Twenty-Eighth Annual

BYZANTINE STUDIES CONFERENCE

4-6 October, 2002
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS

Reconstruction of the NE Gate of the Byzantine Fortress at Isthmia (C. Peirce)

The Byzantine Studies Conference is an association for the presentation and discussion of
papers embodying current research on all aspects of Byzantine history and culture. The
Conference meets in a different city every year. At meetings, over 100 papers are usually
presented and discussed in a relaxed but professional atmosphere. Although most of our
members are American academics, we have an international membership and many nonacademic members. Graduate students play a large role in the conference and are strongly
encouraged to present papers and participate in discussions.
This Book of Abstracts was compiled and edited by Emily Albu and Anthony Kaldellis from
documents supplied electronically by the speakers. Copyright (C) is reserved by the individual
speakers.
Copies of the Abstracts are available for purchase. Subscriptions for Series 6 (26-30, 2000-2004)
are available for $45 as a set. This price includes postage. All orders must be prepaid in US
currency; make checks payable to the Byzantine Studies Conference and send orders to:
Prof. Sharon Gerstel
Dept. of Art History and Archaeology
The University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-1335
For questions about orders of the Abstracts e-mail S. Gerstel at:
sg113@umail.umd.edu
Abstracts of Papers--Byzantine Studies Conference, Ist-1975-Madison, Wis. [etc.]
Byzantine Studies Conference
V. 22/2: Author Index to the Abstracts of Papers, 1 (1975) to 25 (1999)
Key title: Abstracts of Papers -- Byzantine Studies Conference
ISSN 0147-3387
1 . Byzantine Empire - Congresses
DF501 .5b9a 949.5 77-79346
Library of Congress 77 MARC-S
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Session I: Cities and Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chair: Timothy Gregory
Kim Bowes (Yale University), The Amphitheater as Site of Christian Memory: Excavations in the

Amphitheater of Durres (Dyrrachium)

Laura Hebert (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), Middle Byzantine Aphrodisias
Kathleen M. Quinn (University of Cincinnati), Life and Death in Late Byzantine Troy
Session II: Liturgy, Theology, and Spirituality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 13
Chair: Georgia Frank
Gerasimos P. Pagoulatos (Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece), The Liturgy of the Bridal
Chamber: An Introduction to the Problem of Its Origins
Caroline Downing (State University of New York College at Potsdam), Augustine and the Decline
in Baptistery Construction: The Evidence of Archaeology and Text
John D. Beetham (Catholic University of America), Spiritual Relationships among Monks during
the Middle Byzantine Period
Oleh Kindiy (Catholic University of America), Overview of Theological Ideas in George
Pachymeres Paraphrasis (PG Vol. 4, Cols. 608-609) of Ps.-Dionysios Areopagites On Divine
Names (DN 587B1-588A2)
Session III: Archaeology I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Chair: Sheila McNally
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom (Wittenberg University), Ceramic Evidence from the Monastic
Settlement of John the Little, Wadi Natrun, Egypt
Scott Redford (Georgetown University), Chemical Analysis of Port Saint Symeon Ceramics
Peter Lampinen (Combined Caesarea Expeditions), A Hoard of Byzantine Pentanummi
Session IV: Interpretation of Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Chair: Sarolta Takacs
Scott Johnson (Oxford University), Cult and Competition: Textual Appropriation in the FifthCentury Life and Miracles of Thekla
John Duffy (Harvard University), Recovering a Byzantine Author: Sophronius of Alexandria
Paul Stephenson (University of Wisconsin, Madison), The Sarcophagus of Basil II (d. 1025)
Session V: Women and Byzantium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chair: Alice-Mary Talbot
Ian S. R. Mladjov (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), The Case of Iusta Grata Honoria and
Imperial Women in Late Antiquity
Anthony Kaldellis (The Ohio State University), The Literary Structure of Prokopios Secret
History: A New Explanation
Patrick Viscuso (Independent Scholar), Theodore Balsamons Canonical Images of Women

Session VI: Architecture and Decoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Chair: Ioli Kalavrezou
Karen C. Britt (Indiana University), Faces of Stone: Donor Portraits in the Mosaic Floor
Pavements of Early Byzantine Palestine
Heather E. Grossman (University of Pennsylvania), A New Group of Middle Byzantine
Architectural Sculpture from Panakton (Boeotia)
Jelena Trkulja (Princeton University), The Use of Relief Sculpture on Late Byzantine Church
Faades
Session VII: Manuscript Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Chair: Nancy Sevenko
David H. Wright (University of California at Berkeley), Putting Vergil on Display after 476
Christine Havice (University of Kentucky), Iconography and the Question of a Model for the
Madrid Skylitzes
Elena N. Boeck (Yale University), Un-orthodox Imagery in the Madrid Skylitzes
Session VIII: Gifts and Diplomacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
Chair: Sarah Bassett
Lynn Jones (Independent Scholar), Questionable Gifts: Constantine VIII and Relics of the
True Cross
Rebecca W. Corrie (Bates College), Constantinople, Siena, and the Polesden Lacey Triptych: An
Angevin Commission for a Crusader Empress
Cecily J. Hilsdale (University of Chicago), Bride, Book, and Visuality
Session IX: Byzantine Identities I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
Chair: Elizabeth Bolman
Alicia Walker (Harvard University), Unpacking the Darmstadt Casket
Ludovico Geymonat (Princeton University), Byzantinizing the Baptistery: From the Holy Land to
Parma
Glenn Peers (University of Texas at Austin), Orthodox Magic: An Amulet Roll in New York and
Chicago
Session X: In Search of Edessas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Chair: Michael Maas
Steven K. Ross (Louisiana State University), Edessa on the Front Lines: Romes Client State in
the Third Century

Paul Kimball (State University of New York at Buffalo), The Edessene Background to
Chrysostoms Homilies at Drypia: Ephraims Carm. Nisb. XLII and the Second Translatio of Mar
Thoma
Frederick Lauritzen (Columbia University), Leo the Deacons Military and Religious Digression
on Edessa
Dimitris Drakoulis (Architect MSc, Aristoteleion University of Thessaloniki, Greece), The Material
Culture Of Byzantine Architecture: The Cases Of Greek Macedonian And Syrian Edessas
Session XI: History of Byzantine Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Chair: John Barker
David Olster (University of Kentucky), Byzantinism and Nazism in 1930s and 1940s German
Scholarship
Linda Jones Hall (St. Marys College of Maryland), Clyde Pharr and the Women of Vanderbilt:
The Translation of the Theodosian Code in Mid-Twentieth Century America
Session XII: Literature and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Chair: George Majeska
Nick Giannoukakis, University of Pittsburgh (Independent Scholar), Identity in Rhythmic Meter
between Ancient Greek Poetry and Byzantine Hymnology
Derek Krueger (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), Liturgical Performance and the
Formation of Christian Identity in the Age of Justinian
Bissera V. Pentcheva (Columbia University), Picturing the Process of Writing: The Virgin as the
Muse of Poetic Inspiration
Przemyslaw Marciniak (University of Silesia, Poland), A Few Remarks On The Definition Of
Byzantine Theatre
Session XIII: Amorium Excavations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Chair: Christopher Lightfoot
Eric A. Ivison (Amorium Excavations Project, Turkey/College of Staten Island, CUNY), The
Byzantine Stone-Mason at Work: New Evidence from the Lower City Church at Amorium
Johanna Witte-Orr (Amorium Excavations Project, Turkey/Farmington, IA), The Mural Decoration
of the Lower City Church at Amorium
Yaln Mergen (Amorium Excavations Project/Dokuz Eyll University, Izmir, Turkey), The Lower
City Enclosure Wall at Amorium and What Lies Beyond
Session XIV: Archaeology II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Chair: Robert Ousterhout
Suna agaptay-Arkan (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), The Church at Choma: A
Revisiting of the Development of the Regional Style

R. Scott Moore (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Drought and Decline: The Effects of Climate
on Byzantine Cyprus
Session XV: Mimesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Chair: Paul Halsall
Andrew White (University of Maryland, College Park) and Cornelia Horn (University of St.
Thomas), On the Imitation of Christ, for Cheap Laughs: The Syriac Tale of the Mimes and the
Theater in Byzantium
Dean Sakel (Bogazii University), Mimesis yet again in the View of the Past: A Case involving the
Use of Glykas
Session XVI: Teaching Roundtable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
Chair: Robert Allison (Bates College)
Ellen C. Schwartz (Eastern Michigan University), De Diversis Artibus: Teaching Byzantium
Through Hands-On Art Assignments
Emily Albu (University of California, Davis), Teaching Late Antiquity: One Model for Outreach to
the Public Schools
Session XVII: Late Antiquity I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chair: Claudia Rapp
D. Scott VanHorn (Loyola University Chicago), Communiceps noster: Romanianus, St. Augustine,
and Late Roman Patronage
Robert J. Penella (Fordham University), Himerius Constantinopolitan Oration of A.D. 362:
Context, Audience, and Content
William R. Caraher (Ohio State University), Sacred Space and Authority in the Churches of Early
Christian Greece
Catherine Burris (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Magic and the Byzantine Viewer:
Seeing Magical Acts and Objects in the Late Ancient and Early Byzantine World
Session XVIII: The Secular World I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74
Chair: Sharon Gerstel
Katherine Panagakos (The Ohio State University), Novels in the Bibliotheca: What Photius Left
Out
Diliana Angelova (Harvard University), The Middle Byzantine Ivory Box of Veroli in the Context of
Literary Ideas about Romantic Love
Jennifer L. Ball (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Representations of Non-elite Dress
Session XIX: The Secular World II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Chair: Asen Kirin

Maria Parani (Nicosia, Cyprus), Picking at an Old Question: The Use of Cutlery at the Byzantine
Table
Nikolas Bakirtzis (Princeton University), Aesthetics of Byzantine Fortifications: The Case of
Thessaloniki
Charles M. Brand (Emeritus, Bryn Mawr College), Slavery in the Will of Eustathius of
Thessalonica
Session XX: Byzantine Identities II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Chair: Tia Kolbaba
Naomi Janowitz (University of California-Davis), Strategies of Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity
Roly Zylbersztein (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Polemics against the Jews during the Ninth
Century
Ioanna Rapti (Collge de France, Paris), Prophetic Iconography in Cilician Armenia
Elizabeth A. Fisher (The George Washington University), Ethnic Identity and Literary Latin in C
onstantinople, 1261-1305
Session XXI: Late Byzantine History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87
Chair: Walter Kaegi
Mark C. Bartusis (Northern State University), SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1 The Equivalence of the
Fiscal Terms Pronoia and Oikonomia
Dusan Korac (CPIT, The Catholic University of America), Hail, Tsar! Hail, Autokrator! Shifting
Political Loyalty in Fourteenth Century Edessa
Marios Philippides (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), A New Eyewitness Source and the
Prosopography of the Defenders in the Siege of Constantinople (1453)
Walter K. Hanak (Shepherd College), One Source, Two Renditions: The Tale of Constantinople
and Its Fall in 1453
Session XXII: Late Antiquity II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Chair: Michael Gaddis
Daniel Sarefield (The Ohio State University), Into the Flames: Destruction by Fire in Late
Antiquity
Stephanie L. Smith (Youngstown State University), Feasting at the Grave: Funerary
Commemoration and the Catacombs of Rome
Ralph Mathisen (University of South Carolina), The Contemporary Entries in the Theodosian
Code: AD 429-437
F. M. Clover (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Procopius of Caesarea, Theophanes Confessor,
and the Beginnings of Vandal Kingship

Index of Spealers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
SESSION I
CITIES AND SPACES
Chair: Timothy Gregory (The Ohio State University)
The Amphitheater as Site of Christian Memory:
Excavations in the Amphitheater of Durres (Dyrrachium)
Kim Bowes (Yale University)
The amphitheater of the ancient port city of Dyrrachium was one of the citys greatest Roman
monuments. Set rather unusually in the heart of the Roman city and included within the late
antique wall circuit, the amphitheater occupied a significant portion of the citys land area and
utilized one of the citys low hills both to support its seating and increase its visibility. The later
appropriation of the amphitheater for Christian cult and burial thus marked both the status
commanded by the Christian community and its concomitant ability to reconfigure the citys
pagan topography into spaces of Christian meaning.
The small Christian chapel in the Durres amphitheater is known principally to art historians, owing
to the fine wall mosaics that grace its walls. This chapel, however, is only one of a group of
Christian spaces that littered the amphitheater galleries, including a second chapel with frescos,
an ossuary and a baptistery. The entire Roman structure, including both galleries and arena, was
also used as a necropolis. The amphitheater thus represented a whole network of Christian cult
sites, interconnected by the decaying galleries of the Roman building and peppered with the
graves of Christian dead who desired proximity to the saint or saints memorialized here.
The Durres amphitheater was excavated in a vigorous, if unscientific fashion in the 1960s by
Vangiel Toi, and the later interventions in both the chapel and its surroundings were either never
recorded, or incompletely published. Thus, the date of the chapel and its mosaics remains
unknown, the other Christian features have gone largely unrecorded and even the date of the
amphitheater itself remains a mystery. However, unlike so many Roman amphitheaters, the
Durres amphitheater was never restored, its Christian monuments never removed and the
majority of its galleries and its arena never completely excavated. Thus, Durres represents a
unique opportunity to understand the Christianization of amphitheaters and their appropriation as
loci of Christian memory.
The International Centre of Albanian Archaeology, supported by the Packard Humanities Institute
(PHI) will conduct a season of architectural survey and excavation in the Durres amphitheater
during the summer of 2002. A team of American, British and Albanian archaeologists will record
both the structural and decorative features of all the excavated Christian spaces and analyze their
structural evolution. The team will also undertake a series of sondages to determine the date of
principal chapel, and the general outlines of the amphitheaters post-Roman occupation. This
season will hopefully be the first in a major project of excavation and restoration in one of
Albanias most important ancient monuments.
Middle Byzantine Aphrodisias
Laura Hebert (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)
The site of Greco-Roman and Byzantine Aphrodisias, situated in a fertile valley in
southwestern Asia Minor, has been the subject of sustained archaeological research since 1961.
Founded as a grid-planned town in the late Hellenistic period, the city prospered in the ancient
and Late Antique periods. It included a monumental city center comprising the Temple and

Sanctuary of Aphrodite, a Theater, two large public squares, public baths, and a number of other
civic and sacred structures, surrounded by primarily residential areas. The city walls, erected in
the fourth century A.D., enclosed an area of approximately 0.8 square kilometers, most of which
was densely occupied.
For the seventh to the ninth centuries, the archaeological record at Aphrodisias is scant, but it
picks up again in the late ninth century. It thus allows for a schematic picture of not only the
physical, but also the administrative, structure of Middle Byzantine Aphrodisias from that time until
ca. 1200, when the Seljuk Turks conquered the town and forcibly resettled its inhabitants
elsewhere. Though areas outside the city center have not been extensively investigated,
excavation has shown that large parts of the area enclosed by the city wall lay abandoned, with
signs of human activity limited to occasional burials. The much smaller population occupied a far
more concentrated area (roughly 0.2 square kilometers). It corresponded largely to the site of the
former city center, which the Middle Byzantine occupants adapted to their needs. The ancient
Theater, cut into one of only two hills on the otherwise flat site, became the center of the
residential area, certainly because it was easily defensible. Houses were constructed within the
cavea and orchestra, on top of the ruins of the collapsed stage building, and fortification walls
were built around the hill. Near the Theater, a tenth- or eleventh-century church occupied a
former crossroads, one of many signs that the ancient orthogonal street system no longer
functioned. In addition to the Theater, another center of occupation was the Cathedral.
Constructed originally as the Temple of Aphrodite, it had been converted to a church in Late
Antiquity. Evidence suggests that it was a popular pilgrimage destination in the Middle Byzantine
period, when it underwent a thorough renovation. Next door to the Cathedral lay the only ancient
house known to have been renovated in the Middle Byzantine period, a large Late Antique house
that at this time almost certainly became the Bishops Palace. Finds from the house include a
number of lead seals of Aphrodisian bishops and of various imperial officials, suggesting that the
bishop now headed not only the religious, but also the civic administration of Aphrodisias.
Immediately behind the probable Bishops Palace, and alongside the Cathedral, was a wine or
olive press, dating to the Middle Byzantine period. Because of its proximity to the Cathedral and
probable Bishops Palace, this and a series of adjacent structures related to the processing of
agricultural produce should probably be considered as part of the episcopal complex.
Life and Death in Late Byzantine Troy
Kathleen M. Quinn (University of Cincinnati)
For the past decade, a team of archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati has
been engaged in a systematic exploration of the post-Bronze Age remains of Troy in northwest
Turkey. In addition to the expected wealth of Greco-Roman material culture, archaeology has also
yielded evidence of Late Byzantine use of the Trojan mound, including a small residential
settlement, expansion of a nearby water system, and two cemeteries.
Architectural evidence for Late Byzantine activity at Troy comes primarily from the area of the
Greco-Roman Sanctuary on the southwest side of the mound. This Sanctuary had been used
continuously for religious purposes from the eighth century B.C. until the late third century A.D.
When occupation resumed in the Sanctuary in the late twelfth century, it is clear that the nature of
the activities conducted there had dramatically changed. The two best-preserved Byzantine
buildings from the Sanctuaryone a three-room, rectangular structure and the other an oval
buildingcontain a wealth of Late Byzantine ceramics and small finds. The ceramics are all of
local (or regional) manufacture with a few imports of types found in excavated material from
Constantinople. The small finds are dominated by a wide assortment of glass bracelets, spindle
whorls, and an interesting selection of horse trappings (including fragments of horseshoes, bits,
and bridles). Preliminary study of the material suggests that the Late Byzantine settlement was
primarily residential, and its location seems to have been dictated by the presence of an
important water source in the cave nearby.

