2. For purposes of marriage and inheritance, kinship was considered to extend at least to the sixth degree, and sometimes to the eighth: see Peira 49.3: ed. I. and P. Zepos, Jus Graecorcomanum (Athens 1931, repr. Aalen 1962) IV 197. Cf. in general K.G. Pitsakis, (Athens 1985).

3. Browning, Cf. R., ‘The ‘Low Level’ Saint’s Life in the Early Byzantine World’ in The Byzantine Saint, ed. Hackel, S. (London 1981) 117–27 Google Scholar, esp. 126–7.

4. For Byzantine attitudes, see the preface of the De cerimoniis, ed. J. Reiske (CSHB), I 3–5 [ed. A. Vogt (Paris 1935, rpr. 1967), 1 1–2]; the Kletorologion of Philotheos, ed. N. Oikonomidès, Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles (Paris 1972) 83; see also the sources cited in n.32 below. For modern comment, Speck, cf. P., Kaiser Konstantin VI (Munich 1978) I 87ff Google Scholar; Kazhdan, and Constable, , People and Power, 146–7.Google Scholar

5. Peira 66.2 (Zepos, IV 244).

6. Peira 51.27 (Zepos, IV 218).

7. John the Lydian, De magistratibus, II 20–1, III 62; Procopius, Wars, III 11.7, 17.1–2, IV 4.8, VII 1.20–1.

8. E.g. La Vie ancienne de S. Syméon Stylite le Jeune, ed. P. Van den Ven (Brussels 1962–70) 1193–4, II 219–209; N.F. Marcos, Los Thaumata de Sofronio (Madrid 1975) 264–9; P. Lemerle, Les plus anciens recueils des miracles de S. Démétrius (Paris 1979) I 96ff., 159ff., 234ff.

9. Ed and tr. J. Mavrogordato (Oxford 1956). For a recent analysis, with a full bibliography of secondary literature, see C. Galatariotou, ‘Structural Oppositions in the Grottaferrata Digenes Akritas’, BMGS’ 11 (1987) 29–68. My own conclusions are generally in accord with this study, although I place greater emphasis on the formal importance of religious and patriotic values, and on the equation of honour with ‘face’.

10. Pending publication of the long awaited edition, translation and commentary by Charlotte Roueché, see G.G. Litavrin, Sovety i rasskazy Kekavmena (Moscow 1972). The most accessible edition, however, is still that by B. Wassiliewsky and V. Jernstedt, Cecaumeni Strategicon (St. Petersburg 1896, repr. Amsterdam 1965). See also P. Lemerle, Prolégomènes à une édition critique et commentée des ‘Conseils et récits’ de Kékauménos (Académie royale de Belgique, Classe des lettres, Mémoires, 54) (Brussels 1960); H.-G. Beck, Vademecum des byzantinischen Aristokraten (Graz 1956).

11. That is, they were not commissioned by, or written to gain favour with, the political establishment. Although, as will be shown below, they reflect the official ideology of ‘king and country’, they also take a less enthusiastic view of imperial centralisation than is to found in most Byzantine literature: see I. Ševčenko, ‘Constantinople viewed from the Eastern Provinces in the Middle Byzantine Period’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3–4 (1979–80) [repr. in idem, Ideology, Letters and Culture in the Byzantine World (London 1982)] 726ff., 732ff.

