign of Romanos IV Diogenes; cf. Psellos’ phrase that suggests a later date in his life and career (Or. min. 10.22–3): toÅtwn [namely: tän tv polite©av pragm†twn] m•n kaª p†nu katwligÛrhka, oÉ nÓn prÛtwv Âte paržkmaka ˆll’ Âte kaª ¢kmazon. Sarambos, the vintner and thus a lowly figure, is made fun of in Plato’s Gorgias (518b) as an unlikely connoisseur of gymnastics. Kresphontes, a mythological figure from the family of Heracles, is the title of a now lost tragedy of Euripides. Psellos evokes here a passage of Demosthenes’ On the Crown = Or. 18.180 (not noticed by Littlewood in the edition of the text): Ka©toi t©na boÅlei s”, A«sc©nh, kaª t©n’ –maut¼n –ke©nhn tŸn ¡m”ran e²nai qä; boÅlei –maut¼n m”n, Án ‹n sÆ loidoroÅmenov kaª diasÅrwn kal”saiv, B†ttalon, s• d• mhd’ ¤rw t¼n tuc»nta, ˆll‡ toÅtwn tin‡ tän ˆp¼ tv skhnv, Kresf»nthn £ Kr”onta £ Án –n Kollut pot’ O«n»maonkakäv –p”triyav; The same image also in Psellos’ To an Arrogant Tavern Regular Who Became a Lawyer = Or. min. 14.162–4. Psellos uses here musical terminology, not noted in Littlewood’s edition of the text; “enharmonic” is one of the three genera in music along with the “chromatic” and the “diatonic” (further divided in the “relaxed” and the “tense [syntonos]” one); cf. Claudius Ptolemy, Harmonics (1.12) with Porphyrios’ Commentary on the Harmonics of Ptolemy (136.6–137.12).

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to argue that he actively cultivates his political skills with “study,” “zeal and imitation” (56–63), “sources [archˆe]” (56) which, in conjunction with natural inclination, have produced a man like him. That he, a philosopher, “descends” into politics, like an actor assuming the mask of others, is thus the result also of his will (gnˆomˆe). His opponents should admire this intentional descent, rather than censure his multifaceted “nature” (73–5).63 These intentional theatrics are manifested by the ease with which Psellos speaks of his imitative abilities in the first person. Claiming to have become “an actor in another’s form” is an extraordinary statement if read against a tradition that, as we have seen, was decidedly anti-theatrical. Indeed, the casual fashion with which Psellos uses the verb mimeisthai in its performative meaning, positively, and in the first person is remarkable and rare in comparison to the earlier tradition.64 We would search in vain within Byzantine self-representational writing for writers speaking quite as freely of their skills in “impersonation.” Theatrics as a positive metaphor is reserved only for the third person and the special subjectivity of Christ, who in order to save humanity put on the “form of another,” an allotria morphˆe; the latter phrase in Gregory of Nazianzos (Or. 30.3 and 6). In the case of Christ, however, the force of theatrical imagery is sanitized by both the divine agent of this theatrical “enactment” and the moral goal, the drama of salvation, which necessitates this “performance.”65 In Psellos and his performance of an allotria morphˆe (Or. min. 10.63–6), theatrics are adopted as acts attractive in themselves. They are thus atypical, presented in a self-referential manner and repeatedly so. Various passages in To the Slanderer (Or. min. 7) are characteristic: to the “art-less” rhetoric of his opponent (53–54, 75, 79), Psellos juxtaposes his natural discursive 63

64 65

Cf. Encomium For the Monk Ioannes Kroustoulas Who Read Aloud At the Holy Soros = Or. min. 37.124– 7, on Ioannes Kroustoulas’ ability to “transform” which Psellos’ attributes both to his naturally easily fashionable soul and to his will (gnˆomˆe). Cf. e.g. K-D 135 to Aimilianos, patriarch of Antioch (160.11–12); G 7.17–18 to Ioannes Doukas. Cf. p. 176 below. Relevant is also Gregory of Nazianzos’ notion of necessary change in the exterior behavior of the priest, predicated upon his inner unchangeability and activated for the sake of adapting to the varied needs of his flock (a notion that could be traced back to Paul’s “I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some”; Cor. 2 9.22, cf. Leyerle 2001: 183–92). Gregory of Nazianzos applied this notion to himself; see On Himself = Or. 2.44 with Farewell Speech = Or. 42.24. He also applied it to ideal models: Or. 37.1 (Christ); Or. 21.36 (Athanasios); Or. 43.32.43.73 and 81 (Basil); also Or. 2.16, cited in the Sacra parallela PG 95 1541.41–43). This was an influential concept, often adopted in the first person; cf. Photios, Letter 44; Arethas, Scriptora minora 7, p. 75.13–76.2; Niketas David of Paphlagonia, Letter to the Abbot Paul = Arethas, Scriptora minora 86, p. 165.12–31; Arethas, Encomium for Dionysios the Areopagite = Homily 4, p. 249.9–17; Symeon Magistros, Letter 63. Cf. also Psellos, Or. min. 22.18–24.

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art: the “charm of his form” (154) and his “fluent tongue” (169); to his opponent’s poor theatrics (65 and 83–93: drama, plasma, mimesis), Psellos counters his “attuned and easily twisting carving of his fashioning [plasis]” (155), his ability to turn his soul “toward every form [idea]” (165), and his successful mimesis (115). He also aligns this performative ability with the changing and charming Socrates as the latter was, in Psellos’ words, “performed by Plato” (144–5). And he also parallels his performative ability with the discursive adoption of various characters. This is what Psellos calls the plasis of ˆethos or “fashioning of character,” which Christian rhetors employ “according to occasion [kairos]” (147–50).66 Conscious of how Constantinopolitan public life could resemble a theatrical stage (in Letters K-D 41 and 229, for instance, Psellos is a “tragedian” “staging” a “drama” at the court), he promotes himself as an ingenious actor. Any competitor either in speech (logoi) or on the stage (theatron), he concludes in To Those Who Are Jealous of Him (103–7), cannot but remain a spectator of his singular performance. psellos’ nature The speaking “I” in Psellos is thus often staged as both natural and intended, spontaneous and explicitly feigned. This somewhat irreverent alliance of biology with theatrics paves the way for a conception of nature as a marker of individual subjectivity that is rather different from the “nature” to which other self-referential writers in the Byzantine tradition appeal. Take, for instance, Synesios of Kyrene, perhaps the most important antecedent in this respect, who recurrently promoted his “divine nature [theia physis]” – in the Dion as well as in his letters, which were direct models for Psellos’ firstperson speech.67 Similar declarations may be found elsewhere, especially in encomiastic discourse, in reference to ideal subjects, and expressed in the third person – in Gregory of Nazianzos’ Funeral Oration on Basil, for instance (Or. 43.16–17 and 23). Such elevated “nature” is not the kind that Psellos adopts for himself. He makes this clear in philosophical proclamations and rhetorical practice. In 66

67

See further S 85 (Psellos’ “theatrizing” of his discourse), 184 (becoming an “actor,” hypokritˆes); cf. K-D 229 (his ˆethos and schˆema) and Or. min. 8.184–210 (Psellos likens himself to “dancers” and praises his ability to mix philosophy and rhetoric and thus assume a variety of forms). Especially his Against Andronikos, to the Bishops = Letter 41, often cited by Psellos (see, e.g., Discourse § 46: 382–3 and Levy 1912: 40–1), where Synesios’ “divine nature [physis]” and “the power [dynasthai] and will [boulesthai] for the greatest and best things” granted to him by God (106–7) are set against his opponent’s (Andronikos’) “uneducated nature [physis] that has assumed power [dynamis]” (243–4 and 259–60).

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the Monomachos book of the Chronographia, for instance, Psellos digresses with a philosophical statement on “natural” virtues in order to explain his excessive praise of how he causes “pleasures” in others. He argues that “natural virtues” such as his charming temperament and discursive ability are conditioned by one’s biological make-up. They are, therefore, to be distinguished from what he calls “ethical” and “political” virtues as well as from those exemplary virtues found in the “perfection of the Creator” (6.44). As we learn from his philosophical compendium Concise Answers to Various Questions and an essay On Virtues, which offers an interpretation of a letter by Synesios (Letter 140 to Herkoulianos), by these superior types of virtues Psellos refers to such qualities as Plato’s four cardinal virtues (manliness, justice, self-mastery/sobriety, and prudence) or alternatively the moderation of the passions (metriopatheia).68 The terminology has its origin in late Neoplatonic systematization of earlier – primarily Plotinian – thought, which was also present in Synesios of Kyrene and some Byzantine rhetorical theory.69 In these other texts, “natural” virtues receive no discussion at all. Where a generic philosophical delineation of ethical subjectivity is at work, merely spontaneous character traits do not deserve examination as they contribute little to the main purpose of human life, which is likeness to the Divine. Nevertheless, in the Chronographia and for the purposes of self-representation, Psellos identifies himself precisely with these inferior virtues. Rhetorical statements, especially in the letters, underscore this identification. More private in tone, Psellos’ letters often insist on his attachment to pleasures, whether material or discursive, and his conspicuous submission to the constraints of the body. As Psellos proclaims in the letter to the patriarch Keroularios mentioned above, he is a “rational nature with a body . . . a human being, an animal subjected to variation and mutation, a rational soul using a body, a novel mixture of incongruous components” (Letter to Michael Keroularios 19–37) – a statement that he repeats anew on several occasions.70 A close look at another letter, likely dated to the early 1070s and addressed to Keroularios’ nephew Konstantinos, is in order here (S 86). At the end of 68 69

70

Concise Answers to Various Questions 66–81 (esp. 70); Phil. min. ii 32 (Perª ˆretän); O’Meara 2012. Cf. Plotinos Enneads 1.2 with Porphyrios’ Sentences 32; also: Ioannes Philoponos, Commentary on the Categories 141.25–142.2; Olympiodoros, Commentary on the Phaedo 8; further references in: O’Meara 2003: 40–49; Brisson 2006. For the rhetorical tradition, see Ioannes of Sardeis, Commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 132.18–135.16 in a discussion of the virtues that should be extolled in an encomium. K-D 35 to the kritˆes of Opsikion; S 7 to the prˆotosynkellos Leon Paraspondylos. For further examples, see pp. 91–100 above and 194 below.

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the text, Psellos declares his similarity to shape-shifting animals, a common metaphor for dangerous changeability in Greek writing:71 AÉt©ka g†r soi metamorfÛsomai, oÉ g†r e«mi ce©rwn tän zÛwn –ke©nwn Âsa –x —t”rwn ™tera to±v e­desi g©netai. I will immediately transform myself for your sake. For I am no worse than those living creatures that in their forms become another out of another.

What has preceded this phrase is a lengthy expos´e on the workings of nature, the kind of nature with which Psellos wishes to link his rhetorical persona. Konstantinos, it seems, had expressed his astonishment at Psellos’ assertion in a previous letter – which has survived as S 85 and in which Konstantinos is addressed as “a delightful image [agalma] of wisdom” (324.8) – that “when turtles are thirsty, they do not all draw from the water’s stream one by one; rather, if the first one drinks sufficiently, the rest of them are mysteriously [lit. ineffably: ˆrržtwv] also satisfied” (326.10–14). Psellos attempts to alleviate Konstantinos’ reasonable bafflement with a response (S 86) in which he offers not an explanation specific to the mysterious behavior of turtles, but rather an extensive list of similarly bizarre natural “facts.” This is a list of “paradoxes” (paradoxa) that pertain to animals, rocks, plants, and a special category of plants, drugs (pharmaka). With this inventory of paradoxical nature, Psellos displays his wide knowledge of virtually everything. The list itself is impressive. What is more intriguing is the conception of nature that Psellos constructs and then relates to his own persona. “Nature,” Psellos asserts early on, resists logical demonstration in most cases; rather, “what one sees suffices in lieu of every logical proof through arguments” (326.14–17). Nature is inexplicable, “incomprehensible by reason = ˆkat†lhpton l»g.” According to this understanding, nature is not regarded as the ontological, inner, and, thus, comprehensible principle that governs the workings of physical appearances as Psellos writes in other contexts. For instance, in the Concise Answers to Various Questions nature is defined as “a power invisible to the eyes, yet conceivable by the mind, interspersed by God within the bodies, the origin of movement and rest = dÅnamiv ½fqalmo±v m•n ˆq”atov, n d• qewrhtž, to±v sÛmasin –gkatesparm”nh par‡ qeoÓ, ˆrcŸ kinžsewv kaª ¡rem©av” (57).72 Rather, what fascinates Psellos for the purposes of the letter is nature as exteriority that resists cognition: 71

72

E.g., Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 4.62 (Julian); for earlier instances: Plutarch, How to Tell the Flatterer from the Friend 51c14–d10; On Having Many Friends 96f–97b. Also: Themistios, On Friendship 267b7–c3. See further Benakis 1963 with Pontikos 1992: xxx and lxix–lxx.

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nature as “a visible thing = t¼ ¾rÛmenon,” which “takes a shape = schmatisq”n” and gives the appearance of “staging = skhnž” or “performance = drma”; and natural phenomena are “performed as if in a drama [= dramatourgoÅmenon73 ] devised by nature.” Everything in this kind of nature is in constant alteration (327.2–3 and 328.12–14): GohteÅetai Šllo par ì Šllou, kaª ™teron —t”r aÉtom†twv prosfÅetai . . . e²ta dŸ päv oÉcª kaª toÓto qaum†zeiv, Âti ™teron e²dov zÛou –x —t”rou d« –pitecnžsewv g©netai; ›sti m•n g‡r toÅtwn kaª fusik¼v l»gov ˆp»rrhtov, kaª qaumas©a ¡ metam»rfwsiv. One [i.e., animal or plant] is spellbound by another, while a third spontaneously [automatˆos] attaches itself to yet another . . . Why don’t you also marvel at this fact, namely that the form of an animal becomes another out of another through some contrivance [epitechnˆesis]? For all these, there exists some ineffable reason in nature. Their transformation [metamorphˆosis] is a matter of wonder.

Nature is regarded as a force of variation, inhabited by a series of ineffable dynameis and pathˆe, powers that cause alteration and conditions which are subject to alteration. These two aspects are ultimately the two sides of one and the same way of being for which, in this letter, Psellos uses recurrently the verb “to become.” Becoming is the essence of paradoxical nature, its “duplicity and ambiguity = t¼ –pamf»teron kaª ˆmfisbhtžsimon.” And it is precisely this nature that Psellos, despite a tradition that viewed this kind of nature with suspicion, assumes in reference to himself: he too “transforms,” he too is a creature “no worse than those animals that in their forms become another out of another.” on the mirror of others This personal ethos – simultaneously natural, willed, theatrical, discursive – transcends the boundaries of the speaking “I” in Psellos. If we move, that is, beyond first-person discourse and turn to writings devoted to idealized portraits of others, charm – Psellos’ charm specifically – again prevails recurrently. Expanding upon the conventions of synepainein heauton, of praising oneself alongside the praise of others, Psellos stretches the possibilities of self-praise through mirror figures. His encomiastic texts, of which three will be discussed below, provide elements for what we might term a 73

This is the reading attested in Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 524 as opposed to “dhmiourgoÅmenon” printed by Sathas (327.19) who follows the text of Paris, BNF, gr. 1182.

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hagiography of aestheticized ethos, which in Psellos becomes inadvertently an auto-hagiography. Keroularios The Encomiastic Speech about the Most-Blessed Patriarch Kyr Keroularios is one of Psellos’ longest texts.74 Its inflated size is matched by the exaggerated sanctity that Psellos pours upon the subject of his praise: “a great and divine father,” “a perfect athlete,” “the most philosophical soul . . . the god-like intellect that stepped perfectly beyond any intellection,” “most precise and most perfect in all virtue,” and so on (374.7, 312.27, 319.1–3, 362.13–16). Such an overwrought encomium may have its origins in guilt and circumstance. Psellos wrote and likely presented a version of this text at a memorial service in honor of Keroularios (1005/1010–Jan. 1059; patriarch: 1043–Nov. 1058). The event took place sometime early in the reign of Konstantinos X Doukas (1059–7), emperor and husband of Keroularios’ niece Eudokia Makrembolitissa, and during the patriarchate of Konstantinos Leichoudes (Feb. 1059–Aug. 1063), Psellos’ fellow intellectual. Both the emperor and patriarch are granted lavish compliments in the speech (380.27–381.19).75 Earlier, however, toward the end of 1058 and while Keroularios was still alive, Psellos had also composed a text of unforgiving vehemence, a vicious indictment of the patriarch. This text is titled Kathgor©a = Accusation in the single manuscript in which it survives (Paris, BNF, gr. 1182, ff. 132r–149r), and is of equal size to the dilated encomium written after Keroularios’ death (Or. for. 1).76 Psellos, therefore, found himself in a difficult position when writing his funeral encomium. The Accusation was written, as Psellos agonizingly argues in the later Encomiastic Speech, at the orders of the emperor Isaakios Komnenos and not by his own volition: Psellos had become “a pawn of authority and occasion = p†rergon tv dunaste©av kaª toÓ kairoÓ” (Sathas iv 370.2–371.6). In reality, this was not the only instance when Psellos found himself at odds with Keroularios. “Words of a petty soul [mikropsychia]” had been exchanged between Psellos and Keroularios earlier in their association: Keroularios, we read, “was jealous of my nature [physis] 74

75 76

Ed. Sathas iv, pages 303–87, from Paris, BNF, gr. 1182 ff. 116r–132r: 25,425 words (close to one third of the size of the Chronographia; cf. further: Concise History = 18,080 words; Encomium for His Mother = 16,853 words. Sideras 1994: 133–5 dates the speech to 1063; Moore 2005: 388 proposes 1059. In the Paris MS, though paired with the Encomium, the Accusation follows it in chronologically reverse order.

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as I was indulging in the worst: descending into the life of the palace” (355.26–356.1).77 In light of the Accusation and the earlier frictions in the relationship with the patriarch, Psellos’ new text is an apology (apologos) and not a mere eulogy (enkˆomion) – despite Psellos’ claim to the contrary (356.1). Self-defense indeed occasions the encomium for the dead patriarch, as Psellos turns his eyes toward his dear patrons and close friends, the patriarch’s nephews. Konstantinos and Nikephoros were Psellos’ students at Keroularios’ instigation – “he brought them,” Psellos writes, “to the fountains of my logoi . . . they learned the arts of discourse and were also set off to the height of philosophy” (351.22–353.2).78 Of the two brothers, it is especially Konstantinos’ presence that lingers in the encomium. His mystical vision of the departed uncle, a definite sign of his holiness, is narrated and explained in the long last segment of the speech (382.14–387.12).79 What interests us is the remarkable contrast that Psellos draws between the undeniably Christian portrait of Keroularios – as a new martyr, ascetic, and Church Father – and the secular urbanity, the charis that distinguishes the main characters in the deceased patriarch’s life. The list of these characters and their attributes is revealing. Keroularios’ father “preserved,” while enmeshed in politics, “the charm [charis] of both discourse and manners = tŸn . . . tän te l»gwn kaª tän  qän c†rin –tžrhse” (306.26–307.1). Keroularios’ older brother (the father of Konstantinos and Nikephoros), “had a face full of charm [charites], while spells made out of words hurried out from his lips and captivated, as if with an inescapable net, those conversing with him . . . his diet was more luxurious [than his brother Michael], his garment was elegant” (310.28–312.8). The emperor Monomachos, a symbol of urbane life-style in eleventh-century historiography and a patron of both Keroularios and his encomiast, also receives extensive praise (323f.): “charming [charieis] in his appearance . . . magnificent and honor-loving in his soul” (324.10–12), “most charming . . . and amiable” (325.8–9). The two nephews too were “beautiful in their appearance, more beautiful in their soul,” with Konstantinos certainly being the more urbane of the two, “pleasing in his character, charming in his speech” (351.22–353.2). 77 78

79

Cf. further Maltese 16 and Letter to Michael Keroularios. Early in the instruction of the two young men, and while Keroularios was still alive, Psellos addressed to them an extensive letter (Or. min. 31), titled On Friendship: to the Nephews of the Patriarch Kyr Michael (Paris, BNF, gr. 1182, ff. 154r–155v), a text full of classical allusions and praise of the Keroularios family. The subsequent long and good relationship (well into the 1070s) between Konstantinos and Psellos attests to the fact that the former was likely appeased by the encomium for his uncle.

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Ultimately, Psellos himself enters confidently into the flow of the speech (355.3–356.23) as proof of Keroularios’ disdain for bodily beauty, but adoration of the “charm [charis]” of discourse. Psellos embodies, that is, a discursive charm that can satisfy Keroularios’ displaced sensual yearning. The patriarch, we read, would listen “with pleasure” to the improvised speeches of Psellos, memorized and recounted by others, whom Keroularios “would almost kiss.” And then: “Whenever he would chance upon me, the fountain itself of eloquence [glˆotta] – since I made myself agreeable [charizesthai] to him . . . – it is impossible to describe his pleasure [hˆedonˆe] . . . he would embrace me immediately, covering my face with densely repeated kisses, exchanging with pleasure what was his with what was mine” (354.27–355.2). Inevitably, Keroularios’ holy portrait is itself infected by the secular “charm” that surrounds him. This pertains not just to behavior; for instance, Psellos remarks in passing that, in contrast to other excessively austere ascetics, Keroularios’ immunity to passion (his apatheia) did not prevent him from having a life “full of charm [charites], a pleasant and palatable speech, an amiable gaze” (332.15–24).80 More importantly, and in striking variance to the dispassionate patriarch with his mind on higher things, aesthetics defines Keroularios’ body. Early in the speech, we encounter the following passage that is worth citing in full (308.8–309.14)81 : Proba©nwn ¾ pa±v, –napastr†ptwn to±v k†llesin, oÉ to±v yuciko±v m»non, ˆll‡ kaª to±v ˆp¼ toÓ sÛmatov. o²da m•n oÔn polloÆv tän e«v Škron filosofhs†ntwn mŸ did»ntav t¼n l»gon t k†llei toÓ sÛmatov, mhd’ –nteÓqen t¼n tetuchk»ta –gkwmi†zein prorhm”nouv, ˆll’ ˆp» ge tän kreitt»nwn kaª semnot”rwn, noÓ bebhk»tov, logismoÓ kaqesthk»tov, yucv genna©av, ˆgcino©av kaª staqhr»thtov, kaª Âsoiv ¾ ›sw kek»smhtai Šnqrwpov. ìEgÜ d• oÌtw pwv t©qemai perª toÓto, kaª d»gma e²nai t¼n l»gon nomoqetä· duo±n m•n, yucv fhmª kaª sÛmatov, perª k†llouv ˆnteriz»ntoin pr¼v Šllhla, kaª tv m•n tŸn o«ke©an ˆretŸn proballoÅshv, toÓ d• t¼ —autoÓ k†llov –pideiknÅontov, k‹n mŸ –n ­s t‡ ˆntiq”mena §‚, ˆll‡ t¼ swmatik¼n e²dov par‡ polÆ toÓ yucikoÓ t o«ke© l»g lampr»teron, nik n tŸn yucŸn k‹n t brace± k†llei pr¼v t¼ toÓ sÛmatov m”geqov kaª k†llov –r©zousan· dÅo d” tinwn pr¼v ˆllžlouv ˆntisugkrinom”nwn, kaª toÓ m•n ta±v yucika±v c†risin ˆpastr†ptontov, e«decqoÓv d• tŸn ›xw pefuk»tov morfŸn, toÓ d• ˆnqam©llou m•n –ke©n t‡ e«v 80 81

Similar traits are ascribed to Keroularios also in Psellos’ letters to him; see, e.g., Maltese 16.19–21: “voice, sight, innate charm, ethos, manners, solemn urbanity [asteiotˆes].” Partially cited and discussed also in: Tatakis 2003: 168; Kaldellis 1999: 165–6.

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Self-representation yucŸn, –panqoÓntov d• kaª swmatiko±v Þra¹smasi, tŸn nikäsan toÅt –pibrabeÅsaimi· e« g‡r kaª peritt»n pwv doke± t¼ swmatik¼n k†llov pr¼v tŸn ˆr©sthn tv yucv «d”an, ˆll’ –pª tän dirhm”nwn taÓta kr©netai fÅsewn, t» g” toi krma e« –x ˆmfo±n katallžlwv ãsper lÅra sunžrmostai, kre±tton toÓ –k qat”rou Þv proske sunesthk»tov. OÎkoun ˆtimast”on ¡m±n e«v –gkwm©ou l»gon, e« kal¼v kaª tŸn ›xw peribolŸn ¾ –gkwmiaz»menov e­h· ˆll‡ kaª toÓto t¼ m”rov prosufant”on t l»g, kaª t»s mllon, Âs kaª ¡ –nduqe±sa toÓto yucŸ pr¼v tŸn –ke©nou «d”an ˆntžrkesen. E« m•n g‡r ‰pläv Ìlh tiv §n ˆn©deov t‡ ¡m”tera sÛmata, –crn di’ aÉt¼ toÓto ˆpodiopompe±sqai toÓ l»gou t¼ Šmorfon a²scov, kaª aÉt¼ dŸ toÓto teleuta±on kaª ËlikÛtaton· –peª d• kaª –x –nÅlwn e«dän sumpepžgamen, oÉk ˆtimast”on mllon ¡m±n di‡ tŸn Ìlhn t‡ sÛmata, £ timht”on di‡ t¼ e²dov, Á dŸ Šnwqen ˆp¼ toÓ noeroÓ proelhluq¼v –v t‡ sÛmata lxan ˆcÛriston ›meine. Ke©sqw goÓn ¡m±n kaª t¼ toÓ ˆndr¼v e²dov e«v eÉfhm©av m”rov ˆrkoÓn. OÌtw goÓn aÉt¼n ¡ fÅsiv –k†llunen ˆpox”sasa Þv toÓton m»non oÌtwv –rgasam”nh, ›peita pr¼v deut”ran toiaÅthn swmatopoi¹an ˆpokame±n· oÎkoun –x oÕ toÓton pepo©hken Šllon oÌtwv –m»rfwsen. As the young man grew, he shone in beauty, not only of the soul but also of the body. I know that many of those who have reached the highest levels of philosophy do not pay any attention to the beauty of the body nor do they use that beauty in order to praise whoever happens to be the subject of praise. Rather, they evoke superior, more solemn things, such as steadfast mind, firm reason, virile soul, shrewdness, stability, and anything by which the “inner man”82 is adorned. My opinion, however, is as follows and I proclaim my account to be a doctrine and a law. Two entities, I mean the soul and the body, compete with each other in terms of beauty. The former projects its virtue, while the latter displays its beauty. The opponents are not on equal footing. Even if bodily form is, by its own account, much more glamorous than the beauty of the soul, nevertheless the soul wins the competition, even by its modest beauty, over the body’s grandeur and beauty. If two people, however, were set in comparison with each other and the one shone with the graces of his soul and was by nature ugly in his exterior form, while the other, being comparable in the qualities of the soul, was additionally blooming in bodily elegance, then I would grant the victory to the latter. For, while the beauty of the body may seem somewhat superfluous for the perfect form of the soul, one may pronounce such a judgment only upon natures separated from the body. For if the mixture of body and soul is tuned appropriately like a lyre, then this mixture is superior to the parts from which it came. Therefore, in an encomium, we should pay honor to the one who happens to be beautiful also with respect to external appearance. Let this part of him 82

Paul, Romans 7.22 and Ephesians 3.16.

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too be woven into the speech to that extent in which the soul, which has put on such a body, matches its form. If our bodies were mere matter without form, then, because of this shapeless shame itself, it would be necessary to exorcise from our speech that most worthless and most material entity. But given that we have been put together from material forms, we should not dishonor our bodies because of their matter, but honor them because of their form. Proceeding from the intellectual realm and having come to rest in our bodies, form has become inseparable from them. Let then also the form of the man occupy a sufficient part of our eulogy. For nature rendered him so beautiful by its sculpting, that, after working on his body, it was too tired to ever create a second such body. Once she made him thus, she never gave such a shape to any other.

Psellos is aware that the inclusion of bodily beauty in the encomium for someone presented as a Holy Father is surprising. Gregory, in his model Epitaphios for Basil, explicitly rejected such frivolous praise (Or. 43.2). Psellos thus spends some considerable time defending his approach, following the same rhetorical strategy that elsewhere he employs in his treatment of rhetoric and philosophy. He first retains the original hierarchy that sets the one term (here, the “beauty” of the soul or “inner man”) clearly above the other (the body and its beauty), following traditional views both Christian and Neoplatonic.83 Yet, just as with the profession of philosophy, interior beauty is not by itself sufficient for Psellos’ version of ideal selfhood. The body must display an equal appeal. Indeed, in the present condition of humanity when body and soul are a mixture (krama), superior value, Psellos claims, is to be accorded to the combination of the two species of beauty, rather than each of them separately. To some extent, Psellos revives here earlier types of discourse regarding the value of the body. For instance, in manuals of encomiastic rhetoric such as Menandros’ On Epideictic Speeches and Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata, some attention was recommended also to bodily appearance, even if the emphasis in these texts lies on the praise of inner qualities – such as Plato’s four cardinal virtues of manliness, justice, self-mastery/sobriety [sˆophrosynˆe], and prudence.84 Moreover, Psellos echoes an expectation, originating in the Neoplatonic biographical tradition, that a beautiful soul 83

84

Christian notions of interior vs. exterior beauty: e.g., Gregory of Nazianzos’ Oration on Cyprian = Or. 24.9 (cf. p. 181 below); concepts from the Neoplatonic tradition: e.g., Psellos, On the Intelligible Beauty = Phil. min. ii 34, with citations primarily from Plotinos’ Enneads. See, e.g., Menandros, On Epideictic Speeches 371.12–17, 398.14–23, and 404.7–14 (bodily beauty) with 373.6–11 and 415.24–32 (cardinal virtues); Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 8 (on the encomium: where both soul and body, including its beauty [kallos], are mentioned as praiseworthy) with the scholia by Ioannes of Sardeis (Commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 116–66) and Ioannes Doxapatres (Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 411–60; ed. Walz) who discuss the cardinal virtues but not Aphthonios’ suggestion to praise bodily beauty (418.24–419.9).

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may be matched by a beautiful body. Psellos alludes to a passage in the life of his favorite Neoplatonist, Proklos, written by the latter’s student Marinos in the fifth century; early in his text, Marinos praises the beauty of Proklos’ corporeal appearance.85 Nevertheless, Psellos takes a bolder step and unequivocally institutes the aesthetics of the body as an essential component of the ideal subject, as a philosophical dogma that “I proclaim . . . to be a doctrine and a law.” That such a statement, repeated by Psellos elsewhere,86 is presented in the context of a hagiographical encomium for a patriarch is revealing of the liberties that Psellos was willing to take. These liberties point directly to the author himself, the “I” that looms large in this passage and the encomium from which it derives. Metaphrastes Such liberties are further illustrated in Psellos’ Encomium For Kyr Symeon Metaphrastes (Or. hag. 7; 392 lines). Though a considerably shorter text, it too bears the clear marks of Byzantine hagiographical discourse, especially in its conclusion. Psellos describes a quintessentially saintly death: Symeon dies while joyfully delivering his spirit into the hands of accompanying angels; his body immediately emits a “sweet fragrance” that lasts for days, “a miracle,” as Psellos remarks. The text finishes with a final evocation of the “divine-like soul” of Symeon, in the form of a Byzantine personal prayer to a saint (369–92).87 Psellos’ hagiographic task was not an easy one. Unlike Keroularios, to whom the traditional model of an ascetic and martyr Holy Father could be easily applied, Symeon Metaphrastes’ life and works did not exactly qualify him for sainthood. Symeon, a Constantinopolitan from a wealthy aristocratic family, had an illustrious career in the Imperial administration during the second half of the tenth century (Symeon was born between 886 and 912 and died after 982). He is mostly known for his new Menologion, a collection of largely re-written (in Byzantine terms: metaphrasis) saints’ 85

86

87

Proklos Or Concerning Happiness: chapter 3. The notion goes back to Plato’s Republic (402d, anthologized by Stobaeus: 4.21a.18; also Republic 494b-c). For the body as a valuable receptacle of form (eidos): Edwards 1992 (Origen); Bynum 1999 (esp. p. 253, on the medieval western tradition). For discussions of Marinos’ passage: Saffrey and Segonds 2001: 71; Struck 2004: 228–229. For a tenth-century MS with the Marinos text, see p. 42 above. Monody in Honor of Ioannes Patrikios Who Was His Friend = K-D i 149.17–25; Monody in Honor of the Proedros Kyr Michael Radenos 48–58 (ed. Gautier, “Monodies,” 115–126); also: Or. pan. 6.16–23; K-D 95. Psellos does not fail to mention the “beauty of form” also in an otherwise conventional (in the virtues that it promotes) hagiographical text; Life and Conduct of our Holy Father Auxentios on the Mountain = Or. hag. 1C.133. Psellos also wrote a liturgical Akolouthia in honor of Symeon’s feast-day on November 28: Poem 23.

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Martyria and Lives and other similar texts designed for public reading on church feasts. Symeon’s Menologion was a typical piece of tenth-century Constantinopolitan codification in a suitably elevated rhetorical style and with lasting importance for subsequent generations – for Psellos and his contemporaries, in particular.88 However, the composition of a book was by itself an unlikely qualification for sainthood. Psellos thus creates the first author-rhetor Saint – at least in the history of the Byzantine rhetorical tradition.89 Unlike other holy men who also happened to be authors, Metaphrastes is proclaimed a saint by Psellos exclusively on the grounds of his writing. The four evangelists, for instance, the most important predecessors of Symeon in this respect and though evoked by Psellos as models for Symeon’s sanctity (Or. hag. 7.358–69), were more than just authors: they were apostles or disciples of apostles and only as such could claim to speak with divine voice. Yet Symeon’s single feat was his revised saints’ Lives (lines 153–5). This was, in Psellos’ presentation, an essentially aesthetic act, though Symeon stayed also within the boundaries of truth and morality as was appropriate for a hagiographer: Symeon writes “for the sake of benefit [ˆopheleia]” and “remains everywhere bound to the truth [alˆetheia],” yet his achievement is that he also “beautified and adorned the contests and races of martyrs and the acts of chastity and endurance of ascetics” (241–2, 256–7, and 202–4). Indeed, the second and lengthier part of the encomium is devoted to an explanation and defense of Symeon’s style and its aesthetic qualities (lines 156–369; esp. 230 onward). Psellos praises Symeon who “bedecked . . . these narratives with words blooming with beauty and varied rose-gardens of figures. He presents to the eyes of the reader acts done in the past = perianq©zei g‡r t‡v . . . dihgžseiv l”xes© tisi t¼ kal¼n ˆnqoÅsaiv kaª schm†twn poik©laiv çodwnia±v kaª Þv ¾rÛmena de©knusi t‡ t»te kairoÓ pr†gmata pratt»mena (318–22) – the last quality is a direct allusion to the rhetorical quality of vividness, enargeia. Psellos’ hagiographic text is turned into a treatise in narrative aesthetics, where charm (charis) is a recurrent word: “Who would doubt the charm of his narratives?” Psellos asks (303–5) and later exclaims: “I envy this man for his great eloquence as well as his charm” (322–3). Similarly present are evocations of pre-Byzantine authors. Psellos alludes to historians, master narrators such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Arrian, as well as 88 89

See pp. 46–8 above. Cf. Kazhdan 1983: 556; also Paschalides 2004 for a different perspective. The Byzantines knew authorhymnographer saints, such as Romanos the melˆodos and Kosmas the poiˆetˆes. For the evangelists in early Byzantium, see Krueger 2004.

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rhetors, such as Isocrates and Ailios Aristeides (207–29 and 350–7). Psellos claims that Symeon surpassed the pagan writers of his past, yet by evoking them rather than any of their Byzantine counterparts, he strategically inserts Symeon within – or, rather, at the apex of – the tradition of Hellenic discourse. After all, Symeon is a saint for scholars, “the most conspicuous among the learned men [ellogimos] everywhere = perifan”sterov tän ‰pantac –llog©mwn” (201), or the “divinely inspired beauty of speechwriters [logographos] = tän logogr†fwn qe»pneuston –gkallÛpisma,” as Psellos wrote in his service in honor of Symeon (Akolouthia = Poem 23.36). Such a creation of an author saint, sanctified primarily because of his rhetorical project, carries significant weight for Psellos. While in his Discourse . . . about the Style of the Theologian, Psellos had used Gregory, a wellestablished Byzantine saint, in order to promote his brand of rhetorical discourse, in the Encomium for Kyr Symeon, Symeon’s rhetorical reworking of hagiographic subject-matter is the pretext for the sanctification of aestheticized ethos. For it is Symeon’s ethos and not simply his style that is configured in rhetorical terms. Symeon shows “charm” (140) and a “multifariousness” of “nature” (133). He also possesses “adaptivity [euarmoston]” (70–71) and an ability to “transform” and simultaneously “retain the same form [idea; a rhetorical term]” according to circumstance (138–40). These virtues of character, presented in the first part of the Encomium, correspond almost verbatim to Symeon’s virtues of style enumerated in the second part. There, in reference to style, we read of Symeon’s “one quality of style” combined with “variation of character” (279–85), “adaptivity” to occasion (228–9 and 306), “multiformity” (302–3), and, of course, “charm” (303–23). The rhetorical accomplishment which this text aims to sanctify suffuses the very self of the idealized man – a common feature, we might add, in Psellos’ encomiastic rhetoric.90 More significantly, the idealized subject of the encomium points directly to Psellos himself. He implies as much through the praise of qualities that he 90

Among many examples, see, e.g., Encomium for His Mother 190–2 and 535–52; Epitaphios in Honor of the Most-Blessed Patriarch Kyr Ioannes Xiphilinos, Sathas iv 432.4–29 and 434.25; Encomium in Honor of the Most-Blessed Kyr Konstantinos Leichoudes, Patriarch of Constantinople, Sathas iv 400.26– 7 and 401.8–13; Monody in Honor of the Prˆotosynkellos and Metropolitan of Ephesos Kyr Nikephoros = K-D i 208.9–17; Discourse to the Emperor Kyr Konstantinos Monomachos = Or. pan. 1.125–9; to Monomachos = Or. pan. 3.41–55; Encomium For the Monk Ioannes Kroustoulas Who Read Aloud At the Holy Soros = Or. min. 37.55ff.; Chron. 6.31–4 and 7c.4; Letters S 6 (231.13–18; the letter is addressed to Isaakios Komnenos, and not to Romanos Diogenes as suggested by Sathas); S 152 to Ioannes Doukas; K-D 68 to Romanos Skleros (101.15–26); K-D 223, untitled (265.1–29); K-D 229 to Mauropous (272.23–8).

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too supposedly possesses and career-paths that he too traverses.91 Symeon, we read, happened to be a man who excelled by his own “nature” in rhetoric and philosophy (autophyˆos; line 45; cf. lines 38–45) and, moreover, mixed these two types of discourse harmoniously. This mixture is the feature of the “perfect nature” (37–8 and 52) that distinguished Symeon from all earlier “wise men” (43–5; and 52–74). Psellos then introduces Metaphrastes as a rhetor-philosopher who engaged in the affairs of the city. Unlike others, Symeon used discourse for the sake of society and, by making himself “desirable to the emperors,” carved out a spectacular career (cf. lines 330–4). At the court, he displayed his aesthetic ethos (89–146; here lines 140 onward): OÉd• car©twn Šmoirov ¾ ˆnžr, ˆll‡ katžrtuto aÉt pr¼v psan spoudŸn met’ –mmeloÓv paidiv kaª ¡ glätta kaª ¡ di†noia. megaloprepäv d• ›cwn kaª tv stolv kaª toÓ scžmatov Œma d• kaª toÓ bad©smatov ˆntžllatte t¼ §qov pr¼v t¼ fain»menon, –p©car©v te àn kaª eÉpr»sitov kaª aÉt»qen ™lkwn p†ntav t meidi†mati. Nor was the man deprived of charm [charites], having trained his tongue and mind to treat any serious matter with the required lightness of touch. Counterbalancing a grand manner, which was apparent in his dress, style, and even the way that he walked, were a character [ethos] that was full of charm [epicharis] and made him easy to approach, and a smile that immediately drew everyone to him.

Metaphrastes might have devoted his rewriting to two types of saints, martyrs and ascetics (cf. 156–66). Yet Psellos introduces Symeon as a third type, an aestheticized saint, much in the image of himself: a philosopher, enmeshed in politics, distinguished for his urbanity and, most importantly, worthy of sanctity for his rhetoric. Ultimately, Psellos inserts himself in the Encomium in a straightforward fashion (322–9): Zhlä m•n oÔn –gÜ t¼n Šndra kaª tv toiaÅthv eÉstom©av kaª c†ritov, oÉd•n d• ¨tton tv eÉcrhst©av tän Ëpoq”sewn· e« g‡r kˆmoª poll‡ kaª perª pollän sugg”graptai, ˆll’ oÉk ‹n ›coi toioÓton zlon kaª m©mhsin t‡ spoud†smata. ˆll‡ log©oiv m•n ­swv ˆndr†si fanžsetai perispoÅdasta kaª zhlÛsousi taÓta di‡ tŸn l”xin kaª t¼n poik©lon schmatism»n, katafronžsousi d• o¬ pollo©, Âti mŸ m”lon aÉto±v zhthm†twn kaª –nnoiän ˆporrhtot”rwn. Therefore, I envy the man for his great eloquence as well as his charm, and no less for how easily he handles his subject matter. For, even if I too 91

Cf. Høgel 2004; Kazhdan 2006: 236–7.

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Self-representation have written many texts on many subjects, my works will not excite such envy and imitation. Learned men might perhaps find them important and will emulate them for my diction and varied figures. The many, however, will despise them, as my texts do not concern more mystical matters and concepts.

