Not Composed in a Chance Manner : The Epitaphios for Manuel I Komnenos by Eustathios of Thessalonike (Τοῦ αὐτοῦ τὸ γραφὲν εἰς τὸν ἀοίδιμον ἐν ἁγίοις βασιλεῦσι κῦριν Μανουὴλ τὸν Κομνηνόν. Ὅπερ ὅτι οὐ τυχόντως μεθώδευται, ὁ πεπαιδευμένος διακρινεῖ. Πολλῶν γὰρ ἄλλως γραψάντων, ἐστρυφνώθη πρὸς διαφορὰν ὁ παρὼν ἐπιτάφιος.)

Abstract

The Epitaphios for the emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143-1180) by the eminent scholar bishop, Eustathios of Thessalonike, is one of the longest and most ambitious political eulogies of the Byzantine era. Delivered during a time of looming political peril at the Byzantine court and composed in a compellingly intricate style, the Epitaphios was meant to serve as both a blueprint for subsequent rulers and as a model of innovative eloquence. The Epitaphios was the culmination of nearly four decades of service to the imperial court and marked an unprecedented effort by one of the empire's most accomplished rhetors to wed epideictic rhetoric to political memorialization. The present book contains a critical edition, translation, and wide-ranging commentary designed to offer a comprehensive analysis of the text and of its enabling literary, ceremonial, and political contexts. Buttressing the edition and translation is a lengthy and detailed commentary which elucidates various features of the funeral oration. It is prefaced by an extensive introduction on various aspects of imperial funerary discourse and ceremony, including the physical setting of the oration, the structural role of orality, as well as aspects of palaeography and editorial method. The overall aim of this study is to exploit the many opportunities afforded by this text to consider the poetics of court oratory at the apex of what is often described as one of the great renaissances of medieval Greek literary culture.