It was also during the Late Byzantine period that a series of tunnels, first excavated inside the
cave by residents of Hellenistic Troy, were expanded and improved. These tunnels gave the
Byzantines access to an important natural water source. It has been suggested that the extensive
modifications to the cave were necessary to generate a healthy source of water following a series
of earthquakes which may have damaged the water table and dried up pre-existing wells.
Other evidence for Late Byzantine use of the Trojan mound comes from the remains of two
partially excavated cemeteries. One of the cemeteries has been uncovered during excavations
around the cave. A second cemetery is located on the northwest side of the mound near the
remains of a Greco-Roman theater. The tombs from both areas are simple, stone-lined cists, and
all show evidence of multiple use. Most of the tombs contain modest dedications of jewelry and
pottery, some of which is similar to that found in the Sanctuary settlement, and some of which
appears to extend into a period later than any known Byzantine settlement at the site. It is this
later pottery that suggests some cultural exchange between Byzantine Greeks and Sel uk Turks.
Overlooked by previous excavators because of the lack of monumental architecture, the
Byzantine period at Troy now offers significant stratified deposits conducive to archaeological
study. The information presented in this paper is an overview of the first synthetic treatment of
Byzantine material from Troy.
SESSION II
LITURGY, THEOLOGY, AND SPIRITUALITY
Chair: Georgia Frank (Colgate University)
The Liturgy of the Bridal Chamber:
An Introduction to the Problem of Its Origins
Gerasimos P. Pagoulatos (Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece)
Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the nightI see Thy bridal chamber
adorned, O my Saviour, and I have no wedding garment that I may enter there. Make the robe of
my soul to shine, O Giver of Light, and save me (three times).
In this paper, I study the problem of the nature and origins of the eleventh-century
Christ the Bridegroom Byzantine liturgy. In particular, I study the history of the bridal chamber
image from its origins in the third-century sources to its appearance in an eleventh-century Matins
of the Holy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of the Byzantine Office. The sources I examine
include the eleventh-century Matins, the Gospel of Philip, the Acts of Thomas, the Symposium by
Methodius of Olympus, and the chapel of the Dura-Europos Christian House. The textual sources
of the bridal chamber preserve a unique instance of a proper initiatory liturgy in pre-Constantinian
Christianity that advocated the liturgical use of the arts and placed Christs image at its center.
The Dura-Europos Christian House chapel was an exception of an aboveground Christian edifice
prior to the Peace of the Church where art was used in the rooms initiatory liturgy with the image
of Christ at its center. The eleventh-century liturgy indicates a striking similarity with these earliest
descriptions of the bridal chamber.
I argue that the bridal chamber is an initiatory liturgy in which the real presence of
Christ is signified by the image and the initiates are ontologically transformed to unite emotionally
with Christ through contemplation of His image. I also argue that the image of the bridal chamber
discussed extensively in the third-century sources continued to exist in a monastic milieu and
finally appeared in the eleventh-century Matins of the Bridegroom of the Byzantine Church
Divine Office for the Holy Week.
None of the liturgical scholars have analyzed this image. Theologians have considered

the bridal chamber a heretical subject because of its allusion to Gnosticism and therefore have
ignored its preservation in monastic milieus and appearance in the eleventh-century liturgy. Art
historians think that images were not used in the liturgy before the sixth century and it was not
until after 843 CE, that is, the end of Iconoclastic debate, that the Byzantine Church began to use
them liturgically. Archaeologists are not certain what the real function of the baptistery room was
because they have not studied the literary evidence sufficiently.
My study of the bridal chamber image will be interdisciplinary. I will bring historical,
literary, theological, archaeological, and art historical research to bear on the interpretation of a
major image of Byzantine Christianity.
The analysis of the bridal chamber will prove that the liturgical use of images began at
least in the third and not as commonly thought in the sixth and eleventh centuries. It will also
indicate the transformation of religious metaphors in a variety of literary, theological, architectural,
liturgical and visual environments.
Augustine and the Decline in Baptistery Construction:
The Evidence of Archaeology and Text
Caroline Downing (State University of New York College at Potsdam)
St. Augustines views on doctrinal, social and moral issues have profoundly influenced the
Church, even up to the present. It is the contention of this paper that Augustines views on
baptism, in particular, were one factor leading to the decrease in baptistery construction in the
fifth and sixth centuries.
Physical evidence of the decline is clear. Archaeological remains of baptisteries, despite many
problems in determining accurate dates, still show that by the seventh century very few
baptisteries were being constructed. A chart created from the evidence of published baptistery
remains demonstrates this decline. Of course, reasons for the decline in baptistery construction
are multiple and complex, including such factors as political instability and conversion of the
majority of citizens to Christianity (reducing the need for adult baptism). Another reason was a
significant change in the Churchs attitude toward baptism, which I propose was due in great part
to the philosophical arguments of St. Augustine.
Augustines writings were disseminated widely and much discussed in his lifetime; even his
sermons were recorded by notaries and published. Bishops, who were tied to their sees, often
used personal letters as a means of publicity; Augustine, whose see was Hippo Regius in North
Africa, was of necessity adept at exploiting this means. Jerome once wrote to Augustine
complaining testily that a letter from Augustine ostensibly intended for himself had in fact been
widely circulated throughout Italy before he even received it!
Baptism was a charged issue for Augustine, whose views on the subject have been characterized
as differing quite profoundly from those of his fellow churchmen. His views on original sin,
sharpened by his arguments against the Pelagian heresy, and later against Julian, are pertinent.
Original sin had long been associated with baptism, in art as well as in literature. In the thirdcentury baptistery excavated at Dura-Europos, a diminutive Adam and Eve, added after the time
of the original decoration, are painted directly above the baptismal pool. Clearly they are meant
to call to mind the reason for the necessity of baptism: the sin of the first parents. But Augustine
insisted upon infant baptism not only because of original sin, but also because even the sins of
the infants own actual parents could be a source of sin in the infant (Enchiridion 46). And
Augustines experience with desire that could not be controlled by his own will, so poignantly
lamented in The Confessions, led him to view nature itself as having been corrupted by original
sin, and humans as a consequence unable to avoid sinning. Since even after baptism humans
cannot control their powerful physical desires, baptism allows only the possibility (actually an
impossibility) of not sinning. Augustine had another reason to be suspicious of adult baptism, the

complex issue of rebaptism and the Donatist heresy. Augustine repeatedly denounced both
Donatists and the practice of rebaptism.
Because Augustines views on rebaptism and on baptism and original sin led him to devalue
adult baptism, he continually championed infant baptism. This in itself could be a reason for a
decline in baptistery construction. Infant baptism requires no elaborate baptismal pools, no
auxiliary rooms such as consignatoria, no long readings from scripture, or the like. Since the
views of this adamantine man became Catholic doctrine, it certainly seems possible that they
would have been powerful enough to influence early church building programs.
Spiritual Relationships among Monks during the Middle Byzantine Period
John D. Beetham (Catholic University of America)
A short but remarkable document is contained within the archive of the Esphigmenou monastery
of Mount Athos. It records provisions made by the protos of that monastery for his spiritual brother
when the latter returned after a thirty-six year absence, during which time he had directed a
monastery in central Asia Minor. When this monk returned, the protos of Esphigmenou provided
him with land on which to live and instructed that he should be remembered in the monasterys
liturgy. Both monks had been tonsured by the same spiritual father at Mount Athos.
The document from Esphigmenou attests to the strong ties created among those linked by
spiritual kinships, that is, relationships that are described in the language used for family but are
created through religious ceremony rather than blood ties. The subject of spiritual relationships is
one which has not been fully studied. Work has been done by I. Hausherr on the role of the
spiritual director in late antiquity, and by R. Morris on the links created among laypeople who had
the same spiritual father. R. Macrides has studied spiritual kinship among laypeople created by
baptismal sponsorship and adoption. Not as much attention has been given to spiritual
relationships among monks. This paper examines such relationships on the basis of materials
gleaned from monastic archives, as well as evidence from monastic typika and hagiography.
Overview of Theological Ideas in George Pachymeres Paraphrasis (PG Vol. 4, Cols. 608-609) of
Ps.-Dionysios Areopagites On Divine Names (DN 587B1-588A2)
Oleh Kindiy (Catholic University of America)
George Pachymeres (1242- ca. 1310) is primarily renowned among the scholars of Byzantium as
an objective historian. However, there is little known about him as a scholar and writer of
wide-ranging interests, including philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, and law (The Oxford
Dictionary of Byzantium. ed. by Alexander P. Kazhdan. v. 3. New York; Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1991, p. 1550). In this paper, a short passage of theological content is translated and
given a certain contextual perspective through a comparison with the texts and ideas
Pachymeres made use of while compiling his Paraphrasis of several tomes of Ps.-Dionysios the
Areopagite (ca. 500), using auxiliary sources, such as the Scholia of Maximos the Confessor
(580-662) and John of Skythopolis (or Scholastikos, ca. 536-50).
There is a certain intellectual bondage of ideas between Pachymeres and Dionysios, which can
be explained by the popularity and authority of the mystical trend of spirituality in the intellectual
circles of Byzantium. From Plato via Plotinus and Proclus, on the Hellenic side, and via Origen,
Dionysios, Scholastikos, on the Christian side, the tradition of a sophisticated philosophizing with
a highly developed hierarchical and cosmological world-view had been handed over to
Pachymeres. Therefore, there can be traced, at least partially with the examples of several
theological terms in the chosen passage, the way this tradition had been perceived till the period
of the late Byzantine theological thought represented by Pachymeres.
The examples Pachymeres notes and emphasizes in his Paraphrasis are the following: a)

Dionysios ties with antiquity, philosophy, and the Athenian Areopagus; b) his relation to Timothy
and Paul, and thus to the Apostolic succession, ecclesiastical authority, and the province of Asia;
c) his allegiance to the scriptural rule and self-reference to his Theological Outlines; and d) an
allusion to the rhetorical devices of syllogisms and geometrical methods refuted by Paul.
In several sentences of the introduction of Pachymeres Paraphrasis of Dionysian On Divine
Names, the main themes are the capacities and limits of humankind; the spiritual ascent from
dispersed sensual perception to the unity of the intellect; kataphatic and apophatic approaches to
theology. However bold the conclusions might be, only the further study of the entire text will
allow us to evaluate Pachymeres fidelity to the Dionysian ideas, the originality of his own
thoughts, and his reception of Scholastikos Scholia. All we want to point out in this paper is that
in works of Dionysios, Scholastikos, and Pachymeres we observe how the idea in the form of a
text grows, evolves. The text is preserved as the center of a certain theological and
philosophical school of thinking and has become an inspiration for numerous commentaries and
theological treatises, having been also adopted and transformed for the new generations of
different audiences. Thus, Pachymeres accomplished his task of transmitting this intellectual
tradition, laying the foundation for successive generations of the Byzantine theology.
SESSION III
Archaeology I
Chair: Sheila McNally (University of Minnesota)
Ceramic Evidence from the Monastic Settlement of John the Little,
Wadi Natrun, Egypt
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom (Wittenberg University)
Kellia, Nitria and Scetis are three of the earliest known monastic sites in Egypt. The
extensive excavations at Kellia illustrate the complexity of monastic settlements in the Early
Byzantine period and testify to the longevity of monasticism under the Abbasid and Fatimid
caliphates. Recent excavations at Scetis provide comparable material to Kellia for assessing the
regional character of monastic living in the NW Delta. The topos of John the Little in Wadi Natrun,
one of several sites at Scetis, is a settlement with diverse architectural phases similar to those
found at Kellia; however unlike Kellia, which was abandoned in the 9th century, the site of Johns
community lasted well into the 14th century. Therefore, this settlement affords the opportunity to
begin examining how monastic living fared after the Crusades and the rise of the Mamluks.
This paper will provide an introduction to the ceramic corpus recovered thus far from
three areas of exploration at the topos of John the Little. Several complete vessels and diagnostic
pieces accord with examples found at Kellia and at comparable monastic sites such as Gebel anNaqlun, Saqqarra, and Esna. With much of the ceramic typology of Early Byzantine and Islamic
Egypt still under debate, this preliminary study of the ceramic evidence from Scetis will
demonstrate the importance of the site for studying the distribution and production of both luxury
and daily use vessels in the NW Delta. Examples of Coptic glazeware, Fayyumi ware and later
Ayyubid vessels indicate that the monks at the topos of John the Little were not isolated from
trade routes, but were recipients of gifts, used standardized vessels for every day use, and
owned vessels more commonly associated with the trading markets in Fustat/al-Qahira and
Alexandria.
Chemical Analysis of Port Saint Symeon Ceramics
Scott Redford (Georgetown University)
Port St. Symeon ceramics are the most common glazed ceramics of the 13th century

Mediterranean. Transported by trading networks of the Italian maritime republics, they have been
found around the Mediterranean as far west as Pisa and the Black Sea as far north as the
Crimea. Their popularity seems to be based on, 1) decoration consisting of abstractions of
astrological and heraldic signs common to Latin, Greek, and Islamic societies alike and, 2)
availability based on consistent and mass manufacture and transport.
Because of their ubiquity and the ambivalence of their decoration, PSS ceramics have
been hard to locate both culturally and in terms of manufacture. Their conventional name was
given to them after the 1930s excavation of the port of Antioch, Port Saint Symeon, or al-Mina,
uncovered many examples of these ceramics and kiln furniture, establishing their manufacture
there in the 13th century. PSS ceramics have continued to be associated exclusively with that
small port and with its Latin masters. PSS ceramics have been called the most typical of
Crusader ceramics by one noted scholar.
In 1996, I initiated a research project to undertake the chemical (Neutron Activation)
analysis of PSS ceramics with Dr. James Blackman of the Smithsonian Institution. The aim of
this study was to understand production and distribution of this pottery in order better to locate it
within the nexus of the booming trade in the 13th century eastern Mediterranean.
The project takes as its baseline the site of Kinet (Crusader Canamella, Arab al-Tinat),
a Mediterranean port on the border between the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of
Armenian Cilicia. Canamella was a Templar port. Kiln furniture and unfinished sherds of PSS
ceramics were recovered from Kinets medieval levels.
In addition to Kinet, excavated pottery from Antioch and Port Saint Symeon has been
analyzed, allowing for the isolation of chemical signatures for three production centers. The data
set of excavated material has been expanded to unprovenienced ceramics in museum
collections. To date, PSS vessels in Dumbarton Oaks, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
David Collection, and the Freer Gallery of Art have been sampled. Based on a comparison of the
clay from these vessels, attributions have been made to different production centers.
In this way, the study of archaeologically provenienced ceramics and chemical analysis
are helping to localize one category of medieval artefact, opening the door to grounded
discussions of cultural meaning and interaction.
A Hoard of Byzantine Pentanummi
Peter Lampinen (Combined Caesarea Expeditions)
A newly discovered hoard of over 1000 Byzantine bronze 5 nummium (pentanummi)
pieces originated in the Syria-Palestine region. Hoards consisting solely of small denomination
Byzantine bronzes are scarce in their own right, and this find reveals some very unusual features
in addition.
The coins are of a familiar type, with right facing bust of the emperor on the obverse
and XP (Chi-Rho) monogram with denomination on reverse. The type was struck by three
successive emperors in the 6th century, Anastasius I, Justin I and Justinian I up to 538 AD, the
year of Justinians coinage reform. This hoard shows anomalous features, most notably
unrecorded stylistic variations and several overstrikes that prove they were in fact struck in the
early 7th century, most likely during the reign of Heraclius. The suggestion is made that they are
local productions of the Syria-Palestine region in the chaotic interval between the Persian and
Islamic incursions.
Reasons will be offered for the re-introduction of a coin type after a nearly one hundred
year hiatus, and the problems that ensue for the archaeologist using numismatic data for dating
purposes.

