Byzantine Satire ® H. F. Tozer The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 2. (1881), pp. 233-270. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4269%281881%292%3C233%3ABS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y The Journal of Hellenic Studies is currently published by The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/hellenic.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http: //www .j stor. org/ Sat Oct 21 17:43:12 2006 BYZANTINE SATIEE. It must sometimes have occurred to readers of Byzantine literature, after they have perused a number of the occasionally valuable, but almost always dreary, works of which it is composed —lifeless chronicles, polemical and other theology, inflated panegyrics, and grammatical treatises—to ask the question, whether this was really all; whether a quick-witted and intelligent people, such as we know the inhabitants of Constantinople at certain periods to have been, were contented to subsist entirely on such dry mental food. No doubt, religious controversy often ran high, and this, when it fills men's thoughts, is apt to supply the place of intellectual interests ; but such discussions did not last for ever, and could not have occupied the minds of the whole of the educated population. A certain source of relief was provided in the numerous poems, songs, and romances in the popular language—some of native growth and dealing with subjects of local or traditional interest, some imitated from the romances of Western Europe—which have been brought to light by the industry of such men as MM. Sathas and Legrand at Paris, Prof. Lambros of Athens, and the late Dr. W. Wagner of Hamburg. But even these do not furnish that element of liveliness, which we should expect to manifest itself in some shape or other in a great centre of activity. Now the form of literature which is most liable to be generated by circumstances such as these is satire. Bepression, whether in the character of political despotism or of literary mannerism, h. s.—vol. ii. e 234 BYZANTINE SATIRE. —and both these existed in the Byzantine Empire—has the effect of forcing genius into side channels, and criticism, when it cannot be exercised openly, finds for itself indirect methods of expression, which are usually characterised by a tone of bitterness. To some extent we see these influences at work at Rome in the early period of the empire; and in the great cities of the East, where popular feeling was less under control, the satirical spirit manifests itself on various occasions ; as when the Emperor Julian at Antioch became the subject of libellous songs, to which he replied by the counterblast of the Misopogon. That the same thing prevailed at Constantinople is shown by a passage of Anna Comnena, where she says, speaking of a conspiracy among the courtiers against her father, Alexius Comnenus, that they wrote a number of scurrilous pamphlets, and flung them into the emperor's tent.1 The word (^dfiovaa (i.e. famosi libelli), which Anna uses here, proves by its Latin origin that such compositions were no new thing, since it must have descended from the early period of the Eastern empire, when the Latin language was in vogue. But, beyond this, we have ample evidence of a regular satirical literature having existed there. Some of these Byzantine satires, which have no very distinctive marks to betray the lateness of their date, have been printed along with Lucian's works, but the majority have remained in manuscript; and Hase, who first drew attention to this subject, says there are about a dozen such in the National Library at Paris alone. Two of these last have now been published, and as they are both interesting in themselves and characteristic specimens of the literature to which they belong, it is the object of the following paper to give some account of them. The publication of the first of these, which is entitled Timarion's Sufferings (Yifiaplaiv, ■?} irepl tg>v tear avrbv ira9tjfi,d,To>v), may be said to be due to a fortunate accident. The manuscript in which it is preserved belongs to the Vatican library, and when the treasures of that collection were temporarily in Paris in the early part of this century, having been transferred thither by the Emperor Napoleon I., M. Hase was employed to make a catalogue of the Greek manuscripts therein contained. Finding that this satire was a work of merit, he printed it entire in 1813, in the Notices et Extraits des Manu- 1 Anna Comnena, Alexias, Book xiii. chap. i. p. 179, edit. Bonn. BYZANTINE SATIRE. 235 scrits (Vol. ix. Pt. 2, pp. 125 foil.), together with a Latin translation, illustrative notes, and a long and learned preface, in which he discusses the origin and character of this class of writings. At the same time he drew attention to a similar satire of some importance, that of the Sojourn of Mazaris in Hades (Eiri,Sr)fJL{a Md&pi ev a&ov), as existing in manuscript in the Paris library, and of this he gave an analysis, accompanied by historical and other comments, though he did not publish it. Eighteen years later it was printed by Boissonade in the third volume of his Anecdota Graeca. Both these works were subsequently republished in 1860 from the texts of Hase and Boissonade, with a German translation by Dr. Ellissen of Gottingen, in the fourth volume of his Analekten der mittel- und neugriechischen Literatur, and the notes which that accomplished student of Byzantine history and literature has added are of the utmost value. It is from these authorities that my knowledge of the subject is for the most part derived. The dates of these compositions can be approximately determined by internal evidence. That of ' Timarion' is some time in the first half of the twelfth century, for that character —and there can be little doubt that by Timarion the anonymous writer meant himself—speaks of Theodore of Smyrna as having been his teacher, and that rhetorician flourished in the reign of Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118); while on the other hand the dignitary for whom he expresses the highest admiration in this piece, and who was probably his patron, Michael Palaeologus, occupied important positions under John Comnenus (1118-1143) and Manuel (1143—1180). This was a period of considerable literary activity, for it produced, among others, the historians