Download PDF | George Akropolites The History Translated With An Introduction And Commentary By Ruth Macrides Oxford University Press ( 2007)
463 Pages
Preface
George Akropolites’ History, the main Greek source for 1204-1261, the years in ‘exile, narrates the fragmentation of the Byzantine world after 1204, providing historians with the sequence of events and influencing modern perceptions of the period. Akropolites’ thirteenth century has become our thirteenth century. Traditionally judged to be a reliable and objective eyewitness account by a writer who emphasizes the importance of impartiality in his preface, the History is indispensable. At the same time it is clear to all that Akropolites wrote while in office in the reign of Michael VIII Palaiologos, producing a picture of an ideal ruler.
This study of the author and his work shows the extent to which Akropolites’ alignment with the usurper to the throne permeates and affects the History as a whole, its structure, its language and style, and the author’s characterizations and views on historical causation and divine providence. In the History Akropolites speaks not only as a high official under Michael VIII. He speaks as a member of one of the noble families who had suffered under the Laskarides and who were restored by Michael Palaiologos. He expresses a superiority to, and disdain for, others who were, like him, friends and favourites of Theodore I], promoted and made noble by that emperor through marriage alliances. It was from John III and Theodore II that Akropolites received the education, the positions at court and the marriage that made him a relation of Michael Palaiologos and that ensured his survival in the change of dynasty. It was from John III and Theodore II that Akropolites had to dissociate himself in writing a History under Michael VIII. This History presents the case for the defence of Michael VIII but also for George Akropolites.
Acknowledgements
This study of George Akropolites’ History has, like the brothers of Theodore I Laskaris, ‘seen cities and learned minds’; starting in London, continuing on to Athens, Washington, D. C., Frankfurt, St Andrews, and Birmingham. Colleagues in all those cities have contributed to this work. It is my pleasure to thank them and also to recall the contributions of those who are no longer alive: Donald Nicol, with his interest in late Byzantium; Robert Browning, with his love of the Greek language; and Nikos Oikonomides, for his Byzantine wisdom. Dumbarton Oaks gave me an exquisite home and a great library. Irene Vaslef was unflagging in fulfilling my every bibliographical wish. “Thank you’ is little to say to my students and colleagues in the department of Mediaeval History, St Andrews, where I first taught, and learned to be a mediaevalist. Bryer’s symposia gave me generous and ample opportunities for excursions into Megas Komnenos, Palaiologan sainthood, spiritual kinship, and many other subjects which have contributed to this study. Giinter Prinzing and Joseph Munitiz have shared with me their best knowledge of Chomatenos and Blemmydes. Michael Angold has encouraged me and given valuable support from the beginning. Henry Buglass, the graphic artist at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, drew the maps. They all urged me to finish. But, finally and most of all, I took the advice of Paul Magdalino, whom I have known almost as long as George Akropolites.
Note on Transliteration and Citation
I have transliterated Greek names and terms as closely as possible. Common Christian names and well-known place names are given in the form most familiar to English readers. Greek 7 is rendered as ‘e} 8 as ‘b’ for Byzantine names, except where the Latin or Slavic origin of the name makes ‘v’ more appropriate.
All works cited in the Introduction and Translation and Commentary more than once are given in abbreviated form by author and short title and listed in full in the bibliography at the end.
Note on the Translation and Commentary
The translation is based on the text of the History established by Heisenberg in his 1903 Teubner edition. I have taken into consideration the proposed emendations published by Wirth in his 1978 reprint of Heisenberg’s edition. My translation is intended to be as close to the Greek as possible, providing a sense of Akropolites’ sentence structure, and reproducing his style. Akropolites was not an elegant writer of Greek. His History betrays signs of haste and lack of revision. His long paratactic sentences give a disjointed quality to his prose. He writes a spare Greek, concise and lacking in adornment, although his prose becomes more elaborate and flows when he is particularly interested or involved in a subject. In my translation I have tried to render these changes in his style, avoiding paraphrases and, above all, declining to perfect his work. The angular and awkward nature of his unedited text is imitated in the English translation. Of the three recent translations in German and modern Greek,! mine attempts to remain closest to his Greek.