This authorial intrusion into the text comes with a catch. Psellos and Symeon may be similar in the rest of the text, but here Psellos introduces their single difference. He is actually more rhetorical than Symeon, more aesthetically orientated than his object of praise. This may sound like a stereotypical expression of humility on the part of a hagiographer; however, its purpose is to tell a distinctive truth about the author. Theodote The author’s decidedly rhetorical self dominates also Psellos’ funerary Encomium for His Mother Theodote, my last example in this series.92 More than the speeches on Keroularios, and Metaphrastes, the Encomium lies at the border between other- and self-referential writing for, though it presents a hagiography, it deals with Psellos’ private life as no other of his texts.93 As with the Encomium for Metaphrastes, Psellos’ eulogy of his deceased mother has a double purpose. A pretext for indirect self-sanctification, the text allows Psellos to underline the distance separating him from sanctity by ascribing to himself, unlike the subject of his encomium, an entirely aesthetic character. The hagiographical veneration of his mother Theodote is obvious throughout. Theodote is perfect from childhood to death (lines 113–28 and 1486–92), a “model of virtue” (1595) and an “animate law,” in words that Psellos borrows from Gregory of Nazianzos (line 505 with Or. 43.80, on Basil). Theodote is someone whom “one would number among the saints and rank among the martyrs” (1595–1628). By this, Psellos is paving the way for his own fame, if not his own sanctification – holy mothers figure prominently in the lives of holy men in Christian biography.94 After all, Psellos towers over the Encomium, despite his recurrent claim that 92 93

94

Recent discussions and translations of this text in Criscuolo 1989; Walker 2005; Kaldellis 2006a: 29–109. With the exception, perhaps, of his Funeral Oration For His Daughter Styliane, Who Died Before the Age of Marriage (Sathas v 62–87) and his speech To His Grandson When He Was Still an Infant (Or. min. 38). For this text and the Byzantine tradition of concepts of motherhood, see Hatlie 2009; for the importance of mothers in the creation of medieval sanctity in general, see Delumeau 1992 and, for the Byzantine tradition, Efthymiadis and Featherstone 2007. It should be added that apart from

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he wishes to avoid periautologia, “talking about oneself ” (260–2). Large portions of the text are devoted precisely to the “author” (the syngrapheus; line 255: “¾ suggrafeÆv –xerr†gh tv fÅsewv”), especially his education (253–391) and his teaching (1685–1931). It is with logoi – education, discourse, literature – that Psellos again identifies; or, more accurately, with the “beauty of discourse = t tän l»gwn k†llei” (605). So much so that, though Psellos “owes” this beauty to his mother’s support (602–6 and passim), logoi set a distance between him and his holy parent. “As if opposing your straight paths and breaking your rule,” Psellos writes addressing his mother in a lengthy self-referential digression, “I do not much practice the philosophy that was dear to you. I do not know which turn of fate captured me from the beginning and made me devote myself to books from which I cannot separate myself. The art of discourse lures me . . . and I have loved exceedingly the beauty that blooms on it” (1685–97; cf. 1629–32 and 1801–5). This digression continues for some two hundred and forty lines and concludes the Encomium with an extensive list of topics, mostly from the Hellenic tradition, that Psellos taught.95 It ends with the following words (1916–31): O¬ d” [i.e., pollo©] me . . . ˆnq”lkousi kaª spar†ttousi tv –mv glÛtthv m»nhv –räntev kaª tv yucv Þv peritt»ter»n ti tän Šllwn e«du©av. ìEmoª d”, å mter, ˆfws©wtai oÕtov ¾ b©ov, ¾ d’ ™terov teqhsaÅristai pr¼v Án –k polloÓ drame±n –pe©gomai. e« kaª pollo±v ›ti ˆgk©stroiv teqžramai, basile± ˆprªx ¡män drattom”n kaª pr¼v toÆv prohghsam”nouv perª ¡män ˆnter©santi kaª nikžsanti . . . e« g†r toi kaª t¼ scma kaª ¾ tr©bwn Šmikt† pwv kaª basile± kaª to±v perª basil”a doke±, ˆll’96 ¡m±n taÓta m»noiv kekainot»mhtai, kaª ¤dist† pwv doke± oÉ to±v koinwniko±v m»non, ˆll‡ kaª tän ˆkoinwnžtwn to±v ple©osin. e« d” moi t¼ §qov prosžrmose to±v diaf»roiv kairo±v, Šlloi perª toÅtou filosofe©twsan, –moª goÓn hÉtom†tistai. Many . . . drag me and tear me apart, falling in love just with my eloquence [glˆotta] and also with my soul as more perspicacious than any other. O mother, I have devoted myself to this way of life, while the other [i.e., the monastic life] has been stored up like a treasure toward which, for a long time now, I hasten to go. I am still caught, however, in many snares. The emperor has tight control of me and has emerged victorious from his quarrel over me with those who have preceded me . . . Perhaps the monastic habit and the cloak of office seem irreconcilable to the emperor and those around him. Still this is my own innovation and it appears most attractive not only to those in public life, but also to the majority of the monks. And if my character has adapted to different circumstances, others should philosophize about it – for me this has been spontaneous [automatizesthai].

Psellos’ own portrait is enlarged almost at the expense of his mother’s encomium with a passage that brings us back to his obsessions: the advertisement of his qualities in “tongue” and “soul”; his inescapable appeal for many (especially, Monomachos); the aesthetic predilections that drive Psellos away from the saintly paths of others (here his own mother). Psellos defends his presence at the court, while being a monk, and promotes his aesthetic virtue of adaptivity to exterior circumstances. What might cause dismay in others, he argues, should be a matter of “philosophical” investigation. In his case, this ability is unique, “novel,” produced through unaffected, “automatic” processes. *** Naturally charming and theatrically multifaceted, Psellos proffers in the texts examined above an aesthetic self that departs from the overwhelming insistence on inner moral authority in the Byzantine rhetorical tradition. This departure seems to be conscious on Psellos’ part. Not only does he occasionally pay tribute to this tradition.97 More pointedly, the series of encomiastic texts that glorify or, indeed, nearly sanctify the various aspects of urbanity show a Psellos who is willing to use the hagiographic mode that he knows well, but who also blithely veers toward a set of virtues that hagiography usually derides: the attention to the senses, the skills of rhetoric, the enjoyment of the material world and the luxuries of urbane life. Psellos, that is, flaunts his superior knowledge of the norm. But he also sharpens the distance that separates his self from the hagiographical canon. The other-worldly patriarch whose image is affected by the charm that surrounds him, especially Psellos’ charm, the author-saint whose formal appeal is superseded by his hagiographer Psellos, and the saintly mother who raises a perfectly worldly son point to an author who parades the rules of dominant culture in order to break away from them. First-person rhetoric, whether pursued directly or indirectly through the mirror of others, is in this way maximized in Psellos. While, for others, divinely originating virtue almost consistently guarantees authority and simultaneously preserves the decorum of humility, Psellos’ natural theatrics 97

See pp. 132–3 and 143 above.

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are aimed to set him decisively at the epicenter of the social stage. And while others are anxious to rehearse the boundaries of well-defined and culturally powerful typoi, Psellos first acknowledges these typoi but then distances himself from them by rendering the constructed and staged nature of his own persona explicit. He both strives for social advancement and disrupts the social expectations governing first-person discourse. Thus, he recurrently gestures toward a self that appears invented like a literary character – a character who displays its created, discursive nature, seems to obey primarily his own aesthetic rules, and who is meant to attract the reader’s wishes.

ch a p ter 5

The statue’s smile discourses of Hellenism

Psellos’ maximization of the inherent dynamics of the rhetorical tradition does not simply concern the content of self-representation, namely the emphasis on aesthetics delineated thus far, but also its form. As might be already apparent, the apparatus of references – the vocabulary, images, figures, motifs, and allusions – that frame Psellos’ insistence on his own charm derive primarily from what the Byzantines would have regarded as Hellenic discourse. Psellos evokes pre-Byzantine and non-Christian material such as Greek mythology and personalities from classical Athens. He also cites or alludes to a spectrum of texts that constructed the ideals of Hellenism: the traditions of Platonism and the Second Sophistic, their models, Plato and Demosthenes, along with the continuers of these traditions in Byzantium. Psellos’ references, that is, derive from the cultural capital of Hellenism. This was a capital available for appropriation; and, in the form in which it appears in Byzantine writing, it was largely an invention of Greek rhetoric and philosophy in the Imperial period as continued by fourth-century rhetoricians, Christians and non-Christians alike.1 Consider, for instance, Psellos’ five speeches of self-defense. He identifies his fate with a series of historical personalities from the Hellenic past. These are “ancient wise men . . . who clung to philosophy and every type of music [namely: rhetoric],” such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (Or. min. 8.1–35; 7.196–8) – Socrates and Plato are especially important for Psellos because of their “charm [charis]” (7.143–6). He further compares himself to political figures who also displayed “charm [charis],” such as Plutarch’s Cato (7.138–43), Pericles, and Kimon (7.199–200), and rhetors such as Demosthenes and his “eloquent tongue [glˆotta].” The mention 1

For Hellenism in the Imperial period, see: Schmitz 1997; Whitmarsh 2004a: 139–58 and 161–76; Whitmarsh 2005a: 38 and passim; for its appropriation by fourth-century rhetoricians: Bowersock 1990; Elm 2003. I am not concerned here with Hellenism with its further connotations for the Byzantines as an ethnic or cultural identity or as a pagan system of belief: see Odorico 2000; Rapp 2008; and especially Kaldellis 2007a where the discussion of Psellos occupies a seminal place.

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of Socrates and Demosthenes is accompanied with references to the two basic classical Greek texts of self-representation, models since the Second Sophistic: Plato’s Apology and Demosthenes’ On the Crown. Psellos playfully assumes the fate of the unjustly accused Socrates of Plato’s exemplary text2 and cites Demosthenes’ self-confident voice.3 In general, when citations or allusions are inserted, they usually stem from classical or classicizing texts. Two types of reference may be discerned. There are allusions to texts that provide models or masks for Psellos such as the Apology, On the Crown, Plutarch’s Lives, or texts by the most Hellenic among late antique Christian rhetors, Synesios of Kyrene.4 And then there are bookish references to texts of specialized knowledge that afford Psellos a bravura display of wisdom. The latter type of citation, even to texts of practical science, serve no practical purpose in the context of self-defense.5 They are not aimed at teaching – as they are in a large part of the Psellian corpus. Rather, they are elaborate adornments of a discursive persona. It is striking how focused and pointed is Psellos’ use of this Hellenic material for his elaboration of a self-portrait. Any allusion to early Byzantine Christian self-representational rhetoric and its dominant figure, Gregory of Nazianzos, though present elsewhere in Psellos’ idealized figures, is conspicuously put to the side in his own self-portrait. This is rather surprising. To evoke Gregory in self-representation would be expected, given how central this kind of language was for Byzantine first-person discourse and how instrumental Gregory of Nazianzos was for Psellos himself in articulating his rhetorical aesthetics. Allusions to Gregory would be expected also for another reason. Like Gregory, Psellos addresses primarily an audience of like-minded members of the educated elite in an attempt to secure for himself an authoritative role within this group, defending his role as a “philosopher” engaged in the life of the city and excelling in discourse. Though he does not have – or precisely because he lacks – the kind of real authority that Gregory as a wealthy aristocrat and bishop 2 3

4

5

Or. min. 7.39–43, 61–3, and 82–6; also 8.102–5. Or. min. 8.119 and 127, 9.49–50, and 10.64–65 with Demosthenes’ On the Crown = Or. 18.10, 97, 179, and 180 respectively. The third Demosthenic phrase (Or. 18.179) is cited in rhetorical manuals (Dionysios of Halikarnassos, On Composition 8; Hermogenes, On Forms 1.12), but is nowhere else repeated by a rhetor in the first person. For example, Psellos praises Plutarch because “he does not show the man [the Roman statesman Cato the Elder] to be entirely rough and uncultivated, but he reports also some of his charm [charis], and is not ashamed to ascribe discursive sweetness to a philosopher” (Or. min. 7.138–43 with Plutarch, Cato Maior 7). For the Byzantine reception of Plutarch, see Garzya 1998; e.g., Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe codex 245 is devoted to Plutarch, with many excerpts from his Lives. For Synesios, see the following chapter. Cf., e.g., the usage of Asklepiodotos, Aelian, Arrian in Or. min. 8.38–63 or Heron in 9.168–73.

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enjoyed, Psellos writes with equal, if not greater, self-confidence. Nevertheless, he writes about himself with little recourse to his obvious model, Gregory, and the biblical persona that the early Byzantine rhetor created for himself.6 The second aspect emerging in Psellos’ self-portrait is that the choice of a Hellenic apparatus seems to be necessitated by his choice to project first and foremost an aestheticized ethos. Aesthetics seems to mean Hellenism and vice versa; attention to the senses coincides with pre-Byzantine and non-Christian form. This is neither coincidental nor Psellos’ invention. The association of the discourse of Hellenism with the virtue of urbanity and the focus on exterior appearance in body, language, and behavior had a long tradition in Byzantine texts. Byzantine Hellenism experienced a double trajectory – especially after the seventh century which marked an important moment of transition in that the tradition of pre-Byzantine rhetoric and philosophy seems to have receded temporarily to the background of dominant culture.7 The double trajectory was determined by the attitude of a Christian aristocracy during the first hundred years or so of Byzantium. As we have seen, rhetors and self-professed “philosophers” like Gregory of Nazianzos mounted a head-on attack on Hellenism as a worldview and as a discourse which they identified with the realm of the senses and appearances, theater, deceptive rhetoric, and the falsehood of myth. Simultaneously, without drawing much attention to it, they continued to display their knowledge of Hellenic discourse by practicing a high-register archaizing language, steeped in the methods of rhetoric, evoking Hellenic figures and motifs, and, most importantly for us here, joining the philosophical lingua franca of Neoplatonism with the reading of the Bible in order to fashion models of subjectivity, exemplary – not to say, elite – selves.8 The patent rejection of Hellenism as what one might call aesthetic falsehood and the tacit appropriation of Hellenism as a structural feature of a Christian gentleman’s learnedness retained their force for the Byzantine educated elite without real interruption, despite the 6

7 8

Cf. pp. 136–40 above; also Demoen 1996, for Gregory’s primarily Old Testament exempla. In Psellos’ speeches of self-defence, we do encounter distant biblical characters whom Psellos sporadically evokes: the stern Phinees (Or. min. 7.241–2 with Numbers 25.7–8), the just Jacob wishing to “stay at home” (Or. min. 6.43–4 with Genesis 25.27), Moses and Samuel (Or. min. 6.64). But these are not central figures. Cf. pp. 32 and 43 above. For a somewhat different perspective on this double trajectory of Hellenism (as either, negatively, religion, or, positively, high culture), see Kaldellis 2007a.

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apparent crisis of the seventh and eighth centuries. The crisis may have contributed to the increase of the hesitation to identify with Hellenism in many ways. However, it did not fundamentally challenge the value of Hellenism as a sociolect for the educated elite – especially because for the Byzantine elite of the later period the association of “Hellenism” with paganism had lost the urgency it had in earlier Christian writing. Appropriation can be thus traced in the sustained interest in classical and classicizing texts from the eighth century onwards.9 Appropriation is also evident in the popularity and ultimate canonization of Byzantine works that, to a considerable degree, were infiltrated by Hellenic discourse such as the rhetorical works of Gregory of Nazianzos and also Metaphrastes’ Menologion. Finally, Hellenism is displayed in the quotations and allusions that dot many Byzantine texts from this period – especially in genres such as letter-writing.10 As is clear from these reading and writing habits, the corpus of “Hellenic” texts available for the learned Byzantine man was quite substantial and diverse, with a wide set of attitudes toward aesthetics and the exterior aspects of the self.11 As noted in the previous chapter, bodily beauty and urbane character often find praise in Byzantine texts from this period and they do so with a decided usage of Hellenic discourse.12 Nevertheless, the early Byzantine distrust of Hellenism qua aesthetics continued its tight grip, as is evident from the careful avoidance of identification 9

10

11

12

This interest is most evident in the transmission history of such texts; see the classic Lemerle 1971 and, for a recent brief account, Gaul 2010 with further bibliography. For several examples of relevant manuscripts: Bernab`o 2011. Niketas Magistros, an author of Slavic descent, and his ostensive Hellenism, evident in his lettercollection and his Life of Theoktiste, mark a peak in this respect; for Niketas’ Hellenism, see Anagnostakis 1996: 125–9. Platonism and Second Sophistic, both with an ambiguous attitude toward aesthetics, were seminal. But there were also other pre-Byzantine or classicizing Byzantine texts; these established various sciences of the body, behavior, and, more widely, the aesthetic realm (such as medicine, physiognomy, dream interpretation, etc.) or explored the same subjects in historical or fictional setting and literary diction (biography, mythology, much of poetry, and the late antique novels belong here). For a survey of parts of this tradition in reference to aesthetics, see Porter 2010. To give just one example, Theodoros of Nikaia’s praise of patriarch Theophylaktos for his “manly and unswerving soul, pleasing in words, . . . flowing quietly like a stream of oil,” mentioned earlier (p. 140 above), evokes the description of the able soul of an easy learner in Plato’s Theaetetus (144b5) as well as the description of Isocrates’ diction in Dionysios of Halikarnassos (On Demosthenes 20). The phrase was dear also to Psellos: Chron. 7c.16, Or. pan. 2.490–1 – where Psellos explicitly cites the Theaetetus – , Or. for. 1.1107–8, Or. hag. 3a.186–7, and Encomium for His Mother 542–3. Similar allusions to classical or classicizing texts lie in the background of many of the positive references to aesthetics mentioned in the previous chapter – pp. 139–40 above. A full survey would exceed the limits of this study.

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explicitly and in the first person with rhetorical aesthetics. The emphasis on the morality of the inner self, the disparaging of the dangerous realm of the senses, spectacle, and the rhetorical artistry with which, for instance, Gregory of Nazianzos’ texts were filled, circumscribed a selfreferential discourse that kept the aesthetic, the rhetorical, and, thus, the Hellenic at a safe distance from the author’s represented sense of self. It is here that Psellos’ innovation arises. By contrast to the habits of Byzantine educated gentlemen, Psellos identifies with the aestheticized varieties in Hellenic discourse. Not only does he lend, that is, the Hellenic cultural capital unprecedented urgency – a phenomenon already well observed.13 Not only, that is, does he use extensively Hellenic philosophical and rhetorical discourse, expanding further and, as we have seen, aggressively the corpus of texts to be studied, culled, and employed. In first-person rhetoric and especially in a number of texts for addressees presented as close friends, Psellos lends the Hellenic cultural capital remarkable plasticity. narcissus and self-reflection Psellos’ adoption of the mythological character of Narcissus exemplifies this plasticity. The following words represent the core of a letter that Psellos sent to Ioannes Doukas sometime in the 1060s: Kaª mŸ kal»v e«mi kaª sof»v, ˆsÅgkrite ka±sar kaª tŸn fÅsin kaª tŸn yucžn; e²ta dŸ –maut¼n ˆgnoä, oÎte kat»ptr crÛmenov, oÎte dŸ –nqumoÅmenov, ¾p»sav b©blouv ›tucon ˆnel©xav . . . Âtan d• ta±v sa±v perª –moÓ martur©aiv –ntÅcw, mikroÓ kaª «s»qeov e²nai fant†zomai . . . kaª –maut¼n Šgamaiá kaª p”peismai e²nai sof¼vá kaª –painä se tv martur©av. Pr»teron d• oÉc oÌtwv e²coná ˆllì a¬ m•n p©qhkoi, –peid‡n t”kwsi kaª t‡ neogn‡ ­dwsin, ˆg†lmata aÉt‡ ¤ghntaiá kaª toÓ k†llouv qaum†zousin ˆpatÛmenai t filot”kn tv fÅsewvá –gÜ d• t‡ –m‡ gennžmata, toÆv l»gouv fhm©, oÉd”pote  g†sqhn, oÉd• –f©lhsaá nÓn d• di‡ tŸn sŸn martur©an, kaª t”qhpa kaª filä kaª sunagkal©zomai . . . íWste d”doika mŸ p†qw t¼ toÓ Nark©ssou. ¾ N†rkissov meir†kion §n k†llei dial†mpon ‰br, ‰plo·kÛtaton d• kaª dein»thtov p†shv –kt»vá ka© pote pr¼v phgŸn Ëd†twn –lq¼n, t¼ —autoÓ –noptr©zetai pr»swponá  gnohk¼v d• Âti toÓ «d©ou sÛmat»v –stin ¡ ski†, ›rwta lamb†nei toÓ ¾rwm”nouá kaª žqh Âti meir†ki»n –stin ˆlhq•v krupt»menon Ëp¼ tv phgv. oÉ to©nun –ke±qen ˆf©statoá ˆll’ ¾rän –teqnžkeiá kaª ¡ g toÓton o«kte©rasa, Šnqov –k tän o«ke©wn lag»nwn ˆfken ¾mÛnumon. mŸ 13

See, e.g., Tatakis 2003: 129–69; Kriaras 1968; and, recently, Kaldellis 2007: 191–228.

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to©nun kaª aÉt¼v bl”pwn tŸn –mŸn sof©an Þv –n kat»ptr to±v gr†mmasin, ›rwta sfodr¼n –mautoÓ l†boimi kaª t –m –napoyÅxw ski . . . 14 Am I beautiful, am I wise, O kaisar – you, incomparable in both nature and soul? Well, I do not know myself, for neither do I use a mirror, nor do I remember how many books I happen to have read . . . When I chance upon your commendations of me, I appear to myself as being almost equal to a god . . . I admire myself, I am persuaded that I am indeed wise, and I praise you for the testimony. Previously I was not like that. While monkeys, whenever they give birth and see their new-born young, consider them objects of delight [agalmata] and admire their beauty, being deceived by their natural love for their offspring, I never admired nor fell in love with my own offspring – I mean my discourses [logoi].15 Yet now, because of your praise, I marvel at them, love, kiss, and embrace them . . . Therefore, I fear that I will suffer the fate of Narcissus. Narcissus was a young boy shining with a delicate beauty, yet he was most na¨ıve, without any cleverness. One day, he came upon the waters of a fountain and saw therein his mirrored face. Failing to understand that the reflection was his own body, he fell in love with the sight. He thought that it was a real young boy hiding under the fountain. He thus did not step back from there, but died gazing. And the earth, feeling pity for him, out of her own womb produced a flower that bears his name. Therefore, < I fear > that if I gazed at my own wisdom in your letters as if in a mirror, I might fall, just like him, fiercely in love with myself and breathe my last breath there by my own reflection . . .

These paragraphs represent a compelling moment in the history of concepts of self-reflection in Greek writing. Psellos’ adoption of Narcissus is reminiscent of the playful progymnasmatic handling of the relevant myth in late antique rhetoric, in Philostratos, Kallistratos, and Prokopios of Gaza. There, the story was presented in a morally neutral fashion as a playful comment on the enchanting power of representation.16 Psellos revives this Narcissus of the rhetorical tradition in order to point to him as his possible alter ego. This treatment of self-reflection is quite dissonant if set against both Byzantine rhetoric and the Greek tradition in general. In the few instances that they refer to the Narcissus myth, Byzantine writers presented it as a story about irrational passion that offered no model for an author’s persona. The attitude in the earlier Hellenic rhetorical and philosophical tradition 14 15 16

The quoted passage is from G 5; for a new edition, translation, and discussion: Papaioannou 2010a. For this phrase that echoes Synesios of Kyrene (Letter 1.1–4 and 18–19), see p. 135 above. Philostratos, Narkissos = Eikones 1.23; Kallistratos, On the Statue of Narcissus = Ekphraseis 5 (with the discussion in Elsner 2007: chapter 6); Prokopios of Gaza, Declamationes 1.38–42. For the story of Narcissus in Greek, Latin, and western medieval writing, see Bettini and Pellizer 2003.

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was similar. Philosophers, such as for instance Plotinos in an influential essay titled On Beauty by the first circle of its readers, disparaged Narcissus for his failed attention to the simulacra offered by the senses (Enneads 6.8.6–16). Rhetors like Philostratos, Kallistratos, and Prokopios of Gaza may treat Narcissus in a playful and non-moralizing way, but they speak of him always in the third person, relegating him to the distant realms of mythology and the visual arts. After all, self-reflection was consistently regarded as a dangerous act, treated with suspicion or contempt; no author in ancient, Byzantine, and, one might add, western medieval writing speaks of his self-mirroring in the first person – at least until Provenc¸al troubadour poetry and German Minnesang that Psellos anticipates by a century or so.17 For the Byzantines, the defining voice was again Gregory of Nazianzos. On one occasion, Gregory mentioned Narcissus as an example of the perils of focusing on appearance (Against the Vanity of Women = Poem 1.2.29.153–6). Instead, Gregory elsewhere promoted the notion of turning oneself into a mirror for the reflection not of oneself, but of the Divine. In the opening paragraphs of the Apologˆetikos, Gregory spoke about himself in the following way (Or. 2.7): OÉd•n g‡r –d»kei moi toioÓton o³on mÅsanta t‡v a«sqžseiv, ›xw sark¼v kaª k»smou gen»menon, e«v —aut¼n sustraf”nta, . . . —aut proslaloÓnta kaª t Qe, zn Ëp•r t‡ ¾rÛmena, kaª t‡v qe©av –mf†seiv ˆeª kaqar‡v –n —aut f”rein ˆmige±v tän k†tw caraktžrwn kaª planwm”nwn, Àntwv ›soptron ˆkhl©dwton QeoÓ kaª tän qe©wn kaª ¿n kaª ˆeª gin»menon. Nothing seemed to me to be comparable to shutting the senses and going beyond flesh and the world, turning in on oneself . . . conversing with oneself and with God, living beyond the visible, and continually bearing in oneself God’s reflections, pure and unmixed with erring earthly impressions, both being and always becoming truly a spotless mirror of God and divine things.18

The passage is typical of Gregory and was influential.19 Gregory affects biblical language. By claiming that he is a “spotless mirror of God” he adopts 17

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For a detailed survey, see Papaioannou 2010a. For the similar attitudes in western medieval writing where the story of Narcissus also did not inspire self-identification, except in troubadour poetry (Goldin 1967; Nolan 1990; de Pontfarcy 2000) and some later carefully framed occasions (Brownlee 1978 and Nolan 1990: 105–106, on Dante). Gregory recycles the same wording and ideas in Or. 20.1. See, e.g., Niketas David of Paphlagonia, Encomium in Honor of Gregory 5.54–7; Theodoros Daphnopates, Letter 40.20–2; Nikephoros Ouranos, Life of Theodore the Recruit 6.4–5; Theodoros of Kyzikos, Letter 51.24–9 (ed. Lampros); Niketas Magistros, Letter 28.13–15 (the direct allusion to Gregory was missed by the editor).

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an Old Testament metaphor that earlier interpreters of the Bible read as expressive of Christ, the “spotless mirror” of the Father.20 Simultaneously, Gregory tacitly appropriates also Hellenic discourse. He alludes to Plato’s First Alcibiades, the first Platonic dialogue in the curriculum of instruction in late antique Platonism where a similar image of mirroring the Other was put forth.21 Moreover, he quotes almost verbatim from Plotinos’ On Beauty. The phrase “o³on mÅsanta t‡v a«sqžseiv” stems from the last part of that essay (chapters 7–9), where Plotinos urged his audience to avoid the dangerous self-mirroring of Narcissus and advocated instead an absolute return to the inner self and a near abandonment of sight: “o³on mÅsanta Àyin” (which Gregory turns to the more general and forbidding: “t‡v a«sqžseiv”).22 Such exhortation is characteristic of the Neoplatonic discourse that defined what has been called the “care of the self,” non-Christian and Christian alike, during Late Antiquity and to some extent the Middle Ages.23 This was a discourse in which learned Byzantine writers were well versed. Psellos was no exception. He introduced almost exclusively Hellenic philosophical discourse and its methods of thinking in his treatises and exegetical lectures in order to explicate Christian theological subjectivity. He certainly knew, for instance, Plotinos’ essay and its use of the mirror metaphor.24 In a more accentuated fashion, Psellos employed the relevant vocabulary in order to describe monastics who professed an ascetic way of life. In his Encomium For a Certain Monk Nikolaos, Who Became Abbot of the Monastery of the Beautiful Spring on Olympos, for instance – to cite the most significant text in this regard – Psellos brilliantly combines ascetic with Hellenic discourse, hagiographical tropes with Neoplatonic ideas, 20 21 22

23

24

Cf. Sapientia Salomonis 7.26 with, e.g., Eusebios, Preparation for the Gospel 7.12.7 and Origen, Contra Celsum 3.72, both authors in whom Gregory was well-read. Alcibiades I 133b7–c19 and c8–17; with the extended passage as it appears in Eusebios, Preparation for the Gospel 11.27.5.7–14 where Gregory might have encountered the Platonic passage and the notion. See Papaioannou 2006b. For Plato’s Alcibiades in relation to matters of selfhood: Foucault 2001 with the corrective remarks by Gill 2006: 344–59. For Gregory and Plotinos: Gottwald 1906: 37–8 and 43–4. For the place of Alcibiades in the Neoplatonic curriculum: Asmus 1917; Westerink 1976: 15; O’Meara 2003: 62–8. For Plotinos’ essay, see further: Kalligas 1994; Susanetti 1995; Brisson, Fronterotta, Laurent, Lavaud, Petit, and Pradeau 2002. See Foucault 1986 to be read with Hadot 1993: 10–15 and 1995; also Maier 1994. For the Plotinian and later Neoplatonic versions of the care of the self: Beierwaltes 1995; Rappe 1996: 250–274 and 315–335; Gerson 1997a and 1997b; Rappe 1997; Chadwick 1999; Beierwaltes 2001: 84–122. The middle and late Byzantine varieties of this discourse remain to be explored. On Dialectic, Happiness, and the Beautiful = Phil. min. i.68–83 (a summary of sections from Plotinos’ On Beauty) and Theol. i 96.56–7 (where Psellos alludes to Plotinos’ 1.6.8 while explicating Gregory of Nazianzos’ Or. 38.18.

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high spirituality with urbanity, in order to offer his own model of the ideal monk. Notably, the text contains multiple allusions to Gregory of Nazianzos’ Orations, especially the Epitaphios for Basil, but also the passage cited above from the Apologˆetikos.25 This is perhaps to be expected. Through Hellenizing philosophy, Psellos could join a series of earlier and contemporary learned men, tap into the capital of Hellenism, and offer his Constantinopolitan audiences new ways of explaining Christian theology. As an important side effect, he could position himself at the head of contemporary Byzantine “philosophers.” He was thus clearly self-involved in the use of philosophical Hellenism and was indeed innovative in his approach; no one prior to him read Gregory of Nazianzos’ Trinitarianism through Proklos’ Neoplatonic metaphysics.26 Yet despite the fact that Hellenic “philosophy,” appropriated not merely tacitly but explicitly, is a core feature of his professional agenda, Psellos does not resort to it in order to build images of his character and nature, neither in the playful rhetoric of personal letters such as the one above, nor more generally in first-person discourse. The philosophical tradition of self-reflection and the wider Neoplatonic and Christian discourse of the care of the self are completely set to the side when it comes to his own self-portrait. Instead of Hellenic philosophy, Psellos turns to an amplified Hellenic rhetoric, as he does here with the figure of Narcissus. This amplified Hellenism in that, in his adoption of Narcissus, Psellos outdoes Hellenic rhetoric itself. While Philostratos, Kallistratos, and Prokopios of Gaza retained a safe distance from Narcissus, Psellos identifies with him. Narcissus’ failed self-reflection acquires, in all its playfulness, an unprecedented personal depth. While for others Narcissus is a tragic figure of self-deception or, at best, the inescapable culmination of the erotics of reflection, for Psellos Narcissus is quite possibly himself: “I fear that I will suffer the fate of Narcissus . . . that if I gazed at my own wisdom in your letters as if in a mirror, I might fall, just like him, fiercely in love with myself and breathe my last breath there by my own reflection.” The Byzantine topos of disassociation from philautia has been turned on its head. 25

26

Encomium For A Certain Monk Nikolaos, Who Became Abbot of the Monastery of the Beautiful Spring on Olympos 410, 507–8, 985–6 (citations of various phrases from Gregory’s passage); in lines 419f., Psellos compares Nikolaos explicitly with Gregory. See also K-D 139 to the patriarch of Antioch Aimilianos and K-D 36 to the monks of Chios, Niketas and Ioannes. An aspect of Psellian writing that, in my opinion, still awaits its devoted student.

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from the philosopher to the rhetorical socrates Similarly dissonant to the traditional approach is Psellos’ adoption of the historical character of Socrates. Resolutely rebutting unjust accusations and resolved on his philosophical life, Socrates offered a perfect model for self-identification throughout the history of Greek writing.27 Yet he was no easy figure to handle. Platonic writing strategically obscured the distance that separated Socrates, the invented character of dialogical exchanges, from the “true” Socrates.28 The Socrates of the Platonic dialogues is not simply a resolute philosopher but also a jesting and elusive speaker, “a most eccentric person = ˆtopÛtatov,” as Socrates says about himself in the Theaetetus (149a). Even the Apology, that emblematic text for Greek selfrepresentational writing, is far from being straightforward when it comes to the image of Socrates. The speaker offers receding images of himself that refuse a clear identity.29 Later authors were conscious of this ambiguity and uneasy with Plato’s dramatizing writing. Interpretative strategies were deemed necessary so as to reveal the real Socrates as morally steadfast and paradigmatic. As Plotinos wrote in a passage devoted to the distinction between the true inner and the false outer self, “if indeed Socrates himself is playful, it is the outer Socrates that is playful = e« d• dŸ kaª pa©zoi Swkr†thv, pa©zei t ›xw Swkr†tei” (Enneads 3.2.14.47–59).30 Christian rhetors evoked the inner Socrates as their paradigm: from Synesios, who projected the philosopher Socrates as his alter ego in the Dion, to Gregory of Nazianzos, who adopted Socrates’ self-defensive speech in his On Himself (Or. 36), and learned Byzantine aristocrats such as Arethas, who evoked Socrates as a model of endurance amid false accusations.31 In this, they followed the philosophizing rhetors in the tradition of the Second Sophistic, who, with the exception of Lucian, equally focused on the steadfastly philosophical Socrates.32 27 28 29 30 31

32

Loraux 1985. See, e.g., Blondell 2002. For further accounts of Plato’s performatively rich writing: Ferrari 1987; North 1991; Halperin 1992; von Reden and Goldhill 1999; Griswold 2002. Cf. Goldhill 1993. For the rhetoricians’ consciousness of Socrates’ ambiguous persona in the Apology, cf. ps.-Dionysios, Art of Rhetoric 8 = On Figured Speeches (53.14 ff.) with Rutherford 1995. The same image is evoked also by Plutarch in the passage alluded to by Psellos (see pp. 166–7 above). Arethas, Apologˆetikos = Scriptora minora 25, p. 227.15–19 and To Peter, Metropolitan of Sardeis, Who Slandered Me = Scriptora minora 42. Cf. Anonymous Professor, Letter 34.38–42 and Ioannes Geometres, Poem 341. Similar is the identification with Odysseus, heroically fighting off temptations, that we encounter in an exceptional eis heauton poem by Leon the Philosopher (c. 790 – after 869); Anthologia Palatina xv.12 with Lauxtermann 2003: 143. Gleason 1995: 131–58; Whitmarsh 2001: 118–21 and 167–78. Further Ailios Aristeides, Sacred Tales 1 (286–7); Libanios, Declamations 1; Chorikios, Opera 1 = Encomium for the Bishop Markianos i, 2.82. See also Hay 1991 (esp. pp. 44–5); H¨agg 1991.

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In several letters and without evoking Lucian and his ambiguous personae, Psellos identifies with the “outer” Socrates. “Have you not heard of Socrates’ words?” he asks Konstantinos the nephew of the patriarch Keroularios (S 184; 468.3–9) and cites Socrates’ witty self-representation as the “son of the burly midwife Phaenarete” (cf. Theaetetus 149a). “Such is, I swear by your admirable soul, also my character [ˆethos],” Psellos writes, “from the very moment I came into being [ana-pephyka], I take after that Platonic sage = kaª ˆnap”fuk† pwv –k prÛthv gen”sewv pr¼v t¼n Platwnik¼n toÓton sof»n.” The identification with this Socrates is recurrent. In To the Slanderer, for instance, Psellos creates a Socratic persona that fuses the philosopher Socrates of the Apology with Socrates’ alter ego, his “opponent” Aristophanes, his “seductive discourse,” and “easily fashioned mimesis.”33 Psellos negotiates further such an ambiguous Socratic self in two masterly crafted letters. The first was written to Ioannes Xiphilinos, while he was away from Constantinople at a monastery on the Bithynian Olympos (K-D 191). Distance provides the theme for Psellos who sets himself, the urban rhetor, in juxtaposition to the contemplative monk. At first, Gregory of Nazianzos and Basil of Caesarea are evoked: the “leaders of the most perfect wisdom.” Like Gregory to his Basil, Psellos feels “cut” off from his friend.34 Yet the distance between Psellos and Xiphilinos is presented as somewhat larger than the physical distance that separated Gregory from Basil. Though a master of discourse, Xiphilinos, we are told, has his soul fixed in the heavens. By contrast, Psellos remains attached to the city and its fanciful happiness, eudaimonia. Indeed, it is such worldly pleasure that Psellos’ letter can offer to Xiphilinos. Like a site of natural aesthetic beauty, a “Platonic lotus, a plane tree, and myrtles,” Psellos’ letter can provide Xiphilinos with a temporary repose from ascetic contemplation.35 Psellos does desire to join his friend. While at one moment he is ready, however, at another he holds back in confusion, a Socratic confusion: “by your holy soul, I am not lying nor will I hide what I feel. I do not think that I have yet understood myself whether I am some divine creature or a monster more 33

34 35

For further examples see K-D 134 to the patriarch of Antioch Aimilianos (Psellos as “imitating” Socrates who is “a philosopher in both tongue and soul”) and G 33 to Mauropous (Psellos compares himself to Socrates when confronted with Pythia’s praising oracle). See K-D 191 to Xiphilinos (216.23–7) with Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 43.80. To the best of my knowledge, Plato is never associated with the lotus – the legendary fruit of forbidden pleasure (cf. S 109, untitled, and K-D 17 to Romanos). Nor is he associated with the myrtle tree, except in a biographical anecdote about Plato’s birth mentioned in Aelian’s Varia historia 10.21, where we read that, just after his birth, Plato was laid down in a thick forest of myrtles on Hymettos and, immediately, bees sat on his lips, a sign of his future “eloquence.” For the “plane tree,” see below.

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complicated than Typhon = nŸ tŸn ¬er†n sou yucžn, oÉ yeÅdomai oÉd’ ˆpokrÅyoma© se t¼ kat’ –m• p†qov. oÎpw dokä –maut¼n kateilhf”nai, e­te ti qe±on crm† e«mi e­te qhr©on Tufänov poluplokÛteron” (cf. Phaedrus 229e4–230a6). At an unknown date but certainly later than the letter to Xiphilinos, Psellos wrote an extensive defense of his philosophical discourse. The defense was occasioned by a philosophical, but apparently rhetorically demanding, Psellian, piece which his addressee, Konstantinos the nephew of Keroularios, was unable to comprehend fully. For his self-portrait here, Psellos aligns himself with “Plato” who “did not shrink from introducing some kind of horse, as if in a drama upon a stage” into his definition of the soul (in the Phaedrus, it is Socrates who pronounces this speech). As a proper listener, Psellos continues, Phaedrus “did not complain . . . but accepted calmly the words and imagined the truth through the similes.” Faced with a writer such as Psellos, Konstantinos should not expect a seer to explain his oracles, especially as Konstantinos had neither passed through the required initiation nor performed the necessary work required for interpretation. “Apollophanes the philosopher,” Psellos claims, “came to Ammon and descended into the earth in order to discover the spirit [daimonion] of Socrates; nothing of the sort has been done by you!”36 Central to Konstantinos’ inability to appreciate Psellos is, according to the latter, his ignorance of the possibility of mixing philosophical meaning with rhetorical style. A perfect mixture of philosophical meaning (nous) with rhetorical diction (lexeis), we read, is precisely Psellos’ expertise and part of his nature. The Phaedrus is again evoked: “I do not know who I am, whether a philosopher or some other animal perhaps more complicated than Typhon = –gÜ d• oÉk o²da m•n Âv t©v e«mi, e­te fil»sofov, e­te ti Šllo zäon ­swv Tufänov poluplokÛteron” (S 174; 442.21–2). Though evoked, the image from the Phaedrus is also transformed in Psellos. At the beginning of the Phaedrus, Socrates and his companion reach an idyllic site under the “plane tree” (230b–c), purposefully located outside the confines of the city. Before settling in, Socrates refuses to engage in myth interpretation and explains his refusal (229e4–230a6): “I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself; so it seems ridiculous to me to investigate irrelevant things, when I do not yet know myself. So . . . rather than these things, I investigate myself in order to learn 36

S 174 (443.6–8). I was unable to locate the origin of this anecdote.

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whether I am a monster more complicated and more furious than Typhon or a gentler and simpler creature, to whom a divine and quiet lot is given by nature.”37 This is Plato’s ambiguous Socrates who professes his ignorance of himself and proposes two diametrically opposed definitions of what he might be: a multifarious monster or a simpler creature participating by nature in the Divine. In a straightforward reading, Socrates’ implied position seems to be that of the simple divine creature, an implication essential for the validity of the arguments on the soul and rhetoric that Socrates will go on to present in the rest of the Phaedrus. Indeed, this is how philosophers with whom Psellos was familiar read this self-representational moment. Socrates’ aporetic reference to self-knowledge was turned by Plutarch into a call for moral self-fashioning necessitated by the Typhon-like condition of human life, a sentiment also echoed in Damaskios’ Philosophical History.38 Similarly, the fifth-century Alexandrian Neoplatonist Hermeias, whose commentary on the Phaedrus Psellos knew, protests: “Who, if ever, knew himself better than Socrates?” He then proceeds to read Socrates’ selfdescription as a reference both to the necessarily fragmented knowledge of oneself conditioned by bodily existence and to Socrates’ true and, by nature, divine self-knowledge.39 Psellos takes a different approach and foregrounds the ambiguous Socrates. Addressing Xiphilinos, he advertises the idyllic site of his rhetoric, distances himself from the philosophical theˆoria that his friend practices, and blames his own animal-like nature for his constant change of mind. Writing to Konstantinos, Psellos appropriates Plato’s rhetorical philosophy, perfectly mixing meaning with form, and likens his authorship to the polyvalent monstrous creature. The priorities of the Platonic statement are reversed as Psellos articulates its tacit tension. Plato has Socrates wonder whether he is a complicated beast or, rather, a simple creature originating in the Divine. Psellos, by contrast, transposes Socrates’ phrase suggesting that, rather than a simple and divine nature, he might indeed be a “monster more complicated than Typhon.” 37 38

39

Translation by Harold Fowler (Loeb series). Plutarch, Against Colotes 1119b-c with Damaskios, Philosophical History 112a, cited in the Suda (sigma.116); in a separate entry of the Suda (tau.1227), Plato’s Phaedrus’ wording on Typhon is recorded. On earlier Stoic treatments of the Platonic passage, see Vian 1952: 26 and 33. Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus 31.2–27; for Psellos’ usage of Hermeias, see, e.g., Interpretation of the Platonic Notion of the Soul’s Chariot-Driving and the Gods’ Army in the Phaedrus = Phil. min. ii 7 (pp. 12–14).

