Scott Kennedy

Candidacy Exam: Reception of Herodotus and Thucydides in Byzantium

1. How did Byzantine logioi read and use ancient Greek
literature differently from modern classical scholars? How do
you account for these differences?
To speak of the differences between how Byzantine readers
approached ancient Greek texts and how we today read them, it is
perhaps appropriate to think first of the similarities between how we
read them and then deal with the differences. Too often people try to
make the point that the way we read ancient texts is fundamentally
different from medieval readers. Obviously, there are some ways that
we are very different from them, but many ways as well where we use
similar approaches. Because ancient and Byzantine Greek history is
what I know most about it in this regard, most of my examples will
come from this genre.
First off, the point that needs to be addressed is the actual text of the
ancient author. Byzantine and modern scholars are not that far apart in
how we read ancient Greek texts. Many Byzantine philologists were
often concerned with the quality and the correctness of the texts they
were reading and would compare multiple manuscripts and sometimes
correct ancient texts just like a modern textual editor. One might offer
John Tzetzes work on Thucydides as an example of this. He found the
tenth century (?) manuscript he was reading in poor shape and tried to
correct double sigmas with double taus and introduce correct word
divisions to poorly divided word clusters in the text until he gave up at
Book 5. Where Byzantine editors differ from todays editors is in the
number of manuscripts they consulted and the Lord of the Ringsian
hunt for the one prototype of the ancient text to rule all subservient
exempla. Byzantine and modern readers alike leave all kinds of scholia
in ancient texts explaining a curious word or expression, noting a
curiosity, or writing a note completely unrelated to the text at hand.
Byzantine readers are somewhat unique in that they broke up many of
the ancient commentaries into scholia in the margins to ancient texts
unlike modern scholars who prefer to have the commentary and text
separately. One reason for this preference may well be the fact it is
hard and expensive to print a modern text with notes on this word or
that. It can be done with footnotes or some kind of marker (Rosens
edition of Herodotus is one example), but it simply is not as easy as
writing in the margin of a book. Turning to some ethical reasons
moderns may prefer to have the two separately, we might point to the
preference of some professors in classics against having notes
explaining a words meaning to the student right on the page because

then the student could just use that when translating in class and not
actually learn the word.
Moderns and Byzantines alike also show quite a bit of interest in
reconstructing the biography of an ancient author to explain the texts
they are reading. Or they may do the reverse to extract an authors
biography from the text they are reading. A possibly Byzantine
example of this is the anonymous life of Thucydides that blames
Thucydides exile for why his text appears so anti-Athenian. They may
have also tried creating the idea that Thucydides daughter or
someone else finished Book 8 because of its incomplete feeling of its
composition. Moderns have not abadoned these issues as readers of
ancient Greek texts, as I can cite Luraghi (I believe is the name) who in
the companion to Thucydides for Brill tries to argue Xenophon
completed this imperfect book. But when making this generalization,
we also need to note that there are a number of scholars influenced by
modern theoretical analyses that want to take the author out of the
reading experience, i.e. the school that believes the author is dead.
Modern classical scholars will vary in how they do this, but our
discipline seems very interested in getting at an authors intent with
our readings and examination of classical literature. To some degree,
we have advanced beyond Byzantine readers in this regard and to
some degree are still bound by the same approach. When it comes to
how we are very different in terms of biography, one way is the general
lack of fear modern authors show toward reassigning works and
doubting authorship where in Byzantium they were often thought of as
canonical. For example, the Suda and several authors believe that
Herodotus is also the author of the competition between Homer and
Hesiod, since a branch of the manuscript tradition assigns authorship
to him. Byzantine readers (i.e. possibly Eusebius) may have inserted
and even been happy to have Josephus forged reference to Christ in
their text of him, where moderns have struck it out.
When it comes to actually reading ancient and analyzing their
rhetorical nature, Byzantines had a somewhat different approach to
modern scholars. Where for classical scholars, we often approach
ancient texts like they were a piece in a museum somewhere. We want
to read them based on a mix between two poles of interpretation: the
text as its own context (i.e. only what the other says matter for
explanation) and the text in light of its outside context (how do outside
authors inform our reading). We very rarely try to tackle a classical text
as something we are going to use as a stylistic model for how we are
going to write a piece to be used in a practical context like an oration
or history in Greek or Latin. Prose composition is the only time we use
the text in this way, though in a very limited context.