Section divisions created by Heisenberg have been retained, although I have introduced a greater number of paragraph divisions. References to the commentary are by section number, followed by note number, e.g. $7.6. The notes in each section are preceded by a general discussion (in italic type), summarizing the content of the section, and reviewing problems of dating and other key issues. The commentary aims to clarify the text, to discuss problems of interpretation and dating, giving relevant primary sources and the secondary works which engage directly with the problems raised by the text. The literature cited in the commentary is not exhaustive.
Note on the Studies
The studies bring together under specific headings passages which are scattered in the History. They are intended as an overview of Akropolites’ presentation of each subject, with discussion of secondary literature in cases where misunderstandings of the text have occurred.
Introduction
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN HISTORICAL WRITING
The thirteenth century has always been treated as separate and different—not to say, detachable—in Byzantine historiography as in Byzantine history.! One turns the page, one starts a new chapter. No one can deny that the Latin conquest of Constantinople, the ‘cosmic cataclysm’, as one contemporary called it,? brought enormous change to Byzantium, change which was in many ways irreversible. For more than half a century Constantinople was not the centre of the Byzantine world. The ‘rich mer’ of the city, in Robert of Clari’s words,? left the Queen of Cities and scattered, joining new centres which arose in Epiros and in Asia Minor. Unity was never again to be a characteristic of the empire. These structural changes were accompanied, it is said, by the growth of a sense of Hellenic identity and a weakening of Roman institutions, notably Roman law.* Apparently new practices were introduced, it is thought, as a result of Latin contact in the thirteenth century, the anointing of emperors, and trial by ordeal. The Church became more dominant, beginning with the later thirteenth century, and ecclesiastical controversy, the Arsenite schism and the union of the Churches, had serious consequences for imperial authority.® All these changes contribute to a new look for Byzantium, a Byzantium which most practising English-speaking Byzantinists prefer to leave alone. This is the history of the Serbs, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, the Turks, the Venetians, the Genoese, the Franks. It is already “Byzance aprés Byzance’.
However, the thirteenth century has been treated as a separate entity not so much because of any intrinsic quality or characteristic which makes it different from what preceded it, but because those who have studied it specialized in the later period at a time when the eleventh and twelfth centuries had been little studied. In the last 25 years, the twelfth century has been the focus of much attention and re-evaluation—political, cultural, and economic—and the greater familiarity with the twelfth century which this has engendered makes it easier to set the thirteenth century and its historians in a broader context. Now that we know more about the practice of law in the twelfth century,’ it is harder to claim a weakening of Roman law in the thirteenth; now that we see how the Byzantines referred to themselves as Hellenes in the twelfth century,® we cannot pinpoint the origins of Hellenic nationalism in the thirteenth; and now that so much more has been said about writers of history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,® we cannot study thirteenthcentury historical writing in isolation.
What happened to history writing in the thirteenth century? Did it rise to the challenge of the unprecedented conditions which the Latin conquest of Constantinople produced? Was the fragmentation of the Byzantine world reflected in written accounts? The short entries on writers of history in handbooks of literature refer to some of the characteristics of writers but do not show how they related to each other and how they reacted to the events of their times.!°
The thirteenth century presents a variety in historical writing familiar from earlier periods—two classicizing histories, by George Akropolites and George Pachymeres respectively, and one world chronicle written by Theodore Skoutariotes: three men who lived in Asia Minor in the so-called empire of Nicaea, during the period of the Latin occupation of Constantinople, the period in ‘exile’, but who wrote in Constantinople after its reconquest in 1261.
On Akropolites we are dependent for our knowledge of the years 1203-61, that is for the reigns of the emperors of Nicaea, Theodore I Laskaris, John III Vatatzes, Theodore II Laskaris, and the rise to power of Michael VIII Palaiologos. Skoutariotes’ world chronicle ends with 1261, following Akropolites’ account closely for 1204-61 but adding to it and subtracting from it in a decisive way.!! Pachymeres, on the other hand, sets out to tell the story of the reigns of Michael Palaiologos and his son Andronikos.!?