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the statue This preference for philosophically inferior, highly rhetorical, and multivalent Hellenic masks determines also the last example to be discussed here: the statue, a patently Hellenic object that Psellos evokes and adopts in a rather fetishistic fashion. He seems to have been fascinated with statues, both real and notional. We know that he was collecting sculpture.40 He also records his positive aesthetic reaction to a statue with a mythical representation – one of the first and few Byzantine writers to do so.41 More pertinently for us here, the words andrias and, especially, agalma appear in his texts with remarkable frequency and, apart from a few exceptions, always in a positive fashion.42 In philosophical contexts, the statue is a token of exterior appearance, equivalent to such words as “image,” “model,” “likeness,” or “imitation.”43 In a majority of his rhetorical texts, the agalma is a metaphor for the self, an expression that typifies Psellos’ ideal subjectivity, whether that of others or of his own. By using the metaphor of the statue as a proxy for the self, Psellos was making a strategic gesture. The image of a sculpted object and the nuances of agalma and andrias – words that could, beyond statues, simply denote models of manliness (the semantic connotation of andrias) or objects of delight (the literal meaning of agalma) – had a rather contested status in the Byzantine cultural imagination.44 For middle Byzantine readers, statues were evidently objects of the distant past. Apart from the continued and often elaborate practice of architectural and relief sculpture, freestanding statues were no longer being created. Between the early seventh and the late twelfth century, we find no references to the creation of new statues 40 41

42

43 44

S 141 to the kritˆes of Hellas with Papamastorakis 2004: 118–19. Ekphrasis of a Cupid Sculpted on Stone = Or. min. 34; Angelidi 2005: 238–42. For other references to actual statues, see Psellos’ Accusation of the patriarch Keroularios = Or. for. 1.2017–22 (contemporary cultic statues) and his Concise History 105.51–2 (notable statues in Constantinople). For actual statues mentioned in the context of philosophical arguments, see Theol. i 50.83–7; 58.80–2; 113.14–24. Agalma and cognate words: 107 times; andrias and cognate words: 16 times; these statistics take into account also the many Psellian texts not included in the TLG (such as letters and funeral orations). It should be noted (to give a sense of the uniqueness of Psellos’ frequent references to the wording of statue) that in a TLG search of texts dated from the ninth to the eleventh century the stem agalma- is cited 513 times, without counting the 64 times in Psellos. Most of these references stem from collections of antiquarian material such as Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe, the Suda, or the Excerpta of Konstantinos VII. Further Answers to Questions about Natural Matters, to His Own Students and Others Who Asked = Phil. min. i 16.223–8; Interpretation of the Chaldean Oracles = Phil. min. ii 38 (144.23–4). For a Byzantine definition of the word agalma see Suda alpha.131 and 133: “ %galma: pn –f’ tiv ˆg†lletai . . . %g†lmata: t‡ tän qeän mimžmata, kaª p†nta t‡ k»smou tin¼v met”conta.”

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nor do any such statues survive.45 This was a notable shift away from early Byzantine urban culture – Constantinopolitan culture especially – where statues continued to play a significant role in the visual landscape of both public and private life.46 As we glean from a variety of sources between the ninth and the twelfth centuries, statues remained present before the Byzantine beholder, yet they were visible only as traces of the empire’s early history and its Greco-Roman pagan tradition. Visually and mentally, Byzantine viewers would have formed a variety of relationships with these objects. If we judge from our texts, these must have ranged from misunderstanding, fear, and awe to admiration or indifference.47 Whatever these reactions might have been, people in Byzantium did not turn to this form of visual expression for their commemorative, votive, and religious needs, functions now fulfilled by different types of objects, be they relics or iconography.48 This distancing from the physical presence of statues has its analogue in middle Byzantine writing in the field of logoi and beyond. From sermons and anthologies to chronicles and hagiographies, actual statues, when mentioned, are associated primarily with idolatry and paganism, objects that belong to the inferior past so triumphantly defeated by the Christian present.49 As John of Damascus succinctly put it: “In reference to icons, we should be confident that every work made in the name of God is good and holy. But stay away from idols and statues [agalmata]. For these as well as their makers are evil and portentous. An icon of a holy prophet is one thing, a statue or a small figure of Cronus, Aphrodite, the Sun, or the Moon is another.”50 Sculpture is treated positively only for exceptional objects and in specific discursive contexts. A few late antique statues in Constantinople, for instance, attracted considerable positive attention and praise; most notably, the andrias of Apollo/Sun/Konstantinos that Constantine the Great placed 45 46

47 48 49 50

Mango 1986 with Grabar 1963 and 1976. For an epigram on a sculpted relief icon, contemporary to Psellos, see Christophoros Mytilenaios, Poem 51. Bauer 1996; Bassett 2004; Bauer and Witschel 2007; also the Oxford project on “The Last Statues of Antiquity,” directed by R. R. R. Smith and B. Ward-Perkins: http://www.ocla.ox.ac.uk/statues/ index.shtml. For the re-use of earlier sculpture in medieval Constantinople, see Magdalino 1988: 102. Mango 1963 and 1994; Cutler 1968; Dagron 1984; James 1996; Kazhdan 1999: 308–313; Saradi 2000. Among many discussions, see various essays in Guillou 1994; also Cameron 1992. Cf., e.g., Theophanes, Chronographia 25–26, 28, 49–50 and Papaioannou 2010b. Orationes de imaginibus tres 3.73; cf. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 28.15; John of Damascus, Precise Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 89; and (for another perspective) Photios, Bibliothˆekˆe 215 173b6–21 or Letter 214.

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on a high column in his forum, one of the distinguishing landmarks of the City.51 Such statues, however, were atypical, as they carried notable imperial ideological import. “Hellenic” statues, more numerous, received comparatively little positive attention.52 The learned Byzantine would have encountered multiple references to ancient statues also in his readings. Statues are mentioned in antiquarian collections, such as Photios’ Bibliothˆekˆe and the Suda.53 Furthermore, agalmata, as notional objects, are ubiquitous in classical, imperial Greek, and late antique texts, evoking a wide range of meanings.54 Important among them was exemplarity. The statue could indicate a sort of objectivity with a human face, a blend of the material permanence of objects with model subjectivity.55 This is precisely how the metaphor of agalma or andrias is employed in Byzantine rhetoric before Psellos.56 It is a tradition that stressed moral exemplarity and drew its source from Gregory of Nazianzos. Three influential images stood out in his texts. The first two derived from his Oration on the Martyr Cyprian, one of the sixteen “Liturgical Homilies.” In Gregory’s words, the martyr Cyprian was “the statue of nature [agalma]” (Or. 24.6; a dear phrase for Psellos57 ), while the virgin woman, who was instrumental for Cyprian’s conversion to Christianity, was present as being “of noble birth . . . extremely beautiful in her form . . . an animate statue [agalma]” (Or. 24.9; another favorite of Psellos58 ). The third image appears in 51 52

53

54 56

57 58

Cf. Konstantinos of Rhodes, Ekphraseis on Constantine’s and other such statues. An exception: Christophoros Mytilenaios, Poem 143 (a statue of Hercules in the “Palace of the Virtues”); cf. also Poem 50 (a bronze statue of a horse in the hippodrome; notably, in Maximos Planudes’ anthology of 1299, this poem is attributed to Psellos: Anthologia Planoudea 267). Descriptions of statues are also frequent in poems dating to before the year 600 included in the tenth-century Anthologia Palatina; see especially book 2, an Ekphrasis in 416 hexameter verses by Christodoros of Koptos (c. 500) of the statues in the Zeuxippos baths in Constantinople (cf. Kaldellis 2007b). 55 Cf. Gross 1992. For the statue metaphor in archaic and classical literature, see Steiner 2001. John of Damascus, Oratio in nativitatem sanctae dei genitricis Mariae 9.20 (the Virgin Mary as animate agalma); Euthymios Prˆotaskrˆetis, Encomium for Mary of Egypt 3.8–9 (St. Mary as an animate agalma); Leon of Synada, Letter 15.9 (a friend as agalma of virtue); Life of Basil = Theophanes Continuatus, Chronographia 211 (Basil I as andrias of virtue). For further examples see John of Damascus, Sacra parallela, PG 96 352.18–23; Theodoros the Studite, Small Katechesis 20.20–2; Ignatios the Deacon, Life of the Patriarch Nikephoros 142.2–4; Ignatios the Deacon, Life of the Patriarch Tarasios 18.5–7; Photios, Letter 1.54–55, 36.145, and 284.26; Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio, Proem 37; Symeon Magistros, Letter 19.25; Ioannes Geometres, Hymn to the Virgin Mary, PG 106 861a as well as Poem 266–7; Christophoros Mytilenaios, Poem 57.29. He cites it verbatim twice: Monody in Honor of the Bestarchˆes Georgios the Son of Aktouarios = K-D i 215.11 and 258 (ed. Gautier, “Monodies”). Or. hag. 3B.756–7 (the Mother of God as an “animate statue of virtues”); Or. pan. 6.247–50 (“an animate statue [andrias] and an object wrought by hammer,” a figure like Gregory’s Basil (Or. 43.41);

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Gregory’s Funeral Oration on His Father where we read of the moral sculpting of one’s own andrias.59 This image too was popular: we find it in Ignatios the Deacon, Arethas, and Psellos; it ultimately derived from Plotinos’ On Beauty (1.6.9).60 Gregory’s “statues” are characteristic in that, though they are firmly rooted in the Hellenic notion of aristocratic urbanity and aesthetic beauty, they reinscribe agalma and andrias in Christian (and, come to that, Neoplatonic) morality that stresses inner virtue. A later example of the third image materializes this turn to the inner self. In a letter to his “spiritual son, Michael, archˆon of Bulgaria,” a text that maps the system of Christian as well as Hellenic virtues that a proper Byzantine Christian gentleman must possess, the patriarch Photios expects his trainee to display himself as an aesthetic object, an “animate and most beautiful agalma”; yet Michael should also never forget what matters most: the inner person and moral self-sculpting.61 Psellos was aware of the traditional statue metaphor and often echoed Gregory.62 Yet he frequently and knowingly also diverged from the earlier concern to merely promote moral exemplarity. Consider his relatively brief Funeral Oration in honor of Niketas, an old school friend and then a fellow teacher at the Constantinopolitan school of St. Peter (Sathas v: 87.23–96.5). Psellos focuses on the personal loss of his close friend and the memory of their mutual pursuit of learning. Like Basil and Gregory, the

59 60

61

62

Or. pan. 1.51–3 (Monomachos as statue of virtue, animated through philosophy); Or. pan. 4.492–5 (Zoe as “the living beauty, the animate virtue,” or, else, the “last statue” of the Macedonian dynasty); Iambic Verses on the Death of [Maria] Skleraina = Poem 17.11–20 (Maria Skleraina, a “living statue” of both inner and outer beauty); Encomium for His Mother 902–6 (Theodote as an “animate statue” of all qualities). Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 18.16; also Or. 26.10 and Or. 27.7 with Gottwald 1906: 40–1. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Life of Moses 2.313.6–11 and 2.316.1–3. See Ignatios the Deacon, Life of Gregory of Dekapolis, proem 18–25; Arethas, Scriptora minora 3, p. 20.26–8; also: Leon of Synada, Letter 21. In Psellos: in Honor of the Wisest Metropolitan of Melitene 102 (ed. Gautier, “Monodies”); Encomium for His Mother 1106–9; Theol. i 67.18–22 (on a phrase from Gregory’s Apologˆetikos: Or. 2.1). Letter 1.1170–9; see also Photios, Letters 3.74–6 and 216.131–64 and Homily 7.27–9. Photios’ Letter 1 to Michael (especially lines 674–87 and 1183–1204) uses extensively two “Hellenic” texts: To Demonicus and To Nicocles, texts attributed to Isocrates and quite popular among the Byzantine educated elite (Hunger 1978: 159). For Photios’ letter: Kazhdan 2006: 26 with further bibliography. See notes 57–8 above. For further examples, see: Encomium For Ioannes, Metropolitan of Euchaita = Or. pan. 17.193–200 (Mauropous as “statue-like” but not advertising his interior beauty); Or. min. 31.213 (the two older Keroularioi as models of behavior); Monody in Honor of the Prˆotosynkellos and Metropolitan of Ephesos Kyr Nikephoros = K-D i 208.23–4 (agalma of virtue and discourse); Chron. 5.22 (Zoe on herself, as addressed by Basil II); Or. pan. 3.41–55 (Monomachos, a statue of all qualities, including discursive abilities, fashioned by God). Further: Or. pan. 18.74 and 19.45 (Romanos IV Diogenes); Theol. i 65.70–1 (John of Damascus); Encomium for His Mother 902–6 (Theodote as an “animate statue” of all qualities); Encomium in Honor of the Most-Blessed Kyr Konstantinos Leichoudes, Patriarch of Constantinople, Sathas iv 391.9–11 (Leichoudes as “statue” fashioned by nature) and 397.19–20 (Leichoudes as a universal model).

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prototypical learned “friends” in Byzantium, Psellos and Niketas became “a not unknown couple” (Gregory of Nazianzos, Funeral Oration on Basil = Or. 43.22). Though a Christian couple provides the model, missing in Psellos’ text is any concentrated interest in traditional morality – certainly present in Gregory’s comparable Epitaphios. Psellos rather turns his attention to aestheticized ethos, an ethos that unites Niketas with himself, allowing for indirect self-praise. While noting his own excellence in rhetoric and philosophy and narrating in detail Niketas’ success in the teaching of grammar (90.3–93.11), Psellos stresses his and Niketas’ similarity in both nature (physis) and will (gnˆomˆe), manifested in the “charming [chareiˆes] . . . display of eloquence [glˆotta]” as well as in graceful behavior, here termed “civic charm [politikˆe charis]” (89.23–90.1). What comprises this charm is well summarized in a passage that describes Niketas’ teaching and social skills (93.18–94.12):63 OÌtw g‡r ta±v ‰p†ntwn ¤rmose gnÛmaiv te kaª yuca±v, kaª oÌtw psi kat†llhlov §n, Þv –oik”nai t par‡ pollän –ke©n qrulloum”n ˆg†lmati, dŸ t”cnh tiv ˆndriantopoihtikŸ toÆv ½fqalmoÆv —kat”rwqen ferom”nouv e«rg†sato, —stät†v te toÆv aÉtoÆv kaª sugkinoum”nouv t doke±n, Á to±v —kat”rwqen –festäsi –p©shv  f©ei t¼n ½fqalm»ná oÉ g‡r ãsper Fwk©wn kaª K†twn, bare±v kaª oÉk ˆnektoª fan”ntev, oÉd• kat†llhloi to±v kairo±v, met‡ tän pragm†twn kaª —aut¼n prosapÛlesen, oÉd• skuqrwpŸn –de©knu tŸn ˆretžn, oÉd• mŸ spouda©an tŸn c†rin, ˆllì ™kaston t toÓ —t”rou spoud deiknÆv spoudai»teron, ¾moÓ te to±v ¾mo©oiv Âmoiov §n, kaª tän –k m”rouv gnwrizom”nwn kall©wn par‡ polÅ. skuqrwpoÓ te kaª car©entov –n m”s gen»menov, ˆmfot”rouv ‹n ¤dune, pr¼v m•n t»n, skuqrwp†sav summ”trwv, pr¼v d• t»n, –mmeläv carientis†menová . . . oÌtwv eɆgwgov §n tŸn yucžn o³»n tiv khr¼v eÎplastov kaª eÉk©nhtov, mžte ˆpal¼v Šgan kaª diarr”wn, mžte sklhr¼v kaª ˆnt©tupov, ˆll‡ dikai»tatov64 tŸn tän  qän ˆrmon©an. prob”blhto d• taÅt kaª t¼ säma o³»n tiv eÎtecnov ˆndri†v, plŸn Âson oÉk Šyucov oÉd• ˆnhqopo©htov, ˆll‡ t¼ m•n koin¼n toÓto ›myucov, t¼ d• tän ½l©gwn, kˆk tv ˆr©sthv yucv tv eÔ kekram”nhv t sÛmati, §q»v te Ëpemfa©nwn crhst¼n kaª p†ntoqen ™lkon t¼n qewr»n. He adapted to the individual character [gnˆomˆe] and soul of each and every person. He was so adjustable that he resembled that famous statue [agalma] in which sculptural art fashioned eyes that seemed to move in both 63

64

For this text, see Guglielmino 1974; Sideras 1994: 141–5 (dates the text to c. 1075 and suggests that Niketas is possibly the same fellow teacher for whose promotion Psellos intervened in S 162); Bernard 2010: 169 (Niketas’ teaching of poetry). Guglielmino offers a new edition, which, however, has some mistakes in the passage cited here; with one minor change, I have retained Sathas’ earlier edition that was based only on Paris, BNF, gr. 1182. Sathas prints dikai»tata.

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Self-representation directions. The eyes appeared simultaneously stable and yet moving and the statue cast its gaze upon those who were standing on either side equally. Unlike Phokion and Cato, who appeared heavy, intolerable, and unable to adapt to any occasion,65 Niketas did not lose himself among everyday concerns. He did not show a gloomy virtue, nor was his charm without its seriousness. Rather, he rendered each element more serious with his attention to its counterpart. He was both similar to the similar and much better than those who were distinguished in their particular achievements. For instance, if he happened to be between a gloomy and a cheerful person, he would please both. He would appear both moderately gloomy and harmoniously cheerful . . . his soul yielded like supple wax, easily set in motion, neither too soft and yielding away, nor too hard and resisting impression, but most balanced in the harmony of character. His body made evident this harmony, as a well-crafted statue [andrias] does. Except that his statue was not lifeless or without the presentation of character [anˆethopoiˆetos]. It was animate (a somewhat common feature), yet it also revealed a personable character, luring its viewers from all around (a feature held by few, only those with a perfect soul that is also well mixed with the body).

Psellos does not neglect the inner self. But inner character as such is not sufficient. Amplifying a rhetoric encountered in other Byzantine writers,66 Psellos emphasizes the mixture of the interior with the exterior aspects of ethos. Soul and body become nearly identical, letting the boundaries between inner and outer collapse. Niketas’ body is infused by the presence and movement of the soul (a kind of “animation”), just as the soul is imagined in material terms, as “wax” with texture that is easily molded. The passage is laced with a few Hellenic references that culminate in the concept of the “animated statue.”67 The metaphor alludes to Gregory, yet in a typical way Psellos concretizes the Hellenic connotations of the metaphor by also using the language of Neoplatonic biography. Here, he turns to Damaskios who presented the eyes of his teacher Isidoros as comparable to both the “charming Aphrodite” and the “wisest Athena”: they were “fixed and secure,” Damaskios wrote, “and simultaneously swiftly moving . . . displaying both their solemnity and charm . . . simply put, his eyes were precise images [agalmata] of his soul . . . and also of the divine emanation into it” (Philosophical History 13). 65 67

66 See p. 140 above. A reference to Plutarch’s Phokion and Cato Major. For the Platonic image of the “waxen soul,” e.g., see p. 144 above.

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Psellos redirects the semantic import of these earlier “statues.” As in Gregory of Nazianzos, Damaskios’ reference to agalmata appears in the context of a work that proffered theological virtues such as piety and the divine origins of the philosopher and denigrated aesthetics-oriented activities such as rhetoric.68 Psellos’ statuesque Niketas by contrast is not just an image of his interior self, but also a beautiful, appealing image, allowing the “charm [charis] of the soul” to be “revealed in the body” and the “symmetry of the limbs” (95.10–12). This statuesque body is a product of “art” (eu-technos) that captures Niketas’ ability to adapt to his interlocutor or addressee. Niketas, as we read toward the end of the text, possesses a “blending of various types of ethos,” “pleasure and gratification in discourse [logoi],” “Atticizing tongue,” and “power in speaking and natural ability to fashion [plattein] discourse” (95.12–20). Ultimately, Niketas’ moving statue is praised for its theatricality, Psellos’ own prized quality. Being able to become “similar to the similar,” a direct product of Niketas’ “waxen soul,” is a typically theatrical skill.69 Conversely, Niketas’ statue, which is not “without the presentation of character = anˆethopoiˆetos,” alludes to descriptions of rhetorical style. More precisely it evokes the rhetorical virtue of personification, the ability of the rhetor to display and imitate character; Psellos used the same wording for Gregory of Nazianzos’ style (Discourse § 43: 359). From Niketas’ inner ˆethos Psellos redirects the statue toward ˆethopoiia, the artistic technique by which a persona is created. Such aestheticization of the statue metaphor prevails in the majority of Psellos’ references to the statue-like nature of his objects of praise, their discourse, corporeal appearance, or, more generally, character as manifested in speech and body.70 Statuesque appeal is either the product of “art,” 68

69 70

Philosophical History 5–6, 34c, 108, 133, and 137b with O’Meara 2006. For Psellos’ debts to Damaskios in the presentation of the emperors’ portraits in the Chronographia, see O’Meara 2012. On Damaskios in general: Athanassiadi 1999. On similarity and theatrical performance: Lucian, On Dancing 83–4; Proklos, Commentary on the Republic (1.44.1–47.19); Arethas, Scripta Minora 8, p. 86.29–87.1. Discourse: Praise of Italos = Or. min. 19.29–30 (Ioannes Italos as “statue of beauty”); Epitaphios in Honor of the Most-Blessed Patriarch Kyr Ioannes Xiphilinos, Sathas iv 432.4–29 (the statue-like discourse of Xiphilinos); Theol. i 19.54–69 (Gregory of Nazianzos’ discourse as an animated statue); Euripides or Pisides? 64–5 (Euripides’ style); cf. also In Support of the Nomophylax Against Ophrydas = Or. for. 3.62–72 and pp. 98–100 above on Gregory of Nazianzos. Body: Iambic Verses on the Death of [Maria] Skleraina = Poem 17.300–7 (Maria Skleraina as a “statue” of corporeal beauty); Concise History 102.4–6 (Theophano as a “statue of beauty”); Chron. vi.125 (Monomachos), Encomium for His Mother 190–2 (Psellos’ father); Monody in Honor of Ioannes the Patrikios Who Was His Friend = K-D i 150.7–151.8 (the bodily beauty of Ioannes compared to the statues made by Daidalos, indeed surpassing them as a “nature’s contest”); K-D 194, untitled (bodily beauty of the agalma of the Virgin). Notably, agalma is consistently placed next to beauty,

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as in Niketas, or a creation of “nature”; in his description of Keroularios’ body discussed in the previous chapter, for instance, Psellos speaks of nature as “sculpting,” evoking again not just Gregory’s “statue of nature” but also Neoplatonic notions.71 More pointedly, Psellos suggests in a few instances that agalma is in fact his own rhetorical creation.72 The idea is eloquently presented in a lengthy and moving funeral oration in honor of Michael Radenos whom Psellos calls his “most beloved student.” Michael is described as an agalma no fewer than five times in reference to his fine character, discourse, voice, and beautiful body – this last is compared to Pheidias’ statues. But agalma is also the word with which Psellos describes his own encomium for Michael as a singular object. Unlike regular statues, Psellos’ discursive image of his student will “travel everywhere and paradoxically bloom continuously with the passing of time, remaining forever young, and displaying Michael’s beauty to the viewers’ souls.”73 There is thus a remarkable continuity that links the body, discourse, and character portrayed as statues with Psellos’ representation of these through language. At the level of rhetoric, Psellos’ idealized selves become fused with his very own discursive artistry, his own “sculpting.” Psellos’ most potent innovation, emblematic of his treatment of Hellenic discourse, is his construction of his own rhetorical persona as an object of aesthetic delight, an agalma. We have already encountered one such instance. In his speech To the Slanderer, Psellos compares his

71

72

73

kallos: e.g., Chron. vi. 125.1 ff.; Concise History 94.5. Kazhdan (following Ljubarskij) is mistaken in viewing Psellos’ notion of agalma as alluding simply to stable and “masculine” behavior (cf. Messis 2006a: 377); Kazhdan and Constable 1982: 61–2 and 105 with Ljubarskij 2001: 479–82 = 2004: 338–40. Cf. a passage in the Chronographia (6.125: on nature having fashioned Monomachos’ body) with Proklos, Commentary on the Timaeus 1.51.25–52.1. See further Psellos, Interpretation of Chaldean Oracles = Phil. min. ii 38, 136.5–13 with Proklos, Commentary on the Timaeus 3.69.15–16 for other varieties of “natural” statues in Psellos. For the physeˆos agalma in Gregory and Psellos, see p. 181 above. Or. pan. 4.548–552 (Psellos compares his own speech and description of Monomachos with the fashioning of an agalma that Psellos perfects and raises upon a “pedestal”); Encomium For Ioannes, Metropolitan of Euchaita = Or. pan. 17.186–92 (Mauropous as a statue standing as a public spectacle for all to see and praise, and Psellos interpreting its various features); Funeral Oration = K-D i 217.24–28. In letter-writing, Psellos uses the term agalma in a similar fashion in order to describe how he imagines within his mind close friends from whom he is separated by physical distance; in these cases, agalma denotes a product of imagination, Psellos’ phantasia: S 118 to the prˆotosynkellos Leon Paraspondylos (366.29–367.4); S 124 to Eustratios Choirosphaktes, magistros and prˆotonotarios (372.7–17); K-D 138 to the patriarch of Antioch (164.28–165.6) with Philo, On the Creation of the World According to Moses 18. For some earlier comparable examples, see Ioannes Kaminiates, The Capture of Thessalonike 7.4; Ioannes Mauropous, Novella 12. Monody in Honor of the Proedros Kyr Michael Radenos 4–7, 24, 48–58, 118, and 121 (ed. Gautier, “Monodies,” 115–26); very similar rhetoric in the Monody in Honor of the Bestarchˆes Georgios the Son of Aktouarios = K-D i 215.11 with 215.24–5 (cf. Suda theta.302).

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seductive nature to “certain statues [agalmata]” that “possess a smile that flows spontaneously rather than having been chiseled (with art having contributed nothing)” (Or. min. 7.105–20). This statue with its natural smile defines a rhetorical persona that dwells on Psellos’ aesthetic virtues and his unique nature. A similar alignment with statues, this time as artistic rather than natural products, occurs at the end of Psellos’ letter to Konstantinos, the nephew of Keroularios, where he compares himself to animals that alter their form (S 86; 329.19–330.8 cf. pp. 150–2 above): %ll‡ g‡r ˆmp”ptwka e«v l»gouv –n o³v –pisthmonikŸn m•n74 t”cnhn –nde©xasqai boÅlomai,75 t‡ d• s‡ di”fqartai qžratraá ›oikav g†r moi mŸ genna©aiv e²nai ‰lÛsimov fÅsesin, ˆll’ Âsaiv k†llov –fiz†nei £ ›mfuton £ –pipo©htoná kaª nŸ tŸn ¬er†n sou yucžn, tv aÉtv soi kˆgÜ p†ghv e«m©á kaª gohteÅomai Šnqes© te fainom”noiv kaª c†risin, e­te p»aiv taÓta, e­te l»goiv –gk†qhtai. ka© me oÉ tosoÓton ceiroÓtai ¾ PaianieÆv Dhmosq”nhv, £ ¾ LaodikeÆv %riste©dhv –n sustrofa±v nohm†twn kaª peri»doiv, kaª ta±v ˆntistr»foiv tän schm†twn metabola±v, Âson ¾ Lžmniov Fil»stratov, kaª m†lista –n ta±v tän ˆgalm†twn –kfr†sesi, calän t¼n l©qon, kaª t¼n calk¼n –xugra©nwn, kaª taker¼n tän sidhrän76 ½fqalmän ˆpole©bwn kaª –felk»menov d†krua. sÆ boÅlei m•n kaª toÓ paid¼v e¯neka toÆv –x –pisthmän l»gouv –peiskukloÓn ta±v –pistola±v, boÅlei d” soi kaª t¼n toÓ k†llouv –x†ptein77 ›rwta Ëgr‡n tŸn l”xin poioÅmenov kaª o³on ˆrwmat©zousan, boÅletai d• kaª ¾ fusik¼v p»qov katap©mplasqai tän fusikän ˆkro†sewn, kaª oÉk o²da ¤n tina l”xin ‰rm»sw t tosaÅt diallag78 tän Ëpoq”sewn. Âqen, £n t‡ poll‡ aÉcmhr¼v dokä, mž moi g©nou memy©moirová aÉt©ka g†r soi metamorfÛsomaiá oÉ g†r e«mi ce©rwn tän zÛwn –ke©nwn Âsa –x —t”rwn ™tera to±v e­desi g©netai. But I have lapsed into words in which I wish to [or: I can] show my art of science. Your traps, however, are spoiled in this way. For you seem to me easily conquerable, not by virile natures, but by those upon which either natural or artificial beauty resides. By your sacred soul, I too am caught by the same trap. I am spellbound by flowers and the charm of appearances, whether they reside in grass or in discourse. Demosthenes from Paeanea or Aristeides from Laodikeia do not captivate me (in their turnings of thoughts, periodic structures, and juxtaposing changes of figures) as much as Philostratos from Lemnos does. Especially when he describes statues, when he slackens the stone and saturates the bronze and draws languishing tears from the iron eyes. Because of your child, you wish that I surround my letters with the 74 76 77

75 Or: dÅnamai M. Attested in Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 524 (M). To be preferred to sidžrwn, as in Paris, BNF, gr. 1182 (P) and Sathas’ edition. 78 diagwg P and Sathas. –xastr†ptein P and Sathas.

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Self-representation discourse of science. But you also wish me to excite your desire for beauty by making my language watery and, as it were, fragrant. Still, your natural desire wishes to be filled by lectures about nature. Thus, I do not know what kind of language to attach to such a diversity of subjects. Hence, if I seem in most cases rough, do not become annoyed. I will immediately transform myself for your sake. For I am no worse than those living creatures that in their forms become another out of another.

The alignment with statues in this brief self-portrait is subtle and not as direct as the metaphor in the speech To the Slanderer. At the beginning of the passage, Psellos posits himself as someone who, like Konstantinos, is captivated by both natural and artistic beauty. At its end, we find Psellos as the producer of precisely such aesthetic appeal, through his natural ability of shape-shifting. What links these two aspects of Psellos is his admiration for Philostratos’ graphic descriptions of statues that are set in direct parallelism with Psellos’ own discursive skills.79 The reference is not coincidental. With it, Psellos enhances the image of naturally ambiguous subjectivity to which he wishes to associate himself in the eyes of Konstantinos, a student, close friend, and member of an influential family. Like the “self-grown” statue with which Psellos compares himself in To the Slanderer, the statues mentioned here are also paradoxical objects, neither merely artificial nor exactly alive, blurring the boundaries between art and nature, at whose juncture Psellos emerges able to “become another from another.” The reference also points us to the kind of Hellenic discourse that Psellos would rather evoke in order to construct his personae for readers like Konstantinos. As with Socrates and Narcissus, also here Psellos adopts and expands playful or, in Hermogenian and Byzantine terms, “panegyrical” rhetoric rather than philosophical discourse or more serious, “civic [politikos]” rhetoric. As he himself might say, he turns to the “Graces [Charites],” texts “full of pleasures and charm” such as the erotic novels of Achilles Tatios and Heliodoros as well as the writings of Lucian and Philostratos’ ekphraseis, rather than to the more solemn “Muses,” the writings of Demosthenes, Isocrates, Ailios Aristeides, Thucydides, Plato, Plutarch, Lysias, and, of course, Gregory.80 79

80

See also Theol. i 79.127.32 (with references to Plato Phaedrus 236b3–4 and Synesios, Letter 104) where Psellos regards his texts as possibly “statues.” See also K-D 213 for Psellos as a statue maker that produces pleasure (252.20–2): oÎk e«mi ˆtim»terov toÓ ˆndriantopoioÓ –ke©nou [namely: Daedalus] oÉd• tŸn t”cnhn ˆfu”sterov. See p. 127 above.

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For it is in the aestheticized rhetoric of Kallistratos’ descriptions of statues (whom Psellos has conflated with Philostratos of Lemnos81 ), Tatios’ and Heliodoros’ novels, and Lucian’s dialogues that one encounters statues, whether real or notional, that, like Psellos’ personae, challenge the boundaries of nature and art and thrive on aesthetic appearance. In Kallistratos’ description of a bronze statue of Erˆos by Praxiteles, for instance, the statue is said to have resisted being simply bronze, but rather “became Erˆos, as much as possible,” loosing its hardness, becoming “fluid,” and “boasting a smile [gelˆos]” (Ekphrasis 3). Similar is the depiction of another creation of Praxiteles, a bronze statue of Dionysus (8), again rendered “wet,” “blossoming like a flower,” and “full of smiles [gelˆos].” In Tatios’ Leukippe and Clitophon, it is the beautiful body of a female character – notably, an antagonist, the devious Melite who seduces Clitophon into infidelity – who is presented as a “statue [agalma]” (5.11). And it is Erˆos that is said to be, like Psellos, a “self-made [autourgos]” and “self-improvising [autoschedios] sophist” offering “self-generating [autophyˆes]” gratification (5.27).82 Even more rhetoricized is Lucian’s description of Praxiteles’ statue of Aphrodite at Knidos, the statue with which Psellos once compared the appearance of his daughter Styliane and which is echoed also in his own image as a “smiling statue.”83 The relevant text passage is found in the dialogue Erˆotes (“Loves” or “Forms of Desire”), whose Lucianic authorship has been questioned by modern scholarship, but which was rightly read as a Lucianic text by Byzantine readers.84 Lucian describes the most fetishized object of antiquity, the body of Aphrodite as sculpted by Praxiteles.85 As Lucian writes, “The statue of Aphrodite was a most beautiful product of Daedalic art smiling a suggestive smile [gelˆos]. The art that had produced it was so powerful that the unwieldy and strong nature of the stone proffered appropriately each of her limbs” (13). Facing this statue, the two main characters of Lucian’s narrative are immediately captivated by its lascivious surface – one of them, the one drawn to pederasty, is especially infatuated with Aphrodite’s “sweetly smiling” buttocks (14)! 81

82 83 84

85

We know virtually nothing about Kallistratos himself; the most recent edition dates him to the late fourth/early fifth century (B¨abler and Nesselrath 2006). MS tradition: Follet and Mondrain 2006. Greek ekphraseis of the Imperial period: Clerc 1915; Goldhill 1994; Elsner 1995. For Tatios’ passages, see the discussion in Morales 2004: 154–5. For Psellos’ evocation of the similarly statuesque appearance of Charikleia in Heliodoros, see p. 98 above. Funeral Oration For His Daughter Styliane, Who Died Before the Age of Marriage; Sathas v 72.11–14 Elsner 2007: 117–19 (where Lucian’s authorship is defended) with further bibliography; also: Goldhill 1995: 102–11; Halperin 2002: 81–103; Mossman 2007. For Psellos’ reference to the statue of Aphrodite in his Funeral Oration for his daughter Styliane, see pp. 220–1 below. Cf. Goldhill 2004: 40–1; also Bassett 2004: 233.

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Psellos’ diction has brought these statues together in the letter to Konstantinos and in To the Slanderer.86 He has adduced these distinctly rhetorical objects in order to create an image of himself as an aesthetic subject for a learned and aristocratic audience. And just as with his rhetorical masks of Socrates and Narcissus, here too Psellos eclipses even the rhetorical tradition itself. Though authors or narrators had occasionally compared others to statues – Alcibiades’ description of Socrates as a Silenus figurine in Plato’s Symposium being the most famous case – authors rarely imagine themselves as statues. Two instances exist, as far as I am able to tell, in the rhetorical tradition before Psellos, both of them pre-Byzantine. First is a speech by the superstar of the Second Sophistic, Favorinos (c. 80–160), who protested the destruction of an honorific statue of himself, initially set up but then taken down by the Corinthians (Corinthian Oration). Part of the oration is spoken as if by the statue itself. The second instance is a passage from the first of a series of logoi, the so-called Sacred Tales, that Ailios Aristeides (117–181) completed toward the end of his life. In this passage (Or. 47.17), Aristeides describes a dream in which he saw a statue of himself in a temple of Asclepius. One could compare these two writers with Psellos, who, in any case, admired Favorinos and had read Aristeides.87 Yet, while for these rhetors the statue stands for a desire for power and authoritative status,88 Psellos focuses on its aesthetic appeal; it is no coincidence that they employ the word andrias, while Psellos prefers agalma. However this might be, Psellos does not allude to the andriantes of either Favorinos or Aristeides for his own statue metaphor. This avoidance is not specific to the statue imagery and this text alone. The highly self-referential discourse of Greek rhetors of the Imperial period, such as Favorinos and Aristeides, but also Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch,89 would at first glance offer the obvious reference point for someone such as Psellos. Remarkably, Psellos did not turn to these definite antecedents for his rhetorician’s self-portrait, just as he did not turn to 86

87

88 89

Beyond the obvious parallels as discussed above, see further Psellos’ usage of takeron (S 86 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios; 329.30) with Lucian, Erotes 3; also Psellos’ usage of euagkalon (Ekphrasis of a Cupid Sculpted on Stone = Or. min. 34.44) and Erotes 25; finally, see Kallistratos 10 where a reference to the notion of ouk anˆethopoiˆetos, on which see the discussion in p. 185 above. Cf. Theol. i 98.19–21 (where Psellos sides with Dio and Favorinos, because of their ability to join philosophy with rhetoric). For Aristeides: Theol. i 98.26–7 and 41–2 (on Greg. Naz. Or. 43.1); To Those Who Are Jealous of Him = Or. min. 10.59–60; and, especially, In Support of the Nomophylax Against Ophrydas = Or. for. 3.10–15. For Favorinos: Gleason 1995 (esp. pp. 16–17); Whitmarsh 2001: 118–21; K¨onig 2001. For Aristeides: Pearcy 1988; Whitmarsh 2004b. Gleason 1995; Whitmarsh 2001.

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Gregory and the Byzantine rhetoric of self-representation. The Hellenism that Psellos applies to himself and others is, rather, the Hellenism of Platonic and Lucianic rhetoric and fictional or novelistic discourse. *** Psellos’ is an inflated and pointedly literary Hellenism, a learned man’s sociolect pushed to its limits. This Hellenic self-representation is literary from both a modern and a Byzantine perspective. By drawing, that is, primarily from “panegyrical” rather than philosophical and “political” discourse, Psellos’ self-portrait is expressed through those texts that the Byzantine rhetorical tradition associated with fiction and performative mimesis, the features that a modern reader too would identify as literature. His Hellenism thus supports further a self-portrait that attracts attention to its rhetoricality, remains indifferent to moral preoccupations, stands autonomous in its aesthetic appeal, and aggressively chases the readers’ pleasure. As was the case with his projection of himself as a rhetor-philosopher, the theorist of creative and performative authorship, and the encomiast of aestheticized ethos, as a Hellˆen too Psellos sides and identifies with what the tradition regards as inferior. When addressing an audience which he constructs as exclusive – as learned, powerful, and dear – Psellos transforms that which others only tacitly appropriated, into his own voice.

c h a p ter 6

Female voice gender and emotion

The conventions governing self-representation in Byzantine rhetoric emphasized ˆethos with its double meaning of honest character and constructed persona, a duality that Psellos maximized. Similar conventions defined the expression of personal emotion, termed pathos and linked to such feelings as pain, grief, fear, desire, and pleasure. Unlike the modern cultivation of emotional expression as authentic subjectivity, the expression of pathos was ritualized under preset typologies by Byzantine rhetoricians. At the heart of their approach lay a hesitation to associate emotion with the author or speaker. Pathos could inhabit and define the characters of rhetoricized narrative, it should be evoked in the audience for the sake of persuasion, but it should rarely be embodied by the agent of speech.1 This constraining norm allowed exceptions and Psellos was happy to insist on them. Readers were trained to expect affective expression in fictional, “panegyrical,” texts such as Homeric poetry and tragedy, and students replicated the emotional discourse of poetry in their rhetorical training in prose, particularly in the exercise of ˆethopoiia.2 Related was the provision that pathos should be expressed in order to reinforce the rhetor’s sincerity in politikos logos. This was detailed in Hermogenes and his commentators’ discussion of the Form of “innate, true, and as if animate speech = –ndi†qetov kaª ˆlhqŸv kaª o³on ›myucov l»gov” (On Forms 1

2

Cf. pp. 111–13 above and Messis and Papaioannou 2013 (on the emphasis on emotion in Symeon Metaphrastes’ rhetoricized hagiography through conscious imitation of earlier novelistic narrative). See further: Gay 1986 and 1995 (for the modern “invention” of emotions); Konstan 2006 (conception of emotions in the ancient world); Rosenwein 2006 (typologies of emotions in western medieval Europe). On the Byzantine conception of pathos, cf. the two definitions of the word in the Suda (pi.24 and 27); see also the overview in Hinterberger 2004b. Cf. Ioannes Sikeliotes, Comm. 492 ff. with Psellos, Euripides or Pisides? 33–41 and 54–68, Psellos (?), On Tragedy 1–18, and the discussion above (pp. 116–17). See further Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 35.6–10 where Achilles’ speech over the dead body of Patroclus is suggested as an example of “mixed” ˆethopoiia that includes pathos.

192

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2.7) that urged the expression of intense emotion as a sign of authenticity, spontaneity, and sincerity.3 Certain types of speech for public and, primarily, private occasions also invited the speaker’s emotion. According to Menandros’ On Epideictic Speeches, a display of feeling was to be included in the “talk” (lalia, a mixed speech combining advice and praise; 390.19), the consolatory speech (paramythˆetikos; 413.6–14), and, especially, the funeral oration (epitaphios; 419.1ff.). In this latter genre, pathos was allowed because of the overwhelming grief of the occasion. Similar liberty was afforded in the context of letter-writing where the assumed intimacy between correspondents enabled them to speak openly of their emotions, either pain or desire.4 These theoretical provisions are reflected in the rhetorical texts that the Byzantines read and produced themselves. From the former group, one should highlight late antique fictional discourse, most notably the first-person narrative in Achilles Tatios’ Leukippe and Clitophon, which is filled with effusive expression of emotion.5 Similarly – to cite an earlier, but influential example – affect is occasionally communicated by Socrates’ first-person utterances in the Platonic dialogues. At the beginning of the Phaedrus, for instance, a model, as we saw, of self-representation for Psellos, Socrates speaks of himself as being temporarily overwhelmed by pathos (238c5–d7). Most importantly for the Byzantines, Gregory of Nazianzos’ selfrepresentation is punctuated by outpourings of emotion. Take his Funeral Oration for Basil the Great.6 Toward the end of the oration, Gregory, confronted with the loss of his friend, reveals his weakness: “Even if I have studiously attempted to remain a philosopher,” he writes, “I am unable to be a philosopher in this outburst of emotion [pathos], when I bring to mind this common loss and the suffering [pathos] that took over the entire inhabited world” (Or. 43.78; cf. 82). Earlier in the text, Gregory admits to other excusable pathˆe, evoked in the context of friendship, the non-sexual bond uniting two male companions. Friendship may incite intensified desire as well as pain. In Gregory’s speech, the desire 3 4

5

6

Cf. pp. 107 and 135 above. On intimacy as a prerequisite for the expression of emotion, see Most 1989 (for the ancient Greek tradition) with the comment by Ioannes of Sardeis, Commentary on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 205.12–19 (for the Byzantine tradition). Most 1989 with the remarks by Morales 2004: 143–51. For the expression of the pathos of erotic desire in the first person, see also sixth-century love poetry, always from a male perspective (Anthologia Palatina 5.216–302). For this text and its influence for Byzantine discourses of emotion: Agapitos 2003 (Byzantine funerary rhetoric); Papaioannou 2011a (letter-writing).