Zonaras and Cinnamus, the grammarian Tzetzes, and the commentator Eustathius. The author appears, from what he says of Timarion, to have been a native of Cappadocia, and by profession a philosopher, that is, probably, some kind of student and teacher. On the other hand, ' Mazaris' was composed nearly three centuries later, during the latter half of the long reign of Manuel Palaeologus II. (1391—1425), for reference is made in it to the visit of that emperor to western Europe with the object of obtaining aid against the Turks, from which he returned in 1402, as an event of recent occurrence, and the defeat of Sultan Bajazet by Timour at Angora, which happened R 2 23G BYZANTINE SATIEE. in the same year, is also alluded to. The author of this satire must have been an inhabitant of Constantinople from his intimate acquaintance with the gossip and scandal of the court, and if he speaks in his own name, he would seem to have been a courtier himself. The severity with which he handles the monks, proves that he was not an ecclesiastic. It will be seen that the two periods to which these compositions refer were times of considerable interest; for the former was the era of the Crusades, when the Byzantine empire was still vigorous, while the latter saw that empire in the last stage of decrepitude, though struggling against its impending fate. The subject of both pieces is the same, a narrative of a visit to the infernal regions. From Homer's time onward this idea, exciting as it is to the imagination, had been a favourite one in Greek literature, and the descents of Heracles, Orpheus, Theseus, and Ulysses provided the material for fanciful speculation and for poetic treatment. As long as the belief in the old gods remained, a certain feeling of awe clung to the subject, though even apart from scepticism it was easily turned into ridicule, as we see from the way in which it is handled in the Frogs of Aristophanes. But by the Byzantine writers it was employed as a means of expressing an opinion, favourable or unfavourable as the case might be, of persons either still living or lately dead, and of introducing allusions and anecdotes which might amuse the reading public. In Timarion also, and probably in Mazaris, the person is not supposed to descend alive into Hades, as is the case with Dante and with the heroes of Greek romance, but the soul is for the time separated from the body, and is only reunited to it by some supernatural means. But though these two compositions correspond to one another in these respects, in most points there is a strong contrast between them. In the first place, their form is somewhat different, for while Timarion is a dialogue, Mazaris is rather a narrative, for a supposed audience is addressed as fiaio<;. The rhetorician replies, with no lack of self-assertion, that his best ground of confidence is his own ability, and adds that, having a slight knowledge of medicine, he can easily arrange his arguments so as to confound the ancient divinities. Both here and in subsequent passages it is clear that the sophists of that age are made a subject of satire, in addition to the two former classes of the physicians and the gourmands. He next describes the composition of the court of justice by which the dead are tried, and this is one of the most original points in the story. In the first place, the great physicians of antiquity—Aesculapius, Hippocrates, Erasistratus, and Galen—had been constituted a body of assessors to advise the judges, because they s 2 252 BYZANTINE SATIRE. were most likely to be acquainted with the causes of death. Like coroners, they were qualified to determine whether a man's life had come to an end by fair means. Of their capacities, however, Theodore has a very poor opinion. He says that Aesculapius had not spoken for many years, and if he was forced to reply, did so only by the movement of his head. This means, no doubt, that since the extinction of heathenism the oracles, and among them those of this divinity, had given no responses. Hippocrates was a little more communicative, but even he only enunciated short enigmatical aphorisms, of which specimens are given; and as these were in the Ionic dialect, which Hippocrates uses in his writings, as soon as they were uttered, Minos and Aeacus, to whom they were only half intelligible, burst out laughing. Erasistratus he regarded as a mere empirical practitioner. Galen was a more formidable person to cope with, but he by good luck was now unable to attend, being engrossed by the work of bringing out an enlarged edition of his treatise on fevers. Possibly this means that this work was at that time being edited or adapted by some writer on medicine at Constantinople. All this, the sophist continued, was in their favour, and in other respects the court was satisfactory. For Aeacus and Minos, though heathens, were strictly just, and complete toleration was established in Hades, every man being allowed to adhere to his own religious persuasion. Still, as the tenets of the Galilaeans had pervaded all Europe and a great part of Asia, ' Providence ' thought good (e'Sof e rrj vpovoia) to appoint a third judge to sit along with the heathen judges. The name of the person selected for this office comes upon us as a great surprise. We should have expected that a writer of that age would fix on some one distinguished by rigid orthodoxy; but, on the contrary, it is a vigorous iconoclast, the Emperor Theophilus, who lived early in the ninth century, and ■was famed for his impartial justice. They now move onwards, the two friends and the two conductors of the dead, the latter of whom receive warning that they will be summoned to trial for arresting a soul under false pretences. After journeying for two miles they perceive a light in the distance, and when they reach it find themselves in a delightful spot, closely resembling Dante's Earthly Paradise, where there are groves and shrubberies, with singing-birds, and BYZANTINE SATIRE. 