In contrast, Byzantine authors seem to have approached classical

literature largely from a practical context of using ancient authors as
stylistic models for their own writing. For example, we find numerous
discussions of Thucydides style ranging from Tzetzes hatred for it as
improper history to Theodore Metochites approval of it as an
appropriate model to produce enduring writings which require effort
from the reader to understand. As readers, Byzantines also often
internalized whether they explicitly knew it or not what we are only
now discovering about the structure and methodology of ancient
authors. Let us look at Prokopios for examples of this. Kaldellis has
shown that Prokopios internalized many of the narrative strategies of
Thucydides for his Histories in his 2006 Procopius. Bornemann similarly
makes a good point about how Prokopios internalized Thucydides
method of judging a good leader such as Pericles when describing
Theodorich. Very recently, Kaldellis and Kennedy have even attempted
to show that Kritoboulos understood the way Thucydides uses the
plague to tear apart the Periclean ideology of the Athenians and their
bodies. According to them, Kritoboulos uses the plague motif to
effectively bury the ideological portrait of Mehmeds regime that he
has constructed earlier on with one of the most effective tools the
classical tradition offered.
This is not of course to say that Byzantines offered anything like the
specialized monographs we do now on a historical author, explicating
his meaning (n.b. this was done for poetry or philosophy with the
commentary as we find with Eustathios on Homer or Proklos on Platos
Republic). These modern monographs are likely the result of the birth
of institutions such as universities that employ people to perform these
kinds of analysis, whose work among their own group has spurred new
conversations and inspired further advances. I cannot think of anything
quite like a modern chair of history at a university in the Byzantine
world. Historical writing seems to have largely been done as a result of
ephemeral state/Church support (i.e. Constantine VII supporting the
continuators of Theophanes; Theophylaktos writing at the Patriarch
Sergios behest) or a secondary activity to ones profession (i.e.
Agathias writing history when he was not serving as a lawyer). I would
personally like to no more about how history writing was funded
throughout the Byzantine period and if there was any profit in it.
At this point, I have run out of time. But I hope to have shown a
number of ways in which Byzantines approached ancient Greek
literature and history writing more specifically. Byzantine readers
exude a number of similarities with modern readers, but there are
areas where modern readers have produced more elaborate
conversations about ancient authors taking issues further than the
Byzantines did largely as a result I would imagine of the increased

wealth and ability to subsidize scholars on a continual basis to ponder

and raise new questions about ancient texts.
3. Byzantine historiography was traditionally divided into
chronika and historiai. In what ways, if any, is this distinction
valid and in what ways not, in your view?
Byzantine studies has traditionally divided the kinds of
historiographical writing we encounter often between monkish
(chronika) and intellectual lines. This approach is somewhat
problematic when we take into account the ideas and beliefs about
historiography stemming from the ancient world. If we return to the
ancient world, we can get an idea of why Byzantine historiography
developed in the ways that it did.
Let us take for example Latin speakers desires to finally see one from
amongst them write a historia and not just a chronika/annales. The
issue started as early as Catos Origines, where Cato seeks to write an
explanation of events rather than follow the approach of the annales
kept by the pontifex maximus that recount prodigies and other such
nonsense. Similarly, Sisenna later on sought to write history and go
beyond the lists of names and dates cited by early Roman annalists.
According to Cicero in his Brutus, neither of these authors succeeded,
but instead he saw Roman historiography waiting for a true orator to
give it the history it needed. He makes a point of noting how Roman
history resembled ancient Greek history before Thucydides and
Herodotus. There was the genre of chronicle that offered names and
dates until these two authors took historical writing to the next level.
That the chronicle was a continuous institution in the Greek and Latin
world is evident from the examples we find of it well before the
Christians ever got their hands on it. For example, if I remember
correctly, there is an example of one inscribed on stone about some
events in the history of Athens. We also know the titles of several lost
examples such as Dexippos Chronika. However, it is more difficult to
talk about ancient chronicles rather than later ones because later
examples are most of what survive and have largely subsumed earlier
material. But I suspect the chronicle with its simplicity and fluidity to
be adapted as a list of happenings was of great value and utility
throughout the ancient world. The writer of the historia was the
exception rather than the rule.
In the 200s, the chronicle received an important infusion of new life
from the fragmentary Christianizing chronicle of Sextus Julius
Africanus. He represents part of an effort by Christian authors to
incorporate their own beliefs into the chronicle and historia. Eusebius

followed suit a century later with his own chronicon, a hyper brief
listing of dates and events. What is more interesting is his
Ecclesiastical History, which reinvented the classical historia for its own
purposes. The text of Eusebius shows the influence of Thucydides in a
number of regards. For example, it includes documents and has a
second preface in Book 5. The ecclesiastical history was largely short
lived and died out after Evagrius and the 7th century. It may have
survived somewhat longer in Syriac, as the Khuzistan Chronicle is
clearly derived from an ecclesiastical history. Its title proclaims it a
collection of kosmotika and ekklesiastika stories and this bears out in
fact with its joint focus on Khusraus reign and the church happenings
of the age. In Greek, the ecclesiastical history also saw something of a
revival by Nikephoros Kallistopoulos, though this is largely an
antiquarian gesture in its focus on church events well before his own
day.
On the Roman Latin side of historical production in Late Antiquity,
historical production produces a mix of approaches. History writing
never quite enlisted the same kind of production in Latin as it did in the
Greek east. It took the Eastern Ammianus to revive production of the
historia after Tacitus. There may have been some attempts to write
history proper during the Western Roman empire by Frigiredus
(spelling?) and Sulpicius Severus, but we know very little about their
writings besides what Gregory of Tours preserves. Their fragments are
collected in an article by Paschoud and also discussed in Giuseppe
Zecchinis book on late antiquity. Instead, as Zecchini has written in
the companion to Greco-Roman historiography edited by Maresco,
Latin historical production tended to utilize the chronicle extensively,
as we see with figures such as Jerome, Hydatius, Prosper of Aquitane,
and Marcellinus. When we reach the middle ages, the chronicle is the
all important genre for Latin authors.
This process of making the chronicle all dominant seems to have taken
much longer in the east, where historical production continued apace
up until Theophylaktos. Obviously, chronicle production continued at
practically all times as we see with Malalas, the Chronicon Paschale,
the lost chronicle of Herakleios upon which Nikephoros reign of
Herakleios is based, and the lost Megas Chronographos to name a few
examples. Why the writing of the classicizing historia died out is
uncertain after Theophylaktos. Michael Whitby has offered a few
explanations in an article in Hellenisms and Early Islam edited by Averil
Cameron et alii (loss of Alexandria as a literary production center, too
much focus on eschatology and not explaining present events). I am
inclined to say that one aspect overlooked in this explanation is simply
that much of the funding available for production of literature in Late
Antiquity increasingly came from the church which provided the