SESSION IV
Interpretation of Texts
Chair: Sarolta Takacs (Rutgers University)
Cult and Competition:
Textual Appropriation in the Fifth-Century Life and Miracles of Thekla
Scott Johnson (Oxford University)
In this paper I relate some preliminary conclusions from my D.Phil. research into the fifth-century
Life and Miracles of Thekla. Principally, I try to demonstrate that the portion of the work dedicated
to the Life was composed as a unit with the Miracles and was designed to be read as such. In
support of my argument I make a brief comparison between the biographical elements of the Life
and Miracles and the contemporary rewritings and translations of the second-century Acts of Paul
and Thekla. Even though Stephen Davis in The Cult of St Thecla (Oxford, 2001) has recently
analyzed these texts in the context of pilgrimage activity in Seleucia and Egypt, no detailed study
has yet been made on the way the Acts was received in the fourth and fifth centuries. I argue that
the Life and Miracles reveals its author not only as competing for episcopal preeminence with the
official ecclesiastical establishment of Seleuciaa fact emphasized by the texts editor Gilbert
Dagron (Vie et Miracles de Sainte Thcle, Brussels, 1978)but also as competing textually with
other lives of Thekla, whose cult was being appropriated at this time by a number of textual
communities (in Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere in the East). By rewriting the story of Theklas life
and by situating her post-mortem miracles in Seleucia, the author of the Life and Miracles was
claiming both textual and locative priority in the spectrum of texts and places devoted to Thekla.
On the basis of this evidence I also venture some general conclusions on the reception of earlyChristian apocryphal texts in Byzantine literature.
This paper stems from a broader interest in miracle collections in late antiquity. There are nine
such collections in Greek which all concern a different saint and extend in date from the fifth to
the eighth centuries. My D.Phil. thesis is an attempt to consider these catalogues as one dossier
of texts, dependent upon one another for their individual textual evolution, but more importantly,
dependent as a group upon certain social and religious assumptions about the importance of
locality for the reception of the miraculous. In this paper I compare other, contemporary miraclecollecting activity by Christian writers in the East and West to further contextualize the Life and
Miracles of Thekla. The miracle collections of Augustine and Gregory of Tours, for example, both
show similar tendencies toward emphasizing local details in order to legitimize the supernatural
activity they record.
While the paper described here is concerned primarily with the textual transmission of the lives of
Thekla, I suggest further avenues of inquiry and comparison based upon my broader field of
research. I hope to get feedback from Byzantinists working on saints lives that contain stories of
miracles within their narratives: such texts provide a necessary framework for looking at miracle
collections as a literary phenomenon in their own right.
Recovering a Byzantine Author: Sophronius of Alexandria
John Duffy (Harvard University)
Compared to his well-know namesake -- the seventh century patriarch of Jerusalem --,
Sophronius of Alexandria barely hangs on to existence in the realm of scholarship. This second
and later Sophronius was patriarch of Alexandria for almost twenty years in the ninth century
(841-860), but is now little more than a name, as a glance at the standard reference works will
quickly confirm. Indeed, apart from the two instances we will mention, the rest is largely silence.

Hungers Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner (II, 14) makes a one-line passing
remark on his grammatical work, while Becks Kirche und theologische Literatur im
byzantinischen Reich (p. 496), with almost equal brevity, simply records that a lost treatise by him
on icon veneration is known only from a citation in a Christian Arabic chronicle of the later ninth
century.
Recent developments should change that situation considerably.
Among the sensational 1975 Greek manuscript finds at Mt. Sinai are thirteen parchment leaves
(9th-10th cent.) preserving parts of the first five books of the Iliad and accompanied by an
interlinear exegesis under the name of Sophronius. These materials are being prepared for
publication by Professor Nikolopoulos in Athens.
Less spectacular in detection, but obviously of no less importance, is the revelation that the
treatise on holy icons has been lying for centuries, dormant and more or less totally unnoticed, in
a thirteenth century manuscript currently housed in the British Library. And what is more,
immediately following that work is a second document on the same subject with the title: Tou
makariou Sophroniou patriarchou Alexandreias peri ton pansepton eikonon kata antithesin kai
antiphrasin. I have now begun to prepare the first edition of these two texts for the Greek series of
the Corpus Christianorum and my talk presents a preliminary report on progress made to date. I
pay particular attention to issues such as the general style and content of the argumentation and
to the place that Sophronius treatises might occupy in the larger context of iconodulic writings.
The Sarcophagus of Basil II (d. 1025)
Paul Stephenson (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
The mortal remains of Eastern Roman emperors were, as a rule, installed within the Church of
the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. There were exceptions to this rule, often not at the dead
emperors choosing. A notable exception was Basil II, who chose to be buried outside the citys
walls, in the church of St. John the Evangelist at the Hebdomon Palace complex. Clearly, this was
not through lack of space at Holy Apostles, since there was room enough, or just about, within the
Mausoleum of Constantine the Great for the sarcophagus of Basils younger brother,
Constantine VIII (d. 1028).We are informed of Basils choice in a number of sources, the most
important of which is the emperors own epitaph, originally an inscription associated with his
sarcophagus. This epitaph, reproduced and translated below, also provides the basis for a
plausible explanation for his self-imposed isolation, which we will outline.
b

Other past emperors previously

designated for themselves other burial places.

g b , ,

But I, Basil, born in the purple chamber,

^
d

place my tomb on the site of the Hebdomon

and take sabbaths rest from the endless toils

, .

which I satisfied in wars and which I endured.

r e ,

For nobody saw my spear at rest,

\ y f
,

from when the Emperor of Heaven called me

to the rulership of this great empire on earth,

\ e
^ a

but I was vigilant through the whole span of my life

guarding the children of New Rome

b e ,

marching bravely to the West and

b e f f f .
d d ,
this,
f x \, \, , .
d , , e

as far as the very frontiers of the East.

The Persians and Scythians bear witness to

and along with them Abasgos, Ismael, Araps, Iber.

And now, good man, looking upon this tomb

a a .

reward my campaigns with prayers.

Select Bibliography
S. G. Mercati, Sullepitafio di Basilio II Bulgaroctonos, and Lepitafio di Basilio Bulgaroctonos
secondo il codice Modense Greco 144 ed Ottoboniano Greco 324, in his Collectanea Byzantina,
II (Bari, 1970), 226-31, 231-4; J. Ebersolt, Mission arch ologique de Constantinople 1920 (Paris,
1921), 1-27; P. J. Thibaut, LHebdomon de Constantinople. Nouvel examen topographique,
EO 21 (1922), 31-44; Th. Makridy [= Makrides] & J. Ebersolt, Monuments fun raires de
Constantinople, BCH 46 (1922), 363-93; Th. K. Makrides, To Vyzantinon Evdomon kai ai
parautoi Monai, Thrakika 12 (1939), 35-80; J. Demangel, Contribution la topographie de
lHebdomon (Paris 1945), 1-2, 53-4.
SESSION V
Women and Byzantium
Chair: Alice-Mary Talbot (Dumbarton Oaks)
The Case of Iusta Grata Honoria and Imperial Women in Late Antiquity
Ian S. R. Mladjov (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Though still greatly restricted by their social environment, imperial women in the Late Empire
loom considerably larger than their predecessors. The career of Iusta Grata Honoria embodies
the prospects open to imperial daughters by the 5th century. Among the women of the
Theodosian house, Honoria is remembered as a traitor who conspired with the Empires sworn
enemy to exact vengeance on her brother Valentinian III. Honorias reputation is based on the
testimony of several sources that relate a similar tale but often disagree over its details. Various
elements of Honorias life and its chronology remain open to scholarly dispute and deserve to be
considered from the point of view of prosopography.
Honoria was born to Flavius Constantius and Galla Placidia, half-sister of Emperor Honorius, in
417 or 418. In 421 Honorius associated his brother-in-law on the throne, but Constantius III died
seven months later. The widowed Augusta Galla Placidia remained influential with her brother
until the siblings quarreled in 423. Exiled, Galla Placidia and her two children sought refuge with
her nephew Theodosius II, emperor at Constantinople. Later that same year Honorius died in
Ravenna and his chief notary Iohannes seized the throne. Theodosius II sent out his generals
Ardaburius and Aspar to eliminate Iohannes, and in October 425 Honorias brother Valentinian III
was crowned Augustus.

Honoria became Augusta by mid-426 but only reappears in the sources some fifteen years later,
when the poet Flavius Merobaudes described her as the moon reflecting her brothers sunlight.
Honorias fortunes changed in the middle of the century. At about thirty-two years of age,
invested with the symbols of imperial power but expected to remain chaste in keeping with the
dignity of the court, Honoria was caught in an illicit affair with her procurator Eugenius. Eugenius
was executed, while Honoria was deprived of her imperial rank and temporarily banished from
court. Whether she was pregnant and exiled to Constantinople as implied by Count Marcellinus
is unclear. By July 450, Honoria, betrothed and then probably married to the future consul Flavius
Bassus Herculanus, had appealed to Attila to save her from her brothers power and avenge
her marriage.
First to learn of this, Theodosius II immediately wrote to Valentinian III, advising that Honoria be
turned over to Attila. Valentinian, however, conducted an investigation and denied Attila both
Honoria and a share of the Empire. Priscus claims that, at the time, Honorias life was spared as
a gift to her mother. During his invasions of Gaul (451) and Italy (452) Attila repeatedly
demanded Honoria as his betrothedproducing the ring she had sent him as pledgeand her
share in the royal wealth. We may presume that she was still alive, and the Honoria
question remained part of diplomacy through 452. Her mother had died in November 450, and
with the death of Attila in 453, she may have lost her last protector. If Valentinian was bent on
revenge, he was now free to exact it. There is no reason for the man who personally cut down
Aetius to have refrained from punishing his rebellious sister. She was certainly dead by May 455,
when, on Valentinians own assassination all the surviving imperial women in Rome became the
object of dynastic aspirations.
In addition to having been an unresolved mystery, Honorias career is significant as testimony to
the options open to imperial women in the Late Roman Empire. What Gibbon once termed
Honorias adventures illustrate all four careers a daughter of an emperor could pursue in her
age. Unlike their predecessors, 4th- and 5th-century imperial women could contract not only the
customary unions to members of the elite and/or for dynastic purposes, but now they had
recourse to the additional two options of remaining single or marrying barbarian leaders.
In the beginning, while honored with the exalted rank of Augusta, Honoria was supposed to keep
chaste and unmarried, following a novel and popular option adopted by imperial families in the
4th century. She spoiled that directive by having an affair with Eugenius. Since Herculanus, to
whom she was later betrothed, is described by Priscus as a man of such good character that he
was suspected of designs neither on kingship nor on revolution, we may safely conclude
Eugenius and his relationship with Honoria were perceived in exactly the opposite way.
Valentinian apparently thought Honoria was trying to raise another man to status of emperor and
possibly to replace him. Unwilling to marry the nobleman Herculanus, or seeking revenge after
being forced to marry, Honoria turned to Attila. We do not know what she asked of him, but the
barbarian king proceeded to present himself as her champion and fianc . Attilas claim that
Honoria be sent to him as his betrothed indicates a real or fabricated attempt at a marriage
between a Roman princess and a barbarian king. That Honoria did not marry Attila and may
never have intended to do so is of no consequencehis interpretation of her appeal as an offer of
marriage is simply another example of a new option for the marriage of imperial princesses:
unlike Honoria, her mother Galla Placidia and her niece Eudoxia did marry barbarian kings.
Thus, in an intriguing though unsuccessful career, Honoria epitomizes all four prospects open to a
woman of her rank in Late Antiquity, prospects that remained largely unchanged until the age of
the Komnenoi.
The Literary Structure of Prokopios Secret History: A New Explanation
Anthony Kaldellis (The Ohio State University)
The Secret History of Prokopios is the most widely read work of Byzantine literature,
and probably the single most influential source for the reign of Justinian. In a tone that is

sometimes hysterical, it offers a detailed criticism of Justinians administration, and a behind-thescenes look at the private life of the court. But historians have been at a loss as to how to
approach this text. It resists categorization by genre, and even its fundamental coherence has
been questioned. Does it have an underlying structure, or -- as per the current consensus -- is it a
hasty selection of information that Prokopios could not include in the Wars?
In this paper I offer a new explanation for the structure and content of the Secret
History. Though it does not conform to any known genre, it is fully a literary work, in the sense
that the selection, order, and presentation of events is subordinated at all times to specific literary
themes. It is the task of the interpreter to discover those themes and explain how the work is
structured around them.
For instance, the last part of the Secret History, concerned with financial and
administrative issues, is a point-by-point response to Justinians legislation, particularly the
Novels. Many Novels have not survived, but most of Prokopios text can be matched up with
extant laws, often with exact verbal allusions. His purpose is to prove that Justinian did not
adhere to the good provisions of his own edicts, or to demonstrate the sinister intent behind other
specific edicts. This part of the text is therefore a legal commentary of sorts. This connection has
not been seen because historians generally do not read the Novels, while legal scholars are not
interested in the literary aspects of the Secret History.
The Secret History deconstructs Justinians regime on three levels, the third being the
legal one. I offer similar arguments about the other two. The first, on Belisarios, has also
perplexed scholars: it claims to be about Belisarios, but its protagonist is first Antonina, then
Theodora. There is also an extended digression on the king of Persia; does this part of the text
have any coherence? I will argue that it is in fact closely structured around the theme of rule of
women, or gynaikokratia. The order of accusations yields an overall argument about the rule of
feminine vice, and its effects. The progression of this theme can explain every major aspect of the
text, such as selection, order, and nuance.
The Secret History is a carefully written work of literature that follows its own rules, not
any formalized genre. By exposing the unity behind its different parts, I hope to provide a new
interpretive model for passages that have long interested scholars, such as Prokopios portrayal
of women and his demonization of Justinian.
Theodore Balsamons Canonical Images of Women
Patrick Viscuso (Independent Scholar)
Canon law often contains legal stipulations limiting the actions of women in order to
prevent defilement and impurity. In particular, provisions concerning sexual morality contain
detailed descriptions of female anatomy and faculties. This brief study will examine the
descriptions of women contained in the writings of the Byzantine canonist, Theodore Balsamon
(ca. 1130/1140 - death after 1195) resident at Constantinople during the reign of Manuel I
Komnenos.
Balsamon, a chartophylax of the ecumenical patriarchate and patriarch of Antioch, was
noted for his commentaries on the received corpus of Byzantine canon law as well as the
Nomonkanon in Fourteen Titles. He is also the author of legal treatises and canonical responses
dealing with a variety of subjects, including marital issues, abortion, and childbirth. The
canonists works were extremely influential and emerged as a standard source for Orthodox
canonists and theologians.
Based on the examination of selected texts, a systematic presentation will be made of
Balsamons scientific and theological thought on womens bodies, cognitive faculties, and
spirituality. An analysis will be made regarding the effect of these views on women in canonical

legislation. An attempt will be made to determine the limits of the canonists direct experience of
his subject material and the use of literary sources. Among the questions considered will be
intended audience and possible criticism of contemporary sexual mores. More general
conclusions will be derived on the construction of women in Byzantine social ordering and class
relationships affected by gender.
SESSION VI
Architecture and Decoration
Chair: Ioli Kalavrezou (Harvard University)
Faces of Stone: Donor Portraits in the Mosaic Floor Pavements of Early Byzantine Palestine
Karen C. Britt (Indiana University)
The prevalence of donor portraits as a standard feature in the adornment of the walls of churches
during the Byzantine period is revealed by extant examples in a small number of well-preserved
churches as well as by literary and epigraphic sources. The portraits, which often included
inscriptions, provide valuable insight into the modes, methods and reasons for the patronage of
church construction and decoration. However, issues of patronage in the case of the churches
throughout the empire that have been unearthed during archaeological excavations and hence,
are in a poorer state of preservation, often remain a mystery. A surprising and unique exception
is Byzantine Palestine, where more than a few mosaic floor pavements have been discovered
that include portraits of male and female donors. Nowhere else are they such a feature of church
floor decoration.
It appears that the donor portraits can be broadly divided into two categories: formal and informal.
The formal portraits consist of busts or rigid, hieratic full-length figures. The informal portraits
capture the donor engaged in activities of daily life. Interestingly, a combination of the two
categories of portraiture can occur in the same mosaic pavement. For example, two
intercolumnia pavements in the sixth-century church at Kissufim in the Negev contain portrait
compositions; one of the pavements depicts two female busts while in the other a male figure is
shown leading a camel. Both portraits have inscriptions that reveal the identity of the figures and,
in the case of the informal portrait, this is particularly helpful since without the proper name of the
male figure there is nothing to distinguish the subject of this pavement from an ordinary pastoral
scene commonly found in the iconographical repertoire of this region.
In this paper, the choice of iconography, compositional arrangement and stylistic details of the
donor portraits, along with their inscriptions, are examined in an effort to determine who the
donors were, (i.e. clergy, governmental officials, or local aristocracy) and whether the portraits
represent only the donors themselves or whether there are instances when the donor
commemorated othersliving or deceased. An attempt is made to discern whether the portraits
are true likenesses or merely portrait-types. Trends in the placement of the portraits within the
mosaic pavement (displayed prominently or relegated to inconspicuous areas) are analyzed in
order to ascertain if their locations have any function or significance. The aforementioned areas
of inquiry, in addition to an examination of the attitudes of the Church towards art in the written
sources, are necessary to gain an understanding of the most important question concerning
these donor portraits: how should they be interpreted? Are the portraits examples of
aggrandizing memorials or symbols of humility since the images of the donor and his/her family
appear on a surface below the feet of the faithful?
A New Group of Middle Byzantine Architectural Sculpture
from Panakton (Boeotia)
Heather E. Grossman (University of Pennsylvania)