253 gteen turf, and falling water, and a wide river running through it; here there is eternal spring, and the fruits never wither on the trees. This is the Elysian plain and asphodel meadow. Within it is held the court of justice, and here Minos, Aeacus, and Theophilus the ' Galilaean' are found in session, the two former being gaily attired, while the Christian Emperor wears dark and squalid garments; this is here said to have been his custom in life, though the point is not noticed by contemporary historians. By his side stands a prompter, whose sexless appearance, white raiment, and beaming countenance excite Timarion's curiosity; and he is informed, with a slightly profane allusion to the idea of a guardian angel, which we should hardly expect to meet with in an orthodox Byzantine writer, that every Christian emperor has such an angel assigned to him to suggest how he should act, and that the one who attended on Theophilus had accompanied him to the world below. The trial which follows is a sort of travesty of an Athenian lawsuit, though modified, probably, so as to suit the forms of Byzantine procedure. The accused, Oxybas and Nyction, are brought into court by the eicrayo>yei<;, and at a signal from one of these, the rhetorician, after composing his countenance and folding his hands, commences ore rotundo the speech for the prosecution. In this he points out that the laws of the dead prescribed that no soul may be brought down to Hades, unless some vital organ has been destroyed, and that even then three days must elapse before the conductors of the dead are allowed to seize it; in Timarion's case, not only had these been disregarded, but there were traces of blood about his soul, which proved that he was not properly dead when he was carried off. When Minos, who from the first seems disposed to take a severe view of the case, sharply orders the accused to give an account of their proceedings, Nyction, after referring to their long experience of their office, which dated from the time of Cronos, replies by appealing to the dictum of the physicians with regard to the four elementary humours, and showing that they had reason to believe that he had lost one of them. The matter thus becomes a question for the medical referees, and the judges adjourn the trial till the third day, so as to allow of their being consulted. Meanwhile both parties in the dispute are conducted to a region of twilight, which intervenes between Elysium and the 254 BYZANTINE SATIRE. land of total darkness, and regale themselves on the fragrant herbs that grow there. When the morning of the third day appeared, they returned to the court, where they found Aesculapius and Hippocrates seated along with the judges; the former having his face enveloped in a transparent veil, from a foolish pride about revealing his divinity, though it allowed of his seeing through it; while Hippocrates wore a tall turban and a single garment reaching to his feet, and had a long beard and closely-shaven crown. After the clerk of the court had read the minutes of the previous proceedings, and Aesculapius and Hippocrates had had a private consultation with Erasistratus, the symptoms of the patient and the circumstances of his death were minutely inquired into; during which proceeding the volubility and self-assertion of Theodore of Smyrna made so great an impression on Hippocrates, that he took the opportunity of asking for information about him. Ultimately the question turned on the condition of Timarion's soul, and to inquire into this two examiners, called Oxydercion and Nyctoleustes (' Sharpeye' and ' Nightspy'), were appointed; they reported that it was in an impure state, and that tiny particles of flesh and blood were still adhering to it. This evidence of the experts was at once appealed to by the counsel for the prosecution, as showing that the elementary bile could not have been exhausted, for otherwise the soul would have separated easily and cleanly from the body. The arguments on both sides being now concluded, silence was proclaimed in the court, and the judges, after conferring with the physicians, gave their votes by ballot, and the result was in favour of the plaintiff. Oxybas and Nyction were deposed from their office of conductors of the dead, and Timarion was ordered to be restored to life. While the sentence was being written out, a new person is introduced, called 'the Byzantine sophist,' who is the chief officer of the court under the judges, having been appointed ,to that office on account of his cleverness in extemporizing. Who he was we recognise, as we did Michael Palaeologus before, by a play on his name. He is described as speaking indistinctly (viroy^eWi^cov), and this word suggests that he is Michael Psellus, the most learned man in the Byzantine empire during the eleventh century, who held the office of Prince of Philoso- BYZANTINE SATIRE. 255 phers, i.e. chief teacher of philosophy and dialectic, at Constantinople, and played no inconsiderable part in the politics of his time. This view is confirmed by other circumstances which are here mentioned. He now receives the judgment from the bench, and dictates it to the scribe, after which the court rises. And as they departed, ' all the Christians shouted aloud, and leapt for joy, and embraced the sage of Smyrna, and extolled him to the skies for his skilful arguments, and the method and arrangement of his speech,'—a truly Greek proceeding. The duty of reconducting Timarion to the upper world is entrusted to the elffaywyets. On the return journey he visits the abode of the philosophers, a quiet retreat resembling that in which they are assembled in Dante's Limbo, and sees many of the sages of ancient Greece calmly conversing together, and discussing various tenets. Their tranquillity, however, was on this occasion disturbed by an untoward incident. This was a violent altercation between Diogenes the Cynic and Johannes Italus, the clever and prolific writer who succeeded Psellus in the office of Prince of Philosophers, and was a bitter opponent of his. This man, as we learn from contemporary writers, was headstrong in his opinions, so that for a time he was regarded as a heresiarch, and arrogant and passionate in disputation; these peculiarities are here caricatured, and the good-humoured tone of the satire passes for once into violent invective. After a while Cato interposes, and having separated the combatants, conducts the Byzantine into the company of the dialecticians, but they also rise up against him and pelt him with stones as a charlatan. Shortly afterwards Psellus appears, and is received with friendliness and respect, though not on terms of equality, by the