Download PDF | NICAEA: A Byzantine Capital and Its Praises (Archbishop Iakovos Library of Ecclesiastical and Historical Sources), by Clive Foss (Author), Holy Cross Orthodox Press 2005.
256 Pages
Preface
Nicaea was already large, important and over five hundred years old when Constantine chose it for the general meeting of the bishops of the Church in 325. The Council of Nicaea, the first of the ecumenical councils, brought eter- nal renown to the city which was its host, though few, perhaps, who recite the Nicene Creed composed there associate it with a real place, with a long his- tory and many surviving buildings. The age between Constantine and the invasions of the seventh century which marked the end of Antiquity was a flourishing time for Nicaea as it was for most cities of the eastern Empire.
The following chaos of the Dark Ages brought an inevitable decline, but the powerful walls erected against a previous time of turmoil provided an impregnable bulwark and made the city a major base of army and administration in the Middle Ages. After two centuries of peace- ful prosperity, it slipped into the hands of the Turks, only to be regained for Christendom by the First Crusade in a long and famous siege, the only time in its history that Nicaea succumbed to direct assault. The next moment of glory, and the one which forms the main subject of this work, arrived with the catastrophe of 1204 when another crusade con- quered Constantinople and drove the Empire into exile. Emperor and Church took refuge in Nicaea, which remained the center of a flourishing state for over half a century.
This was an active time with much building in the city and region as the foundations were laid for a state powerful enough to recapture the lost capital in 1261. After fulfilling its role as protector and nourisher of the Empire, Nicaea gradually faded until the Ottoman Turks brought it into a new age in 1330. Like most large cities, Nicaea had been the subject of formal praises in written and spoken works. Most are now fragments, but sufficient to show that the local piety represented by the Council was greatly stressed along with the normal subjects of encomia.
It remained for the thirteenth century to pro- duce two long speeches of praise which describe all the glories of the city, physical and spiritual, at a time when it was the focus of State and Church, or when those days were still a living memory. As the longest surviving docu- ments about the city, they deserve more attention than they have received; hence the present volume, which includes their texts with a translation, com- mentary, and historical introduction. Actually, what was intended as an introduction has turned into a history of the city from the third to the four-teenth century, and is now far longer than the speeches.
The difficult language of these texts has kept them from being better known, for they are written in an exceptionally ornate style rendered more complex by the great learning of the authors. The first is the work of an imperial prince, Theodore Laskaris, who was himself born in the city he praises, on the day his father, John Vatatzes, became emperor, in 1222, and there received his educa- tion. His skills in science and philosophy and his zeal for eloquence produced a style which favors the abstract and expresses it in high-flown rhetoric. His words nevertheless create an impression of the city, and notably of its intel- lectual life, during the reign of Vatatzes, before whom the speech was delivered. Theodore Metochites composed the other speech when he was only twenty, as an address to another emperor, Andronikos II, in 1290.
It was an instant success; the young orator was taken into imperial service and soon rose to become the leading statesman of his day, and a man of immense erudition. This speech, which abounds in description and concrete detail, gives a vivid image of the city and country in a language somewhat less florid than that of Laskaris. This work was originally intended to put the difficult Greek of these speeches into a comprehensible English, to make them available for use as an historical source. To accomplish that, I turned to my old friend Jacob Tulchin whose knowledge of classical Greek is perhaps superior to that of the authors at hand, and who is familiar with all things Byzantine. He willingly agreed to help cut through the seemingly impenetrable jungle of this rhetoric and pro- duced a draft translation of both speeches. Together, We spent innumerable hours revising, trying to capture the meaning of the most elusive phrase, and to produce a result which would make sense. The translations, therefore, are a collaboration, with the main burden borne by Mr. Tulchin. The rest is my responsibility alone.
The speeches could not have been translated at all without a reliable text. We are, therefore, especially grateful to Dr. Sophia Georgiopoulou for allow- ing us to reproduce her text of the speech of Laskaris. She will publish it with full critical apparatus in her study of the prince and his works The language posed a problem which took an exceptionally long time to solve. It was compounded by the fame of the city itself, for a horde of late antique and Byzantine writers had occasion to mention Nicaca, if only en passant, in reference to the Council. A great deal of material, therefore, had to be sifted before a coherent history could be written. This work was greatly expedited by Dr. Friedrich Hild of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini in Vienna, who generously sent copies of their rich file of references. These provided the basis for the narrative; others, mainly relating to the buildings, were added as the work progressed.
Most Greek names have been strictly transliterated, but a few the latinized "Nicaea" most prominent among them have been left in forms which are most familiar to the English-speaking reader. In the course of composition, I have naturally incurred many obligations, a pleasure to recall and acknowledge. Father Nomikos Vaporis long since ex- pressed interest in the project and kindly accepted it for publication. Professor Cyril Mango willingly read large sections of the manuscript and saved it from many omissions and errors. Professor Ihor Sevcenko made some valuable sug- gestions when this project was first conceived. Eugenia Petrides worked through the translations with great care, suggesting numerous improvements.
Helene Roberts of the Fogg Art Museum provided rare photos of the Church of the Dormition from the A. Kingsley Porter Collection. Humaira Ahmad of All Souls College, Oxford, cheerfully typed the difficult manuscript of the trans- lations and Peter Fraser of the same institution helpfully recommended an efficient assistant, Lindsay Gee. Professor Robert Renehan patiently answered inquiries and provided helpful references, and Eva Chou read the penultimate version of the text with careful attention to matters editorial and idiomatic. My sincere thanks to all. Clive Foss Cambridge, Mass.
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