The several fragments of architectural sculpture uncovered during recent excavations at the site
of Panakton reveal strong stylistic similarities to other works from the regions of Attica, Boeotia.
All of the nine works are incomplete, suggesting they are spolia from ancient and earlier
Byzantine monuments in the Skourta Plain. This paper constitutes the first public presentation of
these materials. As such, it adds new pieces to the relatively small known corpus of
archaeologically contextualized middle Byzantine sculpture, and provides further evidence of an
atelier working in the Attica-Boeotia region in the later twelfth and early thirteenth century.
The sculpted fragments can be divided into three functional groups: altar table pieces, door
jambs, and epistyle fragments, some of which were reused as door lintels at the Panakton site.
All of the works were found in or near the late medieval villages church. The first group of
nineteen fragments represents at least two bevel-edged slabs, most likely used as the churchs
altar table and adjacent prothesis table. The second group comprises three non-joining, but
identically profiled, sections of door jambs. The remaining pieces comprise seven fragments of
epistyles decorated with foliate, guilloche and zoomorphic motifs.
The technique and designs of the carvings closely connect them to the sculpted ornamentation of
the katholikon of Hosios Meletios, a church visible from Panakton and an important monastic
center in the region. The sculpture from that building has been dated to the twelfth century.
Close parallels can also be found in sculpture from the twelfth-century church of Christ the Savior
in Amphissa, the twelfth-century katholikon of the Sagmata monastery near Thebes, and from the
twelfth-century Hagios Nikolaos sta Kambia, near Orchomenos. Contemporary pieces from
Athens, in the Little Metropolis as well as in the collections of the Byzantine and Christian
Museum and the Athenian Agora, provide further comparative materials.
The strong comparisons link the Panakton fragments to the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century
carving traditions of Attica and Boeotia. Moreover, the atelier patronized by the monastery of H.
Meletios and its metochia, recently described by C. Vanderheyde, likely created the majority of
the Panakton pieces (for her description see, La sculpture architecturale du katholikon dHosios
Meletios et lemergence dun style nouveau au dbut du XIIe sicle, Byzantion 64:2 (1994)
396-402). Though the original context of the pieces cannot be determined with certainty and may
only become apparent with further excavation in the Skourta Plain, it seems clear that the pieces
are spolia from local monuments and that little new carving was undertaken for the decoration of
the church of medieval Panakton. The fragments demonstrate a local taste for spolia from before
the Frankish conquest; this choice was likely prompted either by a conscious desire to maintain
continuity with earlier, local religious structures, by economic necessity, or some combination of
these two factors.
The Use of Relief Sculpture on Late Byzantine Church Fa ades
Jelena Trkulja (Princeton University)
The use of relief sculpture on Byzantine church faades--from the Justinianic era until the
beginning of the Paleologan period--is rather uncommon, and when encountered is applied in a
sporadic and unsystematic fashion. A twelfth-century Athenian church, known as the Little
Metropolis, exemplifies an uncharacteristically enthusiastic approach to architectural sculpture. In
most other monuments sculptural decoration consists of spolia from Late Antique and earlier
buildings, or of reliefs that were originally elements of church furniture (parapet slabs, pilasters of
the templon screen, etc.). These odd pieces are applied to fa ades in an arbitrary manner. They
are displayed as trophies, ornaments pleasing to the eye, and not as the elements of a coherent
decorative program. The church of the Koimesis at Merbaka is the case in point. In some of the
Comnenian buildings, sculptural pieces are used to frame windows and doors, but their
decorative role ends there. They do not extend to other areas of the walls in a programmatic way.
During the Late Byzantine period architectural sculpture gains prominence, not least because the

tradition of stone carving was revived, and original sculpture was used instead of spolia.
Frequently combined with ceramoplastic and painted decoration, sculptural decoration becomes
increasingly organized.
The differences in local building practices contributed to uneven propagation of the trend.
Nonetheless, the increased interest in sculptural decoration is evident in various parts of the
Byzantine world: from Bulgaria (the fourteenth-century church of St. John Aliturgitos in
Mesembria) to Peloponnesus (Panagia Pantanassa in Mistra, 1428). In the churches belonging to
the so-called Morava School, where the tendency was fully developed, the sculpture is
organized into a sophisticated decorative program completely integrated with architecture.
Moreover, it can be claimed that growing popularity of sculpture was paralleled by increasingly
more sculptural treatment of the whole building. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the
Morava School churches.
This paper will offer a unified picture of the development of sculptural decoration over time. It will
consider the relationship between sculpture and other forms of external decoration
(ceramoplastic, painted), and determine its place in the general decorative scheme. Most
importantly, it will show how the evolution of relief sculpture has reflected on the design of
faades and appearance of a building as a whole.
SESSION VII
Manuscript Studies
Chair: Nancy Sevenko (U.S. National Byzantine Committee)
Putting Vergil on Display after 476
David H. Wright (University of California at Berkeley)
There are eight surviving ancient codices of Vergil, all from the fifth century, some only
fragments, two of them palimpsests, but with careful examination it becomes clear that they were
books of very different character, made for different purposes. None has a documented date
(now that Alan Cameron has discounted the evidence for the Mediceus) but good evidence from
the style of script, colophons, decoration, and illustration places the first around 400 and the last
two around 480 and 500 (within a decade or so) [see my recent books on the Vatican and Roman
Vergils]. For defining the character of these different books various data are needed, including
the approximate reconstructed original size, the ruled area, and the approximate size of the letter
M (data to be distributed at the meeting).
Considering the books in chronological order, from such data it is clear that the first two were
intended to be held in the lap for reading. Even if the luxurious Vaticanus was very bulky, its page
size made it small enough to be held and the pages turned while reading for pleasure, enjoying
the illustrations as you came to them in the text. The unillustrated Mediceus is still smaller and
easier to hold for reading. The larger Veronensis had an entirely different purpose, for it was
designed as a vast repository of scholia, a reference book for special study rather than for
continuous reading; it was the kind of book that in the Carolingian era would have been laid out in
three columns, as was the Tours Vergil. The more formal Palatinus is significantly larger,
probably best read on a table. The Oxyrhynchus fragment comes from a book almost that big but
is noteworthy primarily because it is written in tentative Square capitals, the first attempt to
introduce into a book the style of grand lettering in imperial inscriptions of former times, such as
the bronze letters set in marble on the Arch of Constantine.
The last three books in the sequence (Sangallensis, Romanus, Augusteus), on the other hand,
were much too big to hold; they had to be displayed on a stand. One may wonder if such books
were actually read, or rather displayed like todays coffee-table book for the admiration of guests.

Furthermore, Square capitals in scriptura continua (as in the Sangallensis and Augusteus, with
the Oxyrhynchus fragment the only ancient books known to have been written in Square capitals)
are intrinsically difficult to read and the large Rustic capitals in the Romanus are so artificial as
also to be difficult. Above all, the removal of illustrations from the text in the Romanus made them
suitable only for display, and the large initial decoration at the start of every page, even in the
middle of a sentence, made the Augusteus specially ostentatious. It is striking that this
presentation of the preeminent national poet came towards the end of the fifth century as the last
remnants of the Latin Empire collapsed and a Gothic king took control of Ravenna. These
extraordinarily luxurious books were nostalgic expressions of longing for the grandeur of the past,
returning to the Square capitals of the greatest imperial inscriptions (no longer in use), and
including in the illustrations of the Romanus support specifically for pagan traditions.
Iconography and the Question of a Model for the Madrid Skylitzes
Christine Havice (University of Kentucky)
The variety of styles in the Madrid manuscript of Skyltizes Chronicle has long been
studied, most notably by Jos Maria Fernandez Pomar (1964) and then by Andr Grabar (1979).
Following an observation by Ihor evenko (1984), codicological analysis of the manuscript
reveals that these styles are due to three teams of artists working simultaneously on the
manuscript in what we may call parts A, B, and C (corresponding largely to Grabars stylistic
parts AB, C, and D). Codicology has also revealed that the artists working in the Byzantine style
of part A labored systematically for the first third of the manuscript, while disruptions in patterns of
production in parts B and C suggest less stability as its later portions were illuminated.
Corresponding to these stylistic and codicological divisions in the manuscript are iconographic
patterns, some of which have been noted in the literature. What has not yet been recognized,
however, is the significance of these variations for the question of whether the Madrid Skylitzes
was copied from a model or created new in the twelfth century. evenko argued for the latter, on
the basis of formal analyses and comparisons with other twelfth-century illuminated manuscripts
in the West. By contrast, Nicholas Oikonomides (1992) pointed out important iconographic
details which only a Byzantine artist working in Constantinople itself would know, claiming the
Madrid manuscript for the capital. In light of other artistic and paleographic evidence of a Sicilian
origin for the Madrid manuscript, I would like to retain the essence of Oikonomides conclusions
by interjecting the Constantinopolitan manuscript as a model then imported to Sicily. If we note
that evenkos evidence came largely from part B of the Madrid manuscript, while
Oikonomides from part A, it becomes possible that both were correct.
Examination of the iconography of the miniatures across the three parts of the
manuscript confirms that, in part A of the Madrid Skylitzes, the style is indubitably influenced by
Byzantium, as is the iconography. In parts B and C of the manuscript, the relationship of
miniatures to details in the text is more generic, and the miniatures reveal little or no awareness
of iconography or visual conventions characteristic of part A. As one example, the miniature at
fol.34v (in part A) represents the Imperials using Greek fire, in conformity with the text, to destroy
the anchored fleet of the rebel Thomas. The only other miniature which illustrates an episode
where the text specifies Greek fire appears on fol.226v, at the end of part C: The artist represents
a naval battle but omits the liquid fire specified even in the accompanying inscription. From this
we may posit that the artist had no miniature with details such as found in part A and so worked
from the text, creating a generic battle scene without the dramatic detail. To establish this pattern
of variation across all three parts of the Madrid Skylitzes, this paper also re-examines the image
of the enthroned basileus.
This paper suggests that the team of artists responsible for part A of the Madrid Skylitzes had
before them an illuminated book -- logically, the manuscript from which the scribe had copied the
text, the manuscript Oikonomides artist had illumined in the capital -- which was not used by the
artists of parts B and C, for reasons that have yet to be understood. If such is the case, it also

means that the Madrid manuscript is not homogeneous, and that any discussion of its miniatures
must take into account varying iconographic traditions and narrative strategies across its three
parts.
Un-orthodox Imagery in the Madrid Skylitzes
Elena N. Boeck (Yale University)
The 574 surviving illustrations of the Madrid Skylitzes provide rich scenes of imperial, civic, and
military life in the Byzantine empire. But are they Byzantine images? While several previous
studies have posited that the Madrid manuscript is a copy of a Comnenian original, this study
argues that the iconography of the visual narrative, even images in the so-called Byzantine hand,
is too un-orthodox to be considered an imperial commission.
The presentation of Iconoclasm in the visual narrative casts considerable doubt on the
manuscripts presumed imperial origin. Not simply is Iconoclasm presented in a misunderstood
and misguided manner, but the imagery in several specific cases is clearly un-Orthodox. The
most glaring example of this is the fact that John the Grammarian is often depicted with a halo
and is in no way distinguishable from his Iconodule enemies. How could a Byzantine patron have
approved of image after image in which the arch-villains of Byzantine history, Iconoclast emperors
and patriarchs, are assigned symbols of sanctity? Both groups were clearly anathematized and
damned in the various compilations of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. During the time in which the
Skylitzes is presumed to have originated as an imperial commission, the Bogomils resurrected
the Iconoclast controversies.
Given the circumstances of the reign of Alexios Komnenos, it seems highly improbable that
images favorable to Iconoclasts could have been produced at that time. Anna Komnena devotes
a considerable portion of Book 15 to her fathers crushing of the Bogomils. We know that Alexios
revised and updated the Synodikon and personally interrogated Bogomils. Euthymios Zigabenos
specifically links the Bogomils to the Iconoclasts saying they [the Bogomils] banish all pious
emperors from the fold of Christians, and they say that only the Iconoclasts are orthodox and
faithful, especially Copronymus. It seems unlikely that an imperial workshop could have
produced images so insensitive to such a burning issue for both imperial and Church leaders.
The construction of the visual narrative, the process of selecting and excluding episodes from the
chronicle when planning the iconographic program, also exposes evidence of desacralization. A
sequence of six images illustrates an incident in which Iconodule Patriarch Methodios is accused
of illicit intercourse. In a rare use of nakedness in the manuscript, an image depicts the patriarch
displaying his lack of genitals in front of empress Theodora. In this specific case, an image of
public humiliation was chosen to be highlighted, while the concomitant miracle recounted in the
text, in which St. Peter himself withered the genitals of Methodios to save him from carnal desire,
is excluded. The detached view of history that this image embodies is just a small, but glaring,
example of the overall cultural ambiguity of the visual narrative.
In sum, rather than a regal representation of reality, the visual narrative presents a voyeurs view
of Byzantine history. Rather than grope for explanations of the perverse peculiarities in order to
make it fit into a Byzantine context, it would be better to devote more attention to the
manuscripts ambiguous identity.
SESSION VIII
Gifts and Diplomacy
Chair: Sarah Bassett (Wayne State University)
Questionable Gifts: Constantine VIII and Relics of the True Cross

Lynn Jones (Independent Scholar)

According to a legend formulated in the late fourth century the True Cross was discovered in
Jerusalem, then part of the Byzantine Empire, by Helena, mother of Constantine I. The agent, site
and circumstance of this discovery established Byzantine control of the Cross. It was a Byzantine
practice to distribute fragments of the Cross, often enclosed in Byzantine-produced reliquaries, to
foreign rulers, dignitaries and religious officials to reward orthodoxy, confirm the political
legitimacy of the recipient or promote one individual or dynasty over another. Some emperors
made the distribution of Cross relics a key weapon in their diplomatic arsenalJustin II, for
example, distributed fragments of the Cross enclosed in sumptuous reliquaries to Radegund and
the new Pope John, among others. The imperial court controlled distribution of these relics; for
much of the medieval period other Christian cultures could obtain fragments of the Cross only
from Byzantium.
This paper examines textual accounts describing gifts of the True Cross presented by the
emperor Constantine VIII to Norman noblemen and clergy. These accounts are found only in
Norman sources; to my knowledge none of the relics that they describe survive. I examine the
textual traditions describing these gifts and compare the written descriptions of the relics to
surviving contemporary examples. I argue that only one of the tales is credible. I suggest the
second served to boost the prestige of the supposed recipient and to attach an imperial
provenance to a relic that did not originate in Constantinople. I demonstrate that the third
account, which was not recorded until the second half of the twelfth century, reflects the shifting
view of Byzantine power and prestige by those now involved in the Crusades. In this account the
imperial provenance of the relics is less important than a vision which provides a Norman count
with divine approval of his plans to acquire the relics and to take them from Constantinople by
subterfuge.
Constantinople, Siena, and the Polesden Lacey Triptych:
An Angevin Commission for a Crusader Empress
Rebecca W. Corrie (Bates College)
In its 1994 exhibition of Byzantine art, the British Museum brought a spectacular and intriguing
tabernacle to scholarly attention. Clearly made for personal devotion, it resides today in the
collection at Polesden Lacey in Surrey. Owing to its combination of Greek and Latin saints and
Byzantine and Italian stylistic elements, Mojmir Frinta had earlier attributed the image of the
Virgin and Child with scenes and saints to the Dalmatian coast. But Maria Vassilaki and Robin
Cormack, who wrote the 1994 entry, identified a Byzantine origin for one of the two hands, and
wisely attempted a more precise localization, proposing even the possibility of Constantinople. In
this paper, I follow their preference for a more precise localization, but with a somewhat different
result, for I think that a close look at its likely client as well as its prototypes, identifies this work as
the collaboration between Byzantine and Sienese painters at Siena in the second decade of the
fourteenth century.
At the outset, astonishing matches between our tabernacle and several others produced by the
Ducciesque painters identified as the Monte Oliveto Master and the Masters of Tabernacles 35
and 39 encourage this hypothesis, matches not only in format, but in the Virgin herself, her
throne, and her throne cloth. At the same time, the saints arrayed around the central portion
argue that the triptych was intended for a female member of the Angevin dynasty that ruled the
Kingdom of Naples, while carrying out a policy aimed at asserting control over the Crusader
states between 1267 and the later part of the fourteenth century. Indeed, these saints point to
Siena, the house of Anjou, and the Crusader states, for we find on the right Saints Francis,
Dominic, and Louis of Toulouse, along with Nicholas, John the Baptist, and Anthony Abbot. To the
left is a similar array: Saints George, Cosmas and Damian, and Michael. Several of the male
saints appear in distinctly Byzantine form. But it is the four female saints who may be most

significant. Centered beneath of the Virgin are Saints Lucy and Mary Magadalen, as they appear
in Sienese images, and Saints Theodosia of Constantinople and Catherine of Alexandria in
Byzantine form. But I think we can get still closer to the events surrounding the production of this
tabernacle. In 1993 Hayden Maginnis provided Sienas Tabernacle 35 with a thoroughly
convincing client, the son of Robert, King of Naples, Peter of Anjou, who was in residence in
Siena in 1314 and 1315, along with his brother Philip, Prince of Taranto. Philip had just married
Catherine de Valois Courtenay, titular Empress of Constantinople, through whom the Angevins
hoped to claim an increasingly elusive Crusader kingdom, and she is a likely recipient for the
Polesden Lacey Triptych. Certainly it remains tempting to place the production of this triptych in
the East, identifying it as a Greek copy of a Sienese tabernacle. But the apparent inclusion of a
Sienese hand in the painting of the saints and the itinerary of our Angevin princes suggest instead
the presence of a Greek painter in Siena, along with the many historical and methodological
considerations such a localization might entail.
Bride, Book, and Visuality
Cecily J. Hilsdale (University of Chicago)
Study of Vatican Greek manuscript 1851 poses a methodological problem for art historians,
philologists, and historians alike not only because of the absence of proper names on any of the
surviving folia but also because the images find few parallels for comparison. It is modest in
scale yet highly sumptuous, and tells the story of the arrival of a western princess to marry a
Byzantine porphyrogenitos. Each page, rich in visual and textual narrative, reveals much about
social values, perceptions, and expectations of brides and foreignness in the Byzantine world.
Scholarly attention, however, has almost entirely concerned issues of chronological identification
an issue that certainly merits close and careful attention, but should not preclude other
interpretive strategies.
Regardless of chronology, it is clear that both the text itself and the accompanying miniatures
were intended for a bride, and in particular a western bride, as noted by Hans Belting in 1970. My
analysis of the relationship between word and image demonstrates that the message of the
manuscript would be comprehensible to a newly arrived foreign bride with little to no knowledge
of Greek. The pages visually and textually tell us of her long journey, of the honor accorded the
various messengers, and her reception in Constantinople and integration into the imperial family.
Notions of inclusion and transformation dominate the narrative and set the pace or tempo of the
story.
In the Vatican codex, we find a visual evocation of the ideal diplomatic marriage, not an attempt to
mirror reality but a didactic projection of expectations. The narrative structure of the manuscript
represents the proper or ideal social structure of incorporation. It emphasizes total inclusion,
transformation and final fully-integrated display, thus stressing her transformation from western to
eastern. My paper, after considering chronological issues, explores the implications of the bride
and the book and the complex kinship relations set off by their exchange. I argue that the book
intimately stresses the brides new identity, slowly leading her through a web of Byzantine
expectations.
SESSION IX
Byzantine Identities I
Chair: Elizabeth Bolman (Temple University)
Unpacking the Darmstadt Casket
Alicia Walker (Harvard University)