philosophers, but with enthusiasm by the dialecticians, who pay him the highest compliments, and offer him the president's chair. From the contrast which is thus drawn between these leaders, we should gather that the rivalry between their followers, or at all events the controversy with regard to their respective merits, had not died out when this satire was composed. Theodore of Smyrna also comes in for some further criticisms; and altogether, throughout this part of the narrative, the elaborate terms which are used for the different branches of the science of oratory, the profusion of epithets applied to grace of style, and the gusto with which a 256 BYZANTINE SATIBE. bold and felicitous expression is quoted, impress the reader forcibly with the importance attached at this period to the study of rhetoric in all its branches. At this point Timarion takes leave of his friendly advocate, and that kind-hearted epicure, in the midst of many affectionate speeches, does not fail to specify the articles which he desires to be forwarded to him in acknowledgment of his services—' a lamb five months old ; two three-year-old fowls, hens, fattened and killed, like those that poulterers have for sale in the market with the fat neatly extracted from the stomach and laid upon the thighs; a sucking-pig one month old ; and a good rich fleshy sow's paunch.' Resuming his journey, our traveller takes a passing glance at Nero and other cruel tyrants in history, among whom Philaretus, a hard-handed Armenian usurper of the eleventh century, holds a conspicuous place, undergoing the same unsavoury punishment as the flatterers in Dante's Inferno; and at last reaches the mouth of the pit, through which he ascends and once more sees the stars. His return to his body is described as follows :— ' Now when I knew not which way to turn to reach my body, I was borne along through the air as if carried by the wind, till I came to the river and recognised the house in which my poor body lay. There, on the river's bank, I said farewell to my conductor, and leaving him, entered through the opening in the roof, a device which has been invented for the escape of smoke from the hearth,'—this looks as if chimneys, which were almost unknown to the Greeks and Romans, were now coming in—'and approaching close to my body entered through the mouth and nostrils. I found it very cold, owing to the frosty winter season, and still more to its having been dead; and that night I felt like a person with a violent chill. The next day, however, I packed up my things, and continued my journey to Constantinople.' The satirical romance, of which a sketch has thus been given, is certainly amusing, and not wanting in originality. Though somewhat discursive and episodical in its plan, it is full of movement from first to last: it passes by rapid transitions from grave to gay; its sketches of men and manners are very graphic; and its style is lively and often epigrammatic. Owing to its notices of historical characters, and its descriptions of life and BYZANTINE SATIRE. 257 customs, for which we look in vain in ordinary Byzantine writers, it cannot fail to interest those who care for the history of the Eastern empire. If any of the questions which it makes the object of special criticism, such as exploded medical theories, have lost their point for us ; the same can be said of satire in all ages, where it does not deal with matters of universal application, and will certainly be the case in future days with much of the humorous criticism of our time. This is also true of descriptions of the characteristics of persons, who were then well known, but are now either altogether unknown to us, or at the best but shadowy figures ; we experience the same difficulty when we try to become familiar with some of the characters in Aristophanes. But notwithstanding these drawbacks, 'Timarion's Sufferings' is a remarkable work, and we have good reason to be satisfied that it has been preserved. The other Byzantine satire, which we are to notice, and which forms in many ways a strong contrast to this, is The Sojouen of Mazaeis in Hades. At the time when this was written the Byzantine empire had become a shadow of its former self. Instead of including, as it did under the Comneni, a large part of Asia Minor, and in Europe an extent of country as great as, though not exactly corresponding to, European Turkey before the Treaty of Berlin, it was now restricted to Constantinople and the neighbouring district, a few of the islands, as Lemnos and Thasos, Thessalonica, and the greater part of the Peloponnese. The Fourth Crusade had intervened, and by it the fabric of the Eastern empire had been shattered in pieces and its territory partitioned ; and though the Greeks afterwards regained possession of the capital, and gradually reannexed several of the provinces, yet the body had now lost its power of cohesion. Meanwhile the Ottoman Turks had appeared on the scene, and extending their conquests from Asia to Europe, had absorbed one after another of the possessions of the Christians. Yet the second decade of the fifteenth century, to which ' Mazaris' is shown to belong by the events which it mentions, was in some degree a period of revival. Though the expedition of Manuel Palaeologus II. to Western Europe had sufficiently proved to the Greeks that there was 258 BYZANTINE SATIRE. no hope of substantial aid from that quarter, yet the great blow which the Ottoman power received through the defeat of Sultan Bajazet by Timour at the battle of Angora in 1402 secured to the Greeks a respite, which they employed in strengthening their position. The terms of contempt with which Bajazet is spoken of in this satire (o /carawTverTOS e/ceivos o-aTpdirr}!