The History of George Akropolites, which begins and ends with events in Constantinople, is the only contemporary Greek narrative for 1203-61. The work overlaps with the histories of Niketas Choniates and George Pachymeres who deal in greater detail with the first and last three years covered by Akropolites. As is the case with most Byzantine historical narratives, but especially those of the middle and late Byzantine periods, so too Akropolites’ History has been used by later historians to reconstruct the period it covers, but without the benefit of a study of its author. Akropolites’ History provides the backbone of any modern account of the ‘empire of Nicaea’. His is the only narrative of the whole period and it is therefore to him that we turn for our own accounts of what happened. Yet few questions have been asked of the writer. The story he tells is treated separately from who he was, as if it were possible to disengage the two. Indeed, in the case of Akropolites, who
tells us so much about himself, such an approach to the History is difficult to defend.
THE MAN AND HIS WORK
George Akropolites made an account of his life an integral part of his History. The History is, in fact, the major source for his life. He talks about himself through first-person interjections and also by reporting statements addressed to him and relating conversations in which he took part. He introduces himself into the History at chronologically correct times. Akropolites divulges the age he was at specific times and the work in which he was engaged. Any attempt, therefore, to understand the History, but also to gain knowledge of the man, has to take into consideration the author’s presentation of himself in his historical narrative.
The man who was to write the main account of the ‘empire of Nicaea’ spent the first 16 and the last 21 years of his life (1217—82)13 in Constantinople, thus living more than half of his 65 years in the capital. Before 1204 Constantinopolitan origins were highly regarded;!4 after 1204 this continued to be the case. Theodore II, in an encomium for his teacher George, addressed him as ‘noble [edyevjs] from the virtues of your parents and even more on account of your birthplace [vazpis]...the city of Constantine, the queen but now slave’!5 The significance which birth in Constantinople had for those living in the empire of Nicaea can be surmised from the patriarch Germanos II’s (1223-40) description of certain detractors:
What do they say? That our patriarch is not one of the well born, nor can those who bore and nurtured him boast of being natives and sucklings of the Queen of Cities. What are you talking about? Are we worthless for this reason and are they worthy and well
born who terminated their mothers’ pains in that city?!6
The Akropolites family association with Constantinople can be traced back to the late tenth century. The earliest reference to the name derives from the capital; the Patria mentions the house of an Akropolites.17 This house was at the centre of the city, on the Mese, to the west of the Forum of Constantine.!8 However, the etymology of the surname, ‘inhabitant of the acropolis’, indicates an association with another part of the city.!9
Equally significant for the History is the status of the Akropolites family. In a speech which Akropolites puts in the mouth of the emperor John III, George is said to come from an ‘illustrious family’2° Although the prosopography of the Akropolites family before the thirteenth century has not been written, lead seals and references in documents and in other written sources give an indication of the family’s standing. This evidence produces a list of Akropolitai from the early eleventh century and into the twelfth, all of whom were in the civil administration, in fiscal and judicial capacities.?!
A fiscal position in Latin-held Constantinople has also been suggested for George’s father.?? Akropolites refers to his parents, without naming them, and gives an indication of his father’s situation. He was directly involved with the Latins in some capacity, for George states that his father was ‘very much in their grip, held by the profusion of expenses and also his and their liberalities..... He wanted to ‘slip away secretly’ from the Latins but an additional impediment to his leaving Constantinople was the ‘large staff’ he had. Whether this was a staff of household servants in his father’s employ—the source of his expenses—or his staff as a functionary in the Latin administration, George’s account of his father suggests a man of importance, with obligations. It does not, however, provide a clear picture of his function.?3
It would thus appear that the Akropolitai were a family of Constantinopolitan civil functionaries. To describe them as ‘noble’ and ‘illustrious’ is an ‘exaggerated claim’, as Alexander Kazhdan suggested.?4 However, we should note that as the emperor Theodore II himself said, Akropolites’ ‘nobility’ derived more from his Constantinopolitan origin than from his parents: ‘even more on account of your birthplace’. In George’s case ‘quality of genos was tied to prestige of patris.2> He was, however, to change the family fortune at Nicaea, under John III Vatatzes and Theodore II.