A group of four, c. tenth- to eleventh-century ivory panels in the Hessisches Landesmuseum,

Darmstadt, Germany (Kg. 54:215 a-d), indicate by their consistent size, common framing
elements, and stylistic comparability that they originally adorned the same wooden-core box. A
now-lost, presumably ivory lid would have provided a fifth plaque for this set. The two long
plaques of the group are each decorated with a series of three vignettes, while the shorter, side
panels each depict a single scene. Although the repetition of lattice canopies above each of the
eight scenes implies a unified program for the box, the specific nature of its meaning has defied
interpretation. Some of the images clearly derive from classical precedentssuch as the heroic
deeds of Heraclesbut others refer to late antique and Byzantine typessuch as the generic
Holy Rider. One scene depicts a cross-legged, seated figure familiar from Sasanian and
medieval Islamic imagery. This diversity of iconographic references has led one scholar to
describe the box as a hodgepodge, that is to say, a grouping of scenes without any unifying
theme.
The present paper focuses on the iconographic reading of each of the eight scenes and proposes
an integrated meaning for the overall decorative program of this box. Techniques of visual
rhetoric apparent in this object are compared to rhetorical strategies that emerged in literature
during the middle Byzantine period. In contrast to recent suggestion that this box may have
served as a diplomatic gift, it is proposed that the message of this object precluded such use; the
Darmstadt Casket was produced for a Byzantine audience and would have been intended to
circulate within an elite and erudite social group.
Byzantinizing the Baptistery: From the Holy Land to Parma
Ludovico Geymonat (Princeton University)
Works of art are crucial evidence of the reception and assimilation of features which
Western travelers, pilgrims and crusaders were exposed to in Byzantium and the Holy Land. The
cycle of paintings in the Parma Baptistery provide a profitable case study the extensive material
still preserved and the rich literary sources concerning its context allow for a thorough analysis of
how the appropriation of Byzantine and Crusader art took place and was implemented in a
representative monument of a medieval commune.
The paintings in Parma (Italy), dating from the first half of the thirteenth century,
constitute an extensive program including both narrative cycles and rows of figures. Excellently
preserved, they cover the huge gothic hall of the late twelfth-century Baptistery. The iconography
of several monumental baptisteries from this time is linked to the Holy Sepulcher, and the
Baptistery at Parma was built and decorated during a period of intense contact with the Near
East. The iconography of most of the figures and scenes, along with some stylistic
characteristics and peculiar decorative motifs, can be explained only by a wide-ranging
assimilation of Byzantine features. This assimilation is broadly accepted and attested the new
assessment I make, on the base of a close reading of specific iconographies and stylistic
features, is that the Holy Land served as its principal source.
At this time, the powerful medieval commune of Parma was witnessing at first hand
some remarkable events: the dramatic rise of the Franciscans, the spread and repression of
heretic movements, the power struggle between the Italian communes and the emperor Frederick
II, who was definitively routed during his siege of Parma in 1247. Internally, the city was divided
by a bitter conflict between the bishop and the developing city-government. These are the
circumstances in which the building and the decoration of the Baptistery were carried out, and the
backdrop against which we must understand the assimilation of eastern features and
iconographies. Significant historical evidence regarding the patron, the painter and the
intended meaning of the decoration provides telling clues about the role and significance of the
appropriation of Byzantine art in such a context, and indicates the peculiar use in Parma of
imagery taken from the Holy Land.

Orthodox Magic: An Amulet Roll in New York and Chicago

Glenn Peers (University of Texas at Austin)
The amulet roll now divided between the Pierpont Morgan Library (MS 499) and the University of
Chicago Library (cod. 125) is an artifact of great interest for several reasons: it is a unique object,
to my knowledge, in that it is a non-liturgical roll of some 511 cm in length with a width of 9.3-9.5
cm; on the recto, several Greek texts, including excerpts from the Gospels, the Nicene Creed and
Psalms, are gathered, while on the verso a lengthy text in Arabic was written by a non-scribal
hand, which records various magical operations (according to an early catalogue) and a date of
1363 C.E. (according to a re-reading by Leslie MacCoull); and it is an extensively illustrated roll,
with twenty-seven pictorial units on recto and verso.
Yet the roll has largely escaped notice, as its bibliography is limited to an article of 1936 by
Sirarpie Der Nersessian and another of 1989 by Isa Ragusa. While highly admirable works of
scholarship, neither scholar extended her study to include the unique characteristics of this
object. Rather, each focused on the cycle of illustrations that comprises the longest extant cycle
of the Mandylion legend. And despite recent energetic interest in the phenomenon of the
Mandylion, primarily The Holy Face (1998) and Il volto di Cristo (2000), this roll has subsequently
attracted no more than passing mention.
This paper represents an attempt to place that Mandylion cycle within the specific conditions of
the rolls creation by focusing attention on the material character of the object and on its purpose
as a magical charm. The Mandylion cycle is, as mentioned, extensive, and its inclusion on the roll
is due to the widely acknowledged apotropaic character of the two relics of this legend, the
Mandylion and the letter of Christ to King Abgar of Edessa. Together the Mandylion and the letter
became magical signs placed on liminal spaces, like bases of church domes, lintels of doors and
gates to cities, and the letter was carried in amulet forms.
It is the combination of this illustrated legend with the other texts and illustrations within a
specifically Arab Christian context that gives the object its special interest. For those reasons, this
paper will not only attempt to explain the association of the Mandylion cycle with the other texts
and illustrations on the roll, but also offer some explanation of its place within a specific cultural
context of fourteenth-century Christians in Egypt. Moreover, the roll represents a unique instance
of a balance between orthodoxy and heteropraxy. The texts and illustrations are unobjectionable
in their character, but their presentation on an amulet roll and their application to apotropaic ends,
as the Arabic text describes, likewise reveals a highly personal element to the commissioning of
this object. This paper, therefore, hopes to bring attention to a unique monument, neglected
despite its division between two well-known American collections.
SESSION X
In Search of Edessas
Chair: Michael Maas (Rice University)
Edessa on the Front Lines: Romes Client State in the Third Century
Steven K. Ross (Louisiana State University)
Although it was founded as a city in the post-Alexander period, and figured in the Near Eastern
diplomacy of Rome and the Parthians throughout the early centuries of the present era, Edessa
in Osrhoene is best known for its role as a seedbed of early Mesopotamian Christianity, as an
important Byzantine-era city and later as one of the frontline Crusader principalities. Evidence can
now be brought to bear, however, indicating that this small kingdom or toparchy was more
important, at an earlier date, than has been realized. Edessa was in fact crucial to Roman

frontier policy in the Severan and post-Severan period, at a time when the rise of the Sassanid
Persian dynasty posed a vital threat to Roman strategic interests.
Under the last king of the native Semitic Abgarid dynasty, Abgar X (a contemporary of Gordian
III), Edessa took a leading role in the defense of the northern Mesopotamian district against the
Persians, Rome itself being unable to respond quickly enough to prevent a strategic disaster. As
can now be shown with near certainty, Abgar X was in fact appointed by Gordian (perhaps in a
face-to-face meeting) to a post within the provincial defense structure, which he held
simultaneously with his position as monarch of the pro-Roman client kingdom. He lost this post,
however, before Gordian returned to the area in person for his fatal confrontation with Shapur I of
Persia.
Indications are now emerging that Edessa, which tends to be overshadowed in the pre-Christian
sources by its pagan neighbor and rival Harran, may actually have eclipsed Harran by the early
third century, and may in fact have played a leadership role in the local context, apart from its
relationship with Rome. This paper examines some of the evidence, numismatic and textual, for
this early political prominence, which set Edessa on the road to its later importance in the
Christian period. Moving beyond the end of the monarchy, we find indicators that Edessa
retained its role of importance even as it settled into the character of KOL. EDESSHNWN--the
colonia of Edessa.
The Edessene Background to Chrysostoms Homilies at Drypia:
Ephraims Carm. Nisb. XLII and the Second Translatio of Mar Thoma
Paul Kimball (State University of New York at Buffalo)
In the wake of Theodosius victory on the Frigidus in AD 390, Italys alpine regions
attracted an enthusiastic missionary effort, directed at first from Milan and Aquileia, which resulted
in two well-known instances of martyrdom in the high valleys of the Alto Adige: that of St. Vigilius
of Trento on June 26, 405, and of Vigilius protgs, Sissinius, Martyrius, and Alexander, three
Cappadocians collectively known to the church as the Anaunian martyrs on account of the
setting of their passio in the Val di Non in May, 397. Vigilius himself took the leading role in
promoting the veneration of these newly-minted martyrs until his own death at the hands of the
same Alpine sect in the Val Rendena. In 398 he dispatched some of the relics of the Anaunian
martyrs with a letter detailing their murder to John Chrysostom, the recently enthroned bishop of
Constantinople whom Vigilius had known during their rhetorical studies in Athens. The remains
and accompanying epistle were conveyed to the eastern capital by one Jacobus, vir illustris and
probably comes; the manuscripts of Claudians Carm. Min. 50 inform us that he served as
magister equitum during Alarics invasions of Italy in the first decade of the fifth century.
Although the PLRE would have Jacobus already installed in this latest office before his embassy,
which the PLRE dates to 402-404, J. Vanderspoel has pointed to ambiguities in the wording of
Claudians testimony which suggests that Jacobus escorted the Anaunian martyrs to
Constantinople while on an unrelated diplomatic mission c. 400-402, only after which he was
awarded his cavalry command.
Vanderspoels more cautious chronology accords well with the date which K. Holum
proposed for two homilies delivered by Chrysostom at the martyrium of St. Thomas at Drypia,
some nine Roman miles (13 km) west of Constantinople across the R. Ayamama. The first of the
pair is the best known, for in his oration Chrysostom takes pains to single out the participation of
the empress Eudoxia, who escorted some unnamed relics to the church of St. Thomas in a
nocturnal torchlit procession along the Marmara shore. Holum discussed the text at some length
in his Theodosian Empresses (Berkeley, 1982) and determined that Chrysostom authored the
homily between January 9, 400 and January 10, 402, i.e. the dates of Eudoxias elevation as
augusta and that of her son, the infant Theodosius II, as augustus. Vanderspoel himself noted
the possibility that the anonymous saints conveyed by the empress were the martyrs of Anaunia,
as had W. Liebschuetz, although the latter believed the martyr Phokas to be a good candidate as

well.
This paper for the special session In Search of Edessa(s) elucidates the possible. connections
between the ceremony at Drypia and the translatio of Mar Thomas relics on August 22, 394 from
his martyrium outside the Edessas walls to the cathedral by Bishop Qura (Cyrus) as reported by
the Chronicle of Edessa. After considering structural analogues and investigating possible verbal
echoes between Ephraim Syrus Carm. Nisb. XLII and Chrysostoms homily, I examine the
eschatological preoccupations latent, to greater or lesser degree, in both texts. Looking to
confirm my conclusions in this last line of argument, I draw on examples from the second and
less well-known homily delivered by Chrysostom the following morning, and suggest that
Chrysostoms extensive treatment of history before Abraham in this second sermon reflects
attitudes towards the relation between archaic history and apocalyptic texts produced in Northern
Syria during late antiquity.
Leo the Deacons Military and Religious Digression on Edessa
Frederick Lauritzen (Columbia University)
Leo the Deacons history describes the military achievements of Nicephorus II Phocas and John
I Tzimisces, in Bulgaria and also in Syria. The digression on the invasion of Edessa by
Nicephorus II Phocas (963-969) allows Leo the Deacon to play on two very important motifs in his
general characterisation of the emperor. He manages to illustrate how he is committed to
orthodoxy and to an expansionist policy which reminds one of the Roman past. This is achieved
though his description of Nicephorus attack on the city of Edessa (mod. Sanli Urfa in Turkey) in
the Hamdanid Emirate. Here the emperor manages to find a miracle-working relic of which he
had heard, namely an image of Christ. This is the only element described of the city attacked.
This emphasis on the religious interest of Edessa is also increased by the use of vocabulary
which reminds one of the Christological controversies but also the works of the Fathers of the
Church.
But this religious tone is not out of keeping with the basically military context in which it is
operating. In fact Leo changes the tone of the passage to include words and expressions which
are specifically theological, giving Nicephorus an aura of piety. But this is not the only effect which
he is trying to convey; Leo also uses a language similar to that of greek historians who tried to
describe the expansion of the Roman Empire in order to draw a parallel between the military
expeditions of the emperor and those of past generals of the Roman State. These include such
authors as Polybius, Flavius Josephus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Arrian and Cassius Dio.
Thus Leo is using a religious and military frame of reference in order to explain Nicephorus
presence in Edessa in 966. This shows how even at the level of a digression, Leo is trying to
convey a new way of looking at historical writing in which religion and the military work side by
side to achieve common goal, through appropriate echoes of the past.
The Material Culture Of Byzantine Architecture:
The Cases Of Greek Macedonian And Syrian Edessas
Dimitris Drakoulis (Architect MSc, Aristoteleion University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
The material culture of Byzantine architecture is examined through four levels of analytical
data: buildings, towns and other human constructions on the first level, modes, techniques,
materials and tools of construction on the second level, subjects who are creating, using, living
and consuming the artifacts on the third level, finally rituals that accompany the building process
and form the deeper structures of the non codified ideology of the subjects. The validity of this
model is testified in the cases of the two cities with the same name: the Greek Macedonian and
Syrian Edessas.