}), and the title of 'invincible' applied to the emperor (o cbjTT^To? avToKpaTwp), would have been almost absurd in the time of his predecessor, John V., who formally acknowledged himself a vassal of the Sultan. Yet, as we read it, we feel that the society which it describes is that of a kingdom doomed to fall. The disaffection among the provincials, and still more the want of patriotism, the egotism and self-seeking, of the upper class, and the narrow and petty subjects which occupied their thoughts, show that no true spirit remained on which a vigorous resistance could be based. The story of Mazaris need not detain us very long, for it is not the prominent feature, as in Timarion, but serves rather as a framework for the satire and invective, which it is the writer's object to give vent to. Like the former tale, it describes the illness of the narrator, which in this case was owing to a violent epidemic that visited Constantinople, probably in the year 1414. He speaks of his desolate condition, when his friends and relations, who were in the same plight, were unable to visit him, and his sick-bed was watched, not by physicians, but by the ravens who were waiting for his remains. At last he fell asleep, and was conscious of being carried off at dead of night, he knew not how, until he found himself in a wide and deep valley. If any one doubts his veracity, he challenges him to bring a suit against him in the court of Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthys, in order that, if convicted, he may suffer the punishment they shall impose. The account given of the passage to Hades is vague enough, and forms a strong contrast to the elaborate details given in Timarion; but this same absence of explanation is characteristic of other descriptions of the same kind, such as those in the Odyssey and in the Frogs of Aristophanes, in both of which it would be equally difficult to say in what way the transition is effected. We may notice in passing another point of correspondence between the Inferno of Mazaris and that of Aristophanes, in the introduction of myrtle-groves in both.1 1 Ar. San. 156. BYZANTINE SATIRE. 259 The valley in which Mazaris was deposited contained a crowd of dead persons, all naked, and mingled indiscriminately together ; but some of them were marked with numerous weals, the result of their former sins, while others were free from these ignominious tokens. The idea here expressed, though it appears in various forms in several ancient writers, was probably derived by the author from Ltician's Cataplus, where it is said that the crimes that a man commits become invisible punctures on his soul, which make themselves manifest on his form after death.1 One of these persons soon recognised him by his limping gait, a peculiarity of his which is several times referred to, and which, we can hardly doubt, arose from the gout, for he suffered from that disease, and the same epithet {icvXkoirohL(ov) that is applied to him is subsequently used of another gouty subject. From this it would seem that good living was still a vice of the Byzantines. This man addresses him with an adaptation of the first words of the Hecuba, the same which Menippus had used at the beginning of the Necyo-manteia, and then proceeds to question him about the latest news from the Imperial court, his interest in which proclaims him one of its former inmates. His name was Holobolus, and he is described as having a prominent aquiline nose, the sharpness of which corresponds to his extreme inquisitiveness; in his lifetime he had been a rhetorician and physician, and one of the Emperor's secretaries, and from the character which is subsequently given of him, and the traits which show themselves in the course of conversation, we see in him the type of the place-hunting, backbiting, scandal-mongering courtier. Among other pieces of advice which he offers to Mazaris, he urges him to betake himself to the Morea, and to attach himself to one of those in authority in that country in the hope of advancement— a suggestion which the recipient has reason subsequently to believe to have been made in a malicious spirit. The Morea at that time was ruled by Theodore Palaeologus II., the elder brother of the last emperor of Constantinople, Constantine XL, with the title of despot, which was now regularly conferred on the member of the imperial family who governed that province. When Mazaris recognises Holobolus, whom, owing to his nakedness and the numerous scars on his person, he had not 1 Luuian, Cataplus, o. 24, cf. Plato, Gorgias, p. 524 E. 260 BYZANTINE SATIßE. discovered before, he inquires of him the cause of the miserable change in his appearance; whereupon Holobolus leads him to a place a little further off, where they can rest under the shade of a spreading bay-tree, and there recounts to him the story of his rise to power, which culminated in his accompanying the Emperor Manuel on his journey to France and England, subsequently to which he had a prospect of being appointed to the office of Grand Logothete. Afterwards, with many tears, he gives an account of his fall, which was owing primarily to a disgraceful intrigue with a nun, which led him to neglect his official duties, and gave his enemies a handle against him; but it was embittered by the treacherous artifices by which his secrets were wormed out of him, and by the purloining of his confidential papers when he lay on his deathbed, which he intended either to have burnt or to have had buried with him. During this conversation, which is supposed to have been conducted in perfect privacy, mention is made of many of the public men of the time, and among them, in no complimentary terms, of an important person, called Padiates, who had greatly influenced, for good or for evil, the fortunes of both the interlocutors. Suddenly at this point a figure arises from the myrtle bushes in the neighbourhood, and to their no small confusion the great Padiates himself (HaBiaTrj^ 6 irdvv), who has been lying in ambush, and has overheard the whole dialogue, stands before them, with fury depicted on his countenance, and a club in his hands. Thereupon a vigorous altercation follows, interlarded with strong vituperation ; and this at last becomes so intolerably personal, that Padiates raises his club, and fells Holobolus to the ground. The outcry and excitement caused by this occurrence soon bring numbers of the dead up to the spot, and foremost among them Pepagomenus, once the court physician, who attends to the wounded man, and stanches the blood with a healing herb. He is anxious for news of his two sons, one of whom was about the court, the other practising as a physician. Then other courtiers follow in turn, and as all are anxious for the latest information from the new-comer, opportunity is given both for ridiculing their peculiarities, and for satirizing the living through their mouths. One of these inquires about his former mistress, whose bloom, he is told, has now faded, and whose large fortune BYZANTINE SATIRE. 