Download PDF | Four Byzantine Novels Agapetus - Theodore Prodromos; Rhodanthe and Dosikles - Eumathios Makrembolites; Hysmine and Hysminias - Constantine Manasses; Aristandros and Kallithea - Niketas Eugenianos, Drosilla and Charikles,2012.
504 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Work began on these translations several decades ago in Sydney. I should like to acknowledge the support over the years and in different ways of several institutions — the University of Sydney, Dumbarton Oaks, the University of Oxford, Exeter College, Oxford — but especially the Australian Research Council for several generous research fellowships which enabled my explorations of the Byzantine twelfth century to develop.
I should also like to acknowledge many fruitful discussions, both formal and informal, over the years with colleagues and students around the world, especially with Panagiotis Agapitos, Roderick Beaton, Carolina Cupane, Michael Jeffreys, Corinne Jouanno, Suzanne MacAlister, Paul Magdalino, Ingela Nilsson, Roderich-Dieter Reinsch, Panagiotis Roilos and Teresa Shawcross; to this list I would now like to add Judith Ryder, the editor of Translated Texts for Byzantinists, and the series’ readers, who have frequently saved me from myself. I am grateful to Michael Jeffreys for enabling my access to the most recent revisions to Prosopography of the Byzantine World before general release. I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Ruth Harder for her vigilant reading of early drafts. Responsibility for errors and infelicities that remain is, of course, mine alone.
Elizabeth Jeffreys Oxford, March 2011
INTRODUCTION
Four novels, or romances, were written in the middle years of the twelfth century in Constantinople.’ These texts are Rhodanthe and Dosikles (hereafter R&D) by Theodore Prodromos, Hysmine and Hysminias (H&H) by Eumathios Makrembolites, Aristandros and Kallithea (A&K) by Constantine Manasses and Drosilla and Charikles (D&C) by Niketas Eugenianos.? These texts share themes and literary techniques that suggest a group of writers operating within the same milieu.? АП draw extensively on the novels of the Second Sophistic, especially Leukippe and Kleitophon by Achilles Tatius (late 2nd cent. CE) and the Ethiopika of Heliodoros (perhaps 4th cent. CE), as well as Chaereas and Kallirrhoe by Chariton (2nd cent. CE) and Daphnis and Chloe by Longos (also 2nd cent. CE). АП are written in a mannered style, whether in prose (H&H) or verse (12 syllables: R&D, D&C; 15 syllables: A&K), and all are full of ‘set-piece’ rhetorical displays. The plots deal with the trials of a pair of well-born lovers who are separated by dramatic misfortunes but eventually emerge unscathed to be united in marriage.
For long the standard reaction to these Byzantine novels has been that they are insipid, mildly pornographic imitations of their classical models with no intrinsic interest? However, over the last thirty years or so they have been attracting increasingly sympathetic scholarly attention, with studies devoted to individual works as well as general overviews.ó New editions have appeared to replace the frequently inadequate editions from the nineteenth century and earlier. In part this is a natural consequence of the growing interest in the novel of the ancient world." In part it is due to a greater willingness to explore Byzantine literary products without the blinkers of a classicist's prejudice.
In part it is because the novel — which may be defined as a sustained fictional narrative — is the dominant literary genre of the present day and thus all phases of what may be seen as its pre-history attract attention, though this is a dangerous prism through which to observe the twelfth century. The Byzantine novels become particularly significant when it is realized that they predate, possibly by more than forty years, the works of the French poet Chrétien de Troyes,’ regarded as one of the most significant milestones in the medieval development of the European novel.
It is this thought that underlies one challenging study of the history of the novel, Margaret Anne Doody's True Story of the Novel (1996), which makes the twelfth-century Constantinopolitan authors pivotal in the transmission of the concept of fictional writing from the ancient to the modern world.? One may dispute the detail of the argument, but the fact remains that this Byzantine material is a phenomenon whose genesis and function have yet to be fully explained, for it must be remembered that the writing of romantic fiction of this sort was not a standard element in Byzantine literary culture. Evidence for story-telling, surely a natural human instinct, does survive in Byzantium but has been transmuted into stories about holy men and women, that is, into hagiography, of which there are examples in abundance. '? Given this interest and the growing number of translations of these twelfth-century novels into other modern European languages, it seems obvious that they should be made accessible to English-speaking students of medieval literature and of the history of the novel.