If Constantinopolitan origins gave George Akropolites prestige in the empire of Nicaea, his education there provided him with a means of further advancement. Like Michael Psellos, Akropolites is keen to convey, through his autobiographical insertions into his History, information about the stages of his education and its quality, as well as the standing it gave him in the eyes of emperors.
It was at the court of John III, at 17, that Akropolites began his higher education. He had just completed his secondary or grammar schooling in Constantinople, an education about which nothing is known, not even the language in which it was conducted.?6
To relate the course of his education at ‘Nicaea’, Akropolites conveys a scene in which the emperor John commends to the young George the life of a ‘philosopher’. He shows through this scene and the emperor’s address to him that he was in a much closer relationship to the emperor than the other young men with whom he began his studies: “These I have taken from Nicaea and handed over to the school but you I have sent forth from my household... Demonstrate, then, that you indeed go forth from my household, and engage in your studies accordingly.2”? The speech which Akropolites puts in the emperor’s mouth makes several central points about George. He was brought up at court in the emperor’s household;?8 the emperor gave him the opportunity to excel as an educated man, for even though Akropolites was from an ‘illustrious family’, it was because of his education that he would be considered ‘worthy of great honours and rewards’.
The writings of Nikephoros Blemmydes, George Akropolites, and Gregory of Cyprus provide information about education in the empire of Nicaea. They indicate that there were several teachers who made their expertise available. They give the names of teachers and the subjects they taught, showing that students moved from teacher to teacher. Absent from their accounts is any sense of a structure, of teachers attached to places of instruction. Blemmydes names a number of men to whom he went in pursuit of secondary and higher education.?® He does not say whether his teachers were giving private instruction or were paid by the emperor. Only one, Karykes, held a title, hypatos ton philosophon, which may have had a connection with his teaching, as it had in the twelfth century.3°
Akropolites’ description of his higher education shows that it was imperially sponsored and directed. He relates how the emperor sent a group of young men to the teachers, Theodore Hexapterygos and Nikephoros Blemmydes, paying their salaries.31 The number of students—five—who began their higher education at the same time is repeated several times in different sources, giving the impression that this was the first imperially sponsored group in the empire.°2
Akropolites derived great pride and, no doubt, prestige from having studied philosophy with Nikephoros Blemmydes, ‘whom we all knew to be more accomplished than others at that time in the philosophical sciences’33 He demonstrates the importance for him of his studies with Blemmydes by his numerous mentions of his teacher, both in the History and elsewhere.34 In the History also there is evidence of Blemmydes’ influence on Akropolites. He acknowledges his teacher as a source of his information about the solar eclipse in 1239, and Akropolites’ accuracy in transmitting his teacher’s lesson can be checked in Blemmydes’ textbook.35 But Blemmydes affected Akropolites beyond the knowledge of the subjects he imparted. Other debts remain unacknowledged although more significant. These have to do with Akropolites’ language, interests and attitudes.>°
From the time of his studies under Blemmydes>’ until 1246, when Akropolites accompanied the emperor John on his three-month campaign in the ‘west}38 nothing certain is known about Akropolites’ life. However, both the History and the writings of Theodore II make references to a period of time in which George taught Theodore logic and philosophy.3° The teacher—student relationship is further documented by Theodore’s 39 letters to Akropolites which Akropolites collected,*° presenting them to Theodore with a verse preface,*1 and the encomium for Akropolites which Theodore composed in response.*?
Heisenberg, presuming that the letters would have had to have been written when the two men were separated by a large distance and, taking 1246 as the first time Akropolites travelled with the emperor John outside of Anatolia, suggested 1246 as the starting point of the period of instruction. He considered 1252, the date of Akropolites’ next journey to the west, to mark the end of the teaching and also the time when the letters were collected.48
The above chronology is, however, based on a series of assumptions. First, although Akropolites relates in his History two occasions on which he crossed the Hellespont, in 1246 and 1252,44 those letters which make clear reference to separation could all have been written during one and the same separation.* Furthermore, Akropolites does not mention all his travels in his History. A letter of Theodore clearly recounts an otherwise unknown and therefore undatable journey made by Akropolites to Constantinople.*® Likewise, although many of the letters were written when the Hellespont separated the two men, others could have been written when they were both in the same town, or in different parts, of Anatolia.4”
Therefore, the length of time over which the letters were written cannot be ascertained. Although Theodore refers in his encomium of his teacher to the passing of time during his studies, he does so in an imprecise way.*8 If some of the letters can be ascribed with relative certainty to the three months when Akropolites was with John III in Serres and Thessalonike in 1246,4° others cannot be dated at all. Additional difficulties in fixing the time of instruction derive not from the letters but from uncertainties relating to the period when Blemmydes taught Theodore®® and the date when Akropolites finished his own education under Blemmydes.5! Given so many insoluble problems, the precise time of Akropolites’ instruction of Theodore must remain an open question.5?