12. Their stylistic level is below that of the educated of this period, and the works with which they show familiarity — the Fathers, saints’ lives, chronicles and (in the case of Digenes) the Leukippe and Kleitophon of Achilles Tatius — could all be found in small, and not particularly highbrow, private libraries. See P. Lemerle, ‘La testament d’Eustathios Boilas (avril 1059)’, in idem, Cinq études sur le Xle siècle byzantin (Paris 1977) 24–5; Sp. Vryonis, ‘The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathios Boilas (1059)’, DOP 11 (1957) 263–77, [repr. in idem, Byzantium: its Internal History and Relations with the Muslim World (London 1971)] P. Gautier, ‘La Diataxis de Michel Attaliate’, REB 39 (1981) 92–6, 122–6. Kekaumenos neither pretends to, nor assumes in others, great learning or eloquence, but he shows that reading was a standard leisure activity among military men and provincial aristocrats: ed. Wassiliewsky and Jernstedt, 19, 47, 60, 64 (ed. Litavrin, 154–6, 212, 240, 248). Cf. R. Browning, ‘Literacy in the Byzantine World’, BMGS 4 (1978) 39–54; C. Roueché, ‘Byzantine Readers and Writers: Story Telling in the Eleventh Century’, The Greek Novel A.D. 1–1985 ed. R. Beaton (London 1987) 123–33, esp. 124ff.

13. On hagiographical echoes in Digenes, Trapp, cf. E., ‘Hagiographische Elemente im Digene’s-Epos’, AB 94 (1976) 275–87 Google Scholar; Kazhdan and Epstein, 117.

14. Du Boulay, Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village, 75ff.

15. A. Pertusi, Tra storia e leggenda; akritai e ghazi sulla frontiera orientale di Bizanzio’, XlVe Congrès International des Études Byzantines. Rapports II (Bucharest 1971) 27–71. For the idea that the first three books, which most faithfully reflect the administrative realities of the frontier in the tenth and early eleventh centuries, form the original core of the work, see Beck, H.-G., Geschichte der byzantinischen Volksliteratur (Munich 1971) 71ff Google Scholar; Oikonomidès, N., ‘L’ “épopée” de Digénes et la frontière orientale de Byzance aux Xe et Xle siècles’, TM 7 (1979) 377ff Google Scholar. From the perspective of the present study, however, the common features of the two parts are more striking than the differences.

16. For historical examples of aristocratic households containing more than one conjugal unit, see my ‘Byzantine Aristocratic Oikos’, 97, 98 and nn. 56, 58, 60; Lemerle, Cinq études, 23.

17. On this, see Hunt, L.-A., ‘Comnenian Aristocratic Palace Decoration: Descriptions and Islamic Connections’, The Byzantine Aristocracy, ed. Angold, , 342–5.Google Scholar

18. This is just one of the ways in which D. seems to take on imperial attributes. On adventus ceremonial, MacCormack, cf. S., ‘Change and Continuity in Late Antiquity, the Ceremonial of Adventus’, Historia 21 (1972) 721–52 Google Scholar; eadem, , Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1981) 17–89.Google Scholar

In all the other versions of the poem, D.’s next destination is his own home. In the Grottferrata text, however, he rides straight on to his meeting with the daughter of the strategos which will lead to her abduction. This clearly unsatisfactory in view of the fact that D. is still only twelve, and his exploits are supposed to be well known to the Girl’s family (IV. 321ff). On the complex question of the textual transmission at this point, see S. MacAlister, ‘Digenis Akritas: the First Scene with the Apelatai’, B 54 (1984) 568–9, for the plausible suggestion of a book division at an earlier stage of the Grottaferrata version. However, this version’s present narrative sequence may well be intentional. Among other things, it has the narrative function of involving D.’s father, and explaining the hero’s ignorance of the marriage proposal that has been made on his behalf.

19. The description of the oikos seems to belong to the rhetorical genre of ekphrasis, but it could have been inspired by inventories of buildings of the kind which were evidently made for purposes of transfer or valuation: see, e.g., The Byzantine Aristocracy, ed. Angold, 254–66. In any case, we should be careful not to impose too rigid a distinction between literary and documentary descriptions, both of which served ritual purposes; for ekphrasis, see Macrides, R. and Magdalino, P., ‘The Architecture of Ekphrasis: Construction and Context of Paul the Silentiary’s Poem on Hagia Sophia’, BMGS 12 (1988) 47–82.Google Scholar

20. Ed. Reiske, 5 (Vogt, I 2); see also, in particular, the descriptions of the triumphal processions of Theophilos and Basil I (ed. Reiske, 498–508), and of state receptions given by Constantine VII and Romanos I (ibid 570–98).