The translations that follow are in prose, though set out line by line for the verse texts as an aid to the reader following the Greek. They deliberately aim at preserving the mannered quality of the Greek, whether verse or prose, and make some effort to keep a consistency of vocabulary, allowing repetitions where English usage would prefer synonyms. The introductions briefly review current opinions on the dates, contexts and nature of each of the novels: much more could be said. The notes are multi-purpose and will probably satisfy no one: they are intended to elucidate references that may puzzle a neophyte Byzantinist or non-specialist; to give some indication of textual issues where these affect the translation and where current editions are at variance; to point up, though without exploring their intertextuality, some of the many quotations that permeate these texts, a feature that has been a major preoccupation of earlier studies; and to give some indication of interesting recent work that opens up new interpretations.
INTRODUCTION
Author
Theodore Prodromos was perhaps the most versatile, inventive and prolific of the writers functioning in the first half of the twelfth century, using both prose and verse to produce a wide variety of texts. These included encomia for imperial events and persons, satire, hagiography, religious poetry, letters and commentaries on texts as disparate as John of Damascus' canons and Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. He also wrote the novel Rhodanthe and Dosikles.!
Little is known of Prodromos’ family circumstances. His father apparently travelled and read widely while an uncle, named Christos, held a bishopric in Russia. This suggests a comfortable though not elite background.’ Prodromos’ father advised his son against a life of artisan crafts and soldiering, and — like others of this class in the early years of the twelfth century — provided him with a thorough literary education, expecting a lucrative career to follow.? From the range of his works that survive, the texts alluded to and Prodromos’ own comments on the sequence of subjects he studied, the education was thorough.* However, financial rewards failed to materialize.
The disappointment may have been partly due to historical accident (as suggested below) and partly to ill health, for it is plain that others with similar training did advance to teaching posts and bishoprics.? John Tzetzes was the most signal example of failure." The large number of surviving, mostly anonymous, ‘occasional’ epigrams from the mid-twelfth century suggest that many others aspired to make themselves known and to translate education into a living by penning literary works, usually in verse, for Constantinopolitan patrons, both imperial and aristocratic.’ Many of these works would have been presented in theatra, literary salons, of which in the first half of the twelfth century the best-known were those presided over by Eirene Doukaina (d. ca. 1133), widow of Alexios I Komnenos (d. 1118); Anna Komnene (d. ca. 1153), daughter of Alexios I, together with her husband Nikephoros Bryennios (d. 1138); and the sevastokratorissa Eirene (d. ca. 1152), widowed sister-in-law of Manuel I Komnenos.?
Born ca. 1100 in Constantinople, Prodromos' first known datable work was produced in 1122 for the crowning of Alexios (d. 1142) as co-emperor with his father John II Komnenos (reigned 1118—43).!! Prodromos would presumably have been undergoing his education in the years around 1115-20. Although the Patriarchal School had been newly reformed as part of the efforts by Alexios I to raise the standard of clerical education, small, single-teacher establishments continued at this time to predominate as the source of secondary education." Stephanos Skylitzes and Michael Italikos, referred to by Prodromos as his teachers, had connections to the official teaching establishment in the later stages of their careers, but it is not clear that this was the case when Prodromos was their student."
The Komnenian court in the 1120s seems in effect to have been split into two factions — that of the emperor John and that of his dissident mother (Eirene Doukaina) and sister (Anna Komnene), who grudgingly accepted John's status after their abortive coups of 1118—19, which had attempted to place Anna and Nikephoros Bryennios on the throne.'* In the first decade of Prodromos' career he seems to have placed himself under the patronage of Eirene Doukaina.? His Aristotelian commentary suggests that he was also involved with the philosophical group writing at this time under the aegis of Anna Komnene, though the mechanism of her support and involvement is обѕсше.! On Eirene Doukaina's death, which probably occurred in 1133," he appears then to have turned to John as his major patron, carving out a successful career in producing long encomia.