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comes first: friendship with Basil is, for Gregory, a most pleasing narrative (hediston diegˆema), a sweet spectacle from which sight refuses to depart; and his desire (pothos) for Basil is the most just passion (pathos) (19). Then comes pain. Having completed the narrative about Basil’s life and achievements, Gregory confesses the sorrow that he suffered when, violating the laws of friendship, Basil appointed him bishop against his will (59). Byzantine funerary rhetoric and letter-writing are gilded with precisely these pathˆe, often in Gregory’s own words. The expression of loss often defines the discourse of death, while letters frequently articulate desire for a close friend and anger or sorrow, when the laws of friendship have been violated.7 Unsurprisingly, this is the case in Psellos as well. Pathos awaits the reader at many important junctures of his rhetorical self and indeed often becomes the “protagonist,” as Psellos himself might say, of the text, the epistolary text in particular.8 Very common in this respect is the image of Psellos as a passionate reader, viewer, and consumer of aesthetic beauty and material pleasure. We saw this persona in Psellos’ reading of Gregory of Nazianzos. Many more such cases of emphatic expression of surrender to pleasure may be cited from his letters.9 Next to these, there are also several moments in which Psellos presents himself as suffering pain, whether psychological or bodily. The description of illness, a topos of Byzantine letter-writing, finds in Psellos its most eloquent narrator as he projects himself as readily 7

8

9

Littlewood 1999 with Agapitos 2008a on the Byzantine rhetorical typologies of grief; Mullett 1999b with Messis 2008 on the Byzantine typologies of expression of desire. For some examples of expression of pathos in letter-writing: Arethas, Scriptora minora 51 = Stef†n Ëpografe± basil”wv tän ˆporržtwn, pp. 325–6; Theodoros Daphnopates, Letters 12 and 33; Niketas Magistros, Letters 12 and 18 (with a reference to Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 43.19, missed by the editor); Theodoros of Kyzikos, Letter 2 (ed. Lampros); Symeon Magistros, Letters 8 (esp. 1–3), 13 (esp. 13–15), 15, and 89; Nikephoros Ouranos, Letter 47 (esp. 12–16). Ioannes Kaminiates’ likely early tenth-century Capture of Thessalonike must also be mentioned here; what has been regarded as an exceptional focus on the author’s own suffering (cf. Kazhdan 2006: 125–31) may be explained by the fact that the text is presented as a letter (paragraph 2). On this text: Messis 2006a; Odorico 2005. For the epistolary discourse of suffering in general: Laurence and Guillaumont 2010. Cf. p. 117 above with Psellos (?), On Tragedy 17–18: t¼ g‡r prwtagwnistoÓn –n psi to±v tragiko±v dr†masi t¼ p†qov –sti. For Psellos’ funerary rhetoric, which will not be discussed here, see Agapitos 2008a (on p. 586 Agapitos rightly remarks: “Emotional intensity in personal relationships is one of the chief traits of Psellos’ ‘rhetorical’ character”). E.g., S 57 and K-D 208 to the patriarch Keroularios (eating fish); S 91, untitled (surrender to bodily beauty and, alternatively, to discourse); S 109, untitled (pleasure in the addressee’s letter); S 187, untitled (submission to corporeal and discursive beauty); K-D 4, untitled (extreme joy and pleasure upon the reception of a letter); K-D 192, untitled (enamored with the delights of a field); K-D 194, untitled (ecstatic to the sight of an icon); K-D 237 to Ioannes Doukas (on a mellon); G 10 to Ioannes Doukas (on reading letters). Cf. Hatzaki 2009: 78–9.

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sensitive to suffering and often dwells on detailed descriptions of illness.10 Equally frequent are expressions of psychological distress.11 By its sheer frequency and insistence, Psellos’ intensified expression of emotion sets him apart as the culmination of the earlier tradition. Where he, however, begins to bring the inherent tensions of constrained emotion in previous writing to the verge of rupture is the way in which he identifies fully with affect in its gender connotations. In first-person rhetoric, especially in letters for close associates, Psellos either posits emotion as an essential part of his psychological make-up or, alternatively, presents himself as a source of intense emotions for others. He is, in effect, emotion embodied and a feminine nature. pathos The occasion for the following letter, written late in Psellos’ life (mid 1070s?), was the birth of a son (named Romanos?) to Konstantinos, the nephew of Keroularios. The moment was emotionally rich and Psellos exploited it for the purposes of self-representation (S 15712 ): *rren t¼ ˆrt©tokon brefÅllion, Šrren, å g kaª ¤lieá r’ oÔn aÉt©ka diolisqsan teq”asai, ãsper –k pol”mou kaª m†chv a¬m†twn plrev kaª lÅqr memolusm”non, £ tosoÓton diekart”rhsav Þv prolabe±n se tŸn ½mfalot»mon, kaª prokaqžrasqai toÓto kaª to±v sparg†noiv katadesmsai; –gÜ m•n oÔn Šmfw filän, nŸ t¼n f©lion, kaª t¼n pat”ra kaª tŸn mht”ra, e« kaª qlu t¼ gegennhm”non §n, ¡d”wv ‹n tŸn eɆggelon –dex†mhn fwnžná t© g‡r e«13 oÌtwv, £ –ke©nwv diatetÅpwtai, qhlukÛteron, £ ˆrrenikÛteron; p†ntwv g‡r –x ˆmfo±n to±n gon”oin oÉs©wtaiá ˆll† me t¼ Šrren e«v  donŸn mllon –k©nhsená e­h d• kaª patrzon, m†lista m•n tŸn yucžn, e« kaª t¼ säma oÉd•n ›latton, kaª ›coi ‹n kˆntaÓqa t¼ t”leion, e« mŸ t¼ tv mhtr¼v e²dov ˆntip©pton –st©. 10

11

12

13

E.g., S 49 to the kritˆes of Paphlagonia (esp. 280.13–21); S 197, untitled; K-D 177, untitled (esp. 199.2– 5.8–14); K-D 200 to the kritˆes of Opsikion (esp. 228.25–229.2); K-D 228 to Ioannes Mauropous (esp. 455.1 ff.); K-D 242 to the synkellos and prˆotonotarios tou dromou Sagmatas (esp. 292.8–9). For the topos: Mullett 1997: 102–11; images of illness in Psellos: Volk 1990. E.g., S 17, untitled; S 25 to the kritˆes of Aigaion (esp. 261.1–4); S 105 to the bestarchˆes Ioannes Bourtzes (esp. 347.15–20); S 118 to the prˆotosynkellos Leon Paraspondylos (esp. 346.8–26); K-D 56 (esp. 88.14–20) and 63 (esp. 96.15–19) to Nikolaos Skleros; K-D 233 (esp. 282.11–15) and G 3 to Ioannes Doukas. The letter is transmitted in three manuscripts: Vatican, BAV, gr. 712 (mid twelfth century; K); Paris, BNF, gr. 1182 (late twelfth century; P); Vatican, BAV, Barberinianus gr. 240 (late thirteenth century; B); the title in B adds the following information: “Âte –gennžqh ¾ u¬¼v aÉtoÓ ëRwman»v.” Following K and B, as opposed to Sathas who, following P, edits “£.”

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Self-representation Kaª boÅlomai m•n –pª psi filosofe±n kaª l»goiv kaª pr†gmasin, –l”gcei d” me t¼ §qov ˆfilos»fwv –pª to±v fusiko±v diake©menon p†qesin – £ kaª toÓto ­swv fil»sofoná q†teron d• m”rov Skuqik»n. skirtä goÓn päv ‹n e­pv –pª to±v neogen”si br”fesi, kaª m†lista e« f©ltata e­h kaª filt†twn tok”wn, kaª Šntikruv ˆgalm†twn £ car©twn aÉtän. Kaª p†lai m•n o¬ Persän basile±v oÉk eÉqÆv Ëp’ Àyin –t©qesan t‡ neogil‡ tän brefän, oÉd’ aÉt©ka t‡ gennžmata tän spl†gcnwn dihgkal©zonto, ˆll’ §n aÉto±v Þrism”nov kair¼v kaq’ Án ›dei t¼n t»kon «de±ná t© d• toÓto §n; –ded©esan perª to±v br”fesin Þv ‰palwt”roiv, mŸ pr¼v tv sterr»thtov tän melän Ëf”l taÓta ¾ q†natov, kaª di‡ taÓta e«v ˆnabolŸn tŸn q”an –t©qento, ¯na mŸ ‰lÛsimoi t tv ¡donv p†qei gegon»tev to±v ¾fqalmo±v, tän brefän teleutÛntwn, –podÅrointo –mpaq”stataá –l†nqanon d• Šra t¼ pn tän car©twn —autoÆv ˆfairoÅmenoi. ï Egwg’ oÔn oÉk ˆfist†mhn tän toÓ best†rcou paid©wn, oÎte louom”nwn, oÎte sparganoum”nwn, ˆll’ §n moi ¤diston q”ama t¼ br”fov  r”ma –pª toÓ ˆristeroÓ tv ma©av ke©menon pžceov, kaª qat”r ceirª diantloÅmenon, nÓn m•n prhn”v, nÓn d• Ìptioná ka© moi met”wrov §n ¡ yucŸ kaª m†lista paqainom”nh, e« qerm»teron §n t¼ Ëd†tion, ãste kaª dieloidoroÅmhn t balaneutr©á e«ržsqw g‡r oÌtwv ¾phn©ka t¼ neogn¼n –b»a14 klauqmuriz»menoná t‡ d” ge tv ma©av –psmata mllon ¤‚rei kaª ›qelgen, £ t‡ ìOrfik‡ m”lh kaª t‡ seiržneia. Âte d’ ›melle toÓto diasparganoÓn kaª diadesme±n, kaª t‡v m•n ce±rav kathsfal©zeto, tŸn d• kefalŸn  r”ma di”platte, kaª t¼ sÅmpan säma sune±ce kaª sunek†lupten, ãsper aÉt¼v ¾ desmoÅmenov ßn, –taratt»mhn, kaª mikroÓ de±n t br”fei sun”pascon. Kaª e« m•n qhle©av toÓto yucv, oÉ p†nu ti o²da, –moª goÓn t¼ §qov t”wv oÌtw diatetÅpwtai, kaª ¡ fÅsiv, ãsp”r tiv khr¼v ‰pal¼v kaª eÉtÅpwtov, kaª tän maqhm†twn sun”sce t‡ k†llista, kaª t‡v tän filt†twn c†ritav ˆnam†ttetaiá kaª toÆv legom”nouv ˆdamant©nouv oÉ p†nu zhlä, e­te Àreio© tinev e²en, e­te metewr»teroiá ˆll’ e« m•n –pª t¼ qei»teron tŸn fÅsin  llo©wsan di† tinov ˆgwgv kre©ttonov, kaª geg»nasin ˆntª ˆnqrÛpwn qeo©, toÓto eÉcv ›rgon, £ kre±tton eÉcv, e« d• ˆpesklhk»twv toÓ ¢qouv –k prÛthv gen”sewv ›cousi, kaª genom”nwn eÉqÆv ¡ gnÛmh ˆnt©tupov §n, toÅtoiv oÎte –pitetždeutai t¼ fil»sofon, oÎte –sced©astai, ˆll’ oÎte fil»sofoi ‹n l”gointo, ˆll‡ liqÛdeiv te kaª ˆp»krotoi. ìEgÜ d• kaª eÉxa©mhn ‹n desan kaª pr¼v qe¼n ˆnaba©hn ¾p»son t¼ kre±tton kaª ¾ kair¼v d©dwsi, kaª sundiask”yomai front©da fil»sofon, kaª f©loiv sunteÅxomai ¬lar t gnÛm, kaª t glÛtt e«v paidi‡v 14

P has a gap here; –b»a is transmitted in K and B.

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–fžsw kaª c†ritav –mmele±vá kaª oÉd• tŸn gunaikwn©tin ˆpaxiÛsw, e­ ge ti15 kaª taÅt car©sai boÅlomai, kaª t‡ —t”roiv f©ltata, –m‡ di’ –ke©nouv log©somaiá kaª to±v m”n, ˆp¼16 toÓ kre©ttonov ¾milžsw, to±v d”, ˆp¼ toÓ ­sou, to±v d”, ˆp¼ toÓ –l†ttonov, t† te ›kgona ¡d”wv ˆgkal©somai kaª Âloiv to±v ce©lesi katasp†somaiá kaª t‡ m”n, pr¼v tŸn ma©an –rä, Âti t†de poiht”on aÉt17 kaª oÌtw tän brefän –pimelht”on, t‡ d”, pr¼v tŸn qhl†zousan, Âti oÌtwv aÉt t¼ g†la dokimast”on, kaª t†de m•n brwt”on, –ke©nwn d• ˆfekt”oná18 kaª t‡ m”n, gel†sw, t‡ d”, ˆni†somai, t‡ d”, filosofžsw, t‡ d”, ˆpodÅromai, kaª tän filt†twn to±v m•n sugklaÅsomai kla©ousi, to±v d”, sugcaržsomai ca©rousi. ka©, nŸ t¼n f©ltat»n moi –pª tän kr©sewn, ˆrä soi poll†kiv –pª tän ˆgkalän t¼ paid©on, kaª metewr©sw sumpalamhs†menov ˆkribäv ta±v cers©, kaª sundiateqžsomai paidiko±v scžmasi kaª morfÛmasiá diap”plasta© moi g‡r ¡ yucŸ pr¼v psan «d”an kaª mousän kaª car©twn, kaª oÉc ãsper a¬ cordaª £ sÅnton»v e«mi m»non £ –narm»niov, ˆll‡ pantodap¼n ›cw t¼ m”lov, nÓn m•n ligur¼n kaª ¡dÅfwnon, nÓn d• suntetam”non te kaª genna±on. Kaª t¼ m•n –m¼n toioÓton, sÆ d• e­hv präta m”n, –rrwm”nwv ›cwn toÓ sÛmatov, ›peita –f’ ¨v ›ceiv diaq”sewv, ¢toi –rasm©wv kaª tv suno©kou kaª tän pa©dwn,19 kaª t neogil sunatt†leiv ˆtt†lonti nÓn kaª sunskirthv, ›coiv d• ˆsfaläv ˆprªx ta±n cero±n ¾p»te metewr©zeiv aÉt», ãsper g‡r d”dia perª toÓto. The newborn baby is a boy [arren]; a boy, O earth and sun! Did you see him right as he slid out, covered with blood and filthy with gore as if from war and battle?20 Or did you wait long enough that the midwife anticipated you by cutting the navel-string, cleaning, and wrapping it in swaddling clothes? As I love, by the God of friendship,21 both the father and the mother, I would have welcomed the announcement of the good news with pleasure, even if the newborn had been a girl. What does it matter if the child has been stamped in this way or that, more feminine or more masculine? Either way, he has his essence from both parents but that he is male has stirred me to greater pleasure. If he should also be like his father, especially in respect to his soul but no less in respect to his body, then he may obtain perfection (unless his mother’s form opposes). I want to be a philosopher in everything, in both words and actions. But my character [ˆethos] convicts me of being disposed unphilosophically in respect to the natural emotions [physika pathˆe] – or perhaps this is philosophical 15 17 19 20

16 ˆp¼: K; Ëp¼: P and B. ti is transmitted in K. 18 ˆfekt”on: K and B; ˆfet”on: P. aÉt: K and B; aÉt: P. kaª tv suno©kou kaª tän pa©dwn: K and B; kaª tän pa©dwn: P. 21 Namely Zeus; cf. Lucian, Teacher of Rhetoric 4. Cf. Iliad 6.267–68 and 16.155 ff.

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Self-representation too: since to be otherwise is characteristic of Scythians.22 I prance (how might you say it?) about newborn infants – especially if they are very dear children of dear parents – and when confronted with their delightful images [agalma] and charm. In the distant past, the kings of Persia did not immediately inspect their newborn infants, nor did they at once embrace the fruit of their loins, but there was a specific time when they should see the offspring. Why was this? They were afraid that death might snatch their delicate [hapalos] infants away through the strength of their hands. They thus set a delay on seeing them, so that they might not become captivated through their eyes by the pathos of pleasure and then lament in full pathos, if their children should die. Thus, without realizing, they deprived themselves of the fullness of their charm.23 As for myself, I could not stay away from the bestarchˆes’ children,24 neither when they were being bathed, nor when they were being swaddled. But the sight that gave me most pleasure was the infant, lying gently on the left arm of the wet-nurse and held when that tired by the other arm, now face down, now on its back. If the water happened to be too warm, my soul was suspended in such extreme pathos and I would rail furiously at the bath-nurse. Let the same be said for whenever the newborn would cry aloud in tears. And the songs of the wet-nurse captured and enchanted me more than the Orphic songs or those of the Sirens. When she was about to swaddle and wrap the baby, securing its hands while fashioning gently the cloth around its head, holding and enveloping the entire body, I was shaken as if I was the one being wrapped, and I almost suffered [paschein] the same thing as the infant. Now if this pertains to a feminine [thˆeleia] soul, I do not really know; at all events, my character [ˆethos] has been stamped in this way all along, and my nature, just like a bit of wax that is soft [hapalos] and easily stamped [eutypˆotos], both retains the finest kinds of learning and is impressed by the charm of those who are dearest. I do not at all envy the so-called steely [adamantinous] types,25 whether mountain people or still higher in mid-air. If they altered their nature toward what is more divine through a higher way of life and became gods instead of men, this is the result of prayer or something more than prayer. But if they are hard in character [ˆethos] from earliest birth, and their will [gnˆomˆe] resists impression [antitypos] since they were born, then these people neither pursued philosophy nor even improvise

22 23 25

“Scythians” are typical designations of otherness in Byzantine writing; Messis 2006b: 129–40. 24 Psellos refers here to the children of his adopted daughter. Cf. Herodotus, Histories 1.136. For the expression “adamantine,” see Hesiod, Op. 143–7 with: Plato, Republic 360b; Anonymous, On the Tropes of Poetry 208.17–18 and 211.2–122; Heliodoros, Aethiopian Tale 4.4.3; Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 2.63; Synesios, Dion 8.5; Niketas David of Paphlagonia, Encomium in Honor of Gregory 27.12–13.

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it; indeed, they should not even be called “philosophers,” but rather stony and hardened26 men. I would pray, when the need might rise, and ascend to God as far as Divinity and time grant me, and I shall ponder philosophical thoughts together with others, but I shall chat with friends in a jolly spirit [gnˆomˆe], and with my tongue I will give myself over to play and well-proportioned wit. Nor will I despise the women’s chamber to indulge that quarter a bit. I will consider those things that are dearest to others my own dearest things, for their sake. With some people I will converse as a superior, with others as an equal, and with others as an inferior. I will embrace my grandchildren with pleasure, I will kiss them fully with my lips. To the midwife I will say that she should do this or that and that she should take care of the infants in this or that way. To the wet-nurse I will say that she should test the milk in this way, and that these things are to be eaten, these others to be avoided. Sometimes I will laugh, sometimes be upset, sometimes philosophize, sometimes grieve, cry together with my dearest ones when they are crying, rejoice with them rejoicing. O my dearest epi tˆon kriseˆon,27 I will lift the child up tightly with my hands many times; I will suspend him in the air while holding him tightly, I will myself join in childish gestures and grimaces. For my soul is fashioned to be receptive toward every form of both Muses and Graces. I am not like the strings that are either only high-pitched or in harmony, but I contain every melody, now more bright and sweet-sounding, now taut and noble. I am thus. As for you, may you be, above all, strong in body and then in your disposition, that is, loving toward your wife and children, and bounce with him as he bounces, and dance about with him, and hold him securely and tightly in your hands when you toss him in the air – just as right now I’m afraid for him!

The joyous news of the birth of Konstantinos’ son occasions an elaborate description and defense of Psellos’ own nature. As the letter unfolds, the newborn as well as his parents recede into the background, only to be remembered briefly at the very end. It is Psellos’ ethos in relation to emotion, what he calls physika pathˆe, natural emotions, that is on display here. What are these emotions? Byzantine theologians knew as “natural passions” the “necessary and irreproachable” physical as well as psychological reactions – such as pain, hunger and thirst – that Christ experienced 26 27

For this expression see Philo, On the Life of Moses 2.202 and On Prizes, Punishments, and Imprecations 114–5 (on human souls). A judicial supervisory post, first introduced by Konstantinos IX Monomachos between 1043–5; Oikonomid`es 1976: 134–5.

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before his resurrection (cf. Niketas Stethatos, Or. 1.64 with Psellos, Theol. i 91.69–71). For Psellos’ purposes in this letter, however, natural passions indicate a wider category that far exceeds what is necessary or irreproachable. He puts forth a broad array of legitimate emotions (such as pleasure or fear) and advocates his willing surrender to them: his immediate excitement at the sight of infants and the pleasure (hˆedonˆe) that he feels when around them; his intense worries over the caring of children, his enchantment by lullabies, his jolly spirit, present in every social interaction, and his willingness to socialize in women’s quarters. He claims to be playful and charming, adjusting to occasion and interlocutor, joining in laughter or sadness, offering a “varied tune.” Inspired by Konstantinos’ newborn child, Psellos, through his own projected paidia, identifies with the figure of the young child, and, through his softness, assumes the features of a fragile and impressionable creature, even, as he says, of a “feminine soul.” the grammar of gender This inscription of pathos within the framework of gender difference defines the entire letter, which is preoccupied as much with the gender of the newborn as it is with the gender of Psellos, the author. This is consistent with the premodern conceptualization of emotion which was entangled in notions of gender. Byzantine psychology – propagated through a variety of scientific types of discourse: philosophy, theological commentary, medicine, and, what interests us, rhetorical theory – conceptualized the submission to and expression of affect as a typically female trait, either congruent with the nature of women or a clear sign of feminization for men. After all, the very condition of pathos, namely passivity (the most basic meaning of the word pathos) was associated with femininity in premodern Greek writing, whereas men and “manly” women were supposed to master pathos.28 It is along these lines that – to remain within the field of rhetoric – the “emotional” type of ˆethopoiia was styled as female and precautions were enjoined in favor of genuine and straightforward displays of emotion.29 Similarly, in Hermogenes’ description of “animate speech” the emotions allowed, namely anger and indignation, were primarily suited 28

29

For an eloquent and influential example of pathos as femininity, see Philo, Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat 28.5–7 with Baer 1970 and Mortley 1981: 6–19. Cf. Michael of Ephesos, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics 53.26 ff. with Psellos, Encomium for His Mother 1206–15 for the discourse of mastery over passions. See Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 34.2–3 and 35.1–10 and discussion above (p. 112).

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to the creation of a masculine authorial character. Ultimately, rhetorical practice styled excessive expression of emotion (for instance in the case of lamentations) as a trait of female nature.30 This general discourse of gender operates in Psellos in idiosyncratic ways, setting the background for his self-representational openness to emotion. The initial paragraph of the letter to Konstantinos may be read as a typical example of constructions of gender in a patriarchal society. Psellos seems happy that Konstantinos’ newborn is a boy, happier than if the baby were a girl. From his very first appearance, the boy is presented as having fulfilled one of the basic expectations imposed on him: to be a man. Like a Homeric soldier coming back from battle, Konstantinos’ son is already a man, a manly man. This expectation is made clear, as the system of gender pronounced here is driven, at least on a first reading, by the figure of the father and his manliness. Psellos seems to wish that the son, though an offspring of two parents, become like his father, especially in his soul. On a second reading, Psellos’ approach to gender appears less straightforward. In the middle of the paragraph, as an aside that would please also the mother of the child, Psellos suggests that, for him, it would not matter if the newborn were a girl. “What does it matter,” he asks “if the child has been stamped [diatypoun] in this way or that, more feminine [thˆelykˆoteron] or more masculine [arrenikˆoteron]?” A problem of translation arises here. How are we to render Psellos’ terms thˆelykˆoteron and arrenikˆoteron? Does Psellos refer to a biological difference, whether the child is of the male or female sex, or does he evoke what we might see as gender categories, socially determined patterns of behavior and character, whether, that is, the child is feminine or masculine? The usage of the comparative form of the two adjectives alludes to a possible gradation between a more and a less masculine or feminine child and thereby suggests that social gender is at stake here. Psellos’ usage, however, of the verb diatypoun, which literally means to give a material form through impression, indicates that biological rather than social fashioning might be the meaning he intends. What about the value which, at first glance, Psellos seems to invests in the gender/sex of the father? The last sentence, where he expresses the wish that the boy is “like his father,” is attested as reproduced above in 30

Among many examples, paradigmatic for Byzantine readers was the juxtaposition of a man excessively mourning and of a woman lamenting with restraint, of whom the former was presented as feminized, while the latter as masculine, in the popular fictionalized hagiography of Ps.-Nilos’ Narration. See chapters 1.4–9, 4.7–9, and 6.3–8, passages spoken in the first person and indebted to both Achilles Tatios (for over-emotional male characters) and Gregory of Nazianzos’ On the Maccabees and Their Mother = Or. 15 (for a female holy figure who restrains her emotions); for some discussion, see Caner 2010: 77–80.

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only one of the three manuscripts that contain this letter: Vatican, BAV, gr. 712 (ff. 70r–71v), a manuscript of the mid twelfth century. The other two surviving manuscripts, the late twelfth-century Paris, BNF, gr. 1182 (ff. 224v–225r) and the late thirteenth-century Vatican, BAV, Barberinianus gr. 240 (ff. 163v–164v), transmit “mhtrzon” instead of “patrzon.” In their version, the last sentence reads: “If he should also be like his mother, especially in respect to his soul but no less in respect to his body, then he may obtain perfection . . . ” In terms of the basic syntax and meaning, the alternative reading is equally, if not more, acceptable to the reading printed above. “Mhtrzon” is the lectio difficilior; it would be an unexpected mistake for a scribe to change the patrˆoizein, by far more common, with the rare mˆetrˆoizein.31 Moreover, the reading “like his mother” would fit both Psellos’ rhetoric in general and the rhetoric of this letter in particular. By such a statement, Psellos would be offering praise to the mother, the female figure that may lie behind Psellos’ double form of address “O earth and sun.” In any case, if we accept such a reading, it would seem that the ideal gender is not to be defined solely by the sex of the father, but is rather a combination of two sexes/genders, a combination that may reach “perfection” only as such. The flexible discursive economy of gender in this passage is consistent with Psellos’ writings in general. I write of “discursive” economy because gender categories and sexual difference interest us as linguistic categories, as “coded signs” or “symbol structures” operating within the realm of discourse, rather than as indexes of social practices.32 At a first reading, the economy of gender in Psellos’ writings seems governed by a consistent and traditional androcentric logic. According to this logic and in terms of cultural and social value, maleness and masculinity are placed over and above femaleness and femininity.33 Gender categories are thus often used by Psellos as essentialized qualities set in a clearly hierarchical frame: passivity and aesthetic materiality (identified with femininity) is posited as essentially inferior to activity and rational interiority (identified with hegemonic masculinity), a hierarchical arrangement that defines not simply the human species, but also the entire spectrum of existence.34 31 32 33 34

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae records only three instances of mˆetrˆoizein as opposed to sixty-two of patrˆoizein. Cf. Lloyd 1993: vii-xv (“symbol structures”) with Zeitlin 1996: 9 (“coded signs”). For the term see, e.g, Zeitlin 1996; cf. Bennett 1997. The most thorough discussion of Byzantine gender in Messis 2006a. E.g., Theol. i 103.96–8 (Christ’s “masculine” divinity; from Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 45.13); Theol. i 112.26–32 and To His Students, on the Ventriloquist = Theol. ii 37.74–83 (the gender of angels and

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This androcentric logic is also marked by a notable flexibility. To begin with, while reading Psellos, it is necessary to abandon our basic dichotomy between the categories of biological ‘sex’ and socially constructed ‘gender.’ Rather, a tripartite configuration of sexual difference emerges. At the most basic level, we encounter a distinction between the male body (imagined as dominated by hot and dry humors) and the female body (in which cold and moist humors prevail), a distinction determined by nature.35 At the next level is a distinction between a male soul and an imperfect female soul, whereby Psellos understands two things: certain psychic dispositions (the steadfastness and rationality of men and the proclivity of women toward pathos, receptivity, and expression of emotion) and a set of social roles and activities (such as spinning for women or gymnastics for men). Like the body, these dispositions and types of activity are also thought to be biologically and naturally predetermined.36 On a third level, we find a distinction between male and female psychic comportment which is not biologically determined, but willingly, habitually, and actively embraced; this is a distinction between manliness (andreia), defined as absolute resistance to emotion (a-patheia), and the unnamed inferior opposite of manliness, the complete submission to emotion.37 The boundaries between the three levels are rather vaguely defined. It is not clear where the body ends and the soul begins nor what exactly separates natural determinism from human agency.38 It is similarly unclear what marks the boundaries between the two sexes at each level. For instance, in terms of its physiology and when abstracted from its human variety, only one body seems to exist: the perfect male body, which, through a series of biological processes at the moment of conception, may be

35

36

37

38

demons respectively); Various Necessary Collected Passages = Phil. min. i 55.82–5 (the “femininity” of the moon); On the Psalms, Their Inscriptions, Etc. to the Emperor Kyr Michael Doukas = Theol. ii 1.31–46 (the gender of musical instruments); Volk 1990: 140 note 53 (colors); O’Meara 1989: 74 and 224 (numbers). For the background of these views, see, e.g., Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 45.13 with Proklos, Commentary on the Cratylus 149.25–26 or Platonic Theology 4.112.17–18 and Ioannes Philoponos, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 16.189. Cf. Concise Answers to Various Questions 110 (How Different Types of Conception Occur), 111 (How Male and Female Are Born), 114 (How Do Children Become Similar and Dissimilar to Their Parents). Cf. Theol. i 15.45–51 with On How Some Become Intelligent and Others Stupid = Phil. min. ii 19. See also K-D 201 to the prˆotoasˆekrˆetis, and G 13 to Ioannes Doukas (for examples of female behavior); K-D 9, untitled (different activities determined by “nature”). For Psellos’ Neoplatonic definition of manliness, see On Virtues = Phil. min. ii 32 (on Synesios’ Letter 140 to Herkoulianos), esp. pp. 110.32 and 111.4–5: “ˆndre©a d• ˆp†qeia . . . ¡ d• ˆndre©a ¡ taut»thv kaª t¼ –f’ —autoÓ m”nein kaqar¼n di‡ dun†mewv perious©an”; cf. Porphyrios, Sentences 32. Cf. Ioannes Italos’ Questions and Answers 81 (a passage influenced by Psellos). E.g., On How Some Become Intelligent and Others Stupid = Phil. min. ii 19 (92.30–2) with Concise Answers to Various Questions 114.4–5.

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altered into the imperfect female body.39 The same applies to the naturally fashioned psychic traits of a man or a woman. Feminine traits are regarded as being, by nature, part and parcel of the make-up of any human soul, regardless of sexual difference. The faculty of sense-perception, specifically, deemed irrational and therefore most susceptible to affects, is said to be “feminine/female [thˆelys]” as opposed to the “masculine/male [arrˆen],” mind, considered the “highest rational and cognitive part of the soul.”40 Following a long tradition, Psellos postulates female aisthˆesis as an “internal e´migr´e of masculine identity,” in Jack Winkler’s felicitous phrase.41 Much of this stems from tradition. “The two genders,” as has been poignantly noted for ancient Greek culture, were “conceived as opposite ends of a much-traveled continuum.”42 Where Psellos begins to innovate is how willing he is to activate, as much as possible, the flexibility of gender and sexual difference. There are, for instance, cases in Psellos where a person defined as male by his body may be presented as “naturally” inclined toward female character features. One such example had the honor of becoming the subject of one of Psellos’ lectures, which, in the late twelfth-century Paris gr. 1182, is titled On How Some Become Intelligent and Others Stupid (Phil. min. ii 19).43 An apparently mentally challenged young boy by the name of Eudokimos (likely a euphemistic name: “the one of ‘good’ repute”) is presented to the students of Psellos as a case study of why embodied souls exhibit such a wide variety of types. Eudokimos’ gender is raised in one of Psellos’ arguments. Eudokimos, we read, “hates men’s quarters and gymnasia, hunting grounds or places where the youth gather. He does not want to play with others at either ball or dice; he cannot stand the manly 39

40 41

42

43

See Further Answers to Questions about Natural Matters, to His Own Students and Others Who Asked = Phil. min. i 16.84 ff.: í Oti oÉdem©a diafor‡ to±v toÓ qžleov kaª toÓ Šrrenov gennhtiko±v mor©oiv –st©, kaª Âti di’ ›lleiyin qerm»thtov t¼ qlu –n t mžtr g©netai. For this so-called “one-sex” model, see Laqueur 1990 with the revisions by Cadden 1993; Flemming 2000 (esp. pp. 119–22 and 357–8); Messis 2006a: 168–9. Cf. Theol. i 70.82–5 (on Greg. Naz., Or. 40.36); Theol. ii 9.30–5 (on Gen. 2.9); Selention Proclaimed During the Reign of Queen Kyra Theodora = Or. min. 1.23–9. See Winkler 1990: 46; cf. Foucault 1992: 67–9; Gill 2006: 205–322 (the Platonic tradition); Williams 1993 (the patristic tradition). Some random examples from the latter: Philo, De specialibus legibus 1.201–2; Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Mosis 2.2; Maximos the Confessor, Questions and Answers 57. See Halperin 2002: 33; cf. Winkler 1990: 45–6: “the two sexes are not simply opposite but stand at poles of a continuum which can be traversed.” For an influential example of a philosophical configuration of the gender continuum where submission to pathˆemata defines the fall into female nature, see the creation narrative put forward in Plato’s Timaeus (42a1-d2; cf. 90d7–92c3); cf. Cadden 1993: 13–15 and 189. On this text, see O’Meara 1998: 437–8.

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smell of dry sweat.44 What he likes are the web, the loom, and anything to do with wool-spinning. He spends his time in the women’s quarters; he wants to turn the spindle, he wants to ply the loom. When he needs to turn to play . . . he fashions dolls, idols and likenesses, he sets up a bridal chamber; he introduces a groom and has a bride lie next to him; he then stuffs the doll of the bride with some kind of rubbish and thinks that she is pregnant . . . When he needs to find pleasure in singing, he does not sing the tragic song of alliances, battles, and trophies of ancient men, but sings like the girls . . . about how they are filled with erˆos” (93.9–24). Contradictory as it may sound, his nature is such that though a boy he pursues a conduct characteristic of girls.45 More remarkable in this respect is Psellos’ presentation of the Roman emperor Avitus, the son of Antoninus, in the Concise History (chapter 39). Avitus, we read, was a “most lawless and most licentious man, outright female in both body and soul, being both (to say it discreetly) active and passive = paranomÛtatov kaª ˆselg”statov Šnqrwpov, qluv Šntikruv kaª t¼ säma kaª tŸn yucžn, kaª t‡ m•n poiän, t‡ d• p†scwn, ¯n’ –pikalÅyav –rä.”46 Avitus is defamed here for being drawn to samesex desire. This is regarded by Psellos as a “female” behavior which – and this is significant – is posited not simply as a matter of manners (Avitus’ “activity” and “passivity”), but also as a kind of biological and psychological constitution, a constitution of “both body and soul,” which ultimately negates his masculinity entirely.47 If we turn from philosophical to rhetorical discourse, the grammar of gender becomes even more protean. Following a common Byzantine rhetorical motif, Psellos often praises women who, though female in body, display a virtue typical of men. In their willingness to endure and surpass human passions, women can become masculine, sometimes more masculine than men.48 Psellos extends this traditional rhetoric in order to extol 44

45 46

47

48

Cf. Plato, Phaedrus 239c3-d7 on the characteristics of the effeminate beloved; see further Hermeias (Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus 57.28–32) who juxtaposes the sweat of the gymnasium with the “wet sweat” of bathing and drinking. As Psellos claims (93.8–9), Eudokimos “has been separated from everything manly [andrˆodes] and courageous” and “everything in him is fluid and female [thˆelys].” Psellos’ passage differs here from the description offered in Dio Cassius as this survives in the late eleventh-century epitome by Xiphilinos: “kaª g‡r  ndr©zeto kaª –qhlÅneto kaª ›pratte kaª ›pascen —k†tera ˆselg”stata” (348.10–11); the story of Avitus (or, as he is also known, Sardanapalos) is also in Ioannes Zonaras – for a discussion: Karpozilos 2009: 490–500. This case should be added to the rather few examples where such a sexual subjectivity is posited in premodern Greek writing. On (homo-)sexuality as a modern category, see Laiou 1992: 67–89 (esp. p. 75) with Foucault 1990–2; Halperin 1990a and 2002 (esp. pp. 26–32). E.g., Iambic Verses on the Death of [Maria] Skleraina = Poem 17.32–36 (Maria Skleraina) and Encomium for His Mother 400–24 (Theodote). For the topos, cf. Papaconstantinou 2004; as has

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women who display masculinity not simply in their moral virtue, but also in their capacity to govern or in their manner of speech.49 More generally, Psellos, as in the letter to Konstantinos, places emphasis upon the mixture, rather than the hierarchy, of the two sexes/genders – an approach also evident in his treatment of other couplets such as philosophy and rhetoric, or inner and outer self. For instance, he praises the combination of a male body with the distinctly female trait of physical beauty, dwelling, as we saw in the previous chapter, upon the attractive appearance of men.50 Similarly, the value of andreia is far from self-evident in Psellos, who stresses the combination of virtues and uses the word as well as concept of andreia rarely and rather ambiguously.51 This interest in mixture, along with the endemic instability of the grammar of gender, provided the grounds for the negotiation of sexual difference also at the level of self-representation. While in philosophical theory and some rhetorical writing, Psellos retains much of the Byzantine androcentrism, in talking about himself he insists on his affects, places pathos at the center of his sense of self, and, more significantly, admits openly to certain addressees that his emotionally hyperactive character is gendered feminine. In the letter to Konstantinos, this admission is made somewhat hesitantly: “if this,” he writes, “pertains to a feminine soul, I do not really know; at all events, my character has been stamped in this way all along . . . ” Psellos is more affirmative about his novel gender on two other occasions. In letter S 180, addressed to an anonymous friend, the judge (kritˆes) of the administrative theme of Philadelphia in Asia Minor, Psellos recalls with gentle nostalgia his early career in that same city, where as a youth he had served under a previous judge.52 “Now,” he adds, “that they saw me in deep old age, they recognized me without doubt and started telling me stories

49 50

51

52

been rightly remarked, this idealization of women on the grounds of their “manly” qualities is predicated upon the erasure of “female” nature: Galatariotou 1985: 68; Beaucamp 1992: 280. Cf. Harvey 1990; Bynum 1991; Castelli 1991 and 1998; Clark 1998. See Chron. 6b.2–6 (Theodora’s ability to rule) with Charikleia and Leukippe 37–42 and Euripides or Pisides? 93–8 (female characters presented as rhetorically able, beyond their gender). See pp. 155–8 above with also Chron. 6.15–16 (casual remarks on Monomachos’ exceptional beauty) and then more fully 125–126; see also the discussion in Messis 2006a: 371–376 with Hatzaki 2009: 9, 29–30, and 52–56. That bodily beauty is an expected female virtue, see Messis 2006a: 363 ff.; cf. Hill 1996; Jeffreys 2004. Cf., e.g., Psellos’ treatment of Basil II’s manliness in Chron. 1.32 (the “adamantine” Basil II) with 35–6 (his “manly” appearance, but lack of discursive ability); cf. Papamastorakis 2003; Messis 2006a: 250–251. On the importance of andreia in texts contemporary to Psellos, see, e.g., Attaleiates, History 41–3, 63–5, and 232–4; cf. Markopoulos 2003 and 2004c with Kazhdan and Wharton Epstein 1985: 110–116 and Papamastorakis 1998. Weiss 1973: 20 ff.

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about my first and second trip there and treated me as their own, in the most brotherly fashion (as true citizens of Phil-adelphia!).” He continues (459.25–460.5): *llov Šll» t© mou m”rov katafiloÓntev kaª xÅmpantev to±v –mo±v posª prosknuz»menoi, kaª prosmeidiäntev ¡dÆ kaª qaum†zontev, Âti moi ˆntª tv Ëpox†nqou pot• tric»v, Ëpargur©zousa ˆkribäv –geg»nei ¡ kefalž, mikroÓ de±n e«v d†kru† me katžgagoná –peidŸ kaª toioÓtov –gÜ tŸn yucžn, qluv ˆtecnäv kaª eÉsump†qhtov. One after another, they kissed me all over, rubbed themselves against my feet, smiled pleasant smiles, and wondered how, instead of the blond hair of my youth, my head has turned silver. They almost brought me to tears. For my soul is indeed simply feminine [thˆelys] and easily moved toward compassion.

Closer to the theme of the letter to Konstantinos is another letter addressed to Ioannes Doukas to whom, with great pride, Psellos recounts the birth of his own grandson by his adoptive daughter Euphemia (S 72; 307.13–308.17; date: most likely 1063–5?53 ): SÅgcair” moi, m”giste ka±sar, mllon d• ca±re prohgoum”nwv, Yell¼v g†r soi ™terov, –moª t prwtotÅp ˆnq†mmilová oÌtw g†r me pe©qousi l”gein a¬ perª tŸn lecä, yeud»menai m•n ­swv, ˆll‡ kat‡ t¼ –m¼n fqegg»menai boÅlhma. r’ oÔn –kart”rhsa kaª aÉt©ka «de±n t¼ brefÅllion; oÎ, m‡ tŸn ¬er†n sou kefalžná ˆll‡ kaª sunhgkalis†mhn kaª katef©lhsa, kaª t‡ ce©lh mikroÓ de±n kaqm†twsa, ãsper –k pol”mou ˆrist”a periptux†menov pefoinigm”non t a¯mati. ï Edei me g‡r filosof©an –paggel»menon mŸ d’ aÉt¼ toÓto e«d”nai, t© nhdÅv, t© t»kov, t© paid©on neogil»n, ˆll‡ m»nhv tv crusv seirv –xhrtsqai toÓ oÉranoÓ. ˆll’ –gÜ pr¼v m•n t‡v maqžseiv ˆrrenwp»terov ­swv di†keimai, pr¼v d• tŸn fÅsin qlÅv e«miá Þv goÓn ¢rxat» moi Ýd©nein t¼ qugatr©dion kaª m” tiv –x”plhxen e«pÜn Þv drime±ai Þd±nev pr¼v t¼n t»kon –pe©gousi, mikroÓ de±n aÉt©ka –x”qanoná perie©litton goÓn t¼n koitwn©skon –n Ýd©nousa ›tuce, kaª tän –ke©nhv –xekremannÅmhn fwnäná ¾moÓ d• t¼ br”fov tv mhtrikv nhdÅov –x”qore, kˆgÜ –pilelžsmhn tän ½dunäná oÉ g‡r SkÅqhv e«mª tŸn yucžn, oÉd’ ˆp¼ dru»v £ p”trav geg”nhmai, ˆll‡ fÅseÛv e«mi tv ‰palv bl†sthma, kaª to±v fusiko±v p†qesi malqak©zomai. 53

De Vries-van der Velden 1996; Volk 1990: 328 proposes 1072–3 while Kaldellis 2006a: 159–60 suggests “perhaps 1066” as the date of the birth of Psellos’ grandson. Psellos also addressed a speech to this new-born grand-child; see To His Grandson When He Was Still an Infant = Or. min. 38 with Kaldellis 2006a: 157–65.

