Hellenism in Byzantium : the transformations of Greek identity and the reception of the classical tradition / Anthony Kaldellis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaldellis, Anthony

Series:

Greek culture in the Roman world

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hellenism.

Byzantine Empire--Civilization.

Byzantine Empire.

Civilization.

Greece--Civilization.

Greece.

Greece--History--146 B.C.-323 A.D.

History.

Byzantine Empire--History--To 527.

Physical Description:

xi, 468 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Summary:

This is the first systematic study of what it meant to be "Greek" in late antiquity and Byzantium, an identity that could alternately become national, religious, philosophical, or cultural. Through close readings of the sources, Professor Kaldellis surveys the space that Hellenism occupied in each period; the broader debates in which it was caught up; and the historical causes of its successive transformations. The first part (100-400) shows how Romanization and Christianization led to the abandonment of Hellenism as a national label and its restriction to a negative religious sense and a positive, albeit rarefied, cultural one. The second (1000-1300) shows how Hellenism was revived in Byzantium and contributed to the evolution of its culture. The discussion looks closely at the reception of the classical tradition, which was the reason why Hellenism was always desirable and dangerous in Christian society, and presents a new model for understanding Byzantine civilization.

Contents:

Part I Greeks, Romans, and Christians in Late Antiquity 11

1 "We too are Greeks!": the legacies of Hellenism 13

Classical Greece 14

The Hellenistic world 21

The Second Sophistic 30

2 "The world a city": Romans of the East 42

Becoming Roman 45

The translation of Romania 61

Byzantium as a nation-state 74

The myth of the "multi-ethnic empire" 82

The fictions of ecumenical ideology 100

Where did all the Greeks go? 111

3 "Nibbling on Greek learning": the Christian predicament 120

Between Greeks and Barbarians, within Hellenism 121

The challenge of Hellenism 131

The legacy of Julian 143

Ours or theirs? The uneasy patristic settlement 154

Conclusion: the end of ancient Hellenism 166

Interlude: Hellenism in limbo: the middle years (400-1040) 173

Part II Hellenic Revivals in Byzantium 189

4 Michael Psellos and the instauration of philosophy 191

"Unblocking the streams of philosophy" 193

Science and dissimulation 202

Between body and soul: a new humanism 209

Hellenes in the eleventh century? 219

5 The Third Sophistic: the performance of Hellenism under the Komnenoi 225

Anathema upon philosophy 225

Emperors and sophists 233

Hellenism as an expansion of moral and aesthetic categories 241

Hellenic fantasy worlds: the new Romance novels 256

A philosopher's novel: Prodromos on religion and war 270

Hellenic afterworlds: the Timarion 276

Toward a new Hellenic identity 283

Anti-Latin Hellenism 295

Ioannes Tzetzes: professional classicism 301

Eustathios of Thessalonike: scholar, bishop, humanist 307

6 Imperial failure and the emergence of national Hellenism 317

Michael Choniates and the "blessed" Greeks 317

Athens: a Christian city and its classicist bishop 323

East and West: negotiating labels in 1204 334

Moderni Graeci or Romans? Byzantines under Latin occupation 345

Roman nationalism in the successor states 360

Imperial Hellenism: Ioannes III Batatzes and Theodoros II Laskaris 368

The intellectuals of Nikaia 379.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 398-452) and index.

ISBN:

9780521876889

0521876885

OCLC:

166357707