Apparently lacking a permanent teaching post, he would have supported himself by writing commissioned work of this sort and by teaching private pupils.” By 1140, however, Prodromos' circumstances were at a low ebb — the absence from Constantinople on campaign in Cilicia from 1138 onwards of the emperor and the heads of the aristocratic houses caused the flow of commissions, and the resulting income, to dry up.” It was at this point that he addressed a passionate plea for financial support to Anna Komnene,”' and in despair contemplated abandoning Constantinople for Trebizond in the company of his friend and erstwhile teacher Stephanos Skylitzes.? It was at this time too that he suffered a severe illness, possibly smallpox, whose effects were prolonged.? In the early years of the reign of Manuel I Komnenos (reigned 1143-80) he sought support from him, claiming that he (Prodromos) had only ever served one family, that of Manuel; encomia resulted.” He also looked for support from the sevastokratorissa Eirene, writing in consolation on her widowhood (in 1142) and at some point presenting her with an illustrated grammar.” He made impassioned pleas to other prominent figures.”° Eventually he took refuge in a gerontokomeion (hospice for the elderly) attached to the Orphanotropheion and the church of St Peter and Paul.” He continued to write pieces for Constantinopolitan aristocrats and possibly also take pupils and teach in the Orphanotropheion.?* He died in 1156-58.
Date
It is possible to suggest a reasonably secure date within Prodromos' multifaceted oeuvre for the composition of Rhodanthe and Dosikles. The novel’s dedicatory preface is preserved in manuscript H (Heidelbergensis Palatinus graecus 43, f. 38v), an early fourteenth-century manuscript consisting largely of works by Prodromos, and an excellent witness to R&D. Though noted by Hórandner and Marcovich, and published long ago by Welz (in 1910), the implications to be drawn from this dedication escaped attention until 1998)?! The dedicatee is a Caesar (lines 1—4).
Subsequent discussion now accepts that this can only be Caesar Nikephoros Bryennios, known for his own literary productions and for whom Prodromos had written other works.? Bryennios died in 1138, thus providing a secure terminus ante quem for R&D.” In the interstices of his military career Bryennios had continued to take part in theatra (especially that of Eirene Doukaina before her death), as witnessed by Michael Italikos' account of the enthusiastic reception accorded a letter sent by Bryennios while absent on campaign.** It was Eirene who instigated his composition of the Material for a History (YA iovoo(ac) on the youthful exploits of Alexios I.” However, after the death of Eirene Doukaina in ca. 1133 Prodromos, as noted above, would seem to have begun writing for the emperor John. This may have involved a loosening of the ties with the faction that included Bryennios.
So, although Bryennios maintained his literary interests throughout his life, it is an arguable possibility that R&D was presented to him by Prodromos in the earlier rather than the later years of the 1130s. The most likely terminus ante quem is 1136; after that date Bryennios, involved with the emperor's campaigns in Asia Minor, was unlikely to have been physically present in Constantinople to receive the presentation copy implied by the dedicatory epigrams. At the earlier end of the possible time-span, the thought that Prodromos may have been stimulated to compose R&D by the wedding of the two sons of Nikephoros Bryennios and Anna Komnene, probably in 1122, for which he provided an epithalamium, is attractive, but lacks evidence. The prominence in R&D (and the other novels) of marriage and the relation between the sexes in general is insufficient in this case to support a link.?
Agapitos has pointed out that the 24 lines of verse in the dedicatory poem are made up of three separate items: lines 1—14 make up the dedication and a plea that the work offered should not be compared to the masters of the past but to recent craftsmen; lines 15-16 are an elegiac couplet claiming Prodromos' authorship; lines 17—24 provide a summary of the vicissitudes that beset Rhodanthe and Dosikles, the central couple. He argues convincingly that these are most suitably interpreted as elements that made up a frontispiece to the dedication copy; a variety of layouts are possible.” The epigrams make great play with images of painting. Jeffreys (like Welz before her) interpreted these to refer to illustrations to the text (helped by Welz's insertion of oyeó(oic in line 14),% which led to the somewhat unexpected conclusion that Prodromos was author, scribe and painter. While this combination is not unknown,” Prodromos' calligraphic abilities are not mentioned elsewhere, and indeed his rejection of the life of an artisan would argue against his possession of such skills. Agapitos proposes that the dedication's imagery belongs to the topos of poetry as painting: Prodromos presents his work as a painting, with illustrious literary predecessors and contemporaries concealed behind named sculptors and painters.^
The identity of the two ancient masters masked by the names Praxiteles and Apelles is of little importance, although Agapitos’ suggestion of Heliodoros and Achilles Tatius, the two novelists from late antiquity most referenced in the twelfth century, is reasonable. Much more significant is the identity of the ‘recent painters’ (line 12: Cwyeddous véovow) with which Prodromos’ own ‘recent efforts’ (line 9: tåuà ... vVetata) аге to be compared. Given that his ‘recent effort only makes sense if applied to R&D, the reference must be to other comparable sustained narrative pieces of erotic fiction. As is discussed elsewhere in this volume, the fragmentary A&K can be placed with reasonable certainty ca. 1145 in the circle (or theatron) of the sevastokratorissa Eirene, while D&C, often stated to be written in imitation of ‘the late’ Prodromos (on dubious manuscript authority), can be placed on acceptable grounds ca. 1156. Two other texts of this type are known from the twelfth century. One is Digenis Akritis; recent work has argued that the first version in a written-out narrative form was put together before 1143.