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Self-representation SÆ d• ¾ toioÓtov, ¾ –mbriqŸv tŸn yucžn, ¾ t¼n noÓn staqhr»v, Þv d’ –gÛ tinov tän perª s• ¢kousa, Âti kaª e«v ¾lofÅrseiv –kp”ptwkav dustokoÅshv tv nÅmfhv sou. ˆll’ –gÜ ¢lghsa m•n peripaqäv, oÉk –d†krusa d”á filosofÛterov oÔn e«mi soÓ tosoÓton Âson mŸ ˆpoql©yai d†kruon, stenwqe©shv moi tv yucv. %ll‡ toÅtwn m•n Œliv, sÆ d• sk”yaio päv ‹n t¼ ˆpotoÓde dusªn ˆrk”seiv Yello±v. gr†mma d• perª toÅtou kaª pr¼v t¼n aÉtokr†tora p”pomfaá e« m•n oÔn periss»n, mŸ doqe©h, e« d’ oÔn, gen”sqw kat‡ tŸn sŸn di†taxin. Rejoice with me, greatest kaisar. Rather, lead the joy, for another Psellos, rivaling me, his prototype, is born for you. This is what I am persuaded to say by those surrounding the mother – they are perhaps lying yet they speak words that are according to my wish. Indeed, did I even wait to see the newborn baby? No, O sacred one. I both embraced him and filled him with kisses and I almost stained my lips with blood, as if I had clasped a brave warrior, red with blood, returning from battle. As I profess philosophy, I should not be acquainted precisely with these things: what is the womb, what are birth or a newborn child; I should, rather, be attached only to the “golden chain” of heaven.54 I do have, with regard to learning, perhaps a more masculine disposition, yet with regard to nature I am feminine [thˆelys]. When my little daughter began her labor pains and I was caught off guard by the news that fierce pains rendered the labor imminent, I all but died on the spot. I was spinning and circling the bedchamber where she was in labor, and I was hanging upon her every cry, but as soon as the infant emerged from the maternal womb, I forgot the travails.55 For I am not a Scythian in my soul, neither was I born “of oak nor of stone,”56 but I am by nature [physis] a delicate shoot and I am softened [malthakizomai] with respect to natural emotions [pathˆe]. You, the great one, weighty in soul, stable in mind, when your bride was having a difficult labor (as I have heard from one of your people), you fell even into laments. By contrast, I suffered deeply and passionately, yet I did not cry. Thus, I am at least more philosophical than you inasmuch as I do not shed a tear when my soul is in hardship. But enough about these things. You should now think of how you might match two Pselloi. I have sent a letter about this to the emperor as well.57

54 55 56 57

Cf. Iliad 8.18 ff. with Psellos, On the Golden Chain in Homer = Phil. min. i 46. Cf. John 16.21. Iliad 22.126 with Iliad 16.34–5, Odyssey 19.163, and Plato, Apology 34d. Cf. also Psellos, Or. hag. 1A.76–7 with Job 10.11. If the letter dates to the 1060s then this emperor is Konstantinos X Doukas (1059–67), Ioannes’ brother; if it dates to the 1070s (as Volk has suggested), then the emperor must be Michael Doukas (1071–8), Ioannes’ nephew and Psellos’ student.

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If it is superfluous, let it not be delivered, if not, let things be according to your ordinance.

As with Konstantinos’ son, the arrival of a “new Psellos” offers an opportunity for self-representation. Psellos focuses on his own reactions at the birth-scene, his desire for a grandson, his emotional turmoil and “softening” (the latter being a unique first-person statement in premodern Greek writing58 ). As Psellos confesses, he is an impatient relative; indeed he is a father-figure, the “prototype” (the actual father of the newborn is not mentioned). The rhetoric of the letter indicates that Psellos is also a mother-figure: once the birth is over, he is the one to forget the travails, like the mother in the well-known Gospel parable (John 16.21). Ultimately, he is also similar to the infant, given that he is – as we expect a newborn to be – “by nature a delicate shoot.”59 Granted, by the end of the letter, Psellos restores some of his status by playfully transferring his qualities to Doukas. Compared to him, Psellos claims to be more philosophical and thus manlier. Nevertheless, this playful juxtaposition only serves to underline Psellos’ uniqueness. Doukas is portrayed as a man in terms of his natural disposition (“weighty in soul, stable in mind”), a man who temporarily becomes effeminate. By contrast, Psellos, though able to adopt philosophical manliness when necessary, is declared to be feminine by nature. femininity and pathos in the first person Psellos’ identification with femininity in relation to pathos is exceptional when viewed from the perspective of the ritualized first-person rhetoric of pathos delineated above. The traditional anxiety toward excessive expression of emotion by male speakers/authors masked a fear of feminization, just as the insistence on ethos and the inner self, discussed in the previous chapter, reinforced self-projected images of masculinity. Emotion could indeed be expressed in certain discursive and social contexts. But such expression could be presented by a male author only as 58

59

The only other instance where “to be softened” is used in the first person is by Socrates in Plato’s Republic (457e-458b). In Jack Winkler’s words (1990: 52): “in the face of a very difficult argument,” Socrates says that he wishes “to relax, to fantasize a bit about his desires as men do when they’re on holiday or walk alone,” thus uttering the “most unspeakable of any man, namely, softness (malthakia).” According to the Suda, the “correct” Attic word for male weakness should be “ˆsqene±n” and not “malak©zesqai,” appropriate for women (mu.90). Cf. To His Grandson When He Was Still an Infant = Or. min. 38.57–64, where the same expression is applied to Psellos’ grandson.

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a temporary matter and never as either long-lasting effeminacy or as the result of one’s “female/feminine” nature. For instance, as soon as Gregory speaks of his weakness in describing his friend’s death in the Funeral Oration for Basil, he immediately backtracks. Rather than surrender to lament, Gregory prefers to present Basil as an exemplar of moral virtue: “I do not mix lamentations with praises,” he writes, “but I paint through discourse the conduct of the man and I present him before time as a common exemplar of virtue and as a salvific public proclamation” (Or. 43.80). More generally, while some of the expressions of passivity uttered in Byzantine epistolary or funerary writing could be semantically connected with femininity, virtually no Byzantine writer identifies his own affects as feminine. While the verb “to become female-like” is often employed for the purposes of defamation in Byzantine writing, it is rarely spoken in the first person – a habit that applies to the entire premodern Greek textual tradition beside a few instances in Greek tragedy that confirm the general rule.60 Two exceptional instances from early Byzantine epistolography exemplify this hesitation about identification with femininity in rhetorical contexts and are important for Psellos. Both are to be found within the letter collection of Synesios of Kyrene, whose discourse forms the background to Psellos’ gendered epistolary self. Here is a segment from a letter which recounts Synesios’ reaction to the pleasure of reading (To Herkoulianos, dated possibly to 399; Letter 146.1–24): ìEpiqumžsav ˆrrenäsai tŸn ¬er†n sou yucŸn t di’ –pistolän –piplxai t sfodr tv e«v tŸn suntuc©an ¡män sust†sewv,61 poll pr»teron Ëp¼ toÓ kataklusmoÓ tän –n ta±v –pistola±v «Åggwn aÉt¼v –qhlÅnqhn, kaª e«mª nÓn toioÓtov o¯ soi tugc†nonti pr»teron –nek†loun. r’ oÔn ˆgaqän moi meg†lwn a­tiov ¾ qaum†siov ëErkoulian»v, oÌtw tŸn –mŸn yucŸn ˆnartžsav —autoÓ kaª katabib†sav toÓ filosof©av ˆxiÛmatov . . . t© oÔn ˆpod”ousin e²nai Seirnev a¬ tän sän –pistolän ¡dona©, Ëf’ æn –gÜ t¼ –mbriq•v ˆfeªv Âlov ëErkoulianoÓ g”gona; m†rtuv qe»v, oÉ n»m toÓ gr†fein ˆnt’ Šllou toÆv 60

61

The expression appears in the first person in Sophocles’ Ajax, 650–2 and Trachiniae, 1070–7. The ancient and medieval scholia comment on the “–qhlÅnqhn” in Ajax as follows: “–qhlÅnqhná –caunÛqhn, –malak©sqhn, ¡palÅnqhn, ¡merÛqhn”; ed. Christodoulou 1977: 310; see also Suda epsilon.323 and pi.1281. For the special context of male effeminacy in Greek tragedy: Loraux 1990; Rabinowitz 1992; Zeitlin 1996 (esp. 350–1); Gill 1996: 204–16; Hawley 1998; Wohl 1998; McClure 1999. I opt here for the reading of most MSS (with the exception of Milan, Ambrosianus 482, fourteenth century, and Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 55.8, fifteenth century, that transmit “eÉst†sewv” and “st†sewv” respectively) as opposed to Garzya who edits “–nst†sewv,” following Hercher 1873: 729 and Morell 1605.

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perª toÅtou pepo©hmai l»gouv, ¯n’ Ëp»qesin ›cw gramm†twn, ˆll‡ tän . . . –pistolän (§san d• tre±v) ¡ m”sh kat‡ t¼ m”geqov ›mbi»n ti yucv p†qov –n”stax” moi kom©sasa, kaª g”gona tv –n to±v gr†mmasi kolake©av ¤ttwn tosoÓton Âson a«scÅnesqai. I desired to render your sacred soul masculine by rebuking – with letters – your vehement recommendation that we meet. Before I even started, however, I myself became feminine beneath the deluge of the spells your letters wove. I am now the kind of man that earlier I was accusing you of being. So, does the admirable Herkoulianos benefit me greatly by attaching my soul to his soul and by bringing me down from the rank of philosophy . . . In what do the pleasures of your letters differ from Sirens, pleasures which made me abandon solemnity and become entirely possessed by Herkoulianos? God is my witness, I did not make this reference [to the Sirens as pleasures] following the convention of allegorical speech just for the sake of having a topic for epistolary writing, but indeed of the three letters . . . , the one, medium in length, instilled in me an enlivened suffering [pathos] of the soul. I was defeated by your flattery in the letters, so much so that I felt ashamed.

Several years later, around 412, Synesios wrote about a different pathos (To Anastasios; Letter 79.100–8): –peidž moi sun”pesen ˆpobale±n tän paid©wn t¼ f©ltaton, k‹n –xžgagon –maut¼n katakrathqeªv Ëp¼ toÓ p†qouv (o²sqa g‡r Âti qlÅv e«mi perª toÓto p”ra toÓ d”ontov), nÓn d• oÉ logism toÓ p†qouv –kr†thsa, ˆll’ %ndr»nikov ˆntiperižgage kaª pr¼v ta±v koina±v sumfora±v t¼n noÓn ›cein –po©hse· kaª geg»nas© moi sumforaª paramuq©ai tän sumforän, pr¼v —aut‡v ˆnq”lkousai kaª p†qei p†qov –kkroÅousai, ½rgŸ summigŸv lÅp tŸn –pª t paid© lÅphn. . . . when it befell me to lose the dearest of my children, I almost ended my own life, overwhelmed by the suffering [pathos] (as you know, I am feminine in this regard more than is proper). This time, I did not master the suffering [pathos] by reasoning. Rather, Andronikos brought me to my senses and made me fix my mind on the public misfortunes. Misfortunes became, for me, consolations for misfortunes, drawing me toward them and pushing away suffering [pathos] through suffering [pathos], and anger mingled with sadness pushed away my sadness for my child.

Synesios’ expression of both pleasure and pain in the context of letterwriting is not remarkable as such. Not only was this expression allowed by epistolary convention, but also served well Synesios’ own expansive public persona as a moderate philosopher.62 Still, the statements 62

In his Dion, another model text for Psellos, Synesios distanced himself from contemporary strict asceticism; to the unattainable apatheia of “adamantine” ascetics, Synesios advocated a measured

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in these two letters are important in that Synesios, like Psellos, seems to ascribe to himself the position of the opposite gender and thus to articulate an assumption that remains unspoken elsewhere in Byzantine rhetoric. But what is the extent of this self-ascribed femininity? Synesios begins his letter to Herkoulianos by expressing his original desire to make a man of his friend. The desire is then temporarily suspended as Herkoulianos’ praises, like “Sirens,” have affected Synesios himself who poses as Odysseus, tempted by exterior pleasures – the customary reading of the “Sirens” in Neoplatonic hermeneutics.63 Then, Synesios begins backpedaling. “You have forgotten,” he writes, “that I attempt to philosophize and consider every honor a small thing, unless it happens for the sake of philosophy.” An admonition for Herkoulianos follows: he must “vigorously . . . practice philosophy in a most unpretentious fashion.” The letter ends with an inquiry as to the origin of the figurative “drug [pharmakon]” which Herkoulianos applied to his letters. “Who gave you,” Synesios asks, “this malign thing?” In the Homeric precedent that Synesios evokes (Odyssey 4.228), a woman, Helen, was the origin of insidious pleasures. By the end of the letter, that is, femininity is attributed neither to the author nor to his male addressee but to an implied dangerous third other, set at a safe distance from these two “philosophers” and their masculinity (andreia).64 Synesios’ letter to Herkoulianos is thus typical of late antique “philosophical” self-representation in which some space is accorded to “non-passionate passions,” such as the de-sexualized and spiritualized desire among learned friends or, as Christian rhetors will insist, the desire for and union with

63

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suppression of affects, what he called metriopatheia (Garzya 1992), a notion that earlier Gregory of Nazianzos and later Psellos also embraced. Synesios, Dion 6–10 (esp. 6.7) with Letter 140; cf. Gregory, Letter 165; Psellos, Concise Answers to Various Questions 70; On Virtues (on Synesios’ Letter 140 to Herkoulianos) = Phil. min. ii 32 (111.13–15); Theol. i 30.56 (on Klimax 27); see also Psellos’ recurrent appreciation of the “civic” virtue of compassion, what he calls (using earlier terminology) koinopathes kai philanthrˆopon – Papaioannou 1998: 115–16 with Dionysios of Halikarnassos, Roman Antiquities 1.41.1. See Roques in Garzya and Roques 2003: iii 412. On Odysseus as an exemplar of masculinity see Synesios, Encomium of Baldness, 2; on the Odyssey in general as a thematization of the gradual rediscovery of proper manhood, see Goldhill 1986: 148–9. Apart from this letter, Synesios sent to Herkoulianos, a former fellow student in Alexandria, nine letters (Letter 146 is the last in the series) whose topic is precisely the achievement of “philosophy,” defined, among other things, as masculinity (andreia): Letters 137–47; Roques 1989: 88–103; Cameron and Long 1993: 86–91; Schmitt 2001: 497–563. Letter 140 is discussed in Psellos, On Virtues = Phil. min. ii 32. On the primacy of masculinity and the negation of pathos, see also Synesios, Letters 5, 12, 43, 45, 56, 66, 143. For a reading of Homer in Synesios’ Letter 146: Pizzone 2006: 23–53. For a different reading of Synesios’ rhetorical gender with a focus on Synesios’ Dion: Harich-Schwarzbauer 2002.

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the Divine. Both discourses are present, as we saw, in Gregory of Nazianzos and were imitated many times by Byzantine writers.65 In these texts, as ultimately in Synesios as well, pathos is a temporary digression or an elevated desensualized affair that reaffirms the “philosophical” masculinity of the author. Similarly careful is the assumption of femininity in Synesios’ letter to Anastasios. Here, Synesios’ expression seems to carry more weight. Faced with the death of his own child, he acknowledges that he “is feminine” when coping with sorrow. Set in the context of Synesios’ epistolary rhetoric, however, the statement echoes a different meaning. The topic of letter 79 is not Synesios’ weakness, but rather a rebuke of the local governor of Pentapolis, Andronikos, a man of “murderous will [gnˆomˆe] as well as tongue [glˆotta]” (2–5), whom Synesios (by this time bishop of Ptolemais) had to confront. What is at stake is again gendered subjectivity. Andronikos dissembles masculinity, giving only the impression of a “noble man” (29–30); in reality, his “manliness without reason” turns out to be “cowardice and temerity, always a perversion” (46–9). Synesios’ self-portrait is meant to contrast to this warped manliness. Indeed, Synesios may be “weaker . . . in terms of human affairs” (94–7) and “feminine” with regard to private suffering. Nevertheless, he can quickly overcome his pathos; not by “reason,” but by the public suffering caused by an evil-doer. This is an ingenious switch of registers in the semantics of pathos: overcoming private sorrow through public pathos renders Synesios a martyrlike, masculine figure.66 Here, Synesios evokes a meaning that pathos had acquired by the end of the fourth century and that legitimized the term as a safely masculine quality. While pathos as submission to emotion was usually viewed in a negative light in classical philosophical discourse and rhetorical practice, pathos as patience and endurance of suffering, primarily for the sake of a higher moral cause, came to be regarded as a positive, 65

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Gregory projects his desire (pothos) for Basil, as we also saw above, as the most just passion (pathos) which it would be damaging “not to suffer [pathein]” (Or. 43.19); for this discourse of friendship, see Papaioannou 2011a (where further bibliography). Gregory also presents divine contemplation as his “excusable passion” (Or. 2.7; cf. 28.12 and 21); cf. Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum 23.8 ff. and 27.7 ff. (divine erˆos as a “non-passionate passion.”) and, for an earlier example, Philo, De Migratione Abrahami 34–36 with Papaioannou 2006b: 77–78. In the early eleventh century, this discourse found its most eloquent representatives in the autobiographical writings of Symeon the New Theologian (e.g., in the fourth Ethical Discourse) and in Symeon’s biography by Psellos’ contemporary Niketas Stethatos, a student of Symeon and editor of his works (Life and Conduct of our Holy Father Symeon the New Theologian 81 and 90; the text dates to after 1054). The emphasis on masculinity in Synesios is confirmed by his Against Andronikos, to the Bishops (Letter 41) which expands letter 79: Synesios offers a detailed sketch of Andronikos and an elaborate selfportrait; at its middle (41.194–205), he repeats almost verbatim his acknowledgement of temporary weakness, removing however any explicit mention of femininity.

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masculine virtue. It is in the context of such semantics that the detailed description of bodily illness could become an acceptable and, occasionally, central part of the making of an author’s sense of self; Ailios Aristeides’ Sacred Tales and their meticulous description of the suffering self stand out here.67 More important for Byzantine writers was another aspect of this same masculinization of pathos: the glorification of Christ’s passion, imitated by the bodily suffering of martyrs and the spiritual suffering of ascetics.68 This discourse of passion as martyrdom is a defining aspect of Byzantine Christian textual and visual rhetoric. As such, it inevitably entered selfrepresentation as well. The self that endures amid sufferings is, for instance, the most notable and, in the view of Byzantine readers, most ennobling persona of Gregory of Nazianzos; many Byzantine writers, such as Photios, followed suit.69 It is the discourse that Synesios too evokes. This is not Psellos’ pathos, however. In his self-representation, masculinized pathos is absent. He does not ascribe to himself the spiritualized pathos of divine contemplation, the “passionless passion” of the ascetics, a notion with which he finds himself in competition. Nor does he spiritualize and desensualize the male bonding of philia, a central theme in his letters.70 When projecting himself as highly sensitive to pain, he never resorts to the discourse of manly patience of earlier rhetors such as Ailios Aristeides. Similarly, Psellos does not turn to the ubiquitous Byzantine textual identity of being a victim of unjustified violence who can display martyr-like endurance, even if the discourse of self-ennobling masculinity could have been useful to Psellos too who often found himself on the defensive. After all, this was a language that he knew well and applied to others – for instance, in Letters S 105 to the bestarchˆes Ioannes Bourtzes when his brother died, and S 123 to Konstantinos Ierakes when he was in exile. For Psellos himself, pathos is instead adopted for what it is. “Let no one,” he writes, “on account of his philosophical profession, deny me the 67

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Ailios’ descriptions ultimately authenticated the rhetor’s unwavering endurance as well as his connection with the divinity that consistently cured him of his illnesses. For discussions of the Sacred Tales : Miller 1994: 184–204; Perkins 1995: 173–99. Perkins 1995 and Shaw 1996 (though I am somewhat skeptical regarding the transgression of gender hierarchies implied by these studies). Further: Bowersock 1994: 55–76; Konstan 2001. For a similar evolution in the vocabulary of passio in the Latin West: Auerbach 1967 and 1993: 54–63. An important discussion: Messis 2006b. For Gregory of Nazianzos, see pp. 137–8 above with Elm 2009; Gregory’s Letter 202 pursues rhetoric similar to Synesios’ (Gregory forgets his own “sufferings [pathˆe]” for the sake of the community). Photios: e.g., Letters 9, 102, or 105; cf. also Alexandros of Nikaia, Letters 1, 3, and 5. Papaioannou 2011a.

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term pathos = mŸ g†r moi tiv ˆpoprospoižtw t¼ toÓ p†qouv Ànoma fil»sofov ßn” (On the “Be Shrewd as Serpents and Innocent as Doves” [Matthew 10.16]) = Theol. ii 16.23–4). Pathos is for his discursive persona a condition of unambiguous passivity and, what is virtually unprecedented, a trait of female nature: “with regard to nature,” he claims, “I am feminine [thˆelys].” He does not simply express his emotions. Nor, as it were, does he merely confess the excessively emotional sides of his personality. Rather, he identifies female affects with his unique “nature” and “ethos,” notions that he consistently evokes whenever he displays emotion.71 What is otherwise marginal or supplementary is raised, for an exclusive audience, into a fundamental feature of the author’s persona. object of desire Psellos’ willingness to place his feminine side at the heart of his discursive identity corresponds to the way he treats another norm in the Byzantine grammar of gender related to pathos. This norm pertained to the creation of emotion in others, an effect associated particularly with the female body and speech. Take the beginning of an oration written by Psellos to be performed by the empress Theodora (sole empress: 1055–6): “O assembly, sacred to me, gathered by God,” Psellos writes, “the queen of virtues has arrived along with the queen of seasons both as is usual and as God has arranged it. Do not be amazed that I will speak words somewhat superior and indeed loftier than the nature of a woman [kre±tt»n ti tv toÓ qžleov fÅsewv kaª Ëyhl»teron]. As you know, I blossomed from royal blood and I have exceedingly loved the voices of divine Scriptures rather than the royal purple itself. I have joined the glamour of pearls with the uprightness of ecclesiastical laws and combined spiritual will and advice with kingly dress and adornment . . . Therefore, lend me your ear for a short while” (Selention Proclaimed during the Reign of Queen Kyra Theodora = Or. min. 1.1–11). 71

S 1 (221.8–9), 84 (324.2–6), and 186 (472.17–26) to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios; S 7 to the prˆotosynkellos Leon Paraspondylos (232.25–233.5); S 58 to Michael Keroularios (290.6); S 177 to the prˆotovestiarios (455.25–8); K-D 54 to Ioannes Mauropous (86.20–3); K-D 70 to Maleses, kritˆes of Katotika (103.20–2); K-D 137 to the kritˆes of Aigaion (163.16–17); K-D 160, untitled (187.7–16); K-D 201 to the prˆotoasˆekrˆetis (230.2–6); K-D 232 to Ioannes Doukas (280.25–281.5); To those who begrudge him the honorary title of hypertimos = Or. min. 9.7–9; Encomium for His Mother 955–9; On the Psalms, Their Inscriptions, Etc. to the Emperor Kyr Michael Doukas = Theol. ii 1.17–21; in the last passage, Psellos notably evokes Socrates’ pathetic moment in the Phaedrus (238c5-d7, cf. pp. 176–8 and 193 above) yet he attributes it to his own physis and hexis.

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A woman speaks in public in her own voice, in a discursive situation marked as special by the male author. Theodora must begin by acknowledging that lofty speech, worthy of the topic, audience, and occasion – in this case: enkrateia, the “queen of virtues,” for an assembly of ecclesiastics and courtiers at the beginning of Lent – cannot in fact be proclaimed by a woman. She is by nature incapable of such discourse. Only through royal status and studied manners – the mixing of feminine traits, love of adornment, for example, with masculine qualities, such as spiritual will – can Theodora assume the role of speech-maker, which normally belongs to a man.72 This sentiment is a topos of Byzantine writing, supported by a wellestablished tradition, amplified by both Greco-Roman convention and Christian morality. Female speech is seen as naturally inferior and, more significantly, potentially dangerous for the intense, sense-oriented emotions that it might evoke. Photios’ remarks regarding the historian Pamphile (first century ce), the single female author discussed in his Bibliothˆekˆe, may suffice as an example for conceptions of female discursive inferiority: Pamphile’s “style,” Photios wrote, “ – since it is the offspring of a woman – takes a simple form [aphelˆes idea], especially in what pertains to its intended meaning” (175.119b-120a).73 As for the moral danger, Byzantine writers needed only turn to the prototypical story of feminine inferiority, the story of Eve. As Gregory of Nazianzos had put it in his On the Theophany, the original fall of humanity took place “because of the influence of a woman, an influence which she herself suffered from the devil as she was softer [hapalˆotera] than Adam, and which she brought upon Adam as she was also more persuasive [pithanˆotera]” (Or. 38.12; cf. Or. 45.8).74 The inferior nature of Eve is linked directly to her persuasiveness, the ability to produce deceptive speech that exposes Adam to pathos, suffering (cf. Or. 38.11). From philosophical to rhetorical writing, from classical to Christian authors, from Aristotle to Psellos, these notions were ubiquitous.75 If a 72 73

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In the Chronographia, Psellos criticizes Theodora’s and her sister Zoe’s mixture of “games belonging to the women’s quarters” with “serious royal pursuits” (Chron. 6.5). See further Damaskios, Philosophical History 106a, cited in Photios, Bibliothˆekˆe 242 346b13–15, on the philosopher Hypatia and her natural inferiority, qua woman. On simple style (apheleia) as characteristic of female discourse: Papaioannou 2011b: 99–100 and 113–7. The phrase resonated in medieval rhetorical training: cf. the anonymous rhetorical treatise, On the Figures of Speech 181.4–13 (Gregory’s dictum is cited as an example for the figure of ‘repetition’). See Galatariotou 1985 with Messis 2006a: 151, 230, and 258, 363 ff., and, especially, 378–88 for the Byzantine tradition; F¨ogen 2010 for the earlier tradition. For Aristotle, see Historia Animalium 608b11–15; for Psellos, see Or. min. 1.23–9 (in the speech spoken by Theodora!); Selention Publicly Proclaimed By the Emperor Kyr Michael Doukas = Or. min. 3.45–7; On the Crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ = Or. hag. 3a.280–7.

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woman takes over speech, or even just appears in public, the social order premised on reason’s mastery of emotion is often said to be disrupted and the woman becomes feminine in the superlative, “most feminine among women = qhlut†th gunaikän,” as Synesios had written (Egyptians or on Providence 1.13). This is a femininity that demands control; women should remain in the background and keep silent.76 Within the horizon of such constraints, female voices can be expressed almost exclusively from a male perspective.77 Psellos’ Theodora and the acknowledgement of her “inferior nature” represents one approach in rhetorical contexts; women may speak authoritatively as long as they admit to their natural limitations and submit to the moral expectations of men. Another approach allowed for greater liberty and required more elaborate frames. A variety of female figures are presented as enacting their femininity in Byzantine narrative. These women transgress the boundaries of modesty and silence, they advertise their beauty, speak persuasively and deceptively, attract the attention of men, seducing and, in effect, feminizing them; yet such self-made objects of desire are framed by rhetorical devices; they are clearly marked as negative figures or are relegated to the distant and, therefore, safe realm of fiction. Typical is Mary of Egypt who relates in her “own words” her early life as a seductive prostitute, pursuing pleasure for its own sake. In the most widely circulating version of her Life, a rhetorical text written by Sophronios, patriarch of Jerusalem (c. 560–638) and adopted with no alteration in Metaphrastes’ Menologion (April 1st), we hear Maria’s voice encased within the voices of male narrators through a series of filters, a set of Chinese boxes.78 The devious Melite in Achilles Tatios’ Leukippe and Clitophon, encountered in the previous chapter, is another example of such a female voice. Her seductive words of sexual appeal are presented through the perspective of the male protagonist, Clitophon.79 Similar figures are to be found in Libanios’ ˆethopoiiai – another type of fictional discourse and a favorite text in Byzantium.80 76 77 78 79 80

Another topos of Greek moral discourse; Papaioannou 2011b: 114–6. This is, of course, not particular to Byzantium: Whitmarsh 2004a: 177–95 (ancient Greek tradition); Harvey 2001 (late antique Syriac tradition); Miller 1993 (modern literary theory). PG 87 3709c-3720a; Kouli 1996: 65–8 and Rapp 1996: 324 for the MSS tradition. The text was included unaltered in Metaphrastes’ Menologion. Cf. p. 189 above with Morales 2004. Female subjectivity in the Greek novel: Cooper 1996; Haynes 2002; Morales 2005; Whitmarsh 2005b. See, e.g., Libanios, Progymnasmata 11, sections 1–8, 10–12, 14–27 with Hawley 1995. For the reading of Libanios’ “fictional” logoi, cf. Photios, Bibliothˆekˆe 90.67b with Ioannes Doxapatres, Rhetorical Homilies on Aphthonios’ Progymnasmata 136.14–137.21.

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Simultaneously, prescriptive discourse in Byzantium consistently deterred male rhetors from pursuing what is identified as “feminine” discourse, namely verbose, theatrical, and deceptive speech. The many proscriptions against excessively performative discourse in rhetorical and philosophical theory that we encountered earlier often connoted proscriptions against inappropriate effeminacy: Dionysios of Halikarnassos programmatically promoted what he presented as masculine and self-mastered Attic rhetoric; Gregory of Nazianzos and Synesios of Kyrene similarly idealized “masculine” style; Ioannes Sikeliotes imagined a “self-mastered” Hermogenian rhetoric and so on.81 To render oneself an aesthetic object of desire, to theatricize oneself through discourse – to act, that is, like Sophronios’ Mary or Tatios’ Melite – is a discursive subject position that a proper male author should not and, outside of explicitly fictional texts, did not generally adopt.82 *** As might be apparent from his treatment of Theodora’s speech, Psellos was well aware of these constraints and often observed Byzantine expectations. He added, for instance, his own examples of dangerous female objects of desire to the Byzantine repertoire. Two such figures stand out. The first is an unnamed prostitute, mentioned in a narrative digression within Psellos’ Encomium for His Mother (766–833). This woman, who would “entice many by her artificial [epipoiˆetos] beauty,” was temporarily converted to chastity by Psellos’ “philosopher” sister and thus refrained from tarting herself up. However, in a reversal typical of Psellian narrative, this woman relapsed into her previous ways and did so only too quickly. The second is Dosithea, a protagonist in the Accusation of the Patriarch Keroularios. Dosithea is presented as a “prophetess,” accused of “transforming herself into a man,” an “insolent slut” and “female goddess,” a “new Sappho, Diotima, Aspasia, or Pythagorean Theano.”83 In Psellos’ words, she staged some kind of ritual, where she impersonated various characters (ˆethos), thereby seducing the patriarch Keroularios into pleasure

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Dionysios of Halikarnassos: On the Ancient Rhetors 1; Hidber 1996; Leidl 2003: 31–54; Gunderson 2000: 163 ff.; Whitmarsh 2005a: 49–52. Gregory of Nazianzos: Or. 19.4 and Or. 21.12 (the ideal “manly” discourse). Synesios: On Kingship 1–2. Sikeliotes: Comm. 84.4–9, 241.15, 276.22–9 (“masculine” discourse). See further Gleason 1995; Richlin 1997; Enders 1997; Leyerle 2001. Cf. Papaioannou 2011a with Burns 2001 (esp. p. 25). Cf., however, Psellos, Encomium for His Mother 1872–4 for a positive mention of Sappho, Theano, as well as Hypatia. Plato’s Diotima in Psellos: S 116, untitled.

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and, consequently, heresy (Or. for. 1.121–30, 148–86, 1112–22, 1211–45 and passim).84 Psellos’ self-representation, however, is another matter. In his own rhetorical portrait, he adopts precisely the feminine position of an object of desire who actively seduces his reader, offers inescapable discursive pleasures, and incites intense emotions. In his address To the Slanderer, Psellos puts this succinctly (161–2): íWsper o¬ –rwtikoª aÉt»qen ˆp¼ tän eÉpl†stwn swm†twn –xžrthntai, oÌtw dŸ kˆmoª tv glÛtthv o¬ ple©ouv –kkr”mantai. Just as amorous people are impulsively affixed upon beautifully fashioned bodies, so also do most hang on my tongue.

The sentiment is a commonplace in the rhetorical image of Psellos whom audiences, friends, and students, “desire.” After having narrated his educational curriculum, for instance in the intricate autobiographical digression embedded early in the sixth book of the Chronographia, Psellos claims that his rhetoric stimulated in Monomachos an ardent, eroticized reaction (Chron. 6.46): ëO d•, ãsper o¬ qeoforoÅmenoi ˆdžlwv to±v Šlloiv –nqousiäsin, oÌtw dŸ kˆke©n a«t©an oÉk e²cen ¡ ¡donŸ, kaª mikroÓ me de±n katef©lhsen, oÌtw mou tv glÛtthv eÉqÆv ˆpÛrhto. Just like those possessed by the Divine are inspired in a manner that cannot be communicated to others, he too could find no cause for his pleasure and would almost kiss me. This is the extent to which he was immediately entranced by my eloquence.

As Psellos would write later in the Chronographia (6.161 and 197): Monomachos “was so captivated by my words that he seemed to be hanging from my tongue = oÌtw mou —alÛkei tän l»gwn Þv doke±n –k tän ßtwn tv –mv glÛtthv –kkr”masqai”; “he was obsessed with my command of words = ¢ra g†r mou tv glÛtthv deinäv.”85 84 85

For a similar description of the role of women in the defiling acts of an iconoclast patriarch, see Theophanes Continuatus, Chronographia 156–7 on Ioannes the Grammarian. Other examples: S 6, 69, and K-D 215 to Isaakios Komnenos; S 189, untitled; S 46 to Konstantinos nephew of Keroularios; S 51 to the praitˆor of Thrakesion Xeros; S 199 to Psephas; K-D 3, untitled; S 71, G 4.31–2, and 8.22–8 to Ioannes Doukas; Chron. 7c.7 (Konstantinos X Doukas as a “most ardent lover of discourse [logoi],” now drawn to a “friendship” with Psellos); Chron. 7.86 (Doukas “attached” to Psellos’ “tongue and soul”); Chron. 7a.25 (Psellos as “nektar” for Doukas).

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As with his emotional nature, so also with his being an object of desire, Psellos intensifies the possible transgression of this submissive position by presenting it either implicitly or explicitly as feminine. Implicit femininity, for instance, defines several Psellian letters in which he contrasts himself, the attractive rhetor, with others, usually lofty ascetics or exalted emperors, whom he presents as masculine figures temporarily seduced by him.86 Similar is the force behind his insistence on the metaphor of the statue, a metaphor which, as we saw, he also ascribed to himself. Beyond its other connotations, the wording of agalma in Psellos expresses precisely the desirability of the human subject: agalma incites erˆos.87 This is especially the case with the sculpted or statuesque female body, as Psellos makes clear in the funeral oration for his young daughter Styliane. The text is extraordinary in the history of Byzantine funerary rhetoric, providing unique insights into the possible lives of young girls in medieval Constantinople.88 Psellos’ detailed description of Styliane’s bodily beauty, which interests us, is the longest such description in Psellos’ funerary texts and comparable Byzantine writing.89 We read about Styliane’s head, her eyes – bright as stars – her gently curved black eyebrows, her red lips, pearllike teeth, her cheeks – where roses bloomed – her soft blond hair falling down to her ankles, and her feminine arms and unripe breasts. When Psellos comes to describe Styliane’s thighs, he has this to say (Funeral Oration For His Daughter Styliane, Who Died Before the Age of Marriage; Sathas v 72.11–14): Kaqì —k†tera tän mhrän eËrunom”nwn, toÓ –n Kn©d %frod©thv ˆg†lmatov katì oÉd•n  lattoÓto, kaª pr¼v ›rwta summigna© tina mÓqo© fasin ‰l»nta t Þrai»thti toÓ ˆg†lmatov. As her thighs widened out on either side, she was in no way inferior to the statue [agalma] of Aphrodite at Knidos for which the myths even report that a certain man, captivated by the beauty of the statue, was roused to desire and had intercourse with it. 86 87

88

89

Writing to ascetics: S 8 and 9, 91, K-D 139, G 17, 32; writing to emperors: S 69, 81, 115, 161, K-D 156. Cf. also p. 155 above on Psellos’ encomium for the patriarch Keroularios. Chron. 3.20 (agalma: among the attributes that empress Zoe pours upon the future emperor Michael IV); Concise History 105.36–9 (the statue-like appearance of Ioannes Tzimiskes inciting the destructive desire of Theophano); S 3 to Romanos IV Diogenes (225.10–11; Eudokia Makrembolitissa as Romanos’ agalma); S 68 to Konstantinos Leichoudes (300.14; Leichoudes as Psellos’ agalma). Kazhdan and Wharton Epstein 1985: 211–2; Macrides 1990 (esp. p. 116); Jouanno 1994; Kaldellis 2006a: 113; Hatzaki 2009: 76; Agapitos 2008a. For the rhetoric of parental mourning in western medieval literature: Tolmie and Toswell 2010. Agapitos 2008a: 588.

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After many lines of minute and intricate description devoted to the girl’s physical beauty, a reader versed in Psellos’ rhetoric almost expects him to compare Styliane’s appearance to a statue. What surprises, however, is that the statue which Psellos chooses to evoke is that of Aphrodite, the goddess of desire, and specifically her Knidian statue made by Praxiteles, an object well known to Psellos’ audience.90 Yet Psellos does not remain at the level of allusion – as he does, for instance, when evoking a statue of Aphrodite in his praise of Gregory of Nazianzos’ style. In describing Styliane’s statuesque beauty, Psellos reminds his audience of the “mythical” story that Aphrodite of Knidos became the object of a man’s perverse sexual desire.91 One might be tempted to read this surprising parallelism between the body of the young girl and a sexually charged object from Byzantium’s pagan past in psychological terms. Are we dealing with a window into Psellos’ psyche? An unwitting confession of deep paternal affection, or “paternal erˆos, . . . a pathos,” in his own words (68.20–22)? Or is Psellos simply expressing a tacit social expectation: the body of a virgin girl configured as the ultimate sexual object? It is difficult to tell. What is clear is that the rhetor Psellos is willing to both explore and appropriate the valency of bodily female appearance to its maximum. He eroticizes the presentation of his own daughter’s virginal body – the intimacy of kinship, we should note, allowed such liberty according to Byzantine rhetorical convention92 – and, at the same time, he displays his own rhetorical skill, exhibiting his ekphrastic discourse as the perfect mirror of his daughter’s body. Psellos himself figures prominently in the text as subjected to the intensity either of pleasure (occasioned by his daughter’s virtues in soul and, especially, body) or pain (caused by her premature death).93 In the evocation of Aphrodite’s statue then, the aesthetics of bodily appearance and rhetorical artistry, the eroticizing of the girl’s body and Psellos’ own language are joined together in an astonishing crescendo that, once more, brings us back to the unique self of the author. 90

91 92

93

See, e.g., Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos, De thematibus, Asia 14.9–12 with Georgios Kedrenos, Synopsis of Histories 1 564.10–12; in the 430s, the statue of Aphrodite was transferred to Constantinople, to the collection of Lausos, a eunuch and imperial chamberlain in the court of Theodosios II; Praxiteles’ Aphrodite was destroyed in a fire that ruined Lausos’ palace. See Bassett 2004: 233. For this story: p. 189 above. Gregory’s style: pp. 98–100 above. In his section on the epithalamium, a speech written for a couple on their way to the marital chamber, for instance, Menandros suggested that the beauty of the bride cannot be praised, “unless you are a relation and can speak as one who cannot help knowing, or unless you can remove the objection by saying ‘I have heard . . . ’.” (On Epideictic Speeches 404.7–14). For an application of this advice, see Christophoros Mytilenaios’ Poem 81 on “ . . . Theodora, becoming engaged . . . ” (where also the comparison with “a glamorous statue [agalma]”). Sathas V 63.7–16, 66.27–67.6, 68.15–22, 74.14–19, and 85.17–86.16.

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Association with feminine appeal is evoked more vividly in the sixth book of the Chronographia. Monomachos is presented throughout as an ambiguous figure, especially with regard to gender: “when comparing this emperor to them [earlier rulers such as Alexander the Great or Pyrrhus], I know,” Psellos writes, “that this greatest of emperors was inferior in terms of manliness [andria]” (6.164). Psellos goes on to devote a masterfully rhetorical encomium as well as invective of the emperor’s ambiguously “good” qualities (chapters 164–76). Monomachos was sharp of mind (164), most compassionate (sym-pathˆes; 169), and “devoted a part of his life to frivolity [paidia]” (175).94 The last quality invited criticism that extended to Monomachos’ proclivity toward pleasure, sexual pleasure included (47–9 and 151). The emperor exhausted the material resources of the court and surrendered himself to such figures as a female captive from Georgia, whom he “procured as a lover,” transforming her appearance through a variety of cosmetics and accessories: “the woman was simply a Proteus, in her infinite variety” (151–2). It was, however, precisely Monomachos’ proneness to pleasure that also interested Psellos, to the extent that this weakness included “zeal” for rhetoric (6.33–5). In response to this zeal and through a series of extensive digressions marked as “deviations” from the main narrative, Psellos presents himself as a sublime and feminine object of Monomachos’ desires (chapters 36–46, dedicated to Psellos himself, form the first excursus).95 Psellos attracts Monomachos and also stands in direct competition with others who often supersede him. These are either women, such as the Georgian woman and, earlier in the narrative, Maria Skleraina (chapters 50–71) or effeminate men, such as an “outcast foreigner,” Romanos Boilas (134–50, 155, and 177). A man of ambiguous gender,96 Boilas is presented as a master of “performance [hypokrisis],” a “stage-manager [skˆenourgos],” “changing his character [metharmozesthai]” in accordance with the wishes of an emperor who let himself be “captured.” 94

95

96

Cf. the Encomium in Honor of the Most-Blessed Kyr Konstantinos Leichoudes, Patriarch of Constantinople, written after 1075, where Monomachos is praised for being by nature “sharp like no other emperor, sweet in conversation [homilia], and charming [charieis] in his character like no one else” (Sathas iv 402.16–19). It should be noted that Greek theorists of writing were often critical of digressions: Lucian remarks how digressions ‘feminize’ the manly, Herculean body of history (How to Write History 10), while in an epigram attributed to either Photios or Leon the Philosopher readers are advised not to look at the ‘supplementary’ erotic sight (parergos thea) afforded by the reading of Achilles Tatios’ love-story (Anthologia Palatina ix.203). Similarly, Ioannes Skylitzes in the preface to his Synopsis of Histories blames others, including Psellos, for writing history “as a supplementary work [parergˆos]” or for “putting forward a subject-matter pertaining to themselves [oikeian hypothesin].” Chron. 6.144 with Reinsch 2009b.