261 has been squandered; another wishes to hear of a man who defrauded him of money, and whom he intends to indict as soon as he comes down below. Several ask after their sons, towards whom, as a general rule, they seem to bear no good will—one, who is described as dyeing his hair and beard black with ravens' eggs, inquiring about a son who has apostatised to Mahomet-anism; a second, whether his sons are eavesdroppers as he was himself; and so on. By the time that the reader has had his fill of this kind of scandal, Holobolus has recovered ; and rising up he takes Mazaris by the hand, and leads him to a spot corresponding to the descriptions of Elysium, where there are elms and plane trees and singing-birds. But even in this happy place the topics of conversation are the same, for the imperial choir-master, Lampadarius, whom he finds here, takes the opportunity, when speaking of his surviving relations, of lashing the monks (yatypaioi) in no measured language, saying that the monastic dress is made to conceal all kinds of licentiousness ; the same charge comes up in other parts of the story. Long before this, Mazaris had complained that his head ached with listening and talking, and at last Holobolus suggests to him a mode of escape. Pointing out to him the deep bed of a stream in the neighbourhood, shaded with trees, he tells him to make a pretence of retiring thither, and adds that, when he has concealed himself there for a little while, he will be able to return to the upper world again. In this somewhat abrupt way the narrative ends, but not the entire piece. There follow four compositions, which are intended to form a pendant to what precedes, though no actual attempt is made to connect them with it. The first of these is a dialogue between Mazaris, after his return to life, and Holobolus, which, both from its heading, and from the way in which it is subsequently spoken of, must be regarded as taking place in a dream; the three others are letters written in connection with it. The object aimed at in all of them is evidently to satirize the Moreotes. In the dream Mazaris complains to Holobolus that he had practised upon him with his former deceptive arts, in advising him to make his fortune in the Morea, for though he had been residing there fourteen months he was in a worse plight than before, and began to doubt whether Tartarus or Peloponnesus was the most objectionable. Holobolus replies that, having 262 BYZANTINE SATIRE. himself visited that country in company with the Emperor, he had received large presents, and had every reason to be satisfied; but he would be glad to hear what the real state of things is. Accordingly, it is arranged that Mazaris shall send him a letter on the subject by the hands of some one lately dead by way of Taenaram, that entrance to the lower world being near Sparta—that is, Misithra or Mistra, the Byzantine headquarters in that province—where Mazaris was residing. The letter, which follows, mentions the visit of the Emperor Manuel to the Morea, and his constructing the fortification across the Isthmus of Corinth, which was intended to check the advance of the Turks; but it is mostly occupied with virulent detraction of all classes inhabiting the peninsula, but especially of the local governors or archonts (here called Tonrapxol) on account of their resistance to the emperor. The next letter purports to be from Holobolus in Hades to a physician, Nicephorus Palaeologus Ducas, with the object of consoling him for his enforced residence in Peloponnesus and the loss of the enjoyments of Constantinople, which latter he enumerates with the enthusiasm with which a Parisian in exile might speak of the delights of Paris. The remedy which he recommends to him is a draught of the water of Lethe, which he says he has himself partaken of, though notwithstanding this he rather inconsistently recurs to past pleasures and chagrins. This letter, as might be expected, has a sting in its tail, for it ends with malicious insinuations on the part of Holobolus with regard to some supposed malpractices of his correspondent. Palaeologus in his reply does not fail to fasten on the weak point in his assailant's remarks, and twits him with the poor effect the draught of forgetfulness seems to have had in his case. The suddenness of the conclusion at this point, and the want of method in all the latter part, show how much more satire and detraction were aimed at by the author than literary completeness. This feature requires to be borne in mind in estimating the work and its contents. Though we can hardly doubt, after reading it, that the Greek Kingdom, the life of which it describes from a courtier's point of view, deserved its impending fate, yet it is evident that the writer was a man of a bitter and malevolent spirit, who took the worst view of the men of his time, and was greatly influenced by personal spite and jealousy. Our interest BYZANTINE SATIRE. 263 in it would probably be increased, if we knew more of the personages spoken of. Unfortunately, almost all of them are names to us and nothing more, owing to the absence of any contemporary history of the period. But for this very reason the story has a value of its own, as throwing light on the state of society in an obscure age, and furnishing evidence with regard to certain facts of history. Thus, we hear of the Emperor Manuel's progress to Thasos, Thessalonica, and the Peloponnese, and of the measures he set on foot there to consolidate his power. Neighbouring Christian states are mentioned, where Holobolus advises Mazaris, if he cannot ultimately get profitable employment in the Morea, to betake himself either to Crete, which was then in the possession of Venice, or to the despot of Cephalonia—that is, Charles Tocco II., who at this time was in possession of part of Elis and Achaia. We see the close connection existing between the inhabitants of Constantinople and the people of Wallachia, from the mention of Greeks going to that country from the capital, and making large fortunes in the service of the voivodes, just as has been the case in later times, when the hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia were chosen from among the Fanariote Greeks. The Turkish names which are borne by