Agapitos rejects Digenis as a parallel,? although this is perhaps unnecessarily dismissive given the undoubted links to the novel tradition still visible in both the G and the E versions.? The other text is H&H, whose problematic dating is discussed below. Based on the several ekphraseis (descriptions) in H&H," the references to the painter craftsman who created the wondrous images in Sosthenes' garden with their iambic inscriptions? and the final section in which the author apparently looks to the future creation of a visual monument of his verbal art, ^^ Agapitos argues that ‘the topos of writing as painting is a central aspect of the poetics of Hysmine and Hysminias' ^ By this argument H&H is thus a creation of one of the ‘recent painters’ with which Prodromos wishes R&D to be compared and is, argues Agapitos, the text with which Prodromos' R&D is in dialogue. The implications of this for the dating of H&H will be discussed further in the next section.
The conclusion to be retained in connection with R&D is that it is a product of the 1130s, possibly from early in the decade, from an environment that included the theatron of Eirene Doukaina. This theatron was attended by Nikephoros Bryennios and Michael Italikos, as well as nameless others who would have been seeking to demonstrate their skills and win employment. АП would have vied in the presentation of displays of verbal dexterity.
Transmission and reception
R&D survives in four manuscripts, from the thirteenth (V), early fourteenth (H), mid-fifteenth (U) and early sixteenth centuries (L); it also appears in a selection of excerpts, which, though an interesting phenomenon, is not in this case important for the reconstruction of the text.^ The four manuscripts fall into two families, HV and UL, both derived from the same archetype, to which, in Marcovich's opinion, Н is by far the best witness.” In recent years the manuscript tradition has been well studied and elucidated by Cottone before being put into practice in the editions of Marcovich and Conca.” As with D&C, the number of surviving manuscripts does not allow many conclusions about the text's circulation in Byzantium, or among western humanists: it was classified with D&C, and appreciated for its rhetorical qualities. In 1625 R&D was edited by Gaulmin on the basis of a somewhat inaccurate transcription by Salmasius, and accompanied by a loose Latin translation; thereafter, in spite of two French translations; it was given little attention until Hercher's edition of 1859. Subsequently valuable work was done on R&D's rhetorical style and its sources.? When a modern critical edition appeared, by Marcovich in 1992, it proved to be interventionist with an improbably large array of textual parallels.” That of Conca, which appeared shortly after, accompanied by an Italian translation with brief notes and parallels, has a limited textual apparatus, and accepts tacitly many of Marcovich’s emendations, listing only those that are rejected.™ Translations into German and Spanish appeared in 1996.
Form
R&D is presented in nine books, using the Byzantine 12-syllable line throughout, apart from a hexameter passage at 9.196—204. From their presence in the manuscripts it is clear that the archetype of R&D included headings at intervals in the text, usually to highlight narrative sections or a rhetorical form (e.g. an ekphrasis or a lament). These, following Marcovich's marginal notes, have been included in the translation in this volume. For reasons of space these have not been placed in the margin but instead they have been included in the footnotes, introduced by the words ‘Marginal gloss’. Apart from its dedicatory frontispiece, R&D was probably not illustrated.