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Though in competition with and opposition to them, Psellos is remarkably similar to these other objects of desire. He too, for instance, proudly “changes character [metharmozesthai]” according to the emperor’s wishes (197). His main competitor, Maria Skleraina emerges as his mirror image, one of the few characters that receive strong praise in the Chronographia apart from Psellos himself and a few of his friends. As he writes (6.60), she was attractive not so much for her physical beauty, an inferior kind of aesthetic appeal, but for her “character [ˆethos] and her soul’s resolute will [phronˆema] – the former able to charm even stones and the latter most effective in all kinds of pursuits”; “as for her speech,” Psellos adds, “this was beyond comparison; for it was fine and flowery, with rhythms worthy of a sophist; a spontaneous [automatos] sweet diction ran through her tongue and indescribable charm enveloped her narratives.”97 Any reader would recognize in this description the very qualities in which Psellos too took pride (especially in Chron. 6.45–6). The parallelism is made explicit: Maria takes an active interest in Psellos’ learning and the two become, according to him, close friends (60). In the next chapter (61), he describes an encounter between them. During a public appearance of Maria, a courtier, most likely Psellos himself – though the narrative is not explicit – utters the first two words of a famous Homeric line identifying Maria with that primary object of desire, Helen: “OÉ n”mesiv Träav kaª –uknžmidav %caioÆv / toid’ ˆmfª gunaikª polÆn cr»non Šlgea p†scein” (Iliad 3.156–7).98 It is in this evocation of Helen and her irresistible femininity for which men are made to suffer (paschein) that Maria, the eloquent mistress, and Psellos, the rhetor philosopher, meet. Femininity, only implied in the Chronographia and elsewhere, is rendered explicit in three letters to Psellos’ closest correspondents, Ioannes Doukas and Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios, that deserve to be cited here extensively. The first reads as follows (G 7 to Doukas): ìEgÜ m•n –ded©ein, m”giste ka±sar, t‡v tän –män –pistolän paradeiknÅein morf†vá  ‚scun»mhn g‡r Ëp•r toÅtwn Þv mŸ –cousän mžte fusik¼n k†llov mžte –p©kthton. –peª d• sÆ toÅtwn ˆnelp©stwv  r†sqhv ka© me p”peikav kal‡ t©ktein gennžmata, «doÅ soi prodžlwv 97

98

In Psellos’ Iambic Verses on the Death of [Maria] Skleraina = Poem 17, Maria is described as a “living statue [agalma]” and is praised for her bodily appearance and discursive charm that render her an object of desire ( pothos) that turns her viewers into stone (lines 114–17). For a similar usage of these Homeric lines, see Aristainetos (first half of the sixth century), Letter 1.1 (on the legendary prostitute Lais). Kaldellis has rightly suggested that it is Psellos himself who utters the allusive praise of Maria; see Kaldellis 1999: 140; also Bernard 2010: pp. 119–20.

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Self-representation ˆphnaiscÅnthka kaª tŸn ãran paradeiknÅw ka©, ãsper ¾ mhdik¼v taÛv, toÓto dŸ t¼ fil»kalon zon kaª sÅnhqev, qeatr©zw soi toÅtwn tŸn Þrai»thta ka©, Þv ¾r v, –pª ta±v sa±v qÅraiv proÐpantä mžte kaloÅmenov, mžte misq¼n tv ãrav labÛn. ¾ m•n oÔn Solomän to±v aÉtoklžtoiv tän f©lwn di’ eÉlabe©av poie±tai t‡v e«v toÆv sunžqeiv e«s»douv kaª ˆpantžseiv, ¯na mŸ k»ron aÉtän tv ¾mil©av lab»ntev misžswsiná –gÜ d• toÉntant©on poižsein di”gnwka, –rasmiÛter»n soi t¼ –m¼n k†llov –pideiknÅein di‡ tv sunece©av kaª poqein»teron. ëO m•n g‡r PrwteÆv –ke±nov, ˆnŸr £ da©mwn, Án î Omhrov pl†ttei kaª metapl†ttei, pantodap¼v §n kaª metžllatte t‡v morf†v, kaª nÓn m•n l”wn to±v ¾räsin –de©knuto, nÓn d• Àfiv, nÓn d• sÓv kaª pÓr kaª d”ndron kaª l©qov kaª s©dhrová –gÜ d” soi e«v m•n qhriÛdeiv fÅseiv oÉ metabžsomai, oÉd• –kplžxw t tän fantasm†twn kain»thti, ˆll‡ toÆv perª tŸn kiq†ran mimžsomai. t© d• oÕtoi dräsin; –peid‡n a­sqwntai toÆv ˆkoÅontav korennum”nouv toÓ m”louv, metab†llousi t‡v cord†v, str”fontev aÉt‡v to±v kal†moiv kaª metastr”fontev kaª poik©lav ‰rmon©av metaceir©zontev, ¯na di‡ tv toiaÅthv metallagv te kaª metab†sewv ˆkor”stouv tv mousikv ¡donv toÆv ˆkroat‡v ›cwsin. oÌtw goÓn kˆgÛ soi metapoižsw toÆv –moÆv l»gouv, kaª nÓn m•n ¬laroÆv toÅtouv par”xw soi, nÓn d• sunt»nouv, kaª nÓn m•n ˆnabeblhm”nouv kaª malakoÅv, nÓn d• genna©ouv kaª «scuroÅv, nÓn d• Šllhn morfŸn ›contav. ëO goÓn í Omhrov ¾pl©thn –painän Šndra kaª toÓto to±v –pa©noiv prost©qhsin, Âti o²de metakine±n tŸn ˆsp©da nÓn m•n e«v dexi†, nÓn d• e«v eÉÛnuma. –gÜ d• t¼ –m¼n Âplon, toÆv l»gouv, oÉk –pª t‡ pl†gia m»non, ˆll‡ kaª ›mprosqen metaceirioÓmai kaª Àpisqen. oÉc ™n –sti t¼ tän l»gwn cräma, oÉd• ¡ morfŸ m©a, ˆll’ Šmfw pantodap‡ kaª poik©la, kaª ¾ t‡v kr†seiv kaª sunq”seiv toÅtwn e«dÜv polÅmorfa de©xei to±v –rasta±v t‡ qe†mata. E²don –gÛ pote nÅmfhn –pª past†dov kaª ãrav eÔ ›cousan kaª t –pipoižt k†llei kekosmhm”nhn lampräv. kaª tžn ge prÛthn ¡m”ran porfÅra taÅthn –k»smei kaª crus tain©a kaª –pwmªv –xhnqism”nh k»sm pantodap kaª ¡ sthqodesmªv  lektr©nh, ˆll’ –ndiatr©yav bracÅ ti to±v fainom”noiv Þra·smo±v –kor”sqhn «dÛná ˆll‡ tžn ge deut”ran ¡m”ran metabaloÓsa t¼n k»smon kaª crusoÐf –sqta –penduqe±sa p†lin –qžra, kaª tŸn tr©thn oÌtwv kaª tŸn tet†rthn, kaª §n ˆk»reston t¼ kal»n. e«sªn oÔn kˆmo©, ka±sar, –ll»bia logik‡ kaª perid”raia gnwstik‡ kaª peritracžlioi k»smoi kaª –pistžqioi. k‹n koresqv toÓ crusoÓ, paragumnÛsw t© soi toÓ  lektrÛdouvá e« d• kaª toÅtou plhsqv, ›cw sapfe©fouv kaª Ëak©nqouv kaª l©qouv —t”rouv pantodapoÆv kaª tŸn croi‡n kaª tŸn dÅnamin, ka©, Þv ›oiken, oÎte sÆ plhsqžs pot• toÓ –rn, oÎte –gÜ k†llouv ˆporžsw kaª –pide©xewv.

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I was afraid, greatest kaisar, to display the forms of my letters. I was ashamed that they have neither natural nor acquired beauty. But since you unexpectedly fell in love with them and convinced me to give birth to beautiful offspring, behold! For you, I have openly disregarded any shame. I display my beauty. Just like the Median peacock (that domesticated creature that is a lover of beauty), I exhibit on a theatrical stage the beauty of my words.99 As you see, I come and meet you at your door, neither being invited, nor having received a payment for my beauty. Solomon warns those friends who invite themselves to be cautious in visiting their acquaintances so that they do not cause disdain with their all-too frequent company.100 By contrast, I decided to do the opposite and, through continuous exposure, make my beauty more longed for and desired. That notorious Proteus, whether he was a man or a demon, the one whom Homer fashions and refashions, was a polymorphous creature.101 He altered forms, appearing as a lion to his viewers, then as a snake, or as a wild boar, as fire, tree, stone, or iron. I will not assume bestial natures for you, nor will I astound you by the novelty of illusions. Rather, I will imitate those who play the guitar. What do they do? When they sense that their listeners are filled with their music, they change the key of the strings, turning and retuning them with the reeds, employing varied harmonies, so that through such an alteration and transposition they may make their listeners yearn still more for the pleasure of music. This is how I too will change my words and offer them to you, now joyful, then severe, now again relaxed and soft, then noble, virile, and powerful, or yet again in some other form. When Homer praises an armed man, he adds this to his praises: the soldier knows how to move his shield now to the right, now to the left.102 I, however, will use words, my weapon, not only toward right and left, but also to the front as well as the back. For neither the color nor the form of speech is one; both are manifold and varied. The one who knows how to mix and compose them will show multiform discursive spectacles to his lovers [erastˆes]. I once saw a bride in her bridal chamber, stunning and brilliantly adorned with artificial beauty. On the first day, she was adorned with a purple 99 101

102

100 Cf. Proverbs 25.17. The same metaphor in K-D 111. The Proteus metaphor (Homer, Odyssey 4.365 ff.) is recurrent in premodern Greek writing; cf. pp. 49–50 above. Psellos’ version here is especially reminiscent of Plato, Ion 541e7–8 and Dionysios of Halikarnassos, On Demosthenes 8. Cf. also a male-authored letter addressing a female dancer among the fictional letters of Aristainetos, where we read of a woman “rhetor” or “painter” who does not use colors or eloquence but “hands of many figures [polyschˆemos] and characters [ˆethos] of varied nature . . . like some Proteus changing from one thing to another” (Letter 26 with Webb 1997: 137). For other possible echoes of Aristainetos in Psellos, see above (n. 98) and also Aristainetos, Letter 7 (on the autophyes kallos of a young maiden) with Psellos, To the Slanderer Who Dropped a Defaming Leaflet = Or. min. 7.114 and the discussion above (p. 143). Homer, Iliad 7.238 on Hector.

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Self-representation garment, a golden band, a shoulder-strap sparkling with an array of ornamentation, and a breast-band made of amber. After gazing at her for a while I became filled with her visible beauties. Yet on the second day, she changed her adornment and put on a gold-embroidered garment and thus captured me again. She did the same on the third and the fourth day. Her beauty was irresistible. Kaisar, my discourse becomes like earrings and my knowledge like necklaces, lockets, and medallions. If you are sated with gold, I will expose to your gaze some part made of amber. If you are filled with that too, I have sapphires, hyacinths, or other stones, in varieties of both color and power. As it seems, neither will you ever quench your desire [eran] nor will I ever lack beauty and display.

Psellos parallels himself to a series of figures in dyadic relations so as to highlight his alluring power over Doukas. What unites these images is the accentuated asymmetry between the subject and object of desire. Psellos consistently takes the inferior position,103 even though this position should not be confused with some kind of complete passivity; Psellos is in active pursuit of Doukas’ attention. Gender plays an important role in this rhetorical game of desire. Psellos, we should submit, is not consistently gendered female: the “selfdramatizing” peacock is male in Byzantine rhetoric,104 so also is Proteus and the Homeric soldier. Nevertheless, Psellos’ self-objectification for the purposes of promoting himself in the eyes of Doukas ultimately leads to an identification with ostentatious femininity. Psellos assumes the role of a future bride who parades her “artificial” beauty in order to impress a voyeur. This dangerous and, one might say, illicit affair serves to express the kind of sensual desire that Psellos’ multiform speech can invoke in his “lover,” Doukas.105 103

104 105

Cf. other images that Psellos assumes in the letters to Doukas (as well as to Konstantinos); Psellos speaks of himself as a prey inviting capture with pleasure, as a melodious bird ready to be caught, a Siren prepared to seduce, and as a city willing to be conquered and torn asunder. See Letters S 71, 152, and 156 with G 6 and 9 (Psellos as prey), S 156 (as Siren), S 152 and G 9 (as city). Cf. Psellos K-D 111 to Aristenos, the prˆotasˆekrˆetis: ¾ mhdik¼v taÜv pr¼v tŸn qžleian kallun»menov. See also the references cited below (n. 112). For the somewhat illicit behavior to which Psellos alludes, cf. Gregory’s preference for “natural” beauty as opposed to cosmetic adornment (of “precious stones,” “soft garments,” and multiple “colors”), a “Hellenic” materiality, that causes a “feminizing” of the senses (Or. 38.5–6; see also Or. 4.116). Also, by contrast to Psellos’ rhetorical valuation of a voyeuristic and potentially adulterous gaze upon the beauty of a future bride, numerous premodern Greek texts warn that the bride should remain unadorned and unseen before and after her wedding; see, e.g., Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales 693b-c; Lucian, De domo 7 (where also a reference to artificial beauty); Himerios, Orations 9.224 ff. (a masterful narrative of delaying the description of a future bride); Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum 111.4 ff. (on securing through virtue the bridal chamber of the soul); Photios,

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Similar is the subject position assumed in two letters addressed to Konstantinos. Here are the beginning paragraphs of the first of these (S 85): P†lai pot• ˆp”tikton –gÛ, Šgalma sof©av –pžraton, Þra©av –pistol†v, a³v dŸ sÆ peritugc†nwn poll†kiv, e²ta dŸ kaª qaum†zwn ­swv tŸv c†ritov, o­ei kaª aÔq©v me toiaÅtav ˆpoteke±n dÅnasqaiá di‡ taÓta sÆ m•n –r v tän –män Ýd©nwn, –gÜ d” soi –kfnai t¼n t»kon oÉ boÅlomai. ëH g‡r Laºv –ke©nh, ¡ t¼ kal¼n tv ãrav –n to±v t»te cr»noiv ˆnqžsasa, –peidŸ çut©dav –gnÛkei perª t¼ pr»swpon, ˆn”qhke t¼ k†toptron t qe, “o¯h m•n g†r,” fhs©n, “§n p†rov, e²nai oÉ dÅnamaiá o¯h d• nÓn e«mª, oÉ beboÅlhmai”á –moª d• toÓ pneÅmatov –pile©pontov, Ëf’ oÕ t¼ pr»sqen –br»ntwn te –n to±v l»goiv kaª ¢strapton ˆtecnäv, a«scÅnomai nÓn Ëp¼ bÅrs bront n kaª mŸ –x a«q”rov pollän moi surrhgnum”nwn nefän. e« d’ ãsper o¬ fil»timoi –rastaª ‰lÛsimov Ëp¼ sunhqe©av g”gonav, Þv tŸn ˆnqoÓs†n pote ãran kaª met‡ calarv çut©dov pros©esqai, oÉd’ ‹n aÉt»v soi prospoižswmai oÎte t¼ tv –mv yucv ˆsÅllhpton, oÎte t¼ pr¼v t»kouv ˆnepitždeion. oÉ g‡r ãsper –pª tän swm†twn, oÌtw dŸ kaª –pª tän yucän a¬ tän l»gwn Ýd±nev ›cousiá t‡ m•n g‡r oÉk ›stin Âpwv, pr¼v t¼ t©ktein ˆponarkžsanta, e«v tŸn prÛthn –pan”lqoien dÅnamin, a¬ d• yucaª dÅnaint’ ‹n pr¼v tŸn prot”ran ™xin metenecqnai, £ l»gou taÅtav –p†rdontov, £ proqum©av diegeiroÅshvá e« d• kaª t –pideiknum”n tŸn ãran toÓ l»gou ¾ ˆkroatŸv –pirwnnÅei tŸn dÅnamin, päv oÉcª mllon ¡ –p©deixiv kat‡ l»gon cwržsei t çžtori; ï Egwg’ oÔn –n m”s qe†trou polloÓ, aÉt¼ dŸ toÓto qeatr©zwn t¼ k†llov tän l”xewn, kaª perª tŸn –mmel sunqžkhn tän merän toÓ l»gou pragmateu»menov, pr¼v t‡ tän ˆkroatän åta kaª scžmata, e­te katerraqumhm”na e­h, e­te dieghgerm”na kaª d»kima, oÌtwv £ –ke©nwv çuqm©zomaiá Ëp¼ soª d” mllon ˆkroat toÆv l»gouv poioÅmenov, ›nqouv te g©nomai, kaª sunepa©roma© soi t –pterwm”n scžmati tv yucv kaª t shma©nont© soi toÓ bl”mmatov, kaª t geghq»ti toÓ meidi†matov, kaª ta±v –mfÅtoiv kaª ˆprospoižtoiv c†risi cariest”rav soi kaª aÉt¼v t‡v tän l»gwn ˆntapode©knumi c†ritav. O desirable image of wisdom, I used to give birth to beautiful letters in the past. And you, having chanced upon them many times and perhaps admiring their charm, think that I should be able to give birth to similar letters also now. You may desire the products of my labor-pains for these reasons. I, however, do not want to show you my offspring. Letters 269.2–4 (on the adulterous fianc´ee) and 287.9–19 (on the future bride who thinks only, as she should, of her groom).

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Self-representation That famous Lais, who had bloomed with a timely beauty in earlier years, after recognizing wrinkles upon her face dedicated her mirror to the Goddess [Aphrodite] saying “Such that I was before, now I am unable to be; such that I am now, I do not wish to be.”106 As my spirit is failing, the spirit by which previously I thundered my words and simply hurled lightning, I am ashamed to thunder under a screen and not from the ether, now that many clouds have overtaken me. If, however, just like fastidious lovers, you have been captured by me out of habit so that you accept my earlier blooming beauty now together with its flabby wrinkle, then I too will not pretend that my soul cannot conceive any more or that I am not capable of giving birth. When souls give birth to discourse this is not the same as with bodies. The latter, once they become torpid toward birth, can in no way return to their original capacity. The souls, by contrast, can be brought back to their previous state either when some word refreshes them or some desire arouses them. If indeed the listener strengthens the power of the one displaying the beauty of his words, how could the rhetor’s display not increase accordingly? When I am in the middle of a large theater, as I exhibit theatrically the beauty of my words, busy with the harmonious composition of the parts of speech, my rhythm is patterned in this or that fashion after the ears and gestures of my listeners, whether idle or aroused and receptive. When I create my speech with you as a listener, something more happens to me: I become inspired, I am raised with the winged figure of your soul, your signifying look and joyous smile, I display more graceful charms in response to your innate and unpretentious ones.

Psellos sets himself side by side with a self-absorbed female figure of the Hellenic past, the legendary prostitute Lais who refrained from gazing on herself in a mirror after her original beauty had faded.107 Like Lais, Psellos finds himself “unable” to show off his beauty, yet, unlike her, he is surrounded by persistent lovers on whose acts his productivity depends. And a paragraph from the second letter (S 117): T¼ g†r toi –m»n, ta±v tän gunaikän ›oike qhla±vá kaª mž moi t¼ par†deigma –pim”myaio, oÉd• g‡r ˆp»blhton ›rgon tv fÅsewvá päv oÔn –ke©naiv aÉt¼ dŸ t¼ g†la t¼ blÅzon –ke±qen; oÉ toioÓt»n –stin –n ta±v sarx©n, ˆll’ oÉd• tosoÓton, päv oÔn –ke©naiv aÉt¼ dŸ t¼ g†la t¼ blÅzon –ke±qen; oÉ toioÓt»n –stin –n ta±v sarx©n, ˆll’ oÉd• tosoÓton, t‡ d• tän qhlaz»ntwn brefän st»mata –kpi”zonta toÆv mastoÆv kaª t¼n –mpr»sqion108 mÓn –piql©bonta, ˆnugra©nousi t‡v –gkatesparm”nav –n t b†qei not©dav, kaª e«v çeÓma metapoioÓsiá kaª tekmžrion 106 107 108

Citing (though not verbatim) Anthologia Palatina vi.1, a votive, anathˆematikon, epigram attributed to Plato. On the topos of self-reflection as femininity, see Papaioannou 2010a. According to Vatican, BAV, gr. 1912; Sathas, following Paris, BNF, gr. 1182, edits: –mpro†dion.

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Âti, ‹n –pil©p t¼ qhl†zon brefÅllion, kat”yuktai ¾ mast»v, kaª oÉdamoÓ t¼ g†laá frewruc© g‡r t¼ pn ›oikeá . . . oÌtw goÓn kaª aÉt¼v to±v tän –män –pistolän frewrÅcoiv ãsp”r tinav p©dakav ˆpoql©bw toÆv l»gouvá k‹n m•n ½rÅttwmai par’ Ëmän, ˆnugra©nomai, ‹n d• mž, kat”yugmai ˆtecnäv. I am similar to the nipples of women (do not cast blame upon my example, for this is not a negligible work of nature). How do nipples possess the milk that flows from them? The quality and quantity of milk does not reside in the female body, but rather when the mouths of the nursling babies press the breasts and squeeze the frontal muscle, it is they that render wet the moisture spread deep inside and turn it into a stream. The proof for this is that in the absence of a nursling baby, the breast ceases to produce and there is no milk to be found. The whole thing seems like the digging of wells . . . this is also how I squeeze out my words like fountains, spurred by the well-diggers of my letters. If you dig me, I become watery, if not, I simply freeze up.

The image of fecundity that Psellos appropriates is not new, though his approach sets him apart from the earlier tradition.109 From Plato and the Neoplatonists’ fecund philosopher to Christian images of the selfgenerating ascetic, child-bearing provided a powerful model of authority, a perfect appropriation of femaleness in its biological function of motherhood.110 The image closest to Psellos’ text above and typical of the earlier tradition comes from a self-representational poem by Gregory of Nazianzos. In an elegiac poem titled Against the devil, on occasion of his illness = Kat‡ toÓ ponhroÓ e«v tŸn n»son (Poem 2.1.50 = PG 37 1385.7– 1393.14), Gregory uses the affliction of a serious illness as an opportunity to reaffirm his ability to endure amid calamities, caused especially by the loss of his congregation in Constantinople into the hands of unfit leaders. Gregory portrays himself as the “father” as well as “mother” of his people (Poem 2.1.50.33–40 = PG 37 1387.13–1388.6): Now as a weaning infant in the arms of his mother Pulls on a dry nipple With his thirsting lips, yet the mother disappoints his desire, So also the people are suspended from my tongue Yearning for a fountain that flowed much in the past 109 110

The metaphor is common in Psellos: G 9 to Ioannes Doukas; Theol. i 4.129, 29.23, 70.97; 88.91. Plato: Pender 1992; Zeitlin 1996: 368–374; Halperin 1990b: 285 ff.; Harlow 1998. Proklos: Saffrey and Segonds 2001: 76. Cf. also Harrison 1995. For a rhetorical version of the same idea, see Themistios, MetriopaqŸv £ fil»teknov (philosophical “masculine” birth-giving). For the Christian tradition: Gregory of Nyssa, In Eccl. 380 (“—autän g‡r tr»pon tin‡ pat”rev gin»meqa”); Gouillard 1978: 54. For similar metaphorics in western medieval writing: Bynum 1982: 135 ff.; McLaughlin 1999.

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Self-representation Yet now their ears receive not even a little moisture; Others gush forth a sweet stream, but those listening Grieve; for they do not have the discourse of their father.111

The imagery is quite similar to Psellos’ text. Yet the context of Gregory’s poem underlines the distance that separates these two appropriations of the female body. Gregory’s “maternity” is enveloped within a portrait of masculinity; ultimately, Gregory occupies the authoritative place of the “father.” In the rest of the poem, Gregory emerges as a prophetic figure, a model of perseverance: a “powerful” lion “caught in the nets of hunters” (17–18), “invulnerable and unwavering” (59), while his “sufferings” (pathˆe) are paralleled by both Christ’s “sufferings” (pathˆe; cf. lines 28 and 50) and Job’s victorious endurance (63–6). For Psellos, it is not spiritual fecundity that takes priority, but a material, sensual reproduction, enabled through rhetorical beauty, display, and theatrical performance. In the context of personal correspondence, Psellos does not situate himself in the positions of traditional authority. His power depends upon the determining desires of his male addressees; his is a powerful, but feminine self. *** In the texts examined above, Psellos associates himself with femininity by allusion and juxtaposition and, occasionally, he impersonates rhetorically inferior female voices, expressed in earlier writing only through careful framing devices. Psellos thus begins to rewrite anew traditional tropes for the purposes of self-promotion. Rhetoricized hagiography, novelistic narrative, and progymnasmatic speech enabled male fantasy to imagine dangerously attractive women, yet also protected the moral integrity of authors and audiences by attributing illicit desire to the conduct of the female figures themselves. If men were seduced – this was the point of such representations of women – it was ultimately not their fault. By adopting a feminine persona, tacitly or, in a few cases, explicitly, Psellos enters, but reconfigures this same rhetorical game, using in the first person some of the vocabulary and metaphors of earlier fictional and progymnasmatic discourse.112 111

112

NÓn ge m•n, Þv lip»mastov –n ˆgkal©dessi tekoÅshv / Nhp©acov qhlŸn ›spasen aÉal”hn / Ce©lesi diyal”oisi, p»qon d’ –yeÅsato mžthr, / î Wv Šr’ –mv glÛsshv la¼v ˆpokr”matai, / ìIscan»wn phgv pollo±v t¼ p†roiqe çeoÅshv, / õ Hv nÓn oÉd’ ½l©ghn «km†da oÎat’ ›cei. / *lloi m•n proc”ousi glukÆn ç»on, o¬ d’ ˆ¹ontev / *cnunt’· oÉ g‡r —oÓ patr¼v ›cousi l»gon. Translation by Rebillard, slightly modified. Appreciation of precious stones and sensual beauty: Achilles Tatios, Leukippe and Kleitophon 2.11 and 3.4; Libanios, Declamations 32.1. “Irresistible” or “insatiable” beauty: Leukippe and Kleitophon

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When coupled with his projected “female” nature, this rhetorical transvestism is rather unique in the history of self-referential discourse. Once again Psellos stretches Byzantine rhetoric to its limits, almost doing away with the constraints. Without ever directly challenging the androcentric logic of Byzantine writing per se (his purpose was not to activate some new theoretical model of gender), Psellos was effectively at the process of rearranging the discursive field of gender in order to set his female nature and feminine performance at the epicenter of attention. He appropriated femininity, that is, in order to amplify readerly desire and redirect it upon himself. In a splendid combination of self-effacement by means of his impersonation of a female voice and self-proclamation with the staging of an ineluctable self, Psellos was about to shatter Byzantine conventions of self-representation. 4.8 and 5.1. Self-theatrizing peacock: Leukippe and Kleitophon 1.16; Theophylaktos Simokattes, Letter 31; Morales 2004: 189–190; with negative connotations: Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 28.24 and Against the Vanity of Women = Poem 1.2.29.77–86; Sacra parallela (PG 95 1583.48–1584.2); cf. Quere-Jaulmes 1968. Cf. also Theodoros of Kyzikos, Letter 2 (ed. Lampros), where a reference to the “self-theatrizing” Median peacock is attributed not to the author himself but to his addressee who is presented as the “object” of the author’s desire.

Conclusion from rhetoric to literature

This book has been a study of rhetoric, self-representation, and their history in Byzantium through the perspective of Michael Psellos. Rhetoric, the sociolect of learned elites in medieval Constantinople, defined much of the discursive culture of public speaking and private correspondence, and significant parts of the production and circulation of books. As such, rhetoric created a certain taste in Byzantium, influential patterns of communication, representation, and imagination. Ultimately, rhetoric outlined ways of thinking and acting, especially for the formation and expression of elite subjectivity. Authors, writers and speakers who either belonged to or addressed the social elite, found in rhetoric a necessary and indispensable tool. Psellos used rhetoric to its maximum effect. He crafted a careful public and private persona that capitalized on the possibilities afforded by the rhetorical tradition. He explored new conceptions of rhetorical authorship as creation and performance. He presented himself both as a model “philosopher,” the traditional profession for intellectuals such as he was, and as a master “rhetor.” With the latter he evoked a powerful discursive practice that had a rather weak professional standing prior to him. He also portrayed himself as a unique nature expressed suggestively, insistently, and, in some instances, explicitly through the language and images of what the tradition regarded as inferior, attractive, but risky: the realm of the corporeal senses, highly inflated Hellenism, and emotional and erotically evocative femininity. Psellos was not only heir to a long and rich rhetorical tradition, but he also stood on the threshold of something new. His highly rhetorical self-portrait carried the potential (without ever bringing this potential to completion) of transforming rhetoric toward what Byzantine rhetoricians saw as performance-oriented, mimetic, “panegyrical” discourse and what we would identify as literature. Rhetoric in Psellos was turning into writing defined by a series of centrifugal forces: the creative originality of the 232

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author, the autonomous status of imagination and representation, and the aesthetic pleasures of the reader. toward literature At the heart of the potential transformation of rhetoric lay Psellos’ creative treatment of first-person discourse. Byzantine theories and practices of the authorial “I” displayed a consistent preference for authors who submitted their subjective choices to demands that lay beyond them: inspiration, traditional authority, truth, and moral exemplarity. As noted above, the author was expected to be sincere as well as to re-enact in the first person a set of typoi and topoi, imitable types of behavior expressed through stylized patterns of moralizing thought. These demands formed the premodern, Byzantine version of “the autobiographical pact”: the agreement, a “contract of reading,” between authors and readers that an author speak the truth when he or she applies the first-person perspective. Such a contract is ubiquitous in Byzantine writing, especially in the rhetorical genres of letterwriting and speeches of apology. And it is present in its rather paradoxical Byzantine form: the author must express himself, but speak himself through the voice of model others.1 It has been a matter of debate whether “autobiography,” as this literary genre was crystallized in modern Western European literary history (namely as a more or less comprehensive biographical narrative about oneself by oneself ), can be located in earlier discursive traditions or not. Indeed, efforts to discover autobiography in Byzantium (as with other premodern discursive traditions) have perhaps accentuated the relative absence rather than the presence of the genre.2 Yet the autobiographical pact itself, the readerly expectation for an authentic authorial self, is arguably present throughout premodern Greek writing, especially in the rhetorical branch that concerns us here. It is a value, as we saw, prescribed by rhetorical theories and abbreviated in the view of discourse as an “image of the soul.” It is also a proclamation that writers persistently made when describing

1 2

For the term “autobiographical pact,” see Lejeune 1975 (esp. pp. 8, 26, and 36) with the critique in Paschalides 1993 (esp. pp. 17–37). See further Porter Abbott 1988. Angold 1998; Hinterberger 1999 (cf. p. 383: “Die Autobiographie ist keine selbst¨andige Gattung”); Hinterberger 2004a. For the western medieval tradition: Zumthor 1973; Lejeune 1975: 311–341 (esp. 312–317); Buschinger and Spiewok 1995; Hamburger 1998: 233–278; Schmitt 2010: 44–66. GrecoRoman tradition: Baslez, Hoffmann, and Pernot 1993. Medieval Arabic literature: Reynolds 2001. Ottoman literature: Kafadar 1989.

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their own writing, even outside the explicitly author-centered genres of epistolography and apology.3 The particular Byzantine form of the autobiographical pact resisted what we might recognize as autobiography; simultaneously, however, it also defied what we might understand as literary discourse proper. As we saw earlier, ancient and then Byzantine rhetorical and philosophical convention viewed discourse defined by authorial autonomy, stylistic excess, and focus on readerly pleasures in a critical or negative light, with either indifference and suspicion or outright rejection. At the core of this approach was, ultimately, a concern about the proper relation of truth and morality that should link an author with his text and audience. As opposed to what rhetoricians called “civic” discourse, “panegyrical” discourse could challenge the relation between the author and the character(s) represented in his text as well as between the author and the readers’ response. This was especially the case for the ultimate form of “panegyrical” discourse: fiction. In Homeric poetry, earlier rhetoricized fiction, dialogues, and novels, Byzantine readers could indeed come across invented characters, sometimes even of the narrator himself, who spoke of their “becoming,” their subjection to effeminacy, and their dramatics in the first person without an immediate moral frame and without the possibility or even desire to control their readerly reception.4 Fiction, when explicitly produced and read as such, thus departed from the autobiographical pact by preventing the author’s self-representation from being unambiguously authentic and morally effective. In order to address this concern, the ancient and Byzantine “fictional pact,” which defined how a text was to be read as fiction,5 demanded that an author avoid presenting fictional narratives in his own person. The author of fiction, that is, was expected not to confuse imagined character and the truth of the speaking subject. From Plato to Greek manuals of the Imperial period, theories about fictional writing propagated this narrative restriction.6 And writers of fiction trained in rhetoric followed suit or paid tribute to the restriction. The distance between authorial self and 3

4

5 6

E.g., Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 29.1 (=Third Theological Oration); Kekaumenos, Stratˆegikon §§ 21 and 76; Michael Attaleiates, History 8.9–15; Stephanos Skylitzes, Commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric 310.6–25. For the earlier tradition: Dionysios of Halikarnassos, Roman Antiquities 1.1.2–3 and 1.6.5. For the hagiographical topos: Hinterberger 2000 and 2004a; Pratsch 2005a: 50–2. Most notably in Lucianic dialogue and the Greek Novel. For the former: Branham 1989; Romm 1990; Said 1993; Dubel 1994; Goldhill 2002: 60–107; Whitmarsh, 2004a: 247–94; Gilhuly 2007. For the Greek novel: Whitmarsh 2011. Lejeune 1975: 27 and 29 (“pacte romanesque”). Plato, Republic 392d-394c and 396c-397d (also Gorgias 502d) with Imbert 1980: 210–13; Theon, Progymnasmata, 72.28 and 74.21–27 with Morgan 1993: 180. See also Hermogenes, On Forms 2.10 =

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imagined self, between actor and mask, was generally observed; authors of fiction remained largely authors without a biography7 and characters of fiction remained usually distinct from the author’s voice. In the first-person narratives embedded in fiction, the distance between author and narrator was manipulated so as to create the effect of authenticity, autobiography, and non-fiction – the case, for instance, of Achilles Tatios’ Leukippe and Clitophon. As discussed earlier, though they continued to read such fictional narratives and to entertain notions, and be trained in practices, of fictionality, Byzantine Christian rhetoricians hesitated to create similar types of text. This did not mean that Byzantine rhetoricians stopped making up stories or that readers believed everything they read – both authors and readers were far from na¨ıve as they were trained to distinguish between authentic and feigned views or emotions. This was just a rhetorical culture in which authors and their audiences regarded the double demand for authenticity and moral exemplarity as the defining horizons of authorship. Yet the very nature of the autobiographical pact imposed an unavoidable tension in the textual construction and representation of the author’s self. The demand for imitation of rhetorical models of self-representation offered to Byzantine writers a large spectrum of subject positions and identities. Through selection, combination, and revision, the syntax of rhetorical writing allowed authors to play with the grammar of the autobiographical pact. With his rhetorical theory and self-representation, Psellos expanded precisely these tensions inherent in the tradition and pushed the boundaries separating the autobiographical from the fictional conception of authorship further apart. His rhetorical self-portrait gestured toward becoming a literary one. In his theory of rhetoric, Psellos advocated an author who possesses creative freedom from extra-authorial agents. He also showed a remarkable indifference to moral expectations as far as rhetorical performance was concerned. At the level of rhetorical practice, in presentations

7

On Civic Discourse (393.7–13): “M”qodov d’ aÔ poižsewv «d©a p†lin par‡ t‡v toÓ panhgurikoÓ l»gou meq»douv m©a t¼ mŸ par’ —autän doke±n l”gein, Œtt’ ‹n l”gwsi, t‡v MoÅsav d• parakale±n £ t¼n %p»llwna ¢ tina Šllon qe¼n kˆke©nou poie±n doke±n e²nai t¼n l»gon ­dion. p†lin d’ aÔ taÅt ¾ m•n sumbouleutik¼v kaª dikanik¼v ¤kista cržsetai, ¾ d• panhgurik¼v met† tinov paramuq©av”; cf. Ioannes Sikeliotes, Comm. 484.18–26: “m”qodov d• «d©a m©a poižsewv t¼ mŸ doke±n ˆf’ —autän l”gein, Âsa l”gousin.” For the distance between artist/performer and performed character, see also Chorikios, Opera 32 = Apology for the Mimes 26 with Eustathios of Thessalonike, Parekbolai on Homer’s Iliad (2.482.15–17): ï Esti d• Ëpokrin»menov kaª Ëpokritžv par‡ to±v Ësterogen”si çžtorsi ¾ mŸ –k yucv l”gwn £ pr†ttwn, mhd• Œper frone±. We know virtually nothing about Achilles Tatios, Heliodoros, Aristainetos, or even Lucian except what can be deduced from their own writings.

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of character and emotion, Psellos also emphasized an aesthetic, mutable, emotional, and effeminate authorial self. He thus took the traditional dictate, that a text should reflect the writer’s self, to its limits. Text and self become nearly identical as textual characters, including his own, assume the very qualities that should define discourse. There is a heightened parallelism, that is, between the stylistic virtues that Psellos finds praiseworthy in his rhetorical theory and the personal virtues that he and some of his objects of praise display. For instance, the emphasis on variety, aesthetic appeal and pleasure, and emotionality are prevalent in both his literary criticism and his self-representation. Just as Gregory’s style is praised for its constant adaptability, so is Psellos’ own character. Just as, in Psellos’ view, Gregory mixes a series of opposite stylistic qualities and produces a new superior whole, so does Psellos himself mix rhetoric with philosophy, body with soul, passions with knowledge. As Psellos’ model author is promoted for his representation of emotion, so is his own character full of pathos. Just as Gregory’s discourse exhibits a created sculpted object that attracts the desires of readers, so also Psellos’ self is a statue, an exquisite object of natural art. The similarities are such that it is difficult to tell which comes first: rhetorical virtues or personal qualities? Was Psellos using rhetorical theory as an apparatus in order to construct models of self? Was he thus adopting a new model for the making of subjectivity, separate from the traditional lists of virtues (for instance, those of Christian rhetoric or the four cardinal virtues advocated by rhetorical and philosophical manuals)? Or was Psellos transferring his predilections in human character and appearance onto his discursive aesthetics? It is difficult to be certain. What is clear is that the traditional expectation that text should reflect the author’s self is transformed: the self becomes text and vice versa. The rhetoricization of authorial subjectivity is fully at work.8 Moreover, Psellos maximized the possibilities offered to him by the expectation that the discursive self should become (like) an other. Rather than turn toward models of morality, he chose to adopt inferior, marginal, and eccentric identities and personae. For his public persona, he turned to the profession of rhetoric as opposed to merely philosophy and emphasized his aesthetic appeal; for a limited audience of learned friends, he turned to the ambiguous subjects of myth, contested artistic objects such as the statue, and, from rhetorical fiction, the excessively emotional worlds of men and the aesthetic appeal of female objects of desire. Such identities 8

For an earlier assessment (focusing on S 11, untitled): Papaioannou 2004.

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and personae of the past, previously marginalized and kept in safe distance, become in Psellos authorial masks. The reader’s inability to decide who the true self of the author might be is fully exploited in Psellian writing. The author functions as a literary character: he is malleable and changing, he both follows its creator’s will and fits the readers’ desires. And the plasticity is not strategically concealed or suppressed as in earlier Byzantine self-representation. Psellos advertises the rhetorical nature of his self-representation. In effect, he becomes rhetoric personified, the kind of rhetoric he endorsed in his theoretical writings: autonomous, polymorphous, and desirable; a rhetoric that is about to become literature.

rhetorical means, social objectives With this reading of Psellos, I do not claim that his deviation from Byzantine convention constituted either a political or a philosophical agenda. Psellos was not some kind of rebel writer who consciously set out to question expectations of truth and morality. To the extent that we are able to decipher his intentions, it is safer to assume that he, like any Byzantine writer, wanted his self-advertised qualities to be taken seriously, as communicating truth and abiding by moral standards. This intention is substantiated by two factors. First, Psellos is deeply embedded in a dialogue with an impressive series of earlier texts and traditions of thought. This dialogue may occasionally go against Byzantine expectations. As we saw, he mixes the Hermogenian rhetorical tradition focused on style with the ontological views of Neoplatonic philosophy in order to construct his theory of authorship. He also offers a syncopated rewriting of the patristic and Hellenic tradition of self-representation, placing the accent on the wrong syllable. Nevertheless, this self-representation would be unimaginable without those rich discursive traditions that preceded him. Psellos was set to promote these traditions, in all their complexity, rather than subvert them. Secondly, as argued above in reference to his aesthetics, it is futile to identify any system in Psellos. His innovations are not pursued through systematic exposition, but rather through images, metaphors, selection and re-arrangement of traditional motifs, inserted in genres that invite rhetorical elaboration. My study highlighted a series of consistent patterns in Psellian writing. Yet these by no means amount to a full-fledged system or unidirectional approach.