The letters and Theodore’s encomium of Akropolites may be elusive with regard to the period of instruction. They are, however, explicit and clear about Theodore’s affection for his teacher. They give expression to warm friendship, intimacy, and a high regard for the ‘wise’ Akropolites.5? Akropolites’ feelings for his student are less accessible, however, since no letter of his to Theodore has survived, while the verses he wrote as a preface to the letter collection celebrate Theodore’s writing skills but do not disclose Akropolites’ sentiments for the writer.>4
In addition to his teaching, in John III’s reign Akropolites performed other functions which he was to continue to carry out for the rest of his life.5> In 1246, on his first datable journey outside Anatolia, he was responsible for drafting imperial letters to be sent to the territories which the emperor had gained through negotiations in the Rhodope area and in Macedonia.*° In his next intervention in the History, Akropolites relates that he was among those sent by the emperor John in 1252 to conclude a treaty with Michael II of Epiros at Larissa. He may have been involved in drafting the treaty as well, for Akropolites comments that at this time he was engaged in preparing the ‘more high level documents which deserved special care’.57 Another ambassadorial mission Akropolites accomplished at some unspecified date, but certainly in the reign of John III, was a journey to Constantinople. In his letter to Akropolites, the only source for this embassy, Theodore II claims that ‘there is no enmity of humans that you, mediating, cannot resolve’.58
Akropolites continued to be responsible for drafting documents under Theodore II. In the first two years of Theodore’s reign, Akropolites travelled in Thrace and Macedonia with the emperor. In the course of the first Bulgarian campaign in 1254-5, he describes his work as that of preparing the documents and administering the oaths in connection with a peace agreement with Michael II Asan.5? It was during Theodore II’s second Bulgarian campaign in 1256 that Akropolites was given a charge with very different responsibilities. Theodore appointed Akropolites praitor, a function which gave him military as well as fiscal duties for Albanon and western Macedonia.®° He says of this work, ‘It was assigned to me and I was given licence to do the following: to replace, as I wished, the tax collectors and administrators of fiscal affairs, commanders of armies and those who held command of regions’*! Akropolites was the first member of his family to undertake military duties. He had no experience in this area. However, he was praitor for a short time only, for the territory under his charge was rapidly taken by Michael II of Epiros.°3 Akropolites surrendered Prilep to him, became his prisoner and spent two years in captivity, probably at Arta.%4 His release occurred after the battle of Pelagonia, in 1259 or early 1260, although Michael VIII had negotiated earlier for Akropolites’ release, upon becoming emperor.®
One of the last duties Akropolites performed for the empire of Nicaea upon his return from Epiros was to act as ambassador to Trnovo, to the court of Constantine Tich, in the winter of 1260-1. Akropolites does not say what the purpose of his embassy was.°
Upon his return to Constantinople Akropolites began to teach, in the early 1260s, perhaps as early as 1262. According to Gregory of Cyprus, one of two students of Akropolites in the capital known by name, the emperor released Akropolites from his ‘public cares’ in order to allow him to remedy the ‘dearth of learning’.®’ In an oration written in 1270-2 and addressed to the emperor Michael, Gregory assigns credit to Akropolites for single-handedly saving ‘the seeds and sparks of learning’ from extinction.®® Although the restoration of learning by a specific emperor or scholar is a recurring motif in Byzantine writing,®? the topos can be shown to bear relation to the reality of reconquered Constantinople. The instruction Akropolites gave was the first attempt to re-establish higher education in the capital. Furthermore, until 1265 Akropolites was alone in giving instruction. In that year, the patriarch Germanos III (1265-6) requested of the emperor Michael that he allow the monk Manuel Holobolos to teach. According to Pachymeres, the patriarch phrased his request in these terms: ‘the megas logothetes George Akropolites has been giving lessons, established by your command, emperor, for a considerable time, and he is tired now. It is necessary to bring others forth, not least men of the church.7° The emperor assented to the patriarch’s appeal and confirmed Holobolos’ appointment as rhetor.7!
