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The epigrams of Leo the Philosopher

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Barry Baldwin
Barry Baldwin*
Affiliation:
Department of Classics University of Calgary
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Extract

These notes are intended as both compliment and complement to the recent and admirable paper of L.G. Westerink. Leo as scientist and scholar has received his due in modern times, whereas his contribution to the Byzantine epigram tends to be belittled or ignored. Thus Hunger leaves him out of his survey of the genre, even whilst acknowledging the epigrammatic attacks upon him by his own pupil Constantine the Sicilian, whilst Trypanis can do no better than ‘He composed a number of epigrams, mainly on the mathematical, astronomical, and philosophical books he had acquired; among them there is also one strange and apparently improper epigram addressed to his mother’.

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Articles:
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 14 , 1990 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1990

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References

1. ‘Leo the Philosopher: Job and Other Poems’, Illinois Classical Studies 11 (1986) 193–222. I use Westerink’s numbering, with parenthetical cross-reference to that in the Anthologia Palatina. Apart from 4 (9. 203), discussion is restricted to epigrams that are indisputably by Leo, eschewing those that are certainly spurious or doubtfully ascribed; there is nothing to add to Westerink 196–7 on these.

2. Notably from Lipsic, E.E., ‘Vizantijskij ucenyj Leo Matematik’, VV 2 (1947) 106–49 Google Scholar, and Lemerle, P., Le premier humanisme byzantin (Paris 1971) 148–76.Google Scholar

3. Hunger, H., Die hochsprachlicheprofane Literatur der Byzantiner (Munich 1978) 2, 167–73.Google Scholar

4. Trypanis, C.A., Greek Poetry from Homer to Seferis (Chicago 1981) 472.Google Scholar

5. The notice of Leo in the Tusculum-Lexicon griechischer und lateinischer Autoren des Altertums und des Mittelalters (Munich 1982) 470–1, pays proper tribute to the content, but ventures no opinion on the merits of Leo’s poetic oeuvre.

6. Cf.Jacobson, H., ‘Job’s Suffering in Leo the Philosopher’, B 57 (1987) 421 Google Scholar, for supplement on one point of detail.

7. Along with his pupils Cometas and Constantine the Sicilian. Other late names include Arethas and Constantine the Rhodian. For what this may signify, we must look to Alan Cameron’s long-awaited book on the Anthology.

8. For the last, one can exploit (as far as it currently goes) the Index to the Anthology (Amsterdam 1985-), compiled by V. Citti, E. Degani, G. Giangrande, and G. Scarpa.

9. Except to suggest that some stray Byzantine epigrams preserved without context made sense if placed in this category. For easy instance, the verses on theriaka published by Antoniou, P., ‘Sur une Epigramme Byzantine conenue dans le Marcianus Graecus 507’, REB 44 (1986) 229–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, could well have been designed for a book on this subject, most likely the Theriaka of Nicander, whose enduring popularity with the Byzantines is evidenced by Michael Italicus, Ep. 35 (ed. Gautier, p. 218, 3–9) and others; cf.Wilson, N.G., Scholars of Byzantium (London 1983) 140, 150, 191, 240 Google Scholar; also Baldwin, B., ‘A Byzantine variant in the text of Nicander’, Mus. Phil. Lond. 8 (1987) 5–6.Google Scholar

10. As Treadgold, W., The Bibliotheca of Photius (Washington, D.C. 1980) 103–4 Google Scholar, observes, ‘Mathematics and the natural sciences, apart from medicine, were not Photius’ strong points’.

11. Reported by H. Beckby in his note (Munich 1965, 2nd ed.) on the poem.

12. Far more than the two (362, 369) adduced by Beckby; cf. the entries on these characters in PLRE 1, 550, 760–1.

13. The PLRE notices, by inadvertence or design, do not acknowledge the notion.

14. On Paul, see PLRE 1, 684; W. Gundel, H. Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie 18.4, cols. 2376–86; Hunger 2. 228, 232, 234, 239.

15. Constantine’s poems, specifying inter plurima alia that astrology will doom Leo to eternal damnation, are printed in MPG 107, LXI-LXIV, 661–4. The latest writer on this matter, McCail, R.C., ‘Did Constantine of Sicily read Daphnis and Chloe?’, B 58 (1988) 121 Google Scholar, n. 39, follows Lemerle in supposing that Constantine’s attacks were an unscrupulous attempt to curry favour with the less tolerant Hellenism of Photius, after Leo’s death.

16. Apart from Pindar, Olymp. 14. 24, of

17. Neither the PLRE notice of Proclus (2. 915–9) nor that of Theon (1. 907) adduce Leo’s poem.

18. 195, developing Lemerle 169, n. 80.