The chronological axis of the study follows the historical foundations of these two eponymous
cities, and focuses on the period of their transformation in Byzantine regional cities. The first part
deals with the intermediary points of these changes, departing from the Greek Macedonian
Edessa, to the Hellenistic metropolis, later a Roman city (with via Egnatia, the basic road that
merges North - West with South East), to the regional fortified acropolis with semi-urbanized
hinterland of the first Byzantine era. The second part deals with the Syrian Edessa, a Hellenistic
colony, later capital of a Parthian kingdom (with a road again that merges South East with North
West) to the holy city of Syrian Christianity. In the third part, a comparative analysis of the two
cities shows their different fortunes (tychae) in the context of Byzantine regionalism, the rising
of which is seen through the combination of local material and construction techniques and the
architectural tradition of the state. The local characters with their strong dependence from the
Hellenistic and Roman era are functioning like vehicles of further dependence of the state
tradition on its Greek and Roman past. So, the survival of this tradition is not only an effect of
central decisions, but also presents serious dependencies on different local architectural
traditions.
The result is a further enrichment of the Byzantine Habitat model with the integration of local
elements. The choices in these two towns show the modes of constitution of the Byzantine town
in general. The Byzantine official school, the tradition of the Justinianic new church
architecture and the appearance of vaulting and, especially, of domes as a common
architectural pattern for almost every church, mark clearly this development.
The settlements are described with their material outfit (private, social and religious buildings),
their spatial layout and the interrelations between constructed and non-constructed space in the
local environment, their sacred topography and rites, cults and other traditional behaviour. Finally,
social structure and local history is examined in order to clarify better the vehicles of the
architectural messages, the building subjects and their guilds on the one hand, official
Byzantine architecture and its institutions on the urban level, legislation and aesthetic values on
the other.
One additional argument for the persistence of classical architecture in these two local traditions
is that the two towns continue their urban presence also in environments that could favour
another type of urban development.
SESSION XI
History of Byzantine Scholarship
Chair: John Barker (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Byzantinism and Nazism in 1930s and 1940s German Scholarship
David Olster (University of Kentucky)
Hitler, who fondly imagined that future generations would be guided by his every thought, had his
dinner conversations stenographically recorded for posterity. In the course of his wide-ranging
discourses, he several times lights on the emperor Julian the apostate, partly for his opposition to
Christianity, but also for his putative opposition to the Jews. His view of Julian arises, I would
suggest, from his awareness of contemporary German scholarship, and in particular, J. Vogts
work, Kaiser Julian und das Judentum. Hitler was not a scholar, and I do not suggest that he was
an avid reader of German Byzantine scholarship. Nonetheless, his table-talk reveals the interplay
between Nazism and one of the great schools of Byzantine scholarship.
Few schools of Byzantine history have produced scholarship at once so technically proficient and
so ideologically driven as German scholarship from the mid-1930s to the end of the Second
World War. Among the great scholars of this period stand Treitinger, Ensslin, Vogt, and above all,

Doelger, who must be considered one of the greatest Byzantinists of all time. But the mix of
contemporary political ideology and historical vision produced such curious works as Doelgers
Die Europaische Staatsordnung, whose presentation of Byzantium as the bearer of the classical
tradition, the cultural guide to the untutored west, and the protector and imperial master of the
Slavs must inevitably draw comparisons with the European New Order of Germanys brief
hegemony at the beginning of the 1940s. Similarly, Treitinger, who lost his life on the eastern
front, argued that the decline of Byzantium was brought about by its mixing with Slavs,
embracing a fundamental precept of Nazi racial theory. This study will examine the interplay
between historical context and historical analysis in the German scholarship of the Nazi era, and
the manner in which experience served as a cognitive filter of scholarship.
This conflation of past and present (that characterizes every generation of historical scholarship,
not the Germans alone), reveals the profound (and occasionally bizarre) relationship between
scholarship and the political imagination. The assimilation of a cultures dominant discourse is
hardly limited to these scholars, and they serve as a methodological example for the examination
of other scholars and schools of scholarship, and perhaps, even ourselves.
Clyde Pharr and the Women of Vanderbilt:
The Translation of the Theodosian Code in Mid-Twentieth Century America
Linda Jones Hall (St. Marys College of Maryland)
Austin, Texas, is listed below the signature of Clyde Pharr in his introduction to his magisterial
translation of the Theodosian Code, published at last in 1951, after decades of work on the
project at Vanderbilt University. Pharr, whose editions of Vergil and Homer, have assisted many
students in mastering classical Latin and Greek, made his most lasting contribution to academe
through the carefully annotated and edited translation of Roman laws set forth from the time of
Constantine to the reign of Theodosius in the fifth century AD. Pharrs translation is the unrivalled
authority for numerous books and articles published today in such fields as jurisprudence and
social history, particularly relating to Late Antiquity.
Although the laws in the Theodosian Code offer a window into the Late Antique era, on topics
ranging from slavery to marriage, from shipping to tax-collection, the story of the translation of the
Code into English opens another kind of window into the academic culture of 1930s through
1950s. Pharr credits two editors for their assistance: Theresa Sherrer Davidson, his associate
editor, and Mary Pharr Brown, his assistant editor. Dr. Davidson was not only a classicist, but also
a lawyer and the wife of the distinguished Fugitive poet, Donald Davidson. Mary Brown Pharr had
been a young graduate student involved in the project who married her mentor, and in the end,
she was the only one to follow Pharr through the whole project.
Pharr acknowledges the help of his graduate students, the great majority of whom were women,
and some of whom went on to earn doctorates. Such acknowledgment would not seem unusual,
but at this time, at Vanderbilt there were policies in place which limited the enrollment of women
to only a fraction of the male students. The Board of Trust minutes from this time affirm that
during World War II, exceptions were made to admit relatively more women to the university.
In this paper, I will lay out the process by which the Code was translated into English, and the
intentions of the translation committee. I will also demonstrate that various books of the Code
appear to be almost entirely the work of female graduate students who published their
translations as dissertations and theses. Although their names are mentioned in the preface to
Pharrs translation, the extent of our debt to them has never been fully discussed. In the final
analysis, Pharr deserves credit for his determination to bring this project to completion, often
without appreciation or support from Vanderbilt. In fact, he has been criticized in the histories of
Vanderbilt for focusing on Roman law at the expense of more exciting literary topics. Moreover,
the unsung accomplishments of the women who assisted him deserve our attention today as well.
The great irony lies in the fact that women who normally might not even have been admitted to

Vanderbilt were closely involved in one of the most important scholarly projects to have ever
come out of an American institution, marked by its rather late acceptance of women and
minorities in more equitable proportions in the 1960s and 1970s.
SESSION XII
Literature and Performance
Chair: George Majeska (University of Maryland)
Identity in Rhythmic Meter between Ancient Greek Poetry
and Byzantine Hymnology
Nick Giannoukakis, University of Pittsburgh (Independent Scholar)
Byzantine hymnology consists of two elements: music and poetry. As early as the 2nd
century C.E., a co-evolution occurred demonstrating increased complexity in musical structure
but more poignantly, in poetic structure and composition. This evolution, from the poetic
standpoint continued well into the 16th century. Despite some significant changes, the
hymnographic structure that remained unchanged from the 7-8th century onward was the Canon.
Generally-described as a poem consisting of a number of odes each bound together by a unifying
theme, each ode of a Canon was musically and rhythmically modelled after a melodic and poetic
prototype called a prologos. In the case of the Canon, the eirmos. A study of the rhythmic meter
of the eirmos hymns of Byzantine hymnography will reveal a remarkable identity between them
and the rhythm and meter of ancient Hellenic poetry.
This essay will demonstrate that a number of prominent eirmos hymns that are regularly
encountered during the ecclesiastical year in the original ecclesiastical Greek texts are identical in
rhythm and meter to passages from the works of Euripides and Homer.
While the exact reason(s) for this practice by the Byzantine hymnographers including St. John of
Damascus is/are not evidently clear, the era in which the first such hymns first appeared suggests
that the practice may have been one of several methods to attract non-Christians of the late
Roman Empire and early Byzantium with the objective of their full conversion to Christianity.
Liturgical Performance and the Formation of Christian Identity
in the Age of Justinian
Derek Krueger (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
The performance of ritualized religious activities contributed to the formation of Christian lay
identity as sixth-century Christians engaged in asceticism, veneration of saints, festal vigils,
liturgy, and pilgrimage. In addition to the better-known synthesis of an imperial Christianity,
expressed grandly in architecture, art, and church plate, the age of Justinian saw the expansion
of many popular forms of pious practice. In contrast to the conscious novelty of fourth-century
piety, the sixth century saw the routinization of Christian practice as a feature of Byzantine
culture.
The category of performance as theorized by Pierre Bourdieu and Catherine Bell affords insight
into how popular liturgical practices employed biblical typology to articulate and maintain norms
for Christian self-understanding. The festal hymns of Romanos the Melodist in particular
demonstrate how the emerging office of the night vigil provided opportunities for Christians to
enter into the drama of the liturgical calendar. Romanos employed dialogues between Jesus and
various biblical interlocutors to frame idealized relationships between Christians and Christ,
inserting the community into the biblical narrative. His dialectical method is especially apparent in
the hymns dedicated to Holy Week.

Moving beyond older religious-studies models that stress the correspondence between myth and
ritual, performance-studies approaches allow emphasis to fall on the ways in which these mythic
ritualizations effect the production of Christian modes of being, cuing appropriate emotions and
habits in response to the dramatization and rehearsal of the Christian story.
In order to place the achievements of Romanos methods in larger context, one earlier and one
later text are considered. The earlier sixth-century mystical reflections of the author know as
Dionysius the Areopagite (before 513), advance an understanding of baptismal ritual as a
reenactment of the baptism of Christ. The evidence of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy demonstrates
an indigenous, early Byzantine theory of ritual performance which stresses liturgy as mimesis of
biblical narrative. The patriarch Eutychius probably introduced the antiphon usually known to
liturgical historians by its Latin name, Cenae tuae, to the liturgy for Holy Thursday in the 570s.
Here congregants were encouraged to approach the eucharistic table by inserting themselves
into the biblical narrative by taking the part of the thief, rather than Judas. This typological selfpositioning employs performance as a technology through which Christians might conform
themselves to appropriate biblical models.
Picturing the Process of Writing: The Virgin as the Muse of Poetic Inspiration
Bissera V. Pentcheva (Columbia University)
The apse mosaic in Hagia Sophia featuring the enthroned Virgin and Child has traditionally been
viewed as a symbol of authority linked to the Church. In addition to power, the representation
reveals the perception of Mary as the throne of wisdom depicted in the sacred space dedicated to
Holy Wisdom. The apse mosaic thus offers a visual manifestation of the process of creation and
writing, related to birthing, where the ineffable divine wisdom acquires a material form in the
shape of the Child. The enthroned Virgin and Christ can be read as a visual symbol of poetic
inspiration. This perception of the image most likely gained further prominence when the new
center of learning, the Cathedral School, was established in Hagia Sophia in the twelfth century.
In addition to the apse mosaic, many other representations of the Virgin and Child were viewed in
a similar way as markers of the process of artistic creation through the body of Mary giving birth
to the Logos. The perception of writing as an act of birthing suggests a parallel to the
construction of female rhetorical gender manifested in the work of Michael Psellos. By focusing
on representations of the Virgin and Child in mosaics, frescoes, miniatures, and ivories in
Constantinople from the eleventh to the twelfth centuries, this paper will explore how Mary came
to be perceived as the muse of poetic inspiration, triggering the process of writing.
A Few Remarks On The Definition Of Byzantine Theatre
Przemyslaw Marciniak (University of Silesia, Poland)
In my paper I focus on those issues regarding Byzantine theatre that we have not yet
found satisfactory answers for and are to be rethought. Therefore, I discuss the following issues
problems of the definition of Byzantine religious and profane theatre.
As to the first issue there is no doubt that we can identify some para-theatrical forms in Byzantium
or at least texts that seem to have dramatic elements. The situation is slightly different for the eve
of the fall of Constantinople since we have a few testimonies showing that some sort of liturgical
drama might have been performed in Haghia Sophia. The most significant and the only nonliturgical dramatic text that might have been staged, in a way that we used to perceive as
common, comes from Cyprus and is rather exceptio than regula. Regrettably the general picture
of Byzantine theatre is diversified and, for the most part, unclear.
In my view, misunderstanding comes from lack of clear definition of what religious
drama and theatre in Byzantium might be. Students of Byzantine theatre use terms designed to
describe Western theatrical activities often forgetting that these definitions vary considerably

among themselves (cf. the debate on impersonation and radically different opinions of K. Young
and O.B. Hardison) not to mention that they cannot be, in my opinion, used to depict the
Byzantine realm.
I endeavor, therefore, to demonstrate that one has to propose a new definition of Byzantine
theatre, especially a liturgical one. My main assumption is that an impersonation is not the
distinctive feature of Byzantine liturgical theatre, which can be inferred from passages in Libanios,
Chrysostomos, and Eustathios of Thessalonika. Therefore I would assume that in some cases
liturgy or its part may become a theatre in its primary sense a spectacle. Since a performance is
acted in Church and for liturgical purposes, it might be described as liturgical theatre.
I am also convinced that we can find traces of Byzantine profane theatre, however very
remote from Western ideas of what theatre is. We can state, without any doubt, that Byzantine
culture was deeply theatrical, even Byzantines themselves gave proof of such judgement (cf. Leo
the Deacon, History, IV,61,44, PG vol.117). Therefore, it seems that we could put an equal sign
between various kind of performances, i.e. festivals, imperial ceremonies etc, and theatre.
There is also no doubt that the literary circles, so-called theatra, fulfilled the task of a
theatre. Moreover, it might be possible that dramatic texts like Katomyomachia, in my opinion an
attempt to vie with an ancient theatre, were intended to be read in these gatherings. I would,
therefore, draw a line between a theatre for masses and elitist theatre for Byzantine intelligentsia.
In conclusion, it has to be said that Byzantium possessed theatre; however, like many
other things, even its idea had been transformed during the Byzantine period.
SESSION XIII
Amorium Excavations
Chair: Christopher Lightfoot (Amorium Excavations Project;
The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The Byzantine Stone-Mason at Work:
New Evidence from the Lower City Church at Amorium
Eric A. Ivison (Amorium Excavations Project, Turkey/College of Staten Island, CUNY)
Excavations since 1990 have revealed the remains of a major ecclesiastical complex in
the Lower City of Amorium. Following a disastrous fire, the church was reconstructed as a domed
basilica, lavishly decorated with wall paintings, vault mosaics, and an opus sectile pavement.
Fragments of an inscribed epistyle from the templon record that a bishop acted as patron of this
new church, which was apparently dedicated to a Prophet of Christ.
Historical, archaeological, and comparative evidence suggests that the reconstruction
probably took place between c. 850-950, and on-going studies may well narrow this provisional
dating. To date, nearly 200 fragments have been recovered from a major sculptural program
specially commissioned for the new church. These include architectural pieces, such as string
courses, cornices, and re-worked column capitals, and the liturgical furnishings of the templon
and ambo, which can be reconstructed on their preserved foundations. Unlike most middle
Byzantine sculptures, the carved surfaces of the Amorium stones survive in almost pristine
condition, thus preserving rare evidence of the techniques employed in their production. Beyond
presenting the Amorium sculptures to a wider audience, this paper therefore seeks to reconstruct
how middle Byzantine stone-masons went about their work.
The Amorium evidence demonstrates that the stone-masons worked on stones in
successive stages, and that they had at least an elementary training in arithmetic and geometry.

Furthermore, the preservation of individual chisel strokes shows that, like painters and
mosaicists, the Amorium masons worked freely within and around a preparatory outline. The
evolutionary nature of this creative process is also demonstrated by evidence of adaption and
alteration in the carving. These techniques created crisp, shallow carving and heavily textured
surfaces, but this was not intended as the final effect. The exceptional survival of painted
polychromy has revealed that most, if not all, of the sculptures were once painted, thus
integrating sculptured surfaces into the mural decoration.
The scale of the sculptural program of the Lower City Church suggests a team of
stonemasons rather than a single craftsman. It also seems likely that these masons worked as
part of teams of technitai contracted to reconstruct the Lower City Church. The discovery of waste
chips from marble working used as packing under the new pavements demonstrates that the
sculptures were carved on site during construction. The unity of design and technique would
further suggest that the masons worked within a common tradition and a master plan. At present,
one can only speculate whether they were local craftsmen or were brought from further afield, but
stylistic links with other sites demonstrate that the bishop who commissioned the reconstruction
work sought to provide Amorium with a church that emulated the grander ecclesiastical edifices of
the empire.
The Mural Decoration of the Lower City Church at Amorium
Johanna Witte-Orr (Amorium Excavations Project, Turkey/Farmington, IA)
The excavation of the Lower City church of Amorium has revealed a large number of
fresco fragments, mosaic fragments and mosaic tesserae, all from the decoration of the middle
Byzantine church. The decoration of the late antique church that it replaced was lost in the
destruction of 838, and except for bracket holes for marble revetments on the lower parts of the
north and south aisle walls there are no indications of what this decoration might have been.
Considering the size of the middle Byzantine church, there must have been a vast expanse of
wall space to be covered with mosaics and frescoes, but unfortunately most have disappeared
after the destruction of the church. The remaining fragments reveal fresco and mosaic work of a
very high quality. The fact that they are fragmentary allows a detailed documentation of plastering
and painting procedures and illustrates an adaptation of such procedures to the special
requirements that the architecture of the church posed.
Analysis of the frescoes is complicated by the fact that the middle Byzantine church was partially
redecorated in later times. The fresco fragments therefore belong to at least two layers of plaster.
The original mural decoration comprised the frescoes of the first layer and mosaics, and we may
assume that the mosaics were installed in vaults and dome, as in other churches, although we
have no factual evidence for this. Only a small percentage of mosaic fragments and tesserae
were found, so it remains unclear what the design was, but there are indications that some
mosaics showed figures on a gold background. Some tesserae are made of stone and
traditionally stone tesserae are used in faces or body parts. Others have the small dimensions
characteristic of mosaic representations of faces and body parts, while a large percentage of the
loose tesserae are of gold glass, which was typically used for backgrounds.
In this paper I will sketch a brief overview of the mural decoration and then focus on the artistic
importance of the frescoes. Fragments of all layers have revealed interesting iconographical
details, such as those of a scroll-bearing figure clad in richly ornamented garments. Several
larger fragments, and especially the fresco in situ on the south wall of the church, show enough
detail to allow a study and comparison of painting style. The south wall fragment belongs to the
group of frescoes painted last, and it can be dated by a comparison of its painting style to other
monuments. It shows that the Amorium painters had developed a unique style related more
closely to the art of Constantinople than to contemporary frescoes of Asia Minor and Cappadocia
in particular.

