Chapter 2 - Praising the Emperor, Visualizing His City

Summary

Chapter 2 focuses on three texts concerned with the imperial space of Constantinople: the Description of a crane hunt, the Encomium of Emperor Manuel Komnenos and the Itinerary. The first work is a detailed ekphrasis of an imperial hunt in which the emperor himself takes part. The same imagery of hunting as an equivalent of war is prevalent in the encomium, praising Manuel’s victories against the Hungarians. The Itinerary, a narrative poem that describes the poet’s experiences during an embassy, is here interpreted as a means of praising the qualities of the capital left behind. It is argued that all three texts take on the function of imperial praise and, moreover, that the experience of the capital’s imperial space plays a particular role in the construction of that praise. The encomium becomes a praise of not only the emperor but also of the rhetorician and his skills.