literary forms it needed even from the time of Herakleios (e.g. both
George of Pisidia and Theophylaktos were funded by the patriarch
Sergios). In the subsequent centuries after Herakleios, the cash
strapped Byzantine government probably could not do much to fund
literary and rhetorical works. Instead, what we find are subsequent
forms produced by church associated figures when history writing does
return.
For the revival of Greek historical writing in the ninth century onward,
the works of George Synkellos, Theophanes, and George the Monk are
crucial examples. George Synkellos offers the beginning of a typical
chronicle with very brief entries and very little explanation about the
reasons and causes for events in his chronicle from the beginning of
the world to Diocletian. Theophanes follows in his shadow but adds
slightly more information on the subsequent times. George the Monk is
a hyper Christianized account of Byzantine history, which gives little
emphasis to events and more to correct religious doctrine. Similar
things might also be said for Symeon Magister and Pseudo-Symeon
which are short and hyper brief accounts. All of these writings use a
relatively, simple sometimes archaicizing way of speaking.
It is only really around the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos
that we see a new form of history that is distinctively Byzantine. From
this point on, many Byzantine authors adopt a much more biographical
approach to history writing. The inspiration for this movement can be
found in the popularity of Plutarch throughout the ages. Constantine
himself in his biography of Basil I drew upon Nicolaus of Damascus as
the source for how to write his biography of Basil, as Jenkins has shown
in his important article on the reign. Later Byzantine writers follow this
trend of biography often adding their own distinctive spin (e.g.
Scylitzes, Psellos, Choniates, Pachymeres, etc.). Michael Attaleiates is
something of an outlier to the biographical push, as he often draws
upon Polybius, but there is still something of the trends toward
biography that is evident in the way he describes Romanos Diogenes
and Nikephoros Botaneiates. Chronicle writing continues apace as well
as we have examples such as Psellos Short History.
It is only in the fourteenth and fifteenth century that we really see a
substantial break from this trend as the emperor John Kantakouzenos,
Laonikos Chalkokondyles, and Kritoboulos return to the Thucydidean
and Herodotean models of historical writing much used in late
antiquity. We also have many chronicles surviving from this period such
as Doukas, Sphrantzes, Michael Panaretos, etc.
The division then between chronicles and historia is effective up to a
point, I believe when we use it to distinguish between the more

elaborate Thucydidean/Herodotean inspired historical writing and the

stylistically and rhetorically simpler chronicle. It makes for nice
divisions between late antiquity and the revivals of the Palaiologan age
inspired by the times mania for antiquity. It can be a helpful
classification between rhetorical styles of history writing inspired by
Thucydides/Herodotus and more contemporary speech as we find in
the chronicles of late antiquity. However, it does not adequately cover
what we see throughout the middle Byzantine period, from which the
historical forms we possess are very unique and often cross genres
with hints of biography and chronicling. How do we account for
something like Nikephoros Brevarium which is effectively rewriting
chronicles in an elevated style and calling itself history? By Ciceros
explanation of history, I would be inclined to call it a chronicle since it
lacks much thought about the causation of events and only offers an
elevated style. The same goes for Psellos barebones Historia
Syntomos, which also offers a biographical element in its attempts to
describe attributes and sayings of the rulers involved. In this light, the
terms chronicle and history have a limited utility without also including
the biographical features of history. Giving chronicles a monkish
association is also not quite right as from antiquity to the end of
Byzantium, the genre was continually used by people from all walks of
life, though in Byzantium the chronicle was often realigned to fit the
Christian worldview. The chronicle would continue whether written by a
monk or not. In the later period, we find numerous short chronicles of
notices which are by people without religious associations (e.g.
Panaretos; a glance at the Chronica breviora also suffices).
When it comes to understanding Byzantine historiographical writing, I
think the most useful thing to do is to understand their texts as
innovative reimaginings of old genres and think of how it fits in a
pentagon of historical writing with apexes on classicizing history,
chronicle, and biography, the saints life, and ecclesiastical history. I
have had to make many oversimplifying assumptions throughout this
essay and apologize in advance.