The Lower City Enclosure Wall at Amorium and What Lies Beyond
Yaln Mergen (Amorium Excavations Project/Dokuz Eyll University, Izmir, Turkey)
Excavations since 1998 have focused largely on a sector of the Lower City at the center of the
site. A trapezoidal area, measuring approximately 125 x 90 meters, is now surrounded with a high
earth-covered bank, part of which has been excavated to reveal a solid stone wall. While finds
from within the wall, including a small hoard of coins, and its stratigraphical relationship to other
excavated buildings have given a secure context for the construction of the wall, making its date
fairly certain, its purpose remains the subject of discussion.
The thickness and height of the wall indicate its primary function as a defensive feature. As yet no
gateway has been found, although about 25 meters of the southeast stretch of wall has been
uncovered. The enclosure wall thus represents a major work of construction, which can only have
been carried out by the imperial authorities. Its construction radically altered the appearance and
layout of the city center, and apparently necessitated the demolition or abandonment of earlier
structures. Some buildings, too, were truncated as a result of the construction of the defenses.
There is little evidence for similar work elsewhere, at least not in an urban setting, so the
enclosure wall at Amorium sheds important new light on imperial building in the middle Byzantine
period.
But why were such defenses constructed, and what were they intended to protect? Was the
enclosure some sort of fort or mustering-point for imperial troops? Were, in fact, troops ever
stationed there, or did it serve as a secure place in which to stockpile stores and supplies? The
answers to these and other questions remain to be determined, but it is clear that this middle
Byzantine complex served a specific purpose and became a prominent feature of the urban
landscape at Amorium.
In 2001 work immediately outside the enclosure wall provided evidence for the nature of
occupation beyond the defensive perimeter. Here a rectangular room was excavated, evidently a
basement storeroom, and various objects were found lying in situ on the floor. They included an
iron sword, a rare example of a middle Byzantine weapon, as well as coarse ware pottery and
storage vessels. However, the nature of the deposition of these finds strongly suggests that in its
latest phase the storeroom served as no more than a dumping place for discarded items.
As yet it remains unclear whether the enclosure wall or the basement building was erected first,
although the evidence points to the fact that both were in use at the same time. Nevertheless, the
proximity of such a building to the outer face of the enclosure wall gives some indication of how
the defenses were perceived both by their builders and by the civilian inhabitants of Amorium.
SESSION XIV
Archaeology II
Chair: Robert Ousterhout (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
The Church at Choma:
A Revisiting of the Development of the Regional Style
Suna agaptay-Arkan (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
A church building with three distinct phases has been revealed at the mound site of Hacmusalar,
in the Elmal Plain, Northern Lycia, Turkey. The ongoing excavation project in and around the
church promises to be an important one that will shed more light on the understanding of
Byzantine art and architecture in Anatolia. The Bilkent University excavations have been carried
out since 1993 by a team of Turkish and American archaeologists, under the directorship of Prof.

Ilknur zgen.
The earliest church is of a basilical plan with a nave and two aisles, with a triconch
chapel appended to the end of the south aisle. It may be dated to the Early Byzantine period. The
combination of basilica and triconch chapel can be compared to the basilica at Kkburnu and the
Church A at Andriake. This phase has revealed a rich collection of finds, including a sixth-century
polycandelon, fragments of figural wall painting, and floor mosaic.
The second church appears to have been a triconch structure whose counterparts are
found in Dikmen, Alacahisar, Devekuyusu, and Karabel in Lycia. The study of the archaeological
evidence supports Harrison (1963) that basilica churches of Lycia pre-date the triconch churches.
The second church may perhaps be dated to the Transitional period.
The layout of the third church is a cross-in-square that retains a basilical accent. The
main apse is flanked by two smaller apses, one at the end of the each aisle. Among the finds
from this phase are a processional cross, chancel barrier fragments and part of an opus sectile
floor forming a sunburst pattern. This structure may be attributed to the Middle Byzantine period.
The multi-phase development of the church adds an example to the model proposed by
Ousterhout (1995 and 1999) that architectural changes from the Early Christian to the Middle
Byzantine periods may be best understood in buildings that were remodeled or rebuilt. In this
respect, the Church at Choma can be best compared to nearby sites like Kydna in Lycia, as well
as to churches in Selikler (Sebaste) and Amorium in Phrygia. The results from other Byzantine
level excavations on the mound as well as textual evidence demonstrate that the third church
might have functioned as a parish church, which was maintained by the bishop for public worship.
Judging from the archaeological evidence, the Church at Choma hints at a wellestablished local workshop, which produced its own decorative program with a rich artistic
vocabulary. These results should give a new impetus to the Byzantine archaeology of inland
Lycia, which has been dormant since the early 1980s.
Drought and Decline: The Effects of Climate on Byzantine Cyprus
R. Scott Moore (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
Archaeologists have uncovered an amazing amount of archaeological data in the last fifty years
that has helped scholars better understand historical trends or periods for which literary sources
might be scarce or even totally lacking. Now that this archaeological work has succeeded in its
initial goal of helping to construct the basic historical outline, archaeologists have turned from
asking when an event happened to trying to understand how or why an event, such as
social or political change occurred. The large and varied nature of the archaeological data
currently available has led scholars to turn to other disciplines for interpretive help.
Paleoclimatology, the examination of past climates, is one such discipline that can assist
archaeologists in better understanding the past. There is no doubt that the weather affects
humans in their interaction with their environment and that a change in the climate results in
changes to mankinds economic and social structures. These climatic changes were initially
studied on a broad scale, such as the warming trend that occurred at the beginning of the
Holocene and its impact on the development of humans. In recent years scholars have attempted
to narrow the focus to shorter chronological periods. One example is the suggestion that the
decline of the Byzantine Empire in the seventh century AD was brought about due to a climatic
change.
One important aspect of past climates is the occurrence of extreme weather phenomena, such as
heatwaves, tornados, hurricanes and droughts. Drought is one of the most significant weather
disasters to affect a societys relationship with its environment, particularly agricultural

production. It can be localized to a small area or affect a large geographical region and last for
weeks, months or even years. Severe droughts can have a significant long-term impact on a
regions economy, society and environment.
The eastern Mediterranean basin suffered at different times in its history from droughts of various
severities, as it still does today. A close examination of the literary sources for the early Byzantine
period finds mention of more than forty droughts. Although drought was a natural weather
occurrence in this region, it would have damaged agricultural production and forced the populace
to make adjustments, both economically and socially.
To illustrate the value of this interdisciplinary approach combining paleoclimatology with
archaeology, the island of Cyprus will be used as a case study to demonstrate the severity of
these weather-induced accommodations, as well as their impact upon regional and global events.
Starting in the sixth century AD, the island of Cyprus underwent a gradual economic decline. This
decline has been blamed on the Arab invasions that began in the second half of the seventh
century. An examination of the archaeological evidence from the island in addition to the climatic
information available from literary sources and scientific investigation will show that this economic
decline began before the Arab invasions and in fact facilitated the Arab invasions.
SESSION XV
Mimesis
Chair: Paul Halsall (University of North Florida)
On the Imitation of Christ, for Cheap Laughs:
The Syriac Tale of the Mimes and the Theater in Byzantium
Andrew White (University of Maryland, College Park) and
Cornelia Horn (University of St. Thomas)
Among the more curious aspects of Byzantine cultural history is the genre of christological
mimes, routines performed in public theatres that poked fun at the rites and inspirational
literature of the Church. Catechisms, baptisms, even martyrologies were grist for the satiric mill,
and actors kept much of the (pagan) empire in stitches with their portrayals of the lifestyle and
rituals of the new monotheistic cult. In response to these satires, a new branch of Christian
martyriological literature emerged, in which actors became converts to Christianity, and eventually
became martyrs, merely through their imitation of Christian rites and behavior.
This presentation will discuss one of the most detailed examples of this unique Christian literary
genre, the Syriac Tale of the Mimes (Mimes) as found in MS 75 (Sachau 222) at the
Orientabteilung, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Mimes purports to tell the
true story of an entire company of mimes, who in the course of their satiric performance of the
Christian mysteries of baptism and eucharist convert to Christianity. The conversion of a few
members of the company, between skits and in front of a live audience, causes great
consternation for their benefactor, a certain King Igorius of Oxyrhynchus. The whole company
eventually converts, and as punishment King Igorius imprisons them; after a series of failed
attempts to convert the mimes back to paganism, the company become martyrs, and angels bring
them to their heavenly reward.
Although Eduard Sachau catalogued the text in 1899 and Josef Link shortly thereafter published
a brief, descriptive study with a German translation of some excerpts, Mimes has not yet been
text-critically analyzed nor fully translated into a modern-day research language. Moreover, there
has been no analysis of its theatrical content, especially its account of a Christological mime
routine. The curious nature of the text, interspersed as it is with hymns of praise, also raises the
question of whether Mimes was written for public performance.

Collaborating with Robert Phenix and Syrian Orthodox members of St. Marons Maronite Church
in Minneapolis, the presenters are currently preparing the first fully edited text and the first
English translation of the complete text of this rare story. The first part of this presentation will
focus on the Syriac text of Mimes, discussing its style, language, general content, and theological
significance. The second part will analyze Mimes from the perspective of Roman and Byzantine
theatrical practice, and will explore the possibility that Mimes may be an example of that most
elusive cultural object, the Byzantine liturgical drama.
Mimesis yet again in the View of the Past: A Case involving the Use of Glykas
Dean Sakel (Bogazii University)
The twelfth-century world chronicle of Michael Glykas is usually seen to be the last work of its
type from principal Byzantine times. It proved to be immensely popular as can be judged from the
number of surviving representatives. Notwithstanding this, and despite the pattern evident from
other members of the same literary tradition, no translation into a neighbouring language or any
use of Glykas by another writer is known.
A work deriving from soon after the fall of Constantinople is the Biblical Florilegium of Ioannikios
Kartanos, a collection of tales centred mostly on biblical themes yet also dealing with later
periods. The work is seen to reproduce in large part an Italian work, the Fioretto di tutta la Bibia
historiato. There is much material in Kartanos from elsewhere however, much of this falling firmly
within the Byzantine chronicle tradition.
Much of this added material is in fact found to derive from Glykas, as a comparison of the two
texts will show. Kartanos thus turns out to be, as far as we know, the first and last user of Glykas.
Also of interest here is the imposition of the Byzantine historiographic legacy onto material from a
Western work. The situation can however be seen from the other way, as an adaptation of the
Western material onto the Byzantine framework. The latter case especially could be taken as
indicative of perceptions in the follow-up to the end of the Empire, a time when the traditional
views of the past are seen to have been largely superceded.
SESSION XVI
Teaching Roundtable
Chair: Robert Allison (Bates College)
De Diversis Artibus: Teaching Byzantium Through Hands-On Art Assignments
Ellen C. Schwartz (Eastern Michigan University)
In this discussion, I present several projects which offer opportunities for learning about Byzantine
culture through class art projects.
The first project focuses on the creation of an icon. As one of the quintessential art forms from
early Byzantine times onward, the icon allows for consideration of art embedded in Byzantine
culture. Discussion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the organization of the church and its
rituals will set the stage. Each student will then be asked to create an icon of a person. It could be
a teacher in the school, an important political figure, a celebrity. (The core idea for this
assignment come from Orelia Dann, high school history teacher at Greenhills School, Ann Arbor,
Michigan.) In the project I propose, students will do research about the iconography of Byzantine
icons and the selection of attributes. Preparation could involve reading sections from the
Painters Manual by Dionysius of Fourna on materials and techniques, and discussing
iconography and abstraction in Byzantine art. Preliminary sketches can be critiqued in a group,

and compared to historic icons for ideas about subject presentation and style.
The actual fabrication of the icon could take many forms. If this project were presented
in an art class, preliminary work could compare shading through value (dark/light variation) and
color (hot/cold colors) -- the latter a Byzantine development. Studio space and capabilities would
determine the media used: students could learn to make tempera paint to apply to paper, panel or
plaster; they could make tesserae out of ColorAid paper or ceramic. Gold leaf could also be
employed. A simpler piece done with colored pencils could be employed in history classes.
The second project is one inspired by our late colleague and friend, Thalia GoumaPeterson -- the making of a manuscript. I would turn this into a cooperative project done by the
whole class. After discussing traditions of Byzantine manuscript illumination, students would
choose the type of manuscript to create and select parts of the project on which they want to
work. The class would discuss workshop practices and find sources to copy. On parchment
paper, the quires would be laid out; this allows students to learn first-hand how a manuscript was
created. Working in teams, students would then create text and illustrations along with covers.
Again, elements of the project could be adjusted to the studio spaces and equipment available.
Non-art majors could do calligraphy, binding, etc.
These projects offer a starting point for using art and humanities classes to introduce students to
Byzantine culture in creative and interesting ways, and set the stage for an understanding of the
importance of art within the Byzantine and all cultural settings.
Teaching Late Antiquity: One Model for Outreach to the Public Schools
Emily Albu (University of California, Davis)
A seminar on the World of Late Antiquity may suggest strategies for Byzantinists interested in
outreach to the public schools. Members of the steering committee for the University of California
Multi-Campus Research Group on the History and Culture of Late Antiquity (chaired by Claudia
Rapp) have offered Saturday seminars for public school teachers in both northern and southern
California. I briefly outline the aims and content of our seminars and explain how we attracted our
audiences and administered and evaluated the programs.
SESSION XVII
Late Antiquity I
Chair: Claudia Rapp (UCLA)
Communiceps noster: Romanianus, St. Augustine, and Late Roman Patronage
D. Scott VanHorn (Loyola University Chicago)
Several scholars (James J. ODonnell, Augustine: Confessions, 1992, II:382; Peter
King, ed., Augustine: Against the Academics & the Teacher, 1995, 3 n.8; Peter Brown, Augustine
of Hippo: A Biography, new ed., 2000, passim; cf. Aim Gabillon, Romanianus alias Cornelius:
Du nouveau sur le bienfateur et lami de saint Augustin, Revue des tudes augustiennes 24
[1978], 58-70) have linked a building fragment from Thagaste (CIL 8.17226) bearing the name
[COR]NELIVS ROMANIANVS with Augustines long-standing patron. While this evidence has
been used to link the Cornelius of Ep. 259 to Romanianus (Gabillon, op. cit.), the importance of
the nomen Cornelius and its connection to fourth century patronage has received short shrift. I
will argue the rarity of the nomen Cornelius during the fourth century (J. G. Keenan, The Names
Flavius and Aurelius as Status Designations in Later Roman Egypt, ZPE 11.1 [1973], 33-63; Cf.
Timothy D. Barnes, Augustine, Symmachus and Ambrose, in From Eusebius to Augustine,
1994, XXII [7-13]) may reveal Romanianus as part of an older, more prominent, and potentially

pagan aristocracy negotiating his own clientelae within the traditional frame of amicitia.
During the fourth century, only the provinces wealthiest citizens (curiales) could support the
demands of local public service, or liturgies (John Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus,
1989, 79-80, 385-9; cf. 273-4; Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, 1983, 177-84).
The minor municipes of many remote interior towns, like Augustines father, Patricius (municipis
Thagastensis admodum tenuis), were hard pressed to maintain their civic duties while providing
for their sons education (Conf. 3.3), and may have turned to their more affluent neighbors for
assistance (C. Acad. 2.2.3). In return, powerful men like Romanianus expanded their influence by
building these local connections while shuttling between their homes and the imperial court to
maintain their interests there (Conf. 6.14; cf. John Matthews, Western Aristocracies and the
Imperial Court, AD 364-425, 1975, 183-222).
Connections may have assisted in Augustines introduction to Symmachus, since such
relationships were the foundation of amicitia (cf. Gabillon, op. cit.). By entrusting the education of
his son Licentius to Augustine, Romanianus cemented this connection, thereby building his own
clientelae. In return for this long-standing patronage that he enjoyed (ab ineunte aetate mihi
familiarissimus), Augustine dedicated his philosophic dialogue Contra Academicos to his patron
and saw in him the potential to form a new Academy (Conf. 6.14). In this way, both sides were
willing build alliances with the other for their own respective ends.
Himerius Constantinopolitan Oration of A.D. 362:
Context, Audience, and Content
Robert J. Penella (Fordham University)
Himerius Constantinopolitan oration of 362 (no. 41 Colonna) has not been well known or fully
exploited. I examine some features of it under the headings context, audience, and content,
correcting along the way a current misunderstanding of what we can safely infer from it about the
time of Himerius arrival in Constantinople and challenging a recent prosopographical
hypothesis.
Context: Sometime after his arrival in Constantinople on December 11, 361, the emperor Julian
invited Himerius to join him. On his way, Himerius gave orations at Thessalonica and at Philippi
(nos. 39 and 40) and then delivered the oration under discussion upon reaching Constantinople.
Orations 39 and 40, like 41, praise the city in which they were delivered as well as a number of
individuals connected with the occasion of the orations delivery. Himerius highlights the
Hellenism of the three cities, fine-tuning that whenever possible into Atticism. The most
remarkable manifestation of this is his claim in Oration 41 that Athens was the mother-city of
Byzantium/Constantinoplea claim also found later in the century in Ammianus Marcellinus
(22.8.8).
Audience: The opening scholion to Oration 41 tells us that, upon arriving at Constantinople,
Himerius was initiated in the Mithraic mysteries before delivering his speech. There is no
evidence that Julian initiated him (pace T. Barnes, CP 82 [1987] 222, and T. Brauch, Byzantion 63
[1993] 66-67). It is clear from Oration 41.16 that Julian was not present when Himerius delivered
his oration. In fact, Julian may already have left Constantinople, which he did in mid June of 362,
before the Athenian sophist Himerius arrived, the latter not having left Athens until the end of the
academic year; there is no evidence of the emperors presence in Constantinople during
Himerius time there. Close attention to Oration 41.1 shows that Himerius primary audience at
Constantinople were his fellow Mithraic initiates.
Content: I examine Oration 41s praise of Constantinople and of two individuals: the emperor
Julian, perhaps just recently having ended his Constantinopolitan stay, and the prefect of the city.
Most of the praise is routine. The already mentioned claim that Athenians colonized
Byzantium/Constantinople is certainly noteworthy. So too is the representation of Julian as a kind