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Psellos, after all, knows not only how to upset, but also how to re-affirm traditional conceptions of authority. The positive image of his own versatility, for instance, is strikingly similar to the images he puts forth when slandering or simply making fun of others.9 Similar is his purported antiasceticism, sometimes regarded as a clear sign of “humanism.”10 Depending on context, argument, and addressee, Psellos’ criticism of extreme asceticism is conducted in either playfully defensive or forcefully aggressive terms – a practice not unknown among other eleventh-century texts.11 Psellos’ praise and blame of “passion-free” monks equally shifts.12 Moreover, he retained throughout his career close ties with contemporary monastics and financial interests in monastic property. And, like any Byzantine writer, he could easily express ascetic views for the appropriate occasion.13 How can we discover in this stance straightforward beliefs and therefore read Psellos as an anti-monastic humanist, fighting off conservative opponents? How can one securely identify a system behind such versatility, when versatility seems to be Psellos’ main objective? What sets Psellos apart and is a consistent feature of his writing is his willingness to cross discursive boundaries and maximize the potential of rhetoric and his agility in activating a variety of beliefs and ethical patterns – often latent in the multifaceted discursive world in which he belonged. Psellos innovates, often with spectacular results, but he does so in traditional fashion and with traditional tools. At stake for him, his audience, and his competitors were networks of relations, positions of political authority, the consequent social status, and the material wealth derived from them. 9

10 11

12

13

See, e.g., the Psellian-like features of a monk, named Elias, whom Psellos often satirizes; cf., e.g., S 154 to Konstantinos, nephew of Keroularios, or K-D 212 to Ioannes Doukas (esp. 250.14–25) with Dennis 2003 and also Ljubarskij 2001: 273–9 = 2004: 111–19. See also what are regarded as negative attributes in Psellos’ Accusation of Keroularios, but, elsewhere, as positive features of Psellos himself; Or. for. 1.1410–1 (theatricality) and 1678–82 (comparison with Socrates of Plato’s Apology). Angold 1997: 76–91; Kaldellis 1999: 113–14; Ljubarskij 2001: 281–5 = 2004: 119–25. For the playful type, see S 69 to the emperor Isaakios Komnenos when he was traveling (esp. 304.20), and 159 to the patriarch Michael Keroularios, and Papaioannou 1998: 115; for the aggressive kind, see Chron. 6a.6–9 and 18–19. For similar suspicion against extreme asceticism, expressed not by rhetors such as Psellos, but by members of the ecclesiastical establishment and writers representing the interests of the imperial court, see Gouillard 1978 with Messis 2012. Alternating praise and blame: Chron. 6a.6–9 (negative presentation on the “unwavering” monk Leon Paraspondylos) with Or. pan. 15 (encomium for Leon for the same “philosophical” qualities); cf. further Ljubarskij 2001: 299–307 = 2004: 140–9 with Papaioannou 1998: 107–17. Letters addressed to monks: S 54, 91, 101, 150, 185, 196; K-D 36, 112, 113, 164, 170, 199, 205, 226, 267; G 29; Agati 1980 and 1986. Letters pertaining to monks: S 65, 119, 130, 140, 158, 173, 185; K-D 113, 115, 164, 201, 204, 205, 270; G 28. Ascetic discourse: S 54 to the monk Symeon Kechres; S 69 to the emperor Isaakios Komnenos when he was traveling; Life and Conduct of our Holy Father Auxentios on the Mountain = Or. hag. 1; Encomium for a Certain Monk Nikolaos, Who Became Abbot of the Monastery of the Beautiful Spring on Olympos (cf. pp. 173–4 above).

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He was not interested in any direct confrontation with tradition and its ideological preoccupations. Psellos’ pursuit of a new model of rhetorical authorship was, to put it differently, the ingenious means by which immediate social objectives could be met. Anxious to cater for the literary tastes and thus attract the support of his patrons, associates, and friends, eager to remain within a society of fellow urbane gentlemen,14 and willing to take center-stage in the competitive arena of that society, Psellos stretched the potential for self-representational rhetoric. The moment was ripe for this insistence on aesthetics and urbane charm. Though often viewed with suspicion in Byzantium,15 urbane ethos and the conspicuous consumption of goods that accompanied it (what Psellos called approvingly “love of beauty: philokalia”) were becoming a socially valuable cachet among the new aristocratic elites.16 A fondness for material luxury and acquisition of wealth was displayed and talked about more openly, thus finding space within Byzantine systems of representation.17 By presenting himself as a sublime aesthetic object of desire, someone who could offer the exquisite yet safe pleasures of discourse to a willing audience, Psellos was seeking a double effect. He advertised himself as someone who could provide a discourse for this new aristocracy, praising its tastes, promoting a new set of virtues, more open to variety and ambiguity, more receptive to the world of the senses, and more attuned to a wider spectrum of emotions. Simultaneously, by pushing the limits of this discourse by adopting a rhetorical, aestheticized, Hellenic, and feminine persona, he distanced himself from his aristocratic audience. He thus could become both the advocate of urbane ethos and its unique, inexhaustible, and “other,” object of desire.

14 15

16 17

E.g., K-D 17 to Romanos, a former fellow student; G 25 to the magistros and prˆotonotarios tou dromou, Eustratios Choirosphaktes. John of Damascus, Sacra parallela, PG 96 81.13 ff.; Symeon the New Theologian, Katechesis 29.271– 87. For applied cases: Psellos, Chron. 7.59 and Ioannes Skylitzes, Synopsis of Histories, Reign of Monomachos, ch. 26 (Romanos Boilas); Attaleiates, History 15 (records reactions against conspicuous consumption). For this meaning of philokalia as a positive attribute in Psellos: K-D 231 to Ioannes Doukas; also S 54 to the Monk Symeon Kenchres, Psellos’ consolation to a former “lover of all worldly philokalia.” Kazhdan and Wharton Epstein 1985: 74–119; Oikonomid`es 1991 = 2005 xiii; Papamastorakis 2002 and 2004; also Drpi´c 2011 for the later tradition. The Suda included several entries on the vocabulary of urbanity; though these sometimes acknowledge moral (Christian?) strictures, they often promote urbanity: e.g., alpha.4228 (asteizomenos), alpha.4235 (asteios), iota.294 (hilaros), kappa.1252 (kekompseumenos), kappa.2024–5 (kompseia and kompson), pi.1917 (politikos).

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Though the intention was a social one, the effect of the rhetorical version of Psellos’ persona was an extraordinary openness to literary discourse that becomes obvious if we look at Psellos’ influence on twelfth-century rhetorical culture.18 Psellos’ writings initiated neither any fundamental change in the social positioning of the rhetor-philosophers nor some kind of radical upheaval in Byzantine Weltanschauung. His impact was, rather, intrinsic to the development of Byzantine rhetorical writing as a series of twelfth-century authors, to whom we most likely owe the survival of most of Psellos’ texts, used him as a model. In the first decades after Psellos’ death, the political, social, and cultural climate of Komnenian Constantinople did not seem entirely favorable for Psellos himself and his rhetoro-philosophical production. For instance, both Attaleiates in his History (completed and revised in 1079) and, influenced by him, Ioannes Skylitzes in his chronicle and its continuation (written most likely by Skylitzes himself, sometime after 1101), acknowledge Psellos’ superior knowledge. However, they also (especially the latter) paint a negative picture of Psellos as an arrogant intellectual, who, according to Skylitzes, instructed the emperor Michael VII Doukas in useless knowledge.19 Similarly, in the satirical dialogue titled Timarion, written sometime in the last two decades of the eleventh or the first decade of the twelfth century, Psellos is caricatured. In a famous scene that takes place in Hades, the author of the Timarion presents a group of “philosophers,” who graciously greet Psellos, yet reject his company. In their eyes, he is not one of them. By contrast, the rather inferior “sophists” or, as the text 18

19

On twelfth-century rhetorical culture: Mullett 1997: 43–53 and 69–78; Magdalino 1993a: 335–56; Agapitos 2012. For Psellos’ influence: Criscuolo 1989: 15 note 1; Magdalino 1993a: passim (cf., e.g., p. 331 on the combination of rhetoric and philosophy; or p. 395 on twelfth-century historians); and, especially, Kaldellis 2007a: 226–8. Cf. Attaleiates, History 21: “pr»edron tän filos»fwn proceiris†menov Šndra tän kaq’ ¡mv diaf”ronta gnÛsei” (on Psellos’ promotion by Monomachos; on this positive view, cf. Krallis 2006) with History 181 and, especially, 296 (if, of course, this is a reference to Psellos): “dus†restov Šnqrwpov kaª ËyaÅchn.” Also Skylitzes, Synopsis of Histories, Reign of Michael VI, ch. 11: “–ke±se d’ aÉt genom”n fq†nousi kaª presbeutaª basil”wv, ¾ pr»edrov Kwnstant±nov ¾ LeicoÅdhv, ¾ pr»edrov Qe»dwrov ¾ %lwp»v, Kwnstant±nov ¾ Yell¼v ¾ tän filos»fwn Ìpatov. oÕtoi g‡r o¬ tre±v Šndrev –pª sof© kaª l»gou dun†mei tän kat‡ tŸn ¡m”ran –ke©nhn ˆnqrÛpwn diaf”rein dokoÓntev, kaª ˆsugkr©twv ¾ Yell»v, –xel”ghsan e«v t¼ presbeÓsai” with Synopsis Historiˆon, Proem: “kaª ¾ kaq’ ¡mv Ìpatov tän filos»fwn kaª Ëp”rtimov ¾ Yell»v, kaª pr¼v toÅtoiv ™teroi . . . par”rgwv ‰y†menoi toÓ ›rgou tv te ˆkribe©av ˆpopeptÛkasi” and, especially, Continuation of Skylitzes 156.6–8 (see also 152.22–4; both passages follow closely Attaleiates): “toÓ MicaŸl kaª paidia±v paidariÛdesi proskeim”nou, toÓ Ëp†tou tän filos»fwn, toÓ YelloÓ, pr¼v Œpan ›rgon ˆd”xion kaª Šprakton aÉt¼n ˆpergasam”nou.” For the Continuation of Skylitzes, see now Karpozilos 2009: 239–40 and 307–30; on Attaleiates, see p. 134 above.

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also names them, the “rhetoro-sophists,” receive him with enthusiasm and grant him an honorable place among themselves.20 Similar uneasiness toward Psellos is recorded in a series of marginal notes added by the scribe and, possibly, compiler of the earliest collection of Psellos’ rhetoro-philosophical texts, the Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. gr. 57.40 that dates to the late eleventh or early twelfth century. Apart from mere editorial work,21 this reader of Psellos also offered explanatory remarks that tell us something of his background and interests. One note (f. 18r) glosses a Psellian reference to the “famous Elysium” (K-D 34 to Ioannes Mauropous; 55.4–5).22 Another note (on f. 65v) remarks on Psellos’ mention of “Socrates’ irony” (K-D 136 to the bishop of Amaseia; 161.21).23 In his lengthiest note (ff. 102v–103r: Plate 7), we capture further the mindset of this reader. The text, cited below, is a reaction to a phrase in one of Psellos’ theological essays titled What Is the “According to His Image” and What Is the “According to His Likeness” (Theol. ii 4, the scholion in the critical apparatus on p. 43). Psellos had written that “our change toward the worse condition [i.e., the fall from virtue] happens out of weakness” (l. 49–50), yet his twelfth-century reader disagreed: %ll’ oÉ sunqžsoma© soi pr¼v taÓta –gÛ, sofÛtere p†ntwn kaq†pax ˆndrän tän Âsoi toÓ kaq’ ¡mv ge kairoÓ, tŸn –x ˆretv ˆp»ptwsin –x ˆsqene©av –pigegensqai ˆpofainom”n, –k çaqum©av d• mllon semnopoižsav t¼n l»gon ¾ –rän. E« g‡r toÓto do©hmen kat† ge t¼n l»gon t¼n s»n, oÉ to±v katamelžsasin ˆretv kaª pr¼v t¼ Šneton ˆpidoÓsi di‡ t¼ taÅthv sklhr¼n kat†krisiv ™yetai di‡ ˆsq”neian aÉtv –kpesoÓsiá kaª Œma eÉpr»swpov ‹n e­h toÓto ˆpolog©a to±v Âsoi 20

21 22

23

Timarion (the relevant lines: 1123–35; see lines 1140–1 for the term “rhetoro-sophists”). On this text: Alexiou 1982–3; Baldwin 1984; Tsolakes 1990; Blachakos 2001; Alexiou 2002: 100–111; Kaldellis 2007a: 276–283; Kaldellis 2012. Psellos is praised as well as caricatured also in Xenedemos, another Lucianic text written by Theodoros Prodromos; cf. Ebbessen 1996: 81–2 = 2008: 147–8 (I thank Eric Cullhed for this reference). In this fictional dialogue, Prodromos refers to a certain Theokles who seems to be a combination of Psellos with his student Ioannes Italos: Theokles, we read, was “from Italy” but he was also a “man from/in Byzantium [Byzantios], among the best of philosophers” with a speech impediment, as he “used to double the syllables and words . . . in order to double the pleasure”; Theokles was endowed with “a tongue breathing the force of Attic fire,” wrote many and beautiful books, some in verse, other in prose, addressing emperors as well as more “private” men, and was best at “improvising a letter” (Xenedemos, p. 204–5). The scribe fixed gaps in Psellos’ text by adding missing words and lines (7r, 81r, 210r, 212r, 230r, 250v, 267r) and offering alternative readings and glosses (24r, 34r, 34v, 70r). “ ìHlÅsion par‡ to±v í Ellhsi ¾ par†deisov l”getai di‡ t¼ t‡ sÛmata Šluta thre±n”: the wording reflects standard Byzantine definitions of Elysion, evident in scholia to ancient texts and lexicographical entries. “¾ Swkr†thv kateg”la p†ntwn tän gnwstikän”: wording again reminiscent of scholiastic writing on ancient classical texts; see, especially, Ioannes Tzetzes, Commentary on the Frogs, Argumentum 7–9.

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Plate 7 Psellos’ text with later marginal note; Florence, Pluteus 57.40 (late eleventh or early twelfth century), f. 102 verso.

tv ˆretv oÉk ˆnt”sconto, pr¼v tŸn ˆkr»thta taÅthv ˆnabnai di‡ ˆdunam©an ˆtonžsantev. However, I will not agree with you in this respect, O wiser among all men of our time, when you argue that the fall from virtue happened “out of

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weakness” – even if one will say “out of indolence,” still attempting to keep his words more decent. If we were to agree with your account, then condemnation will not follow for those who neglected virtue and sought pleasure due to the harshness of virtue as they would have fallen from virtue simply “because of weakness.” This would be also an attractive apology for those who could not bear virtue, having lost strength, “because of weakness,” to rise to the peak of virtue.

We encounter here a learned man with interest and knowledge in the Hellenic tradition and a deep admirer of the “wisdom” of Psellos (whom he singles out among all his contemporaries), but also someone with reservations against Psellos’ somewhat lax ethical philosophy. For certain of Psellos’ successors, this uneasiness was not limited to mere disfavor. Philosophical and “Hellenizing” views (the kind of discourse that Psellos actively promoted) could be used as pretext for political prosecution. In 1082, for example, Psellos’ student Ioannes Italos was brought to trial and condemned for heresy.24 A contemporary marginal note in a manuscript of the history of the early Byzantine pagan historian Zosimos (c. 500), Vatican, BAV, gr. 156 (f. 130v), expresses anxiety about intellectual decline: ìEn / m(”n)toi t basil©di / taÅt szont(ai) m(•n) / ›ti (kaª) bibl©a (kaª) / l»gwn t”cnai, pl(Ÿn) / kˆntaÓqa ¢dh / a¬ moÓs(ai) –p’ ½l©/g(oiv) p†nu saleÅou/s(in) ›ti, (kaª) d”ov Âs(on) / oÌpw sbesq(nai) (kaª) / tde (kaª) pan/t†pasi fqar(nai) / t¼ t(än) mous(än) Ànom(a) / (kaª) t(än) l»g(wn) t(‡v) t”cn(av) . . . (kaª) kinduneÅom(en) loip(¼n) / p©qhkoi (e²nai) . . . 25 In this Queen of cities, books and the arts of discourse still survive, yet here too the Muses26 quiver within only a few people. One fears that the name of the Muses and the arts of discourse will be, in a short time, erased and entirely destroyed . . . We are in danger of becoming like monkeys . . .

The scholion has its own rhetorical objectives and should be read with caution – after all, the supposedly ostensive “anti-intellectualism” of Alexios Komnenos’ reign had its limitations and complexities.27 The note simply suggests an intellectual climate in which interest in “learned” texts such as those of Psellos might have subsided. Nevertheless, admiration for Psellos grew and, one might say, was revived during the twelfth century. Especially after the death of Alexios Komnenos 24 25 26 27

Browning 1975 (= 1977: xv); Clucas 1981; Angold 1995: 50–4; Agapitos 1998b; Gounaridis 2006. Forcina 1987: 33–34. The relevant discussion in Zosimos (New History, book 5, 24.6) is about statues of the Muses being destroyed. See Messis 2012 with various papers in Beaton and Ricks 1993 and Mullett and Smythe 1996.

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in 1118 and primarily between the 1130s and 1150s, a large number of writers acknowledged the wisdom and superior rhetorical skills of Psellos.28 Furthermore, a series of rhetoricians such as Anna Komnene (2 December 1083–c. 1150–5), Michael Italikos (c. 1090?–before 1157), Nikephoros Basilakes (c. 1115–after 1182), Eumathios Makrembolites (mid twelfth century), Ioannes Tzetzes (c. 1110–1180/5), Theodoros Prodromos (c. 1100–c. 1170), Niketas Eugeneianos (twelfth century), and Konstantinos Manasses (c. 1130–c. 1187), employed Psellian phraseology and cultivated some of his ideas further. As is evident from her Alexiad, Anna Komnene seems to have been especially important in this revival of Psellos. Both a patroness of intellectual activity and a writer herself, Anna culled Psellos’ texts extensively, citing his Chronographia, his Encomium for His Mother, and some of his Orations more often than the Church Fathers or classical writers.29 Simultaneously, she made an effort to disassociate Psellos (mentioned by name) from Ioannes Italos and any hint of heresy, and thus to rehabilitate the first hypatos tˆon philosophˆon (Alexiad 5.8.3–4).30 It should be noted that when using Psellian phraseology and motifs, Anna does not acknowledge her debt to Psellos. In this appropriation of the eleventh-century model, Anna was typical. Most Byzantine historians of the twelfth century (from 28

29 30

The earliest statement (though its date is uncertain) is from the pen of Theophylaktos Hephaistos, Letter 27: t trismakar©t Ëpert©m t Yell kaª ˆparam©ll tŸn glättan ½fe©lw m•n Þv e«k¼v oÉk eÉapod»touv c†ritav· poll‡ g‡r o²da tv moÅshv toÓ ˆndr¼v ˆpon†menov. Positive statements increase after the 1120s. See Ioannes Zonaras (died after 1159?), Epitome of Histories 672.12–13: ¾ m•n g‡r polÆv tŸn glättan Yell¼v (Zonaras, however, also repeats the negative sentiments in Skylitzes: Synopsis of Histories 708 and 714 and cf. note 19 above). Michael Glykas (first third of the twelfth century–after 1164), Verses for Manuel Komnenos 115: sofoª Yello© tinev. Glykas, Chronicle 341.20: ¾ sofÛtatov Yell¼v. Eustathios of Thessalonike (c. 1115–95/6), Orations 5, p. 76.27–30: t¼n p†mmegan kaª Àntwv Ëp”rtimon –n sofo±v, oÕ yell‡ m•n t‡ tv glÛtthv, t‡ d• tv filosof©av di†tora kaª bront»fwna, e«v t¼ aÉt¼ çht¼n kaqe±nai toÆv l»gouv. Michael Choniates (c. 1138–c.1222), Letter 28 (written c. 1185): ˆpobl”pwn, o²mai, pr¼v toÆv K†twnav kaª Kik”rwnav, %rrianoÅv te kaª Qemist©ouv kaª toÆv pr¼ mikroÓ YelloÆv, o° tŸn Škran filosof©an patžsantev kaª t‡v kosmoÅsav t‡ ˆnqrÛpina q”midav –mel”thsan, oÉk –n t gnÛsei m»n tän Àntwn t¼ qeoe©kelon ¾riz»menoi, ˆll‡ kaª –n t tän deut”rwn –pestr†fqai kaª kosme±n Þv o³»n te. Demetrios Chomatenos (born mid twelfth century–died c. 1236), Various Works 26.145–8: . . . toÓ sofwt†tou d• YelloÓ. See also Duffy 1998 (Psellos and Tzetzes) and H¨orandner and Paul 2011 with Psellos, Poem 68.81 (Psellos presented as authoritative versifier in a poem, falsely attributed to Psellos, and composed likely in the second quarter of the twelfth century). See Linn´er 1983 with the index of references in the recent edition of the Alexiad; Reinsch and Kambylis 2001. For Anna’s debt to Psellos’ Encomium for His Mother : Papaioannou 2011b. On Psellos: MicaŸl –ke©n t Yell . . . Áv oÉ p†nu ti par‡ didask†loiv sofo±v –fo©thse, di‡ fÅsewv d• dexi»thta kaª no¼v ½xÅthta, tucÜn m”ntoi kaª QeoÓ ˆrwgoÓ pr¼v toÅtoiv di‡ tŸn tv mhtr¼v qermot†thn ¬kes©an . . . e«v Škron sof©av ‰p†shv –lhlakÜv kaª t‡ ëEllžnwn kaª Calda©wn ˆkribws†menov g”gone to±v t»te cr»noiv perib»htov –n sof©. See note 20 above, on how in Prodromos’ Xenedemos, Psellos and Italos are treated as one person.

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Nikephoros Bryennios to Niketas Choniates) cited or often rephrased Psellos without giving him credit.31 Rhetoricians too used Psellos in a similar fashion.32 For our purposes, there are three ways in which Psellos’ highly rhetoricized aesthetics are evident in this period. First, twelfth-century rhetors evoke Psellos’ insistence on the mixture of philosophy with rhetoric as a topos, an expectation for any self-respecting logios.33 Moreover, like Psellos, these writers occasionally promote rhetoric above philosophy. Ioannes Tzetzes and Michael Italikos, for instance, find fault with Plato’s rather limited view of rhetoric.34 Rhetoric is again both a valid profession and a valuable practice in which writers pride themselves and through which they praise their teachers, friends, and associates.35 Indeed, Psellos’ self-confident 31

32

33

34

35

See Karpozilos 2009: 88 with further bibliography. For Bryennios and Psellos specifically, see Neville 2008. For Zonaras and Psellos’ Concise History, see also Dˇzelebdˇzi´c 2007: 157–60 (with the earlier bibliography). For four (unacknowledged) citations of Psellos in twelfth-century non-historiographical writing see: an anonymously transmitted prose monody, likely by Niketas Eugeneianos, citing Psellos, Iambic Verses on the Death of [Maria] Skleraina = Poem 17.193–4; Sideras 1990: 208.9–13 with Agapitos 2008a: 575–6, note 96. A citation from Psellos, Or. pan. 5.37–60 in another anonymous twelfthcentury monody; Sideras 1997: 118–21. Three slightly adapted letters of Psellos (K-D 2 and 3 and G 12), included in the collection of Hierotheos the monk; Gr¨unbart 2007: 60. And a letter by Manuel Karantenos where a verbatim quotation appears from Psellos’ speech of self-defense, When He Refused the Title of Proto-asˆekrˆetis = Or. min. 8; Criscuolo 1977: 107 and 112. Nikephoros Basilakes, Orations B1.19 (18.14–18) and B4.5 (78.10–17); Anna Komnene, Alexiad 15.7.9.24–26; Michael Italikos, Orations 15 (p. 150.11) and Letter 5 with Criscuolo 1971: 60–62 and 69; Eumathios Makrembolites, The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias 7.14; Theodoros Prodromos, Monody For the Holiest Metropolitan of Trebizond Kyr Stephanos Skylitzes 36 and 54–5; also Philoplaton or the Currier 12–14 (on Plato); Niketas Eugeneianos, Funeral Oration on Theodoros Prodromos, 456.6–11; Ioannes Tzetzes, Letter 77; Gregorios Antiochos (1125? –after 1196), Funeral Oration on Nikolaos Kataphloron 58.23–59.5; Michael Choniates, Discourse to the Patriarch Michael 80.2–28 with Kolovou 1999: 266–70. The theme is present also in late thirteenth-century rhetorical theory (Byd´en 2002) and specifically applied to Psellos (p. 264 below). Italikos, Letter 13 with Magdalino 1993a: 334; cf. Letter 20 (165.11–15). Tzetzes, Chiliades 11.711–36 with a critique of Plato’s view of rhetoric introduced by a reference to Psellos’ Encomium for the Flea (Or. min. 27) which Tzetzes regards as an imitation of Lucian. Some notable examples: Michael Italikos’ claims to be an accomplished “rhetor” and “sophist” (Letter 14: 144.10–11); his Letter 24 is addressed to a “rhetor.” In his funeral Monody for his teacher and friend Stephanos Skylitzes (metropolitan of Trebizond at the moment of his death and likely the author of one of the two surviving Byzantine commentaries on Aristotle’s Rhetoric), Theodoros Prodromos recurrently commends Skylitzes for his rhetorical eloquence while spending no word on the likely philosophia of his metropolitan friend. Similarly, in his Funeral Oration on Theodoros Prodromos, Niketas Eugeneianos dwells on the rhetorical (rather than philosophical) virtues of his friend, whom he, nevertheless, addresses as “philosopher” (463.3–4). In the same vein, Eustathios of Thessalonike (unlike, say, Synesios or Psellos) spends much time on (his) rhetoric while no single word on philosophia as a tool for self-promotion in his Letters. See also Konstantinos Manasses, Discourse to Michael Hagiotheodorites 400–1 and Euthymios Tornikes (late twelfth–early thirteenth century), Encomium for Alexios Komnenos . . . Urging Him to Appoint Him a Rhetor (esp. section 2 where an extravagant encomium of rhetoric): OÌtwv ¡ kall©sth kaª p†ndhmov aÌth çhtorikŸ pantac»qen ¡m±n –picorhge± t‡ kal†, toÆv . . . ˆgaqoÆv aÉtokr†torav ˆpaqanat©zousa kaª

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voice as discourse-specialist is superseded in the countless self-referential comments of Tzetzes – who unsurprisingly sometimes finds fault with Psellos.36 Secondly, Psellian discursive aesthetics come into vogue. We encounter, for instance, an emphasis on the aesthetic materiality of language. Tzetzes commends the rhetorical “statue-making” of discourse, the agalmatourgia of a friend, “another Pheidias.” Similarly, Prodromos describes discourse as the perfect sculpting of a statue, combining a “beautiful body” and a “musical soul” and subjecting the reader to a “sweet attraction and spell.”37 Twelfth-century rhetors also often promote performance-oriented rhetoric, by prescribing proper recitation (hypokrisis) and by focusing upon the intrinsic theatricality of discourse.38 Furthermore, they praise creative variety. Italikos, for example, admires the skills of the author who does not remain “the same,” but mixes “sameness” and “otherness” like Plato’s (and Psellos’) demiurge.39 Along the same lines, Prodromos in a remarkable text depicts a close friend and patron “nourished” by rhetoric as the “varied and many-sided” poet expelled from Plato’s “new city,” now properly revered and welcome in Constantinople: “He was sent away,” Prodromos writes, “from Plato’s city with myrrh and crown but, in a much more reverent fashion, he was brought back to the royal city of Byzantium!”40

36 37

38

39 40

t¼ o«ke±on taÅt kaª f©lon Ànoma m”cri dŸ kaª –v deÓro, toÆv sofist†v, periszousa; the text begins with a citation of Synesios, Letter 1 (cf. p. 42 above). See further Papaioannou 2013b. Cf. the recurrent “Tzetzes says / writes” in his Chiliades, Commentary on Lykophron, and Exegesis on Homer’s Iliad. For Psellos in Tzetzes, see Duffy 1998. Tzetzes, Letter 77; Prodromos, Letter 3 to Stephanos Meles, logothetˆes, PG 133 1248a-b. See also Prodromos’ elegiac couplets On Gregory the Theologian that survive in Paris, BNF, gr. 554 (thirteenth century), ff. 1v–2r, where Prodromos hails Gregory for being among other things a “living statue of verse and prose = zw¼n Šgalm’ –p”wn kaª te logograf©hv” (Sajdak 1914: 258–259). Also Nikephoros Basilakes, Orations B3.38 (p. 74.16–27) and, especially, Niketas Choniates, History 547.12 with an unaknowledged citation from Psellos’ Chron. 6.70 and the discussion of the Psellian passage in Papaioannou 2010b. Ioannes Italos, Method of Rhetoric 10–12 (pp. 38–9: on the value of hypokrisis and the representation of ˆethos, yet not of pathos, which is reserved for the audience; cf. sections 8–9, p. 37 and also 19, pp. 41–2); Stephanos Skylitzes, Commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric 309.12–26 and 312.17–24 (hypokrisis and mimˆesis). Notable is also the case of Psellos’ student Theophylaktos Hephaistos, later archbishop of Ochrid, who encourages reading as an imaginative transference to the original moment of performance. Among the texts that Theophylaktos prescribes for this kind of reading, we find Gregory of Nazianzos and Basil of Caesarea as well as “the roses of the Iliad,” the “obscene speech of comedy,” and the “tragic theater,” of which the reader is urged to become a “spectator,” theatˆes; Letters 29; cf. Mullett 1997: 101. Letters 36 (220.4–221.23) and 12 (137.1–18). Letter 2 to Alexios Aristenos, nomophylax, prˆotekdikos and orphanotrophos (PG 133 1243a-1245a; cf. the discussion on pp. 123–4 above). Cf. also the emphasis on creative and imaginative autonomia as well as its rhetorical imitation of character and emotion in the commentaries of Homeric poetry by Eustathios of Thessalonike (c. 1115–95/6).

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Thirdly, and most importantly, first-person rhetorical discourse proliferates in this period – from letter-writing to prefaces, and from Lucianic literature such as the Timarion to fictional texts. In this discourse, Psellos’ varieties of subjectivity are often echoed.41 Anna Komnene, for instance, used Psellos’ excuses for self-praise in both her Alexiad and in an earlier text, a Preface to her final will and testament that survives among the writings of Michael Italikos.42 Psellos’ imagery of the statue-like self is also recurrent, as examples from Anna, Prodromos, Manasses, and others attest.43 Moreover, in a letter by Nikephoros Basilakes, we find anew the explicit affirmation of the effeminacy caused by pathos.44 Basilakes deserves special mention here, because in his set of fifty-six progymnasmata of mostly narratives (sixteen) and personifications (twentysix), produced sometime in the 1130s or 1140s, we first encounter a full exploration of nuanced models of textual subjectivity, in line with Psellian rhetoric. It is not simply that some of Basilakes’ wording and imagery reminds one of Psellos.45 It is also the fact that Basilakes’ Progymnasmata (especially his ˆethopoiiai) project, for the first time in Byzantine writing of this kind since the sixth century, a series of fictional mythological characters. In this respect, Basilakes’ texts are to be set within a larger trend evident in twelfth-century Constantinople: the so-called revival of fiction. Apart from his exercises, four fictional romantic tales also survive from this period, along with epigrammatic poetry with mythological themes, a Euripidean Christian drama, several Lucianic dialogues, and a few other texts toying with fiction.46 This revival of fiction was 41

42 43

44 45 46

Several examples are listed; for travel literature, see Messis 2011. The complete title of the Timarion reads: Timar©wn £ perª tän kat’ aÉt¼n paqhm†twn (the phrase “kat’ aÉt¼n” signals autobiographical discourse in Byzantium). Papaioannou 2011b. For the passages in Anna, see the discussion in Papaioannou 2010b; cf. further Quandahl and Jarratt 2008 on Anna’s rhetoric. Prodromos: Monody for the Holiest Metropolitan of Trebizond Kyr Stephanos Skylitzes 47, 153–8, and 201; Carmina historica (9a.22, 15.5, 38.100, 67.3); Rhodanthe and Dosikles (1.40 and 277). Manasses: Aristandros and Kallithea I.6.31–9, ii.15–17, and ii.31–7; Discourse to Michael Hagiotheodorites 175. See further the epigrams 88, 91, 95 in Lampros 1911. Letter 3 (p. 114.4–5): “my kin has rendered me female and I pray the prayer of Antigone . . . ”; cf. Michael Italikos, Letter 1 (64.16) with Psellos, S 72 and Papaioannou 2007a. See, e.g., Progymnasmata 11, 12, 19, 32, and 48 with the discussions in Papaioannou 2007b and Papaioannou 2010a (the latter on Basilakes’ Narrative about Narcissus; Progymnasmata 16). Novels: Eumathios Makrembolites’ The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias; Theodoros Prodromos, Rhodanthe and Dosikles, Niketas Eugeneianos, Drosilla and Charikles, and Manasses, Aristandros and Kallithea; Beaton 1996; Agapitos and Smith 1992; Agapitos and Reinsch 2000; Cupane 2004; Roilos 2005; Kaldellis 2007a: 256–276; Jeffreys 2012. Poetry: Eugeneianos, Poems and several of the poems gathered in the collection(s) of Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 524. Verse dramata: Hunger 1978: ii 142–8; Dost´alov´a 1982; Macrides 1985. Dialogical texts: Timarion and various other texts (the Philopatris included, which should be dated also to this period), edited and translated in Romano

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conditioned by several sociohistorical factors;47 what interests us is how strongly Psellos’ rhetoric is present behind this new Constantinopolitan rhetorical writing. Most of the fictional texts were composed by the same prominent Constantinopolitan teachers and rhetors mentioned above. They followed Psellos’ rhetorical aesthetics, which often surface in the texts themselves.48 Beyond Basilakes, this is especially the case in Eumathios Makrembolites’ The Story [drama] of Hysmine and Hysminias. In The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias, the world of appearance prevails, a world full of variation – what is described repeatedly with words favored by Psellos such as poikilos and pantodapos. Such variation is usually attributed to “charming” (charieis) objects of sight that are either real or created (plasmata) and that are visually pleasing and affect the viewer emotionally. The city and public processions, the garden, objects of art, dreams and mental images, dinner-feasts and food, and, of course, the female body and appearance, and even the text itself, “fashioned” like a “sumptuous golden statue [andrias],” are depicted as versatile aesthetic objects that incite intense emotions.49 Moreover, just as in the proliferation of first-person speech in Basilakes’ ˆethopoiiai, so also behind the main narrative voice of Makrembolites’ novel one cannot but hear Psellos’ varied “I,” with its projected aesthetics and expression of emotion. Maximizing a trend present in its late antique models, The Story [drama] of Hysmine and Hysminias adopts the firstperson perspective entirely. Its narrator is willing to recount his affects in his own voice, without any additional second- or third-person frames. Psellos’ rhetoricized self lurks behind this innovation.50

47 48

49

50

1999; also: Migliorini 2010 (Prodromos’ texts). Quasi-fictional texts: Basilakes’ Bagoas = Or. C; Magdalino 1993b. For the narrative literature of this period, see Nilsson forthcoming. Well analyzed in Agapitos 2012, with an in-depth comparative perspective and discussion of the earlier bibliography. Cf. also Agapitos 2008c and 2010. E.g., Eumathios Makrembolites, The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias 6.11; Theodoros Prodromos, Rhodanthe and Dosikles 8.95–8; Niketas Eugeneianos, Drosilla and Charikles 4.244 (the latter two cases in the first person) where an allusion is made to the Homeric line “neither of oak nor of stone was I born” (Iliad 22.126; cf. also 16.34–5 and Odyssey 19.163), the very line that Psellos adopts in the first person to explain his passionate nature (cf. p. 208 above). See also Macrides 1985: 159 note 59. Cf. further Timarion 247–67, with references to the “varied” nature of man who joins both masculine and feminine features, and displays an eloquence “full of charm” fashioned by “some Sappho.” The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias 1.1.1 (city), 1.2.1, 3.3.2, 5.7.1, and 8.19.2 (public processions), 1.4.1, 1.5.8, and 2.1.1 (garden), 2.7.3, 2.7.5, and 11.4.5 (objects of art), 3.5.2, 4.25.1–2, 9.6.4, and 9.16.2 (dreams and mental images), 2.13.1–3 and 9.3.2 (dinner-feasts), 3.5.4 and 10.16.2 (food), 3.10.4–5, 5.10.4–5, 5.16.1, and 11.1–3 (female body and appearance), 11.22.4 (text). For a comprehensive study of Makrembolites’ novel, see Nilsson 2001. In Hysminias’ first full encounter with erˆos (3.7.5–8.1), e.g., the character speaks of his pathos as a temporary “softening,” using a word that, as mentioned above, is employed in the first person

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Psellos’ approach to authorship in both theory and practice thus facilitated effervescent rhetorical culture in the twelfth century and played a role in the expansion of rhetoric into fiction that took place in this period. As Byzantium experienced one last moment of fragile glory before the collapse of 1204, Byzantine rhetoricians experimented with language and its imaginative powers and broke away from the constraints of the Byzantine autobiographical pact. This transition toward literary discourse was already at work in Psellos’ self-representation. By insisting on rhetoric, by emphasizing the aesthetics of authorship and selfhood, by giving voice to his emotions and pathos, and by projecting his ambiguous character, Michael Psellos offered Byzantine rhetors an alternative model of authorship, a creative gaze into the textual mirror of oneself. only by Psellos and Psellos’ likely model, Socrates; see p. 209 above. Cf. also 11.12.4, for another Psellian first-person imagery with p. 225 above: Šllov ¢mhn PrwteÆv mur©oiv to±v crÛmasin ˆllatt»menov. See also Psellos S 152 (an “erotic” letter to Ioannes Doukas) and the expression “t© me poliorke±n –piceire±v, ka© mou peir tv yucv . . . kaª turannžsv mou tän  qän –p’ ˆkrop»lei kaq©sav toÓ noÓ;” with Basilakes, Progymnasmata 23.16–19 and Makrembolites, The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias 3.2 (again, in the first person) with similar eroticized wording.

a p p en d ix

Books and readers in the reception of Psellos

Psellos wrote a great many texts: 493 titles along with 515 letters survive.1 These texts are transmitted in approximately 765 MSS; about a third of these date from the twelfth through to the fourteenth century. In their original context, several of Psellos’ texts would have been performed before varying audiences, while others would have been read by persons in his wide network of friends, patrons, clients, and students. In their written form, these texts would have circulated along this same network. As we saw earlier, Psellos refers to students and friends who recited and collected his works.2 Some of these collections, made by Psellos’ students and admirers (Theophylaktos Hephaistos, for example), might be reflected in later manuscripts, though the evidence is inconclusive.3 Within his archive, Psellos also retained the texts and letters of some of his associates and correspondents. Two such letters, one by an otherwise unknown student of Psellos named Kyritzes, and another by Ioannes Mauropous, now survive among Psellos’ letters followed by his responses; Mauropous’ text (if indeed authored by him) was not included in his own selection of his letters for publication preserved in Vatican, BAV, gr. 676.4 1

2 3

4

The following overview of the reception history of Psellos’ texts uses material with an emphasis on the formation and transmission of his letter-collection – though much of the information applies mutatis mutandis also to the majority of the rhetorical and self-representational texts that were discussed above and that often survive together with Psellos’ letters. For an earlier version of this appendix, see Papaioannou 2012a; for his funerary rhetoric and its transmission, see Agapitos and Polemis 2002. Cf. p. 22 above. There are three manuscripts with Psellos’ letters which could possibly have derived from collections that Theophylaktos himself might have made: 1) Vatican, BAV, gr. 672, late thirteenth century, a Psellos MS with only a couple of poems in its very last pages, one of them by Theophylaktos (ed. Gautier i 359–61); 2) Paris, BNF, gr. 1277, late thirteenth century, with seven Psellos letters included in that part of the MS (ff. 244r–271v) which also contains Theophylaktos, Anacreontic Verses on the Death of his Brother Demetrios (ed. Gautier i 368–377) and Letter 5 to Adrianos, brother of the emperor; and 3) Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 59.12, middle thirteenth century, where a Psellos letter is anonymously transmitted within an epistolary model collection that immediately precedes a collection of Theophylaktos’ letters. For Kyritzes, see K-D 209 (Kyritzes’ letter) with K-D 210, 27, and 28 (Psellos’ response – a single letter in Anastasi’s view; 1976: 85–91). For the exchange with Mauropous, see S 202 (Mauropous’

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Within Psellos’ collection, we also find letters that he wrote for others – four such cases survive: a letter (S 155) on behalf of the emperor Monomachos to a learned catechumen, likely a foreigner and student of Psellos before his baptism; a letter (S 162) sent to a patriarch, either Michael Keroularios or Konstantinos Leichoudes, on behalf of an aged teacher and fellow colleague of Psellos; and two letters (S 143 and 144), dated before August 1074, to Robert Guiscard (c. 1015–85) on behalf of Michael VII Doukas in order to arrange the wedding of Michael’s brother Konstantinos with Robert’s daughter (Helena?). We also find within Psellos’ letter-collection two further letters that are falsely presented as Psellian in the almost exclusively Psellian manuscript, Paris, BNF, gr. 1182. One is a letter by Basil of Caesarea (S 15 = Basil of Caesarea, Letter 62). The other is a text by the metropolitan of Nikomedeia, synkellos Stephen, an addressee of Leon of Synada, with whose collection Stephen’s letter survived originally (S 14 = Leon of Synada, Letter 34). One could discern in this inclusion of foreign texts the remnants of letter-collections that Psellos himself was likely reading and keeping among his own files. The case of the tenth-century letter from the collection of Leon of Synada is especially intriguing; how could this letter enter the collection of Psellos? There is evidence for Psellos’ knowledge of and interest in tenth-century letter-writing. In his On the “Be Shrewd as Serpents and Innocent as Doves” (Matthew 10.16) (Theol. ii 16.132–41), Psellos cites (without acknowledging his source) an anecdote about tigress hunters that, as far as I can tell, is first told in a letter by Symeon Magistros.5 Furthermore, in his Concise History (chapter 102), Psellos speaks approvingly of Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos’ letters as proof of his “erudition”: “–pistolaª goÓn aÉt eÌrhntai paide©an –mfa©nousai.” Whatever the realities of the original creation, reception, and preservation, one thing is certain: given the available Psellian manuscripts, we are unable to trace to Psellos himself a collection of the works or, specifically, the letters. There is no autograph by Psellos, nearly no manuscript containing any of his texts that dates to his lifetime, and certainly no manuscript

5

letter) and S 203 (Psellos’ response), the latter letter also edited and discussed in Spadaro 1981, where both letters are attributed to Psellos; for Mauropous’ collection, see Karpozilos 1990: 34–6. A third case might be a letter that, in Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., San Marco 303, is attributed to Psellos and titled “To Leon the patrikios,” but which is introduced as written “By the prˆotosynkellos, to Leon the patrikios” in Athens, EBE, 2429; the letter is edited as no. 5 in Westerink 1951. Letter 89.13–42 with Papaioannou 2004. Notably the story then re-appears (from Psellos?) in Niketas Choniates’ History (578.25–579.12; cf. Talbot 2005: 145) as well as in Choniates’ Monody on Ioannes Belissariotes = Oration 15, 168.14–25.