21. Hendy, Cf. M., Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 300–1450 (Cambridge 1985) 206ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 217.

22. Dagron, G., Constantinople imaginaire. Études sur le recueil des Patria (Paris 1984) 19.Google Scholar

23. See the twelfth-century (?) romance Hysmine and Hysminias of Eusthathios Makrembolites, ed. R. Hercher, Erotici scriptores graeci (Leipzig 1859) 161–286; cf. C. Cupane, ‘. La figura di Eros nel romanzo bizantino d’amore’, Atti dell’Accademia di Scienze, Lettere e Arti di Palermo, 4th series 33 (1973–4)244–97.

24. References are to the page numbers of the Wassiliewsky-Jernstedt and Litavrin editions respectively (see above, n.10).

25. Kazhdan, and Epstein, , Change in Byzantine Culture, 104.Google Scholar

26. Michael Psellos, ed. K. Sathas, (Venice/Paris 1872–94) IV 430–1, V 108–9. On the background, see Hendy, Studies, 507ff.

27. See Angold, M., ‘Archons and Dynasts: Local Aristocracies and the Cities of the Later Byzantine Empire’, The Byzantine Aristocracy, ed. Angold, , 236–53.Google Scholar

28. On both the legislation and the classification, the final word remains to be said, despite the detailed discussions by P. Lemerle, The Agrarian History of Byzantium (Galway 1979) [translation of the author’s article in Revue Historique, 219–20 (1958)] 85ff, and R. Morris, ‘The Powerful and the Poor in Tenth-Century Byzantium: Law and Reality’, Past and Present 73 (1976) 3–27. In particular, the social reality of the division between ‘power’ and ‘poverty’ — which also applied in the Latin West — cannot be dismissed too hastily, nor (pace Morris, 21–2) can the relevance of the nuances introduced by Constantine VII’s Novel of 947 (Zepos, JGR I 215–7), including the old legal definition of an absolute and unambiguous pauper as someone with a fortune of less than 50 nomismata. This, it may be noted, was the minimum sum which the emperor Michael III had given to his favourite charioteers whose children he had sponsored at baptism: Pseudo-Symeon, (CSHB) 659. The point was, surely, to raise them to ‘solvent’ status.

29. Beck, , Vademecum, 8 Google Scholar; Lemerle, , Prolégomènes, 96–8.Google Scholar

30. K.’s predilection for the word was noted by Lemerle, ibid. 8. Cf. for comparable usage, Digenes I.243; Kletorologion of Philotheos, ed. Oikonomides, Listes de préséance, 83 line 24.

31. I.e. not, in this case, a local notable with unofficial power.

32. See Psellos, Michael, Chronographia, ed. Renauld, E., 2nd ed. (Paris 1967) 1132 Google Scholar, II 83; Comnena, Anna, Alexiad, ed. Leib, B., 2nd ed. (Paris 1967) I 114–5 Google Scholar; Zonaras, John, CSHB, III 14–5, 766–7.Google Scholar

33. The governor’s residence; cf. p.41/200

34. (39/194): the word suggests not ordinary taxation, but exaction of extraordinary payments and corvées, such as the requisitioning of animals mentioned in this passage. Cf. 47/210, where is positively recommended.

35. I.e. a local archon with a preponderant share of defacto authority: cf. the example on pp.33–4/184–6; Angold, Archons and Dynasts, 241ff.

36. For similar maxims, cf. the parainetical poem known as Spaneas, dating from about the same time: Danezis, G., Spaneas: Vorlage, Quellen, Versionen (Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 31) (Munich 1987).Google Scholar

37. Kazhdan, and Constable, , People and Power, 26, 28–9 Google Scholar. On the whole question of Byzantine friendship, see now Mullett, M.E., ‘Byzantium: a Friendly Society?’, Past and Present 118 (1988) 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Here K. may consciously be echoing the communion prayer of the Orthodox liturgy: .

