Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Macedonian epoch (867-1081)

Education, learning, literature, and art 

Page 5

To the tenth century belongs also a very interesting figure in the history of Byzantine literature, John Kyriotes, generally known by his surname, Geometres. The height of his literary activity falls in the time of Nicephorus Phocas, John Tzimisces, and Basil II. The first of these was his favorite hero. He left a collection of epigrams and occasional poems, a work in verse on ascetism (Paradise), and some hymns in honor of the Holy Virgin. His epigrams and occasional poems are closely related to the important political events of his time, such as the deaths of Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzimisces, the insurrection of Bardas Sclerus and Bardas Phocas in his poem The Rebellion, the Bulgarian war, etc. All these are of special interest to the student of this period. One poem on his journey from Constantinople to Selybria, through districts which had seen military action, gives a strikingly forceful and pathetic picture of the sufferings and ruin of the local peasantry. Krumbacher was undoubtedly right when he said that John Geometres belongs to the best aspect of Byzantine literature. Many of his poems deserve translation into modern tongues. His prose works, of a rhetorical, exegetical, and oratorical character, are less interesting than his poems.

During the reign of Nicephorus Phocas also the pseudo-Lucianic Dialogue, Philopatris was compiled. This, it has been said, represents a Byzantine form of humanism, and for the tenth century reveals a renaissance of Greek spirit and classical tastes.

One of the best of Byzantine poets, Christopher of Mytilene, who has only recently become well known, flourished in the first half of the eleventh century. His short works, written mainly in iambic trimeter in the form of epigrams or addresses to various persons, including a number of contemporary emperors, are distinguished by graceful style and fine wit.

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