Plot summary
Book I opens with a scene of devastation on the coast of Rhodes where a pirate fleet has seized many captives, including the handsome couple Dosikles and Rhodanthe. Embarking with their loot, the pirates sail for their homeland. Once ashore, that night Dosikles laments the disaster that has overtaken him and his beloved Rhodanthe in their flight to evade parental opposition to their marriage. He is overheard by a Cypriot fellow prisoner, Kratandros, who relates his own unhappy love for Chrysochroe: an ill-organized abduction had led to her death and his trial for murder; although shown to be innocent after eloquent forensic pleas and an ordeal by fire, he had fled Cyprus but had fallen victim to the marauding pirates. The following morning Mistylos, the pirate chief, singles out Rhodanthe, Dosikles and Kratandros as potential temple servants, sends Stratokles? home but condemns four others, including Nausikrates, to be sacrificed. Kratandros asks Dosikles to tell his story.
Book 2 Dosikles explains that he and Rhodanthe had sailed to Rhodes with Stratokles, where they had been entertained to a magnificent dinner by Stratokles’ friend Glaukon. On Glaukon asking how Dosikles and Rhodanthe came to be traveling with Stratokles, Dosikles had explained that he had caught sight of Rhodanthe in their home town of Abydos and fallen passionately in love with her; when marriage negotiations between their families failed he had resolved to abduct her, which he did successfully with the aid of friends, whereupon he and Rhodanthe had fled in Stratokles’ ship.
Book 3 After the festive gathering Dosikles had observed Nausikrates in a drunken sleep. When everyone else had retired to rest, Dosikles had attempted to seduce Rhodanthe, but was rebuffed. The next morning, while sacrifices were being offered for Stratokles’ recently deceased child, the pirates had attacked Rhodes and Gobryas, satrap to Mistylos, had taken the travellers prisoner though Glaukon, their host, had died of fright. Dosikles’ narrative ends with his encounter with Kratandros in prison. Now, however, Gobryas, Mistylos' second-in-command, amazed by Rhodanthe's beauty, requests her as his prize. Failing to win a logic-chopping argument with Mistylos who had dedicated Rhodanthe and Dosikles to the service of the gods, Gobryas attempts to rape Rhodanthe, but is prevented by Dosikles. Gobryas, assuming Dosikles to be Rhodanthe's brother, wishes to use him as an intermediary in his seduction. Dosikles prevaricates, and he and Rhodanthe lament their ill fortune at length.
Book 4 Mistylos' plans to dedicate the pair in the temple are forestalled by the arrival of Artaxanes, satrap to Bryaxes, emperor of Pissa. Received formally by Mistylos, Artaxanes presents a letter demanding that Mistylos restore the city of Rhamnon to Bryaxes. Furious, Mistylos promises a response and asks Gobryas to offer Artaxanes hospitality. A banquet is prepared, with exotic dishes (notably roast lamb stuffed with live sparrows) and a dwarf jester who rises from an apparent death to sing an ode to Mistylos’ greatness. Artaxanes, overwhelmed by his experiences, falls into a drunken stupor, letting slip and shattering an elaborately carved drinking cup. Meanwhile Mistylos, having prepared a letter in response to Bryaxes defiantly declaring Rhamnon is part of his and not Bryaxes' territory, dismisses Artaxanes.
Book 5 Mistylos prepares for battle, sending Gobryas (who had been hoping that his marriage to Rhodanthe was about to be celebrated) to summon his allies. Bryaxes too prepares for battle, while Artaxanes protests that Mistylos possesses supernatural powers, citing his experiences at the banquet. Bryaxes leads out his fleet, and delivers a lengthy exhortation to his men. Battle starts. On seeing the size of the opposing forces, Bryaxes is alarmed and sends a second letter to Mistylos, to no effect.
Book 6 As day dawns Bryaxes sends divers to break holes in the hulls of Mistylos’ fleet. In the subsequent battle Gobryas perishes, lamenting his loss of Rhodanthe, while Mistylos commits suicide. Bryaxes’ forces leave their fleet and loot Mistylos’ city, capturing Dosikles and Rhodanthe, and also Kratandros. They prepare to carry off the booty, separating — to their distress — Rhodanthe and Dosikles. A storm on the second night wrecks the ship conveying Rhodanthe, who is rescued by merchants on their way to Cyprus. Once there, they sell their goods, including Rhodanthe who is bought by Kraton, Kratandros' father. Dosikles meanwhile laments Rhodanthe's fate at length but is encouraged, without great success, by Kratandros to be positive. Eventually, on the eleventh day, they reach Pissa and are imprisoned.