The reported speech of the patriarch implies that Germanos was proposing the ‘retirement’ of Akropolites and his replacement by Holobolos. If this was his intention it was never carried out, for Akropolites continued to teach after Holobolos’ appointment in 1265. Constantine Akropolites refers to the studies of a certain hypatos, first with ‘the wise Holobolos and with my father after him in higher studies’’2 The hypatos has been identified with John Pediasimos who was a fellow student of Gregory of Cyprus?3 and thus, also, the second student of Akropolites known by name.
More evidence that Akropolites taught beyond the date of Holobolos’ appointment comes from Gregory of Cyprus’ ‘autobiography’ in which he states the length of time he studied with Akropolites, as well as the content of the lessons. Akropolites taught Aristotle, the geometry of Euclid, the arithmetic of Nikomachos, and then moved on to syllogistics and analytics. He set his students exercises in composition before advancing to a higher level of Aristotle.74 Gregory was 26 when he began his studies as one of the youngest in the group of students. He finished at 33.75 If he studied with Akropolites for those seven years, and he does not indicate otherwise, Akropolites would have been teaching Gregory and others from 1267 until 1274.76
None of the sources which mention higher education in Constantinople after 1261 gives any indication of places of instruction or numbers of students. It is certain only that by 1265 a layman and an ecclesiastic gave instruction in higher studies and one held a title, rhetor, associated with the hierarchy of the patriarchate and with teaching before 1204.77 If Akropolites held a title as a teacher, it is not known.
The evidence from Gregory of Cyprus points to a long teaching period for Akropolites, at least 10 years. If this is the case, Akropolites should be given greater credit for the ‘Palaiologan Renaissance’ than has hitherto been the case.”8 Akropolites was not, however, engaged only in teaching philosophy and rhetoric in that period, even if Gregory says that Akropolites was given leave from his public duties. He carried on fulfilling some of his duties as megas logothetes, as can be seen from his letter to the sebastokrator John Tornikes in which he refers to his ‘teaching the Organon and settling the cases of the sekreton, a reference to his judicial duties as megas logothetes.79 Furthermore, it is known from Pachymeres that Akropolites was given the charge of punishing the Arsenites, an episode that can be dated to 1267 from the context in which it is mentioned.®° A further judicial function was given to him in 1273 when he was sent by the emperor Michael to sit with the synod as a member of the senate, to judge the chartophylax John Bekkos.8! Thus Akropolites’ teaching, in the years when Gregory would have been studying with him, was interrupted by other duties.8?
In 1274 Akropolites took part in the most celebrated of his diplomatic missions, as head of a five-man delegation to the council at Lyons where he swore to accept the primacy of the Roman church and to pledge obedience to it on his own behalf and that of the emperor.83 From this time until his death in 1282, there are few traces of him, apart from his signature on a chrysobull of 127784 and an ambassadorial journey, his last recorded public duty. In 1281/2 he travelled to Trebizond, to the emperor John II (1280-97), to make preliminary arrangements for the latter’s marriage to the daughter of Michael VI, Eudokia Palaiologina. The emperor Michael, aiming to persuade John II to renounce his suspicions of Michael’s intentions and to travel to Constantinople, chose for this mission ‘grand and wise men’ whose high status and skill in speaking would win John’s confidence and make him amenable to the suggestion.§> One of these men was George Akropolites. His embassy failed. However, subsequent negotiation conducted by other ambassadors ended successfully in the marriage of Eudokia and John II in Constantinople at the end of September 1282.86 Akropolites may not have lived to witness the wedding, for he died in 1282, sometime before the emperor Michael.’ He would certainly never know that an offspring of the marriage he had attempted to negotiate was one day to marry his own granddaughter.8®
George Akropolites’ assessment of his life is transmitted by his elder son Constantine in his ‘Testament’ for the monastery of the Anastasis in Constantinople which George restored in a ‘major act of patronage’.8° Constantine relates that as a schoolboy, studying at the secondary level, he would visit his father from time to time while the monastery was undergoing restoration.°° On one of these occasions his father took him by the hand and stood him before the icon of Christ, saying:
He is the One who also provided me with learning,
the most honourable thing in life, which nothing on earth can equal, as one of the wise pagans testified; on account of it I became celebrated and prosperous, and I assisted most of my relatives, for I will pass over how I attended to the need even of strangers to the best of my ability.9!
