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The Description of Agamemnon in Digenis Akrites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Extract

At 7. 85 in the Grottaferrata version, having described the biblical mosaics in the palace, the poet proceeds to juxtapose pictorial episodes from pagan poetry and history. The first line about Achilles’ campaigns causes no trouble, but the second and third, have provoked much scholarly consternation and conflict.

Type
Short Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1988

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References

1 Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (Munich 1897) 855.

2 For easy instance, Heisenberg, A., ‘Ein angeblicher byzantinischer Roman,’ Silvae Monacenses (Munich 1926) 2832 Google Scholar; Grégoire, H. (in the two discussions cited below); Mavrogordato, J. in his edition (Oxford 1956) of the poem, 221 Google Scholar; Beck, H.-G., Geschichte der byzantinischen Volksliteratur (Munich 1971), 111 Google Scholar. These studies provide bibliography to earlier believers in the phantom lovers.

3 B 2 (1925) 542-4; (1927-8) 708-11. Both are embedded in review notices, the first of Heisenberg (see n.2, above), the second of Hesseling, D.C., La plus ancienne rédaction du poème épique de Digenis Akritas (Amsterdam 1927)Google Scholar.

4 Mango, C., The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453 (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1972) 216, n.161 Google Scholar.

5 As pointed out by Willcock, M. M., A Commentary on Homer’s Iliad Books I-VI (London 1970) 64 Google Scholar.

6 Cf. the valuable discussion (with bibliography of other work) of Homeric-Byzantine epic continuity by Beaton, R., ‘Was Digenes Akrites an Oral Poem?’, BMGS 7 (1981) 728 Google Scholar, esp.8, with n.41.

7 Note that the reading o(payf)v was adopted by Trapp, E., Digenes Akrites, synop-tische Ausgabe der altesten Versionen. Wiener byzantinistische Studien VIII (Wien 1971) 330 Google Scholar, following Kalonaros, P., I-II (Athens 1941)Google Scholar, but without further comment.