persons of some position at Constantinople,—Seselkoi, Meliknasar, Aidin (AtTiV»j?) —are an evidence of the influence which the future conquerors had already begun to exercise. Finally, the condition of the Peloponnese is largely illustrated; but this point I leave, for a detailed account of the state of things in that province belongs rather to a historical notice of the time than to our present subject. The language in which 'Timarion' and 'Mazaris' are composed is the contemporary Greek that was used in the Byzantine court and in polite conversation. This spoken language was the lineal descendant of Hellenic, as distinguished from Romaic, Greek; and therefore, as this continued to be used until the overthrow of the Empire, Dr. Ellissen's statement is true, that Hellenic Greek first became a dead language after the fall of Constantinople.1 It differed, that writer remarks, on the one hand, from the language used in the regular Byzantine literature, and on the other, far more widely from the popular Greek of the period. The former of these, though based on the same " common" 1 Elliss-en, Analcclen, vol. iv. part 1, p. 37. 2G4 BYZANTINE SATIRE. dialect of the Macedonian Greeks, as it had been transmitted with various modifications by the later Greek writers and the fathers of the Church, was yet to a great extent a factitious language, the uniformity of which was maintained by traditional imitation of Attic authors, and which approached nearer to, or receded further from, the classical standard according to the cultivation of the writer. The latter was the humbler, but not less lineal, descendant of ancient Greek, which diverged from the written language certainly as early as the fourth century after Christ, and by the end of the ninth century was the only Greek intelligible to the great bulk of the people; when the Greeks ceased to be a nation, it became universal, and a refined idiom of it—the ' volgare illustre,' as Dante might say—is the Modern Greek of the present day. But though poetical compositions of some merit existed in the popular language in the time of the Comneni, yet the ' good society ' of Constantinople held aloof from it ;■ so much so, that even a person who sympathised with the provincials, like the excellent Archbishop Michael Acominatus of Athens at the end of the twelfth century, could profess after three years' residence in that city, that he could hardly understand the dialect spoken there;1 and the author of ' Mazaris ' during his residence at Sparta, when speaking of the speech of the Tzakones in the neighbourhood of that place—whose name he identifies, like some modern writers, with that of the Lacones— quotes as specimens of their barbarous idiom words, most of which are ordinary Romaic forms, and are not peculiar, if they belong at all, to that singular dialect, thus betraying his ignorance of the popular Greek. We may notice in passing, how great an advance has been made in the study of Modern Greek, when we find Hase saying, in speaking of these Tzaconian words—that they may be of some interest to those who ' pretendent que le grec vulgaire, tel a peu pres qu'il est parle aujourd'hui par le peuple, remonte a une epoque bien anterieure a la prise de Constantinople.'2 The Greek of Mazaris, however, is considerably debased from that of Timarion, a natural result of nearly three centuries of misfortune and degradation which elapsed between them. This 1 See the passage quoted by M. Lain- 2 Notices des Manuscrits, vol. ix. bros in his pamphlet, At 'Aflflrai irepl t<£ part 2, p. 136. t4\tj tov 5w8eKt&Tov alwvos, p. 45. BYZANTINE SATIRE. 265 is traceable partly in the growth of unclassical usages, especially in respect of faults of syntax; but far more in the vocabulary. In Timarion we meet with many rare words, which are either genuinely classical or are found in later Greek, and these are interesting to the student. But in Mazaris it is a sign of depraved taste that far-fetched expressions and extravagance of language are cultivated for their own sake, and poetical, comic, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, even dialectic words are introduced in the oddest way, so as to produce a strange jumble. It may be worth while to give some instances of these. Far-fetched expressions are such as áp%idvT7]<; for the Patriarch of Constantinople, irLmiv 'xa.fiaiXeovriK^v for ' untrustworthy allegiance.' As dialectic forms we may notice é^e5.v, or rather, as it appears here, (f>\r)va(j>eiv, ' to babble'; and the way in which Terpefiaha, áTrepifieplfivců*;, and numerous other words are casually introduced shows how thoroughly the writer's language was steeped in Aristophanes. Mixed with these occur mediaeval terms, which, though most of them are used by the Byzantine historians, yet in a work of fiction, like the present, fall strangely on a modern ear; as KafiaWápio1;, ' knight,' So/jean/cós, here ' a church officer,' Spovyydpcos, ' military or naval commander,' /3oe/3ó8a, ' voivode,' IvSi/cTos, ' the indiction,' and others derived from a Western source, as fjLiravnáT7)opoov Si6ft?)fiai KaBdirep irTrjvfj'i ofi/xa 7re\ela$: one seeking revenge is told ecr^e? kotov o$>pa re\.eo-o-t]<;: Mazaris is advised to leave the Peloponnese, if he is in poverty, 'Iva p.r) \ifico^r]^ &>? tcvwv ical rrjv liirdpTTjv kvk\oi<;. A curious mixture of passages is seen in eVeto^Trep, icaO' "Ofirjpov, fiopov d/irj^avov, Kav iv ol/ciaiccp aavrbv icadeip^r]';, ov% y7ra\v£ai?. Homer and Aristophanes are the authors most often cited, especially the latter, whom he speaks of as 6 icw/uko?, and of all his plays the Plutus is the one which occurs to him most readily. Plays on words and names are also of frequent occurrence. We have seen that these are found occasionally in Timarion, and even Lucian does not altogether despise them, as when in the Vera Jlistoria the island of cheese in the sea of milk is said to have a temple of FaXdreia, and to have been ruled by Tvpd>, daughter of Salmoneus.1 But in Mazaris they are rampant. Now and then they are mere puns on ordinary words or names of places, introduced for the sake of the jingle of sound, as dvrl iaTpaiv tou? tov OavaTov /cr/pv/cas /copaicas, where the resemblance will be better seen if we remember the modern pronunciation; fiaXkov iratSeiav X"Plv V iraiSia^ yeypacfaa : and of descending to Hades by way of Taenarum it is said, e? fiopov diro Mto/oa? ^et?