This paper suggests that Michael Attaleiates, the eleventh-century Byzantine historian, purposefully changed the ethnic label for his contemporary Norman mercenaries from ‘Frank’ to ‘Latin’ in order to portray these figures as ethnically close to the Byzantines of his own day. In addition, it suggests that Attaleiates’ motives for such a portrayal lay in his argument that Norman mercenaries were a potential solution to the empire's challenges with the Seljuks. This article examines the ways in which Attaleiates positively portrayed Norman mercenaries in Byzantium, and how he crafted historical parallels between them and the Latins of Byzantium's Roman past.

This article focuses on the presence of material from Plutarch's Lives in Byzantine chronicles, particularly that of John Zonaras, the only chronicler to draw heavily on Plutarch's biographies. Zonaras’ strong appreciation of Plutarch is evident when he repeatedly digresses from the main narrative to incorporate Plutarchean material related to secondary topics. His method of selection from Plutarch's Roman Lives is governed by particular principles: Zonaras’ individual literary tastes, as well as those of his contemporary audience, and the adaptation of Plutarch's material to the Byzantine social and cultural context. These considerations reveal Zonaras to be not merely a copyist of earlier writings, but instead a compiler with his own authorial agenda.

In this paper it is argued that the proem of the Parekbolai on the Iliad by Eustathios of Thessalonike gives a practical example of the use to which the lessons in his work are to be put. It explores how Eustathios advertises himself as a skilful rhetorician and how he perceives the relationship between poet, commentator, and readers by examining four images that embellish the proem: Homeric poetry as the song of the Sirens, Homer as the Ocean and as a host, and the commentator as a cook.

The following paper analyses Theodore Prodromos’ satire, Against the old man with a long beard. It argues that the text which is heavily based on the ancient tradition of ridiculing philosophers is in fact directed against the twelfth-century fellow teachers of Prodromos.

The enormous prestige accorded to Byzantine cloisonné enamel seems to have continued into the Palaiologan period, although evidence suggests that its production ceased in the decades after the Fourth Crusade. The medium of the imperial images described by Pseudo-Kodinos as ὑπὸ ὑελίου λεγομένου διαγελάστου, which was worn on the headgear of thirteen ranks of court officials, is here identified as verre églomisé, reverse painting on glass. A reading of Pseudo-Kodinos’ treatise alongside surviving works of art suggests that fourteenth-century Byzantines were consciously using ersatz media in an effort to keep up the appearance of continuity with the empire's more prosperous past.

This article demonstrates the link between Nektarios Terpos and the decorative programme of Ardenica Monastery, Myzeqe, central Albania. An early eighteenth-century preacher against Islam and conversion to Islam, Terpos emphasized the importance of undergoing suffering, and even death by martyrdom, in the conviction that suffering leads to salvation and glorification, while conversion to Islam to damnation. Terpos was abbot of Ardenica Monastery. The analysis of its decorative programme, which emphasizes salvation and glorification through suffering and passion, in conjunction with the writings of Nektarios Terpos, concludes that he must have been the mastermind behind the inception of the decorative programme of the katholikon.

In 1821, the Greek uprising against Ottoman rule gave rise to a sympathetic movement in Europe: Philhellenism. France decided to remain neutral. Yet when trying to apply this neutrality in practice, the French consuls in the Ottoman Empire encountered several problems, such as the arrival of Philhellenic volunteer fighters. Furthermore, they were torn between their professional obligations and their personal views. In this context, how did the consuls perceive Philhellenism and the Philhellenic volunteers? To what extent were they able to express their Philhellenism or Mishellenism? This study examines consular correspondence of the period in an attempt to answer these questions.

Demetrios Capetanakis was one of the first writers to introduce Marcel Proust to the Greek public in the 1930s. His study of Proust's philosophy (hitherto known only in the English and Greek translations of a lecture he delivered in French) survives in manuscript form, both in French and in an earlier German version. An examination of these texts in the context of Proust's early reception allows us to follow Capetanakis’ intellectual trajectory, as well as to sketch his particular joint approach to literature and philosophy, which is largely indebted to the works of Plato and Kierkegaard. Capetanakis seeks Proust's philosophy not in the universal laws put forth in his novel, but in the writer's attempt to conceal behind them the real pain and agony that marked his own life. This leads him to a rather unusual philosophical reading of Proust's novel and, in the process, of Plato's Phaedrus.

The English socio-cultural context was crucial to the dissemination of the work of George Seferis in Europe. Early translations appeared in both French and English, but it was the English versions that propelled Seferis toward international recognition and the Nobel Prize, and gave rise to translations into more peripheral literatures such as Spanish. The wide social circle Seferis enjoyed in the English-speaking world was a key factor in his early success in the United Kingdom. Other determinants were British intellectuals’ empathy for the Greeks during the Colonels’ dictatorship and their liking for modern poetry similar to that of T. S. Eliot.