Book 7 In Kraton's house in Cyprus Rhodanthe laments for Dosikles and is overheard by Myrilla, daughter of Kraton and Stale, who asks for more information. As Rhodanthe recounts her story, she mentions the name of Kratandros, which sets off a general hubbub as the family now knows that their lost son lives, though his whereabouts are uncertain. Next day Kraton departs for Pissa in search of Kratandros. Meanwhile, in Pissa Bryaxes has decided to sacrifice to the gods the best of his booty, which he interprets as Dosikles and Kratandros. There ensues a debate, in Platonic style, as to the justification for this.
Book 8 As Bryaxes ponders the impasse reached in the debate Kraton arrives in Pissa and adds his pleas for the preservation of the youths. Bryaxes, still determined to make the sacrifice, 1s forced to reconsider when a shower of rain extinguishes the sacrificial flame, indicating the gods’ will. Kratandros and Dosikles are set free to return to Cyprus with Kraton, where they are greeted rapturously. Amid the enthusiasm Dosikles pines for his lost Rhodanthe, failing to recognize her as she serves at the banquet until Kraton points to her as his informant. Further jubilation follows, which does not please Myrilla, Kratandros' sister, who had designs on the handsome Dosikles. She gives Rhodanthe a paralytic poison while Dosikles and Kratandros are absent hunting. However, fortuitously they had noted an antidote, observing a bear's healing use of a herb, and employ this to restore Rhodanthe.
Book 9 Dosikles and Rhodanthe discuss their situation and what they should do next, with Rhodanthe explaining how she came to be in Cyprus. Meanwhile Lysippos and Straton, their respective fathers, had consulted the oracle at Delphi. On being told they could find their children in Cyprus they had made their way thither disguised as beggars. Eventually they encounter a dutifully ashamed Dosikles and Rhodanthe. After a euphoric reconciliation and a celebratory banquet the fathers return to Abydos with their children. There, greeted by their mothers, Rhodanthe is united in marriage to Dosikles.
Characteristics and Шеше
R&D is perhaps best understood first as an exercise much performed in the twelfth century, namely pastiche; examples aping tragedy can be seen in Christos Paschon or the light-hearted Katomyomachia. In the case of R&D the models lie in the novels of late antiquity. R&D, which opens in medias res and gradually reveals to the reader the characters’ situation through enfolded narratives by the protagonists and their confidants, owes much to Heliodoros’ Ethiopika, while there are also reflections of Achilles Tatius' L&K both verbally and in elements of the plot.
From Book 3 the plot is linear, with separate strands in Books 6 and 7 when Rhodanthe and Dosikles are separated. The omniscient narrator informs the reader, while flashback speeches (e.g. Rhodanthe at 9.125-79) enlighten the characters’ ignorance, although the elaborate structure set up by this narrator does not fold back into itself as neatly as in the late antique examples. Secondly, R&D can be understood as a demonstration of rhetorical techniques, presented in a series of set-piece displays of literary virtuosity: ekphraseis of heroine (1.39-60) or object (4.331—411: Gobryas' cup); forensic debate (1.329—89); philosophical debate (3.188—264, 7.400—45); lament (1.212—69, 6.264—413); ethopoiia® (2.206-315, 5.115—414); a song with a refrain in the manner of Theokritos (4.242-308) etc.” Roilos aptly remarks that the novels are primarily intended as examples of rhetorical art, though — as he also demonstrates — there are many strands to this art, with R&D not the least skilful product of an artful craftsman.
R&D, like the other three novels from this period presented here, survives in written form but almost certainly would initially have been presented in a performance context, in a theatron, either book by book or perhaps as a selection of detachable highlights.