39. Cf. also Leo VI, Novel 48; Kazhdan, and Epstein, , Change in Byzantine Culture, 100.Google Scholar

40. Given the active roles in which they appear in some other texts. For example: Peira 17.14, 25.25, 28.6 (cf.42.17), 30.40; E. Kurtz, Zwei griechische Texte über die heilige Theophano, die Gemählin Kaisers Leo VI, Mémoires de l’Académie Impériale des Sciences de S. Pétersbourg, VIIIe série, Classe historico-philologique 3/2 (St. Petersburg 1898) 15, 19; Chr. Angelidi, , 6 (1985) 33–58.

41. Cf. Hendy, Studies, chapters 1–2, esp. 85ff, lOOff, 131ff.

42. See Synopsis Major Basilicorum, K.II.45 (Zepos, JGR V 323): ‘A man’s house is his castle’; Peira 17.14 (Zepos, JGR IV 63): the case of a betrothal contract broken by the fiancé, who claimed to have made it when under age and misled by his bailiff (baioulos). The emperor at the time (probably Romanos III) rejected the claim on the grounds that ‘minors who deceive others have no excuse. What greater deceit could there be than to enter the house of a noble lady and a senatorial gentleman, and to see his daughter, speak with her and relax in his house, promising marriage?’. Cf. also 49.5 (p. 198–9).

The laws in the Justinianic Corpus pertaining to civic councils, munera and privileges had all been abolished by Leo VI (Novel 46), and the earliest firm evidence for Byzantine imperial charters of privilege to Greek towns (as opposed to nominally subject Italian cities like Venice) dates from the end of the twelfth century: see Michael Choniates, (Athens 1879–80), II 54; Niketas Choniates, Historia, ed. J.L. Van Dieten, CFHB (Berlin/New York 1975) I 599; Geoffroy de Villehardouin, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. E. Farai (Paris 1939) 88; G.L.F. Tafel and G.M. Thomas, Urkunden zur älteren Handels-und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, (Vienna 1856) II 17–9; cf. M. Angold, ‘The Shaping of the Medieval Byzantine “City”’, BF 10 (1985) 22. However, forthcoming work by Haris Kalliga shows that Monem-vasia may always have been something of an exception, and a hagiographical text recently studied by Kazhdan may indicate that chrysobulls granting municipal tax-exemptions were already being granted before 1000: A. Kazhdan, ‘An Unnoticed Mention of a Chrysobull ascribed to Constantine the Great’, (Rethymno 1986) I 135–8.

43. E.g. Peira 61.6: court case of two dignitaries who came to blows after calling each other names.

44. For ‘God and country’ propaganda in the Byzantine imperial tradition, see McCormick, M., Eternal Victory (Cambridge 1986) 237–52 Google Scholar; for the tenth century, see also Dagron, G., ‘Byzance et le modèle islamique au Xe siècle’, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles lettres (1983) 224–32 Google Scholar. The possibility of an Islamic stimulus is especially interesting in view of the Muslim ideology portrayed in the ‘Song of the Amir’ (above,).

45. Rodanthe and Dosikles, VII. 364–72: ed. Hercher, Erotici Scriptores Graeci II 397. The exaltation of taxis seems to owe something to Gregory of Nazianzos, Oration 32. 7–12: ed. C. Moreschini and tr. P. Gallay,. Sources Chrétiennes 318 (Paris 1985) 98–113. However, the justification of slavery by natural reason is more reminiscent of Aristotle, Politics I. 2–6.

46. For the regulation of ‘everyday crime’ through ‘self-help’, see Macrides, R.J., ‘Killing, Asylum and the Law in Byzantium’, Speculum 63 (1988) 509–38 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 533ff.

47. Procopius, , Wars IV.6, 20–2 Google Scholar, tr. Dewing II 259–61.