—Mwpa being the form in which the name Morea is regularly found in this composition. But far more frequently they are parodies of names of persons. Sometimes these are intended to suggest a name, which for some reason is suppressed, like those of Palaeologus and Psellus in Timarion; this was no doubt instantly recognizable by contemporaries, and the resemblance is close enough for us at the present day to be able to make a shrewd guess at it. Thus roiif 8iaf3ef3orjfievov5 e£ dva.To\r)<; Xdpnrovaav, 'AvaroXiicrfv, but much more commonly opprobrious, for the purpose of ridiculing or flinging imputations at persons whom the author disliked. Such are— o rdq dlyas irporepov MeXyovcrTjs d/J.eXyav—acro<£o? Xotpiavos —co? acnrls fiva>v ret cora, e/eett'o? 6 'Aa7nerao<;, 6 \6yois p,ev ^c5u6tt^9, epyoi? 8' Scrirep aairfc Sdievcov—tov -to? al<; Trovrjp&s €%ovTat; 7rpooSo7roiovfievov Xapaiavirao. The power of vituperation which the author possesses is something surprising. The following epithets and depreciative expressions may be taken as specimens—ftSeXvyfilas, \wi7ohvrr]<;, imcu<$>6vo<;, rrapd-X^po?, KaraTTTvaTOS, eTrdparos, 7raXa[ivaio<;, dXirrfptos, kfifipov-ti]to<;, Icnreros, fieKKecreXrjvos, /earayeyavprn/Aevos, e/ctceKww-(tevo<;, KoXoiocpdaXfiov pa>v, ' partisan of the Latins,' GVfi^oXofxA^o^, ' impugner of the faith,' %i%avia>v cnropevs. It will easily be believed that there are others of a character far from delicate. But this abusiveness was suited to the times; indeed, if the language which Mazaris puts into the mouths of his characters at all represents the reality, the conversation of the inmates of the court of Constantinople at that period must have been of the coarsest description, and the facility with which, in addressing one another, they pass from apicne (f>l\a)v to fxaraie, KaKiare, f&V7]aiieaice, and so forth, implies a total absence of mutual respect. Still, notwithstanding his personal enmities and love of detraction, the author of this narrative had a serious object in view. More than once he declares that he writes more in earnest than in jest (aTrovBd^aiv fiaXXov 7) irai^wv). He seems to have been awake to the evils of his time, especially to the incontinence of the upper classes and the monks, and to the corrupt administration of justice. In respect of this latter point, which presented the greatest danger—for throughout the long history of the Byzantine empire nothing had so much tended to hold its subjects together, and reconcile them to oppressive taxation, as the impartiality of the law-courts—a strong contrast is drawn between the verdicts in the world below, which are BYZANTINE SATIRE. 269 given St/eai'eos /cat a.TrpoaonroXrj'n-TOi'i, eri, Se dSa>po8oicrJTco'!, and those amongst the living, where personal influence prevailed, and the judges took bribes from both sides, so that justice was in the hands of the powerful and the wealthy. But the primary aim that Mazaris had in view was to support the Emperor Manuel, for whom he manifests a sincere respect, in the political reforms which he was attempting to introduce. These came too late for it to be possible for them to save the expiring state, but they were well intended, and the fact that the writer approved them shows that he belonged to the few who still cherished a feeling of patriotism. The opposition offered to these measures by the inhabitants of Peloponnesus was, as we have seen, the cause of the extreme bitterness with which he satirizes them. The state of the dead which is here described, and the theology, so to speak, of the lower world, have as little consistency as any other part of the composition. One thing is agreed upon, namely, that the loss of the good things of this life is the greatest of all trials, and consequently the punishment which Lucian assigns to the rich man, that he should not be allowed to drink the water of Lethe, but should continue to remember his former enjoyments,1 is here brought prominently forward. But though the righteous are distinguished in their appearance from the wicked, little or nothing is said on the subject of future happiness, and when a catalogue of punishments is given, Scriptural and Pagan expressions are inserted alternately. So, too, while God is conceived of as the ruler of the universe, Pluto, Persephone and Hermes are the governors in Hades, and in one passage the one and the others are invoked in successive sentences. But the greatest surprise is at the end, when, after the mention of all this classical apparatus, we are suddenly reminded that the last trumpet has yet to sound (jie%pi<; av r?}? TeXevralas eice£vT}<} a.Kovcreia's craXTnyyos). Perhaps the incongruity of all this is not greater than what is found in Dante's Inferno, only in that case the skill of the poet is shown in his reconciling us to it. The two satires which we have thus examined may serve, I think, as a proof that an amusing element was not wanting in 1 Lucian, Cataplus, 28, 29. 270 BYZANTINE SATIRE. Byzantine literature. At first sight each of them, and particularly the latter, seems like a phenomenon in its age ; indeed it would be hard to conceive a stronger contrast with the pedantry and solemnity which we usually associate with the court ceremonial of Constantinople, than is found in 'Mazaris.' Still more surprising is it, if we compare these descriptions of visits to the lower world with such a mediaeval Greek story as ' The Apocalypse of the Virgin '—a narrative, full of horrors, of the descent of the Virgin into Hell under the guidance of the Archangel Michael, of which M. Gidel has given an account in his Nouvelles Etudes sur la Literature grecque moderne (pp. 313-330), and M. Polites a Modern-Greek translation in his NeoeWrjvi/cri Mv6o\oyta (vol. i. pp. 375—389)—to think that the same state of society should have produced both. At the same time we know that ' Timarion ' and ' Mazaris,' though the only published specimens of these satirical compositions, are not the only existing ones; and those that have come down to us are not improbably the remains of what was once an extensive literature. Under the uniform surface, and the hard crust of custom, with which the life of the Eastern Empire was overlaid, there would seem to have been more variety than is generally imagined. H. F. Tozer.