The audience would have been mixed, consisting of Constantinople’s social elite and Prodromos’ intellectual peers, his teachers and pupils. The writing is presumably pitched at a level that would not baffle the social elite but would impress the intellectuals with its subtle dexterities of composition.” There are some hints of classroom humour, suggesting that some of the set-pieces may have begun life as ‘fair copies’ of school exercises. More interesting is the strand of selfconscious self-referentiality, indicating that Prodromos was alert to ironic aspects of the process of writing: Rodanthe’s ‘drama’ is referred to as a tome (6.280); interpretation of the oracle given to the fathers of the central pair turns on the placing of a comma (9.214); оп a more elevated level, Hermes, the Olympian deity associated with eloquence and learning, has a persistent presence in the development of events, underlining the text's rhetoricity.
Prodromos was not unduly interested in exploring amatory psychology. Eros is mentioned as a short-hand personification of erotic passion (at, e.g. 2.421, 2.463, 6.57, 8.192), but there is no discussion of the physiological processes associated with erotic passions that are found in H&H (on the role of eyes, on physical sensations on perceiving the beloved) or in the late antique models, notably in L&K. In R&D 2.191—315 Dosikles’ debate on his instantaneous passion for Rhodanthe is expressed as much in terms of social rank as of emotion, and is translated into abduction when a conventional marriage offer is rejected; there are parallels to the abduction in DigAk (С 4.300 ff.),
with similar hunting terminology (R&D 2.400-54) while the motif of ‘stolen marriage’, that is, a marriage arranged without parental consent, recurs in H&H 7.4.2 and 11.6.2. Pointing out that marriage legislation was a significant concern in Komnenian Constantinople, arguably a reflection of the dynastic politics of the period, Angeliki Laiou has suggested that this interest in the processes of aristocratic marriage might have been a factor in the revived interest at this time in the novels of late antiquity and the creation of new examples.®
This raises the question of the relationship of R&D both to its ostensible setting in an antique past and to its twelfth-century context. The relationship to the past is demonstrated most obviously by the use of Olympian deities® and their temples, priests and sacrifices, combined with a lack of overt reference to equivalent features of twelfth-century life such as clergy, churches and the liturgy. Nevertheless, the guard slips at times: there are arguably parodic allusions to Christian rituals and texts.
" The barbarian Mistylos is called emperor (e.g. 1.440, 4.16-17) and given imperial attributes, but these are probably generic: his dealings with Pissa can be seen as an irreverent allusion to Byzantine treatment of foreign embassies and their ambassadors' gullibility. Should the extravaganzas of R&D 4.123-70 (the roast lamb stuffed with live birds) and 4.214-49 (the resurrection of Satyrion) be seen as comment on contemporary court entertainments, or just a dense web of rhetorical tropes?’! Kratandros' ordeal by fire (1.377-89) and the divers’ attacking of the ships with hammers (6.7—21) are regularly cited as being prompted by contemporary events.” Several recent studies offer suggestive insights into these issues.” Interestingly, there are extant examples in stone and fabric of twelfth-century parallels for the *tetraktys' of bodies formed in the rapturous reunion of parents and children (9.317—34)."
Other currents can be noticed that in varying degrees of likelihood reflect contemporary interests. One instance would be the Aristotelian background to comments on Nausikrates’ dreams (3.17—42), surely indicating awareness of current commentary work on the De somniis in the philosophical movement mentioned above.? There is some stress on ethnic identity: for a fellow-prisoner to be a Hellene makes for an instant bond (1.153—55), with the Hellenic subsuming the Cypriot (1.135).
Although this may reflect nothing more than the traditional division between Greek and barbarian, the first half of the twelfth century saw the beginnings of a revival of Hellenic consciousness, on which Prodromos may be drawing.” The contrast in status between the free and the enslaved, though less prominent than in H&H, is nevertheless present." Slavery continued to be difficult issue in Byzantine society, as is reflected in Manuel I’s legislation at some point in his reign to free those who had fallen into slavery, largely as a result of economic pressures. The prominent role given to pirates and barbarian marauders could well reflect the realities of seafaring in the medieval Mediterranean, while the miserable fate of those they took captive arguably echoes that of the prisoners captured in the Balkan and Anatolian campaigns of the twelfth century.”
Of other issues that rise to the surface on reading R&D one that has drawn attention concerns the depiction of the women, who range from the self-possessed Rhodanthe through the jealous Myrilla to the shadowy mothers of the central pair. Questions have been asked as to how much these are conventional, due to the genre, and how much they reflect twelfthcentury mores.
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