The prosperity George speaks of through his son is documented in part by the calculations of expenditure which were made during the restoration of the monastery. Constantine reports in his “Testament’ that expenses up to 16 000 nomismata (c. 48 kilograms of gold) were recorded. Thereafter, his father did not keep account of his outlay. Because of the strain on George’s resources, however, Constantine’s inheritance was reduced by 4500 nomismata.%3
The wealth which George attributed to his learning was accumulated through a lifetime of service to emperors from whom he received titles and land. In the History, Akropolites makes reference to his property once, in connection with his imprisonment by Michael II of Epiros in 1257: “He [Theodore II] issued decrees concerning my properties, stating that no one should dare set foot on them at any time and cause damage.%> Akropolites does not indicate where his properties were located; they were presumably in Anatolia but possibly, also, in the ‘western’ territories. That George may have owned land also in Macedonia is suggested by a chrysobull of 1299/1300 issued by Milutin in favour of the monastery of St George near Skopje. This document mentions fields of Manglavites, (Kosta) Litovoes, Dragotas and Akropolites.°° Men with these names were involved in the campaign of John III in 1246, in the submission of Melnik and Serres.9” It was during the same campaign that Akropolites was in charge of preparing letters for the territories which became part of the empire of Nicaea. Although it cannot be shown conclusively that the property belonged since 1246 to the families of the four men, the coincidence of names is compelling.
Akropolites attributes his wealth to his learning and the success this brought him. Yet his marriage to a relation of Michael Palaiologos was essential to the accumulation of wealth and to his success.98 In 1259 when the emperor Michael approached Michael II, asking for Akropolites’ release from captivity, Akropolites reveals, ‘I was related to the emperor by marriage and my wife was crying pitifully and prostrating herself at the monarch’s feet’9° His wife’s name, Eudokia, is known from Constantine Akropolites’ “Testament’ for the Anastasis monastery, but her precise relationship to Michael Palaiologos cannot be determined.! Their marriage had taken place by 1256,!°! because it was in that year that George accompanied Theodore II on the campaign from which he was to return in 1259/60, after his long imprisonment. Eudokia and George had at least two children, Constantine, the elder, and a son known by his monastic name, Melchisedek.!° Constantine relates that he had another brother ‘not by the law of marriage but by a holier and greater birth, holy baptism’. His brother “by holy baptism’ his spiritual brother, George Iber, was the same age as Constantine and was raised and educated along with him. George later became the monk Gregory and entered the monastery built by Eudokia, the wife of George, his godfather.1% Constantine, the elder son, inherited not only the restored monastery of the Anastasis from his father but also his literary interests and his reputation for learning and wisdom.’ Like his father, Constantine was brought up by the emperor and educated by him.!% Like George, he made a good marriage, to Maria Komnene Tornikina,!° and he had a similar pattern of imperial service, holding the titles logothetes tou genikou and megas logothetes.1°” Father and son differed, however, in one central way: they held divergent views on the union of the churches.!°8 In his will Constantine praised his father for his learning and acknowledged his debt to him, both for the property he had bequeathed to him and the education he had provided for him. But he added, ‘But to speak out and to speak truthfully, this checks me in my praise at the start, this also has prevented me from praising expansively, that is, that he seemed to collide with the church and the traditions of the church, having given most to the master and emperor. !°? While Pachymeres’ judgement on George is harsher, ‘most learned but neglectful in matters of conscience’! Constantine’s list of people to be commemorated in the Anastasis monastery does not include his father’s name.
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