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that bears clear signs that it was commissioned or “authorized” by him.6 There is not even any trace of the books that Psellos might have owned – though he certainly owned several.7 Additionally – limiting our attention to the letters alone – none of the forty-four extant manuscripts contains either all or most of Psellos’ letters. Only two manuscripts contain a large amount of letters: 250 (Paris, BNF, gr. 1182) and 228 (Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. gr. 57.40), and each of these is still far from the total of 515. Another fifteen manuscripts include anything from seven to forty-seven letters, while the rest contain only a few pieces. Furthermore, in most of the principal manuscripts (and even some of the minor ones), we find letters that are not attested anywhere else. A total of 326 letters belong to this category and can, therefore, be of no help in establishing connections between the available manuscripts. The letters with two or more testimonies are not of significant help either. We can detect some distant relations, just two identifiable families of manuscripts (though insignificant in terms of date and content), and no more than a few micro-collections, small groupings of two to four letters (arranged according to the same addressee or pertaining to the same topic or, perhaps surprisingly, starting with the same phrase).8 Neither the comparison of variant textual readings nor the sequence of the letters in each manuscript brings us anywhere near the reconstruction of some proto-archetype of a collection. As far as we can tell, there existed no original, single, comprehensive, and authoritative collection of Psellos’ texts.9 This does not mean that Psellos never created such a collection or never intended to do so – the practice was common enough to suggest at least the possibility.10 The traces, however, of an original collection are unavailable to us. We must, therefore, assume, 6

7 9 10

There exist three manuscripts with works of Psellos that may date to his own lifetime; all three are peculiar cases. Five rhetorical encomia of older Saints (John the Baptist; Panteleemon; Kallinikos; Laurentios; Prokopios) are transmitted by two menologia of the months July and August (the last volume of a multivolume menologion), that date to the second half of the eleventh c.: Paris, BNF, gr. 1177 and Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 360; the works (if indeed by Psellos, as argued in Makris 2009; cf. p. 50 above) are transmitted anonymously. Additionally, thirty verses from Psellos’ On the Inscriptions of the Psalms (Poem 1.262–91) were included as a preface to a deluxe parchment copy of the Psalter (Oxford, Bodleian E. D. Clarke 15, ff. 1r–2v), dated to 1078. These verses derive from a poem that Psellos had originally prepared for Monomachos and then readdressed to Michael VII Doukas (see p. 12 above); significantly, they are not attributed to Psellos in the Oxford MS. For the MS, see Hutter 1977: 46–7; for Psellos’ poem: Parpulov 2004: 183–6; Bernard 2010: 38. 8 For details, see Papaioannou 2012a. Cf. p. 22 above. Anastasi 1976 makes a similar point, though focusing on rather limited evidence. See also Bernard 2010: 19, on the similar situation regarding Psellos’ poems. One is reminded, e.g., of Mauropous’ collection.

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first, that the Psellian texts which survive do not necessarily represent the works by which he might have wished to be remembered and, secondly, that these works exist due to a series of smaller collections gathered together either by Psellos or by his students, friends, or admirers. These collections were then later combined or excerpted in order to become part of the manuscripts as we now have them. hesitant interest: 1078– c . 1118 What does the reception history of Psellos’ texts, copied in manuscripts dating after his death, tell us? With some plausibility, we can discern at least four phases. Immediately after his death, the survival of his works was, as we saw above, by no means secure. Yet Psellos did not disappear. A manuscript that dates to precisely this early period – late eleventh / early twelfth century – gives us a glimpse of the future trajectory of Psellian reception. Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. gr. 57.40, previously dated wrongly to the fifteenth century, is mainly a collection of texts by Psellos that amounts to 572 pages.11 The beginning folios (of unknown number) are now lost. The book thus starts in medias res with a few lines from the end of a theological lecture (= Theol. i 19, on Greg. Naz. Or. 40.24), followed by 200 pages with 228 letters of Psellos. The letters seem to have been carefully arranged. First, we find those whose titles survive and then, starting on f. 86r, the anepigrapha. Several Psellian speeches, essays, and lectures – the majority of which are theological in content – complete the book with the exception of a small part (f. 168r–198v) where we read a few letters by Psellos’ contemporary patriarchs Michael Keroularios (1043–58) and Peter III of Antioch (1052–6). These letters pertain to the so-called schism with the Church of Rome (an answer by Pope Leo IX, 1048–54, is also included) and focus on the question of the azymes.12 It seems unlikely that the letters of Keroularios and Peter were part of an original collection together with Psellos’ texts owned by Psellos 11

12

For the new dating, see Bianconi 2010. I thank Daniele Bianconi as well as Nadezhda KavrusHoffman for help regarding the dating of the Laurentianus. For its marginal notes, see pp. 241–3 above. At the very end of the manuscript (ff. 283v–286v), the compiler added a series of passages, excerpts from an anonymous chronicle (e.g., on the divinely ordered sequence of kingdoms and on Mohammed and the appearance and early spread of Islam) which are very close in diction to the Chronicle of Georgios the Monk. Immediately following and without a very visible break in the page presentation (only a title in the margin signals the change in topic) there are a couple of prophylactic spells and prayers. The last of these is to be done in the case of “a woman in labor pains, [who is] unable to give birth.” Cf. Papaioannou 2013a.

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himself; notably, of the several surviving letters of Psellos addressed to Keroularios none is included in the Laurentianus. Occasional mistakes in the titles and ascriptions of the letters also point to a compiler distant from Psellos (cf., e.g., K-D 94, for which Aristenos is cited wrongly as the addressee, and K-D 273, also wrongly addressed to the kritˆes of Opsikion). Noteworthy in this respect are also the occasional repetition of entire letters (K-D 73, 74, and 254) which suggests derivation from various collections. The book was copied in the late eleventh or early twelfth century by a single scribe who seems to have been also the compiler, first reader (as his multiple marginal notes suggest), and possibly owner of the collection.13 His identity eludes us since he does not offer us his name, nor are any of his words or phrases in the notes unique enough to point to a known twelfth-century writer. Nevertheless, the book that he put together signals the two types of reception that Psellos’ works were to attract in future generations. The book’s emphasis on theology suggests the creation of a Psellian corpus useful for the purposes of instruction of a relatively large readership interested in basic knowledge. The inclusion of the letters and some rhetorical texts, on the other hand, points to the preservation of another Psellos who could address the needs of a smaller audience fascinated with discursive subtleties. entering the canon of classics: c . 1118–1204 The popularizing theologian and philosopher Psellos was to remain quite in demand in Byzantium, and beyond. This is evident by the wide circulation of certain of his texts that were, in fact, never – and this should be highlighted – anthologized together with his letters or his highly rhetorical and philosophical texts. I refer to such popularizing compendia of knowledge as the Concise Answers to Various Questions (149 manuscripts),14 his poem On the Seven Councils (Poem 4; 54 manuscripts), or his Interpretation of the Song of Songs in Political Verses (Poem 2; also 54 manuscripts). These compendia derived from Psellos’ work as instructor in the household of the Doukas family and were the kinds of texts through 13 14

For the marginal notes, see pp. 241–3 above. For the wide diffusion and four redactions of this text, see Westerink 1948; cf. also Beck 1961: 459. On Glykas’ evocation of Psellos’ authority, with reference to the Concise Answers to Various Questions and Poem 1 on the Psalms, see pp. 241–3 above with Mauromate-Katsogianopoulou 1989 and Karpozilos 2009: 588–93.

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which a larger Byzantine (and post-Byzantine) audience might have come to know Psellos.15 The Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Panagiou Taphou 57, dated to 1182,16 belongs in this context. Extracts from Psellos’ Concise Answers to Various Questions are included in a theological collection with texts by Anastasios Sinaites, Photios, John Chrysostom, and others. Similar is the situation of the famous single surviving Byzantine portrait of Psellos, in his monastic habit, instructing Michael VII Doukas. This small-scale authorportrait prefaces one of Psellos’ theological poems: To the Emperor Kyr Michael Doukas on the Creed (Poem 3). The poem was included in a thick volume of almost 1,100 pages, apparently created for purely theological schooling in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century: Athos, Pantokratoros 234 (the portrait on f. 254r; Plate 2). The manuscript begins with the Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Psalms, followed by the Orations of Gregory of Nazianzos, works by Athanasios of Alexandria, Maximos the Confessor, John of Damascus, and others. The texts are often prefaced by author-portraits of well-known figures: the evangelists, the eleven apostles, Paul and Thekla, Gregory of Nazianzos, John of Damascus, Anastasios of Antioch, Athanasios of Alexandria, Maximos the Confessor, Dionysios the Areopagite. Psellos is thus just another theological authority – two more of his theological poems (Poem 1, on the Psalms; and Poem 4, on the Seven Ecumenical Councils) are also transmitted in the Athonite manuscript.17 Psellos’ works of rhetorical theory and practice, his letters, his Chronographia, and his more sophisticated philosophy and theology had a rather different, and more fragile reception. Most of these texts are extant in a few manuscripts, sometimes, it seems, by mere accident. The Chronographia, for instance, survives in basically one single late twelfth-century manuscript, the Paris, BNF, gr. 1712.18 The book was not meant to preserve Psellos’ work specifically. Rather, in its original composition, the 15

16 17 18

See also Bernard 2010: 39 (the transmission of Psellos’ didactic poetry). Cf. also Jacob 2006. Because of such texts, the name of Psellos was recognizable to collectors of manuscripts such as Bessarion in the fifteenth century; for an example, see Bessarion’s note in the fourteenth-century Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 266 (Mioni 1981: 383–6; cf. Searby and Sj¨ors 2011: 147–8). These Psellian texts had interesting afterlives, also beyond their manuscript transmission. For instance, to note a curious moment in the reception of Psellos, the first ten lines of Psellos’ poem On the Seven Councils were translated by the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61), included in her Poetical Works (London 1897). Not 1128 as in Moore 2005: 724. For the contents of Pantokratoros 234, see Lampros 1895: 112–13. For Psellos’ portrait, see Spatharakis 1976: 230–2 with Kadas 2008: 182–3 (where detailed bibliography). For Psellos’ Chronographia: Panagiotakis 1965; Snipes 1983, 1989, and 1991.

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manuscript was aimed to cover historiographically the years from the creation of the world to the reign of Michael VII Doukas in 1071–8; it thus contained three history texts of very different character in chronological sequence: a version of an anonymous Chronicle, written in lower register Greek, known as the Chronicle of Pseudo-Symeon (from the creation of the world to the mid tenth century), Leon the Deacon’s History (years 959 to 976), and Psellos’ Chronographia (from 976 to 1075). Psellos’ Concise History had a similar fate. Though introductory, this text was rather particular in its singular focus on Roman history and imperial biography. The text survives in a single manuscript, now in the collection of the Monastery of St. Catherine on the Sinai peninsula (MS 1117 [482]), a fourteenth-century collection of texts pertaining to ecclesiastical law. Psellos’ didactic chronicle occupies only a few pages (ff. 265r–276v) in the middle of the book. It is one of a few brief and anonymous chronicles included in the Sinai manuscript as additional material, but not essential to its main contents. An important shift in the transmission of Psellian texts of this kind is visible in the period after the death of Alexios Komnenos, primarily between the 1130s and 1150s. As we saw above, a distinctly Psellian intellectual mode was in vogue toward the mid-twelfth century among certain literary circles with rhetorical and philosophical interests. Thus authors, such as Anna Komnene, evoke Psellos’ mastery of rhetoric and philosophy and also cite him – especially his speeches and his Chronographia. It is very likely that manuscripts containing Psellos’ letters were present in the libraries of Anna and other twelfth-century writers. After all, some of these authors belonged to, or were closely linked with, the very families whose ancestors were Psellos’ closest patrons and frequent addressees: for instance, the Doukai, the Makrembolitai, and the family of Keroularios.19 It is no coincidence that the rhetorical and philosophical production of the twelfth century survives in a handful of manuscripts that often include Psellos’ rhetorical works and letters: famous late thirteenth-century manuscripts such as Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 524, Vatican, BAV, Barberinianus gr. 240, and, especially, the Oxford, Bodleian Library, Baroccianus 19

Anna Komnene was the great granddaughter of Ioannes Doukas, one of Psellos’ main addressees. Ioannes Tzetzes was the great grandson of the other most frequent addressee of Psellos, Konstantinos the nephew of the patriarch Keroularios. Eumathios Makrembolites was likely related to the family of Eudokia Makrembolitissa. The Doukai: Polemis 1968. Tzetzes: Gautier 1970; Makrembolitai: Poljakova 1970: 12–15; Hunger 1998. With the exception of a reference to his grandson in a letter by Theophylaktos Hephaistos (Papaioannou 2006c), Psellos’ own family basically disappears after his death.

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131.20 These later anthology-manuscripts could possibly reflect collections or segments of books that were originally owned by twelfth-century writers and readers – of course filtered anew through the lenses and interests of a late thirteenth-century readership. Three manuscripts that could possibly belong to the twelfth-century circles of readers have come down to us. The first is Vatican, BAV, gr. 1912, dated to the first third of the twelfth century.21 The book survives in a fragmentary condition and contains forty-six letters of Psellos along with twenty-two letters by Synesios of Kyrene. Here, Psellos is grouped together with a classic model of letter-writing as well as of Hellenizing and philosophizing rhetoric. Does this indicate that Psellos too was considered some kind a classic or does this manuscript again reflect Psellos’ own reading preferences (Synesios was after all one of his definite models)? Both suggestions are possible and not mutually exclusive. Psellos’ status as a model epistolographer is clear in the second manuscript from this period. Vatican, BAV, gr. 712 dates to before or around the middle of the twelfth century and may belong to the group of manuscripts produced at the workshop of Ioannikios, the famous scribe of several manuscripts of Greek philosophy (primarily Aristotle), medicine (Galen, Paul of Aegina, Aetius), and poetry (a collection of Euripides’ and Sophocles’ tragedies, and an Iliad ).22 The workshop was located in Constantinople (rather than southern Italy as has been proposed); the access to classical texts and Psellos’ letters evident in the Vaticanus suggests as much.23 Ioannikios was likely the same person as the highly learned monk and grammatikos Ioannikios to whom two poems by Prodromos and, possibly, a letter by Glykas are addressed and who was the author of a schede as well as likely a poem – notably, the latter is transmitted among Psellos’ 20

21

22

23

Marc. 524: twelfth-century poetry including poems by Theodoros Prodromos, Konstantine Stilbes, and Konstantinos Manasses. Vat. Barb. 240: Nikephoros Basilakes’ Progymnasmata, Michael Glykas’ and Stilbes’ poems, Manasses (ekphrasis and a letter), Niketas Choniates (2 letters). Baroccianus 131: Michael Italikos’ and Theodoros Prodromos’ letters, Basilakes’ Progymnasmata, Ioannes Tzetzes’ poetry, Manasses’ Synopsis of History, Eumathios Makrembolites’ The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias. For the dating of the script, I thank Ernst Gamillscheg and Roderich Reinsch; the writing of the Vaticanus is close to the script of Basileios Skalides on whom see Gamillscheg, Harlfinger, and Hunger 1989: A 43, B 25–26, and C table 27. I owe the identification of this scribe to Roderich Reinsch, Ernst Gammillscheg, and Nigel Wilson. For Ioannikios: Wilson 1983 and 1991; Degni 2008 (for the date of the MSS of Ioannikios’ scriptorium, Degni suggests the first half, possibly the first thirty years, of the twelfth century; see esp. page 237); Degni 2010. That Ioannikios was most likely working at the Byzantine capital was rightly suggested by Wilson 1991 and accepted by Degni 2008. For the southern Italian provenance, see the various studies cited in Bianconi 2005: 131, note 45.

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works (On the Iambic Meter = Poem 14).24 If this identification is correct, it would point further to the social context and provenance of Psellian readers. The Vaticanus itself offers model letter-writers to an educated audience: thirty-seven of Psellos’ letters are placed after letters by John Chrysostom, Isidoros of Pelousion, Synesios, Gregory of Nazianzos, and Basil of Caesarea. Another manuscript from this period that also links Psellos closely with the Byzantine classics is Vatican, BAV, Palatinus gr. 402. This late eleventhcentury expensive parchment book originally contained the full corpus of Gregory’s Orations along with marginal notes, Ioannes Geometres’ scholia to Orations 1 and 45, as well as Geometres’ Encomium for Gregory. Sometime later, likely during the twelfth century, Psellos’ Discourse on the Style of Gregory was added to the end of the manuscript (ff. 380v– 387v).25 Deep admiration for Psellos’ writings is evident also in the late twelfth-century Paris, BNF, gr. 1182, arguably the most important Psellos manuscript.26 With the exception of its last 28 pages, this large book of 638 pages, measuring 385 x 275 mm, is devoted solely to Psellos’ works. These are arranged more or less by genre and/or topic: brief lectures mostly on passages of Gregory of Nazianzos (= Theol. i 1–114),27 funeral orations, various instructional pieces (essays and letters), orations of different sorts, again instructional pieces, and, finally, the letters (now ff. 189r–238v and 254r–257v). In sharp contrast to the neatly written Laur. 57.40 and Vat. 1912, the Parisinus is difficult to read. The script is full of abbreviations and the texts occupy as much space as possible on every single page. The compiler of this book obviously intended to preserve as many of Psellos’ texts as he could. Indeed, as one might surmise from the intentional gaps occasionally left by the scribe within the texts, the compiler had in front of him only faulty manuscripts and was hoping to find better ones in order to fill the blank spaces. Who was the compiler of this book? The texts that conclude this massive volume may give away his identity. At the end of the book, we find the letters 24

25

26 27

H¨orandner 1974: 492–6 where also (p. 492) the reference to Glykas’ letter, but with no discussion of our scribe. See also Vassis 1993/4 on Ioannikios’ work as a writer of schede and Gallavotti 1983: 22 on the ps.-Psellos poem. See Tacchi-Venturi 1893 with Sajdak 1914: 91–5 and Mossay and Hoffmann 1996: 185–7. For the MS transmission of Psellos’ Discourse on the style of Gregory, see the introduction to the edition of Levy 1912. For the date, see Kolovou 2006: 76*–77* (citing Brigitte Mondrain) contra Gautier 1986: 46–47 (wrongly dating the Parisinus to the second half of the thirteenth century). Of these, twenty-one have been lost, as the ones that survive begin with a lecture that is numbered as “22” (= Theol. i 1).

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of none other than Eustathios, bishop of Thessalonike (c. 1115–95/6; bishop c. 1178). Eustathios was contemporaneous with the production of this book. He was also an admirer of Psellos.28 As he wrote at the conclusion of one of his texts (Oration 5, p. 76.27–30), Psellos was “the greatest and truly most honorable man [hypertimos, a pun on Psellos’ honorary title] among the wise, perhaps with a speech impediment [another pun, this time on Psellos’ surname] yet in matters of philosophy of piercing intellect and with a voice of thunder” (Or. 5, p. 76.27–30): t¼n p†mmegan kaª Àntwv Ëp”rtimon –n sofo±v, oÕ yell‡ m•n t‡ tv glÛtthv, t‡ d• tv filosof©av di†tora kaª bront»fwna – a reference to a Psellian theological lecture (Theol. i 13) whose earliest testimony is indeed the Parisinus (f. 268r–269r). The manuscript, it should also be noted, may have a Thessalonian origin. We know that it was brought to Paris sometime in the seventeenth century from Saint Anastasia the Pharmakolytria, a monastery located close to Thessalonike.29 However this might be, it is likely that either Eustathios of Thessalonike or a man in his immediate circle may well have been the original owner and commissioner of Paris 1182. The arrangement of the manuscript’s contents suggests the interests either of a collector who was both a reader and an author, appending his own works to those of a master of the past, or a collector who added the letters of a contemporary writer to those of a classic. fragile museum pieces: 1204–early fourteenth century The future of Psellos’ texts seemed rather promising at the end of the twelfth century. Psellos had entered the rhetorical canon of the intellectual elite: his letter-collection was anthologized for the purposes of completing manuscripts of model epistolography and his texts were collected studiously and often imitated.30 Nevertheless, becoming a classic at one historical moment brings no guarantee for the continued success of a writer. In the course of the thirteenth century, the “classic” Psellos gradually began to enter a distant, though glorious, past. This distance was magnified by an event that no twelfth-century reader of Psellos could have anticipated. 28 29

30

See Kaldellis 2007a: 227. The Parisinus entered the collection of Cardinal Mazarin (1602–61) as number 81 sometime in the seventeenth century; cf. Gautier 1986: 47–8 with Bianconi 2005: 36–7. For the fourteenth-century monastery of Anastasia the Pharmakolytria, see Volk 1955 (p. 121 in the Parisinus). To the examples mentioned above (pp. 243–9), we should also add echoes of Psellos’ Chronographia in the work of Niketas Choniates; History 535.3–4, 566.20–2, and 569.6–7 with, respectively, Psellos, Chronographia 7.163, 7.95, and 7.101. Notably, the early thirteenth-century MS Istanbul, Bibl. Patriarch. Panagh. Kamar. 61 (64) contains some texts of Psellos together with a letter by Choniates.

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The fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 resulted in the destruction of a large part of Byzantine book culture, especially the private libraries of the Constantinopolitan elite. Psellos’ rhetorical and philosophical texts, which would have existed primarily in such libraries, were again in danger of disappearing. The fate of Psellos’ letter-collection thus corresponds to the history of Byzantine intellectual life in the aftermath of 1204 under the “Italian tyranny,” in the words of a contemporary.31 The first two books from this period date to the middle of the thirteenth century and derive from a circle of highly educated readers (some of them of Constantinopolitan origin), active in Epirus, as well as in central, and southern Greece. Both books belonged to a single owner by the name of Isaak Mesopotamites as we learn from his signature in both manuscripts. Isaak was likely a monk in the monastery of Mesopotamou in northern Epirus. We now possess at least four of Isaak’s books, all of which contained works for a learned audience.32 They were copied around the middle of the thirteenth century by the same scribe, Nikandros, also likely a monk at Mesopotamou.33 The first two of these manuscripts relate to Psellos’ letter collections: Saint Petersburg, Nat. Lib. of Russia, gr. 250 (454) and Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 59.12. The Petropolitanus 250, a large book now of 300 pages (several quires have been lost), contains twenty-six letters by Psellos. These letters were possibly a prized possession of Isaak – that is, if we consider it at all significant that two of the four signatures found in the manuscript (signatures that signal Isaak’s ownership of the book) appear among the few pages of Psellos’ letters (ff. 116v–122v; the signatures on f. 118r and 120r). The book itself is a collection primarily of the works, letters and documents, of Ioannes Apokaukos (c. 1155–1233), active in Constantinople at the end of the twelfth century and a bishop of Naupaktos in 1199/1200 to 1232, thus a prominent member of the intellectual, political, and ecclesiastical elite of the despotate 31 32

33

See Ioannes Apokaukos, Various Texts 276.14–15. For the period, see, e.g., Stavridou-Zafraka 1990. For the fate of dislocated intellectuals after the Fourth Crusade, see Angelov 2007: 38–9. Saint Petersburg, Nat. Lib. of Russia, gr. 250 (454): contains Ioannes Apokaukos, Euthymios Malakes, Psellos, Michael Choniates; Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 59.12: Michael Choniates, Euthymios Malakes, Psellos, Theophylaktos of Ochrid; Paris, BNF, gr. 194 A, dated 12 June 1255: Commentaries on the Four Gospels by Theophylaktos Hephaistos; and Paris, BNF, gr. 1973: Pophyrios’ Isagoge with Hermeias’ Commentary, Ammonius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, John of Damascus (?), Commentary on the Categories, Aristotle’s On Interpretation with also Psellos’ Paraphrasis of the same text. For Isaak Mesopotamites and the ascription of the following four books to him and the scribe Nikandros: Astruc-Morize 1983. Monastery of Mesopotamou: Soustal 1981: 206–7; Nicol 1984: 76–7.

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of Epirus after 1204.34 It is likely that Isaak Mesopotamites inherited Psellos’ letters, along with the works of Apokaukos, from Apokaukos’ own library. This hypothesis is strengthened by the existence of a slightly later manuscript, Vatican, BAV, gr. 1891 (late thirteenth / early fourteenth century, most likely of Thessalonian origin).35 This epistolographical collection of early Byzantine classics (Synesios, John Chrysostom, Basil of Caesarea), also happens to contain a collection of Apokaukos’ letters. Letters by earlier authors are also inserted in the collection and, among them, there is one letter by Psellos (f. 41r–v), which is here attributed to Apokaukos. Furthermore, on one occasion, Apokaukos explicitly expressed his admiration for Psellos. In a letter written around the year 1220, Apokaukos mentions Psellos, “that famous philosopher,” whom he studied together with the later patriarch Manuel I, when both were young students in Constantinople.36 Other likely sources for Psellos’ collection in the Petropolitanus are the libraries of various late twelfth and early thirteenth-century rhetors, whose texts are also included in the manuscript: Georgios Tornikes and Eustathios of Thessalonike (poetry), Euthymios Tornikes (speeches), Euthymios Malakes (speeches and letters), and Michael Choniates (letters and speeches). Among them, Choniates is perhaps the best candidate. A prominent late twelfth-century Constantinopolitan intellectual and a student of Eustathios of Thessalonike, Choniates became bishop of Athens in 1182 and then after 1204 was active in central and southern Greece. He was a correspondent and close friend of Apokaukos, associated with a certain Konstantinos Mesopotamites, and, most importantly, admired and echoed Psellian rhetoric.37 His interest in Psellos is possibly echoed in the fact that the texts that precede and follow Psellos’ letters in the Petropolitanus relate to Michael Choniates.38 Furthermore, Laurentianus 59.12, also commissioned by Isaak Mesopotamites and written by Nikandros, happens to be the principal manuscript for Choniates’ orations and letters and 34 35 36

37 38

See Magdalino 1987 and Lampropoulos 1988 with further bibliography. For this MS produced in the context of the intellectual activities of Ioannes Pediasimos, see Bianconi 2005: 66–9. Ed. Vasiljevskij 1896: 265–7 (p. 265: “Âte tv Kwnstantinoup»lewv hÎgei ¾ lÅcnov kaª sÆ kaª ¡me±v t filos»f –ke©n –maqhteÅomen Yell”) and Laurent 1971: 31; the expression “–maqhteÅomen” must be taken metaphorically. Lampropoulos (1988: 41–2 and 198–200) argues wrongly that this Psellos is an otherwise unknown twelfth-century teacher active in Constantinople, also attested as Michaelos Psellos, a student (sic !) of Konstantinos Manasses, according to a note of an eighteenth-century Dioptra MS on Mt. Athos (Skžth tv &g©av *nnhv, Kuriak»n, 59); the latter note is obviously a misattribution (cf. Volk 1990: 41). For Choniates’ admiration of Psellos, see Kolovou 1999: 266–70 with p. 244 above. For a detailed description of the contents, see Bees-Seferles 1971–4: 1–54.

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partly reflects his own library.39 Notably, at the end of Choniates’ letters (ff. 187r–188v), we find a brief epistolary manual with the beginnings and abbreviated texts of twenty-four letters, anonymously transmitted: one of them is by Psellos.40 After the middle of the thirteenth century, Psellos’ texts are attested in the east, at the empire of Nikaia in Asia Minor and, eventually, after 1261, back to Palaeologan Constantinople. Their fate seems tied to the libraries of some of the learned men active in Epirus and mainland Greece. We know, for instance, that Isaak Mesopotamites became bishop of Smyrna around 1261.41 We also know that Nikephoros Blemmydes (1197–c. 1269), one of the most distinguished intellectual figures in the empire of Nikaia, searched for books and texts in mainland Greece.42 Notably, his texts as well, and on one occasion his letters, are transmitted together with some of those of Psellos.43 At this time, we also encounter anew the earlier Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 57.40, which seems to have been used by an unknown late thirteenth-century reader (in Constantinople?) who added to the book several marginal notes, a total of thirty-seven.44 The majority of these notes, some of them quite extensive and all of them of theological content, appear in the pages at the middle of the manuscript (f. 168r–198v) where the letters of Michael Keroularios and Peter of Antioch are to be found. This intensified concern over an earlier phase of the debate between Orthodox and Latin Christianity (“orthodoxy” is repeatedly evoked in the notes : see, e.g., 187v and 198r) may reflect the context of the Council of Lyon, convened in May–July 1274 to establish the union of the Churches, and met with fierce Byzantine opposition.45 Our reader may have been a fervent opponent of the union. He was, however, also interested in the “wisest” Psellos and more specifically in his monastic profession. Two of his notes are attached to Psellian texts and make the following remarks: f. 274v, a note on The Court Memorandum Regarding the Engagement of His Daughter (Or. for. 4.119–121) reads “Note how and when Michael, 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

For this MS, see Kolovou 2001: 11*–14*. Ed. Kolovou 2001: 288–91; Psellos’ letter at p. 289.35–45. The epistolarion may be also related to the collection of Theophylaktos Hephaistos; see p. 250 above. See Georgios Pachymeres (Nikaia 1242–Constantinople c. 1310), Suggrafikaª ¬stor©ai 2.21. This is according to Blemmydes’ own testimony; see Perª tän kat’ aÉt¼n dižghsiv merikŸ 1.64 and 2.44. See Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 445, Vatican, BAV, gr. 483, and Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., San Marco 303 (letters). At the bottom of f. 230v, we also find what seems to be the signature of this reader, but his monokondylion is rather undecipherable. Laurent and Darrouz`es 1976; P´erez Mart´ın 1995.

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the wisest Psellos, was tonsured = Sh(me©wsai) päv kaª p»te ˆpek†rh M(i)c(aŸl) ¾ sofÛtatov Yell»v”; and on f. 276r, a note on the same text (Or. for. 4.222) reads “Note that he, being old, was tonsured and that he paid a fine = Sh(me©wsai) Âti ghrai¼v àn ˆpek†rh (kaª) Âti pr»stimon ˆpodedÛkei.”46 However this may be, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century we discover the last important testimonies for Psellos’ rhetorical texts, especially his letter-collection. Numerous texts of Psellos are prominent within the (relatively few) manuscript anthologies that collected and preserved the earlier production of logoi, in twelfth-century Constantinople. Two of these manuscripts may have originated in the last years of the Laskarid court of Nikaia or the first years after the restoration of the capital to Constantinople: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Baroccianus 131, a rhetoro-philosophical collection, with several Psellian texts, including forty-one letters, written by several scribes over a long period; and Vatican, BAV, Barberinianus gr. 240, a rhetorical collection (with many of Psellos’ speeches and forty-four of his letters).47 A third manuscript, Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 524, dates to the late thirteenth century and originally served the personal needs of a teacher/intellectual/rhetor in Palaeologan Constantinople. This book, now in Venice, was also put together over a long period of time and contains thirteen letters of Psellos, presented as a group along with a few other Psellian works.48 Four other contemporary collections of varied character contain only a few isolated items by Psellos.49 The most significant Psellos manuscript from this period and the last manuscript to survive that is devoted solely to Psellos is the late thirteenthcentury Vatican, BAV, gr. 672. This thick author-manuscript was written by a single scribe. It comprises 582 pages (= 291 folios). With the exception of the last two folios, the manuscript contains exclusively Psellos’ works, mostly rhetorical in nature; among these, nine letters are interspersed, though not as a letter-collection. In the last pages, we find three brief poems 46 47

48 49

Dennis (Or. for., p. 152) edits wrongly: Âti ghrai¼v àn ˆpek†retai kaª Âti pr»stimon –p”dwke. For the Baroccianus 131, written approximately between 1250–80 by eight different scribes, one of whom (scribe G; ff. 487r–507v) also wrote Barberinianus 240, see Wilson 1978 – the manuscript belonged to the collection of Francesco Barozzi, bought in 1629 by the Bodleian (Madan and Craster 1922; Rose 1977); for the philosophical texts included in Baroccianus 131, see also Pontikos 1992. For manuscripts in this period: Agapitos 2006: 51–3 with further bibliography. Odorico and Messis 2003; Rhoby 2010; Spingou 2010 who dates the manuscript between 1280 and 1290 and suggests that it was the work of a single scribe. Paris 1277 (seven letters of Psellos with texts by Maximos the Confessor and Theophylaktos Hep¨ haistos); Vienna, ONB, Theol. 160 (a theological book); Venice, Bibl. Naz. Marc., gr. 445 (a rhetorical miscellany); Athens, EBE, 2429 (a theological collection).

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by Theophylaktos Hephaistos, Konstantinos Stilbes, Palladas (Anthologia Palatina xi.281), and a brief work by Euthymios Malakes. In these manuscripts, Psellos occupies the position of an old master of rhetoric and philosophy, a position he had acquired in the twelfth century. During the thirteenth and early fourteenth century, Psellos, for the first and, as it happens, last time, is mentioned as a master exegete50 and, in rhetorical manuals, as an exemplary epistolographer and speech-writer. The most significant such manual is the brief thirteenth-century treatise On the Four Parts of the Perfect Speech which survives in a few contemporary and later manuscripts. Beyond its independent transmission, the text was also inserted in a mid-fourteenth-century manuscript (Vatican, BAV, gr. 883) of Gregorios Pardos’ (first half of the twelfth century) On Syntax (Donnet 1967: 319–323). Parts of the treatise were, furthermore, reproduced verbatim in a manual titled Synopsis of Rhetoric written by Joseph Rhakendytes, a notable Constantinopolitan teacher (died c. 1330; the parts relevant to Psellos in 521.2–27 and 558.17–562.15). On the Four Parts of the Perfect Speech was thus an important compendium of rhetorical training.51 Here, Psellos is cited along with Gregory of Nazianzos, Basil of Caesarea, Ailios Aristeides, Chorikios and others as a model of panegyrical speeches (lines 70–6), as an epistolary master (114– 16), and as a model for rhetoric of all kinds (78–81; Gregory of Nazianzos is the only other author singled out in this way). Psellos’ Encomium for His Mother is placed next to Demosthenes’ On the Crown, Aristeides’ Panathenaian Oration, and Gregory’s Funeral Oration on Basil as the “best four rhetorical speeches” (82–5). Perhaps most importantly, Psellos’ letters and speeches are promoted (along with Gregory of Nazianzos, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Synesios, Themistios, and Plutarch) as models of the mixture of rhetoric and philosophy – a typically Psellian notion.52 Furthermore, in this period, both genuine and spurious Psellian letters are excerpted as epistolary models and included in anthologies of epistolographical authorities (like the earlier Vatican, BAV, gr. 712). This 50 51

52

See Duffy 2002: 154 on a list of Aristotle’s commentators among which Psellos is cited; the list survives in the thirteenth-century MS Jerusalem, Taphou 16. For the dating of On the Four Parts of the Perfect Speech see H¨orandner 2012, which includes a new edition with commentary of the treatise. H¨orandner points out, among other things, that the treatise cites Eustathios of Thessalonike and thus must post-date the second half of the twelfth century. I use the line-numbering of his edition. For this text, see also Conley 2006. Notably, all the sections of the On the Four Parts of the Perfect Speech that mention Psellos are transmitted in the Vatican, BAV, Barberinianus gr. 240, in which we find also several rhetorical texts by Psellos, including forty-four of his letters. In his compendium, Rhakendytes mentions Psellos one more time (again in typical Psellian terminology): “pantodap¼v kaª tŸn l”xin –stª kaª tŸn ›nnoian” (Synopsis 526.25–6).

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is the case with several small epistolaria, in which individual Psellos letters are included, and with a more extensive epistolary manuscript, Heidelberg, Universit¨ats-Bibliothek, Palatinus gr. 356, with thirty-one Psellos letters added next to letters by Gregory of Nazianzos, Basil of Caesarea, Libanios, Synesios, Julian, and John Chrysostom.53 This period is also when, for the first time, Psellos’ texts as well as his name are appropriated by scribes, readers, and authors or confused with those of others. Usually introductory texts on grammatical, philosophical, and scientific topics, which are falsely attributed to Psellos, begin to proliferate from this period onward – there are a total of 163 such pseudo-Pselliana.54 These texts include letters. The cases of Vatican, BAV, gr. 1891 (Psellos as Apokaukos) and Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Plut. 59.12 (Psellos within Choniates’ collection) have already been mentioned. To these, we can add two further instances. In the Bucharest, Academia Republici Socialiste Romania, gr. 594 (508), three originally Psellian letters appear (two slightly adapted) in the collection of the late twelfth-century writer monk Hierotheos.55 ¨ In the Vienna, ONB, Phil. gr. 321, an important epistolary collection of the early Palaeologan period, several non-Psellian letters are presented as genuine.56 Numerous as these late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century cases are – sixteen of the manuscripts with Psellian letters, for instance, come from this period – the actual importance of Psellos’ rhetoric was already beginning to wane. We discover, as far as I can tell, no real influence of Psellian rhetoric within the contemporary and, indeed, very active rhetorical culture;57 such influence seems to end with the Choniates brothers. For authors and readers of this period, Psellos appears to have become something like a museum piece, a necessary piece of cultural capital for the learned Byzantine man. While he was acknowledged as an epistolary and rhetorical model, whose texts were important enough to be preserved and 53

54

55 56 57

The small epistolaria in: Athos, Iberon 189, ff. 369r–370v; Istanbul, Bibl. Patriarch. Panagh. Kamar. 157 (153), ff. 93r–145v; Vatican, BAV, gr. 483. In this context, I should also mention the case of Athanasios Chatzikes (third quarter, thirteenth c.) who included Psellos’ K-D 4 in a collection of model letters; Gr¨unbart 2000. These include some texts that circulate widely and are occasionally attributed to Psellos. For some examples, see Moore 2005 entry 893, an introduction to the quadrivium, which survives in at least ninety-five MSS (in sixteen MSS, the text is attributed to Psellos); entry 1044, a synopsis of medicine (seventy-six MSS); entry 891, a synopsis of questions on nature (seventy-five MSS); entry 1018, a treatise on syntax (fifty MSS); and entry 1052, a paraphrase of Homer’s Iliad (forty-six MSS). The letters included in the Bucarest MS are K-D 2 (on f. 230r) and 3 (in ff. 237r–238r), and G 12 (f. 295r–296r); cf. Gr¨unbart 2007: 60. For the Vienna MS, see Darrouz`es 1970: 62–6. The letters attributed to Psellos are edited in Gautier 1977b . Cf. Karpozilos 1991 for the letter-writing culture with Gaul 2011 for the rhetorical culture in general.

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whose name was occasionally borrowed, he nevertheless ceased to make an impact on a creative level in the ways that defined the discursive culture of twelfth-century Constantinople. a minor rhetor of the distant past: early fourteenth to the nineteenth century After the first decades of the fourteenth century, Psellos’ rhetoric seems to occupy a position of relatively little importance until its rediscovery and first editions by Leo Allatius (Chios 1586–Rome 1669) – to whom we owe the first detailed discussion, published in 1634, of Psellos’ life and texts58 – and then nineteenth-century scholars such as, for instance, Jean Franc¸ois Boissonade (1774–1857; edition of Psellos: 1838) and, especially, Konstantinos Sathas (1842–1914; edition of Psellos: 1874 and 1876). During these centuries, we encounter again numerous manuscripts with Psellos’ texts, yet with either small insignificant collections, falsely attributed texts, or only a few isolated items. Among Greek-speaking communities in the Ottoman empire, Psellos was often an epistolary master; the few model letter-collections, that included some Psellos, satisfied the needs of training in letter-writing of post-Byzantine students of Greek – especially in the Patriarchal Academy in Istanbul and the Greek Academies in Romania.59 In western early modern Europe, Psellos was read primarily as a master of “apocryphal” knowledge. Texts such as his alchemical letter-treatise On How to Make Gold (Bidez 1928; Albini 1988) and the spurious Timotheos Or on Demons (Gautier 1980), which, respectively, survive in forty-three and thirty-nine mostly post-Byzantine manuscripts, became very popular. The earliest printed Psellos work is a partial Latin translation of the, also likely spurious, Discourse on the Demons60 by the Italian humanist Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) 58 59

60

De Psellis et eorum scriptis, Rome 1634 (reprinted in PG 122: 478–536). See, e.g., Theophilos Korydalleus’ Perª –pistolikän tÅpwn, published in London 1625 (Psellos’ letter in pp. 108–23) which was partly reprinted in Moschopolis, Albania 1744, Halle 1744, and Venice 1786, and which was a standard textbook in Greek schools. It also survives in the following MSS: Athos, Lavra 1721 (M 30); Bucharest, Academia Republici Socialiste Romania gr. 737 (587) (this book was owned by Georgios Ioannou from Ampelakia, professor at the Greek Academy in Bucharest from 1794–7); Paris, BNF, suppl. gr. 1334 (originally in the collection of the monastery Mar Ibrahim and then the Greek Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem); Thessalonike, Bibl. Univ. 96; cf. Snipes 1981: 89–92. See also Volk 2002 on the sixteenth-century Athos, Dion. 168 (olim 274 Lampros) where we find a likely school-exercise that combined fragments from four different Psellos letters. Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur., Acqu. 39 (F), sixteenth century, is also an epistolarion with eight Psellos letters dispersed among the letters of other notable Byzantine epistolographers (especially, Gregory of Nazianzos and Basil of Caesarea). Moore 2005: entry 712; in three MSS.

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in his Iamblichos: De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum et alia opuscula (Venice 1497). These texts on demons were an instant and big success during the Renaissance.61 As an eastern sage, Psellos even made appearances in Renaissance novelistic literature. This was a tradition that would culminate in Howard Phillip Lovecraft’s (1890–1937) Necronomicon, a pseudo-medieval apocryphal book, which, as a website devoted to it argues, was saved for posterity by Psellos, the “famous historian, Neoplatonist and demonologist”!62 *** Psellos usually surprises historians as he superseded all of the authors contemporary to him in terms of the survival, diffusion, and influence of his writings. Indeed, a few of Psellos’ popularizing theological treatises and compendia found instant and lasting success. Yet these are not the works with which we nowadays usually associate him. Our Psellos, whom we read primarily through his historiographical, rhetorical, philosophical, and epistolary production, had a somewhat fragile existence. These latter texts attracted the interests of relatively few circles of readers. Mid-twelfthcentury rhetoricians and philosophers discovered in Psellos a recent master of speech and knowledge and, influenced by him, expanded the horizons of his ingeniously creative rhetorical authorship. This was a fervent rhetorical culture, but was abruptly interrupted by the disaster of 1204. We would know little of this culture if writers and scholars, during the first hundred years or so after 1204, were not desperately seeking to revive their recent glorious past and thus inherited Psellos along with other twelfth-century authors. The books of some of these readers made it to modern libraries, and it is to them that we owe our Psellos. 61 62

Hayton 2006. For the Necronomicon, an alleged occult Arabic book, invented by H. P. Lovecraft, see Lovecraft 1977 with http://www.digital-brilliance.com/necron/necron.htm (where the cited phrase).

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