19. Cf. Wilson, SB 83–3; Browning, R., ‘Homer in Byzantium’, Viator 8 (1975) 22–3 Google Scholar, also ‘Byzantine Scholarship’, Past and Present 28 (1964) 7–8 (both reprinted in his Studies on Byzantine History, Literature and Education [London, 1977]); Baldwin, B., ‘The Homeric Scholarship of Cometas’, Hermes 113 (1985) 127–8.Google Scholar

20. As apparently did the later scholarly bishop Gregory of Corinth on this very question of Achilles Tatius; cf. Wilson, SB 186, also Dyck, A.R., Michael Psellus: The Essays on Euripides and George of Pisidia and on Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (Vienna 1986) 86.Google Scholar

21. Op. cit. 82.

22. Cf. Wilson, SB 26, 84, 172–6, 186, 225.

23. See Vyronis, S., ‘The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathius Boilas (1059)’, DOP 11 (1957) 263–77 Google Scholar; Wilson, N.G., ‘Books and Readers in Byzantium’, in Byzantine Books and Bookmen (Washington D.C. 1975) 7–8 Google Scholar; Mango, C., Byzantium: the Empire of New Rome (London 1980) 239–40.Google Scholar

24. First found in Socrates, HE 5. 22; cf. Nicephorus Callistus, HE 13. 34, for subsequent refinement.

25. As Beckby’s author index shows, there are several ‘single hit’ poets represented.

26. The Loeb editor of Achilles Tatius, S. Gaselee, x, had already declared in favour of Photius on these same grounds. Wilson, SB 84, says the poem is ‘perhaps’ by Leo, without elaboration. McCail, art. cit. 122, n. 46, has no doubts that Leo is the author.

27. Cf.Gartner, H., ‘Charikleia in Byzanz’, Antike und Abendland 15 (1969) 47–69.Google Scholar

28. By A. Colonna in his edition (Rome 1938) 371.

29. From Porphyry himself, Vita Plotini 17. 6–10, through Eunapius, VS 457, to the Suda (P 2099).

30. Ed. Busse, A, CAG 18. 1 (Berlin 1900).Google Scholar

31. Cf. PLRE 2. 439; Wilson, SB 45–8.

32. Obviously, this argument is not invulnerable. Plato’s geometric tastes were well celebrated, to say the least, and an alternative sixth century source for the Academy superscription might be Philoponus, John, In de Anim. 117. 29, ed. Hayduck, M., CAG 15 (Berlin 1897).Google Scholar

33. Cf. Wilson, SB 104, 139, 148, 169–72, 272. Longinus was much less read; Wilson, 139, 150, 262. We should also notice the cognate adverb in Lucian, Rhet. Praec. 15.

34. Described at length by Pattenden, P., ‘The Byzantine Early Warning System’, B 53 (1983), 258–99 Google Scholar, rejecting the doubts raised about its existence by Aschoff, V., Über den byzantinischen Feuertelegraphen und Leon den Mathematiker (Deutsches Museum: Abhandlungen und Berichte 48 [1980]).Google Scholar

35. Whether the single word that constitutes Aristophanes, fr. 518, is noun or adjective is obviously unclear.

36. Cf. Pattenden 269–74 for discussion of this and cognate ancient accounts.

37. Pausanias 5. 7. 3.

38. Cf. Pattenden 267–8.

39. And would it be too farfetched to believe that Leo also had in mind the phrase from an author he knew well, namely Plato, Laws 685c?

40. LSJ give an example from the Septuagint.

41. Elsewhere, the word is only in Nonnus, Dionys. 1. 131, and glossed in Etym. Magn. p. 759. 41.

42. Further bowdlerised as ‘the ill inborn impulse’ in Paton’s Loeb.

43. Cf. Westerink 196 for more details.

44. Kazhdan, A., ‘The Image of the Medical Doctor in Byzantine Literature of the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries’, DOP 38 (1984) 43–51.Google Scholar

45. Though cannot resist here quoting Westerink 203 on Leo’s ‘transformation of Homeric verse into a colloquial, almost Horatian hexameter’, à propos his Job.

46. If there is a play on words, Leo may owe it to Aristophanes, Lys. 670.

47. The didactic content would have appealed to him; cf. Wilson, SB 148, 197, 207, 225, 240, for Byzantine knowledge of Oppian.

48. None of them are in LSJ or Lampe; Stephanus notices one or two of them, giving no other source.

49. Published by Matranga, , Anecd. Graec. 2. 625–32 (Rome, 1850)Google Scholar; cf.Downey, G., ‘Constantine the Rhodian: His Life and Writings’, Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend Jr. (Princeton 1955) 214.Google Scholar

50. Text and commentary in Baldwin, B., An Anthology of Byzantine Poetry (Amsterdam 1985) 154–6.Google Scholar