of founder or transformative hero of Constantinople; there is just a hint that the inhabitants of the
city might want to reassign the city from Constantine to Julian. The unnamed prefect of the cityit
is not clear whether or not he was present for Himerius orationis praised (Oration 41.14-15),
but mainly exhorted, which suggests that he was at the beginning of his term. He seems to be a
tertius quis between the prefects Honoratus and Modestus. T. Brauch has revived the argument
that the Himerian prefect was none other than Themistius (ibid. 37-78). The positive evidence for
this view is weak, but there is a strong point to be made against it: Philosophy was central to
Themistius identity, but, in describing the prefect, Himerius says nothing about philosophy. If the
Himerian prefect were Themistius, I find it hard to imagine that a reference to his philosophical
competence would be missing, especially since Himerius had made the point at Oration 41.12
that philosophy was thriving at Constantinople.
Sacred Space and Authority in the Churches of Early Christian Greece
William R. Caraher (Ohio State University)
This paper focuses on the role of architecture as evidence and agent of social change. The
emergence of a new form of architecture in Early Christian Greece, the Christian basilica,
suggests that society was undergoing a transformation even though there are few textual sources
for this period in Greek history. A careful examination of these buildings reveals that their
architecture, decoration and the rituals that took place there, presented a novel social program
organized around the ecclesiastical hierarchy. P. Bourdieus notion of habitus, the generative
principle that governs all forms of communication, will serve as a point of departure. It provides a
way to understand how both the clergy and the laity manipulated pre-existing architecture forms,
decorative programs, and rituals to project new ideas of sacred authority into the secular or
profane world during the fifth and sixth centuries.
The specific studies presented by Bourdieu, however, were mainly confined to domestic
architecture and understanding how habitus shaped the behavior of individuals in the mundane
world. The work of M. Eliade presents an interpretive framework for demonstrating the role of
habitus as expressed within the framework of sacred space. Drawing heavily on Christian
cosmological traditions, he observed that the authority vested in sacred space was attributable to
it being a physical manifestation of the divine order. Bourdieus idea of habitus can help explain
how the breach between the sacred and the profane was mediated.
This paper will examine specifically several features common to the Early Christian churches in
Greece that functioned to define access to the sacred through the physical and ritual relationships
between the individuals and groups. Chancel screens, intercolumnar parapets, and solid walls,
worked both to designate areas of the church as sacred and to divide groups of people. While our
knowledge of the Early Christian liturgy for Greece is poor, it would have undoubtedly drawn
meaning from the built environment as well as imparted meaning to the decoration, architecture,
and space. Elaborate mosaic floors, for example, decorated areas which were used during the
various parts of the Early Christian liturgy. These mosaic floors communicated Christian ideas
through images drawn from an aristocratic context. The floors, informed by their place in liturgical
processions and sacred rituals, defined clerical space in both sacred and aristocratic terms. This
conflation of aristocratic and religious iconography and the spread of exclusively Christian notions
of the sacred coincided with the rise in the legal, economic, and moral authority of the clergy
within Late Roman society.
This paper will stress architectural analysis as a means of advancing our understanding of the
historical processes which spread Christian culture during the Late Antique period. It will suggest
that by combining the divergent ideas of Bourdieu and Eliade we can refine our understanding of
how Christian basilicas in Greece reproduced the divine order across the landscape and made
manifest the cosmological basis for the growing secular authority vested in the ecclesiastical
hierarchy.

Magic and the Byzantine Viewer: Seeing Magical Acts and Objects
in the Late Ancient and Early Byzantine World
Catherine Burris (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
This paper examines the visual coding that allowed early Christian and Byzantine viewers to
recognize a magical scene or object as such. We generally assume that a contemporary
audience was able to see magic in at least two modes, narrative and iconographic. That is, that
scenes of magical activity and symbols with magical power were, if not transparent, at least
apparent to the Byzantine viewer. Depictions of Christian miracles; and of rival, pagan, magicians;
apotropaic amulets; curative imprints and amulets: all, we imagine, were intelligible. What, then,
were the semantics of these images? How did they communicate their past or potential potency?
This paper does not offer an extended discussion of the vexed question of the distinction between
magic and religion. That is an argument for another time and place; in this paper, I examine
images of the exercise of supernatural power, and symbols meant to exercise such power.
Narrative scenes, drawn from mosaics, relief sculpture, and painting, can, in the ways their
creators chose to depict supernatural acts or occurrences, suggest the expected structure and
accoutrements of magic. Not all do; many exhibit close conformity to the textual version. It is in
the ways that some differ from the textual version that we see the use of an existing visual
structure to convey the nature of the event. Many amulets also make use of a specific visual
structure to convey their potential potency, employing not only a common set of symbols or terms
but also a common visual grammar.
The recognition of a magical image, whether narrative or iconographic, sometimes seems to have
had less to do with content than with presentation. At least, the creators of many magical images
operated under this assumption, using various devices to ensure that the viewer would
understand the nature of the image. It behooves us, then, to pay at least as much attention to
these devices as to the scenes and symbols themselves.
SESSION XVIII
The Secular World I
Chair: Sharon Gerstel (University of Maryland)
Novels in the Bibliotheca: What Photius Left Out
Katherine Panagakos (The Ohio State University)
The Bibliotheca of Photius, written in the mid-ninth century C.E., is a collection of notes
on 280 works of various authors. These works include both pagan and Christian literature
(specifically theology), historical accounts, rhetorical treatises, and novels from a wide range of
time periods. One of the reasons that Photius Bibliotheca is of such great importance is that
many of his reviews preserve both summaries and quotes from texts that survive only in
fragments or are in some cases no longer extant. Without Photius work, our knowledge of these
works would be completely lost or at least considerably diminished.
In this presentation, I will consider Photius summaries of the novelists, including
Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius, Iamblichus, and Antonius Diogenes. Of these four, the first two benefit
from a well attested manuscript tradition and are wholly extant; the latter two novels owe their
existence to a handful of papyrus and manuscript fragments. Despite the occasional comment
and isolated quotations by later writers, Photius is our most complete source for these
fragmentary novels. Yet, Photius summaries of Heliodorus Aethiopika and Achilles Tatius
Leucippe and Clitophon have been criticized for their inaccurate and scanty summaries (Wilson
and Hgg). Therefore, if we place little or no credence in Photius summaries of Heliodorus and

Achilles Tatius novels, how can we rely on his summaries for the works that no longer exist?
I propose to compare the summaries of Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius in the
Bibliotheca to the fully extant novels. By doing this, I will demonstrate Photius adherence to the
text and any discrepancies. I will consider what Photius leaves out of his summaries and what
may be his reasons for doing so. Also, I will examine what themes or events receive
comparatively more attention and comment. Only by analyzing the summaries and the fully extant
texts and by answering such questions can we attempt to approach Photius summaries of the
lost novels and begin to credit or discredit them.
To give an example of how Photius handles a scene in his summary, we can consider
the necromancy episode in Book VI.14-15 of Heliodorus Aethiopika. Two of the main characters
come upon a woman who raises one of her sons from the dead to ask whether her other son will
live. Gerald Sandy states that although the necromancy episode in Heliodorus comprises only
1/90th of the entire story, in Photius it receives 1/14th of the total summary (1982, 95). This
disparity is curious and, as I will argue, provides some indication not only of which specific details
about this episode were of particular interest to Photius but also why they attracted his attention.
The Middle Byzantine Ivory Box of Veroli
in the Context of Literary Ideas about Romantic Love
Diliana Angelova (Harvard University)
This talk proposes a new framework for the interpretation of the origin, literary connections and
meaning of the exquisitely carved mythological scenes on the eleventh-century ivory box in the
Victoria and Albert Museum usually referred to as the Veroli casket. My study builds upon and
revises the principle work on the subject, the 1964 article of Erika Simon. Although Simon
persuasively argues for an overall thematic unity of the scenes on the Veroli box under the idea of
the effect of love, she attributes the images to a very specific and narrow source, a now lost
manuscript of the Dionysiaca by Nonnos of Panopolis.
Analyzing the iconography of the box in the context of other Middle Byzantine boxes, as well as a
number of Late Antique objects with mythological scenes, I have come to the conclusion that the
iconographic types found on the Veroli casket came from too well-known a stock of images to
attribute their origin to the illuminations or text of a single manuscript. The imagery of the Veroli
box draws from a Late Antique representational and literary idiom, in which mythological
characters were understood as typologies, paradigms of female or male beauty, and especially of
passion and sexual union in marriage. A few of the characters that appear on the eleventhcentury ivory casket appear on Late Antique marriage objects, and are also used in epithalamia
as comparisons to the bride or the groom.
The central question about the Veroli box is therefore the following: What is the significance of the
mythological characters shown on the box for the Middle Byzantine context? In my view, the
scenes on the box reveal three aspects of Eros: frivolity, eroticism and suffering. While there is an
apparent absence of narrative sequence, all three aspects of love are fused into a strong
compositional coherence. In the Middle Byzantine period the literary equivalent to this artistic
vision of Eros as a playful, yet cruel force was the Greek romance. Thus, I see a connection
between the Veroli box and the novels about the trials and joys of love. The romances help to
clarify the identification of some of the representations on the Veroli box and the significance of
their selection. This kind of analysis opens up new interpretational possibilities for other Byzantine
boxes with carved mythological scenes. Like most of the romances, which take place in the
mythological pastimes of the Classical world, the images on the Byzantine boxes derive much of
their subject and inspiration from the timeless examples of antiquity.
Representations of Non-elite Dress

Jennifer L. Ball (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Relatively little can be known about the dress of the working class and poor of the Byzantine
Empire: their portraits were not painted, their outfits were not described by historians of the day,
and the surviving Byzantine textiles in museum collections today were surely beyond their means.
However, anonymous farmers, soldiers, beggars and fishermen do appear in the background of
manuscript illuminations of more important figures and sometimes adorn common pieces of
pottery. Masses of people were used to color the background of rebellion scenes, parades, and
other subjects of historical importance. Byzantine writers occasionally describe the poor if only to
point up the charity of an emperor or saintly figure, and we read brief descriptions of foot
soldiers simple armor in the stories of the emperors brave acts. These representations and
textual references to the working class allow us to reconstruct the Byzantine perception of nonelites while providing sketchy information on how they actually dressed.
A study of representations of non-elites demonstrates that these figures were schematized so as
to outline a code of working class types. Farmers, shepherds and other laborers who work
outdoors are shown in short, plain tunics, belted at the waist, and tall boots. Often soldiers do not
wear any armor, brandishing only a sword to indicate their profession. Musicians, dancers and
other performers are typically shown in short tunics, like farmers, but with added glitz in the form
of gold embroidered trim or patterned fabric. Moreover, in a few instances, artists abandoned the
schematic working class clothing typically used by Byzantine painters, suggesting that a greater
variety of clothing existed for the average Byzantine. The ubiquitous short tunic, for example,
seems not necessarily to have been short but was allowed in a variety of lengths. Some
Byzantine writers went beyond the trope of the poor man in tattered clothing and gave more
information, telling us for example, that male and female dress was differentiated, which is not
evident in most painted illustrations. Literary descriptions also indicate that those who performed
for the emperor as dancers or athletes wore beautiful clothing, despite their class. In this paper
the Byzantine perceptions of the non-elite classes will be examined. Clear stereotypes of these
groups will emerge. In addition, deviations from the stock representations will also be addressed,
as these abnormalities hint at a greater variety of dress than is seen in the formulaic figures
represented.
SESSION XIX
The Secular World II
Chair: Asen Kirin (University of Georgia)
Picking at an Old Question: The Use of Cutlery at the Byzantine Table
Maria Parani (Nicosia, Cyprus)
A long time has passed since 1938 when Father Jerphanion discussed the use of forks in
mediaeval Byzantium, propos the occurrence of representations of such objects in a small
group of Cappadocian ensembles. Given the recent increase of scholarly interest in Byzantine
daily life in general and in the eating and drinking habits of the Byzantines in particular, a new
discussion of the use of cutlery in Byzantium that takes into consideration new evidence seems to
be in order.
Admittedly, the evidence on Byzantine cutlery, whether archaeological, written, or artistic, is
limited and, as a result, difficult to interpret. Knives are well attested in the archaeological record.
The knife is the one item of cutlery that is commonly represented in dining scenes in Byzantine
art. Knives are most often depicted resting on the table. In certain representations, however, they
are shown in use, either for cutting a morsel or for bringing it to the mouth. Strangely enough,
knives are not listed among household effects in Byzantine lists of movable property. A closer look
at such lists, however, makes it clear that they are not always exhaustive. Consequently, the lack

of references to knives may be indicative of their not being considered valuable or rare enough to
mention, rather than of their not being in use in a particular household.
By contrast to knives, the use of forks at the table appears to have been limited and, at first
glance, more exclusive. On those rare occasions when forks are mentioned in the sources, they
are associated with the wealthiest strata of society. However, the find of a fork during the
excavation of a twelfth-century settlement in the outskirts of a Danube fortress suggests that forks
could have been found in less affluent households as well. Representations of forks appear
sporadically from the tenth down to the fourteenth century, with an interesting concentration in
eleventh- and twelfth-century pictorial contexts, Constantinopolitan and provincial. Nevertheless,
these Middle Byzantine representations cannot be considered as proof of widespread use of forks
in the lands of the Empire at the time; the occurrence of forks in those contexts may simply be
due to the repetition of a common artistic model rather than a reflection of contemporary regional
practices.
The use of spoons at the Byzantine table is attested in the written sources. Silver spoons are
sometimes mentioned in Byzantine lists of household effects. Actual finds of spoons in mediaeval
contexts are very rare. This has lead to the hypothesis that the spoons used on a daily basis in
average Byzantine households were made of wood rather than metal. Representations of spoons
are equally rare. The number of spoons represented on the table is smaller than the number of
the guests taking part in the meal. The same is true of representations of knives and forks. One
wonders how this lack of correspondence should be interpreted and to what extent Byzantine
representations of dining scenes may be taken to reflect actual Byzantine dining habits.
Aesthetics of Byzantine Fortifications: The Case of Thessaloniki
Nikolas Bakirtzis (Princeton University)
In addition to their crucial defensive function, the fortifications of Byzantium also had particular
aesthetic aspects. Their aesthetic value derived from the visual reading of their facades that
produced a variety of interpretations depending on the reader and the message conveyed.
Fortifications marked the safe limits of daily life and presented a major built obstacle to every
actual or potential enemy. Their aesthetic character, an essential part of their presence and
function, has been neglected by scholarship. The examination of the aesthetic meaning and role
of fortifications in Byzantium can reveal an extra-defensive dimension of military architecture
permitting at the same time a mirror view of daily life in front, behind, or on top of fortification
walls.
Building technique and material gave masonry their distinctive character creating in a way the
texture of fortification works. Whether the result of a single or of multiple building campaigns, the
articulation of fortification facades gave an optical effect with unique and consistent aesthetic
qualities. Inscriptions, monograms, crosses, the use of spolia and other decorative details
embellished curtain walls, towers and gateways serving a symbolic and no less informative role.
As apotropaic features, they aimed to the psychological submission of the enemy deterring him
from intended assault. From the point of view of the defender, the same symbolism aimed to
reassure a sense of impregnability and strengthen the will of defense. Fortifications were also
used as billboards publicizing the accomplishments of their patrons, as well as couriers of
intended religious and political ideology. The extensive use of building material in second use
served the practicality of construction, but at the same time, attested the historical continuity of
Byzantine fortifications.
The fortifications of Thessaloniki are among the best preserved examples of Byzantine military
architecture. The long curtain of walls marking the limits of the Byzantine metropolis, are the
result of subsequent building phases from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman
periods. They provide a rich and instructive basis from which to examine the aesthetic character
of Byzantine fortifications. The homogeneous presence of the eastern walls and towers of

Thessaloniki combined with the incorporation of earlier structures, as in the case of the
rectangular Roman towers and the distinctive successive brickwork arches on the western walls,
provides a wealth of aesthetic impressions revealing the building history of the city. Numerous
inscriptions manifest primary construction phases, such as the 390 Hormisdas inscription on the
eastern walls, and restorations, such as the twelfth-century inscription of Andronicus Lapardas on
a tower of the Acropolis enclosure. The extensive use of spolia in all the building phases and
parts of the defenses of the city reaches its climax in the main entrance tower of citadel of
Heptapyrgion on the occasion of the Ottoman conquest of Thessaloniki. Its eclectic decorative
appearance overlooking the city suggests a continuous use of spolia as an aesthetic vocabulary
employed throughout the Byzantine era to the Early Ottoman period.
Slavery in the Will of Eustathius of Thessalonica
Charles M. Brand (Emeritus, Bryn Mawr College)
Among our principal evidences for slavery and the emancipation of slaves in the
Byzantine Empire of the 11th-12th Centuries are a number of wills. That of Eustathius,
Metropolitan of Thessalonica in the late 12th Century (published as Epistola No. 26 in his
Opuscula, p. 334, lines 27-75), is among the most frustrating, and yet the most significant.
Frustrating, because it is a rhetorical composition which offers no information concerning the
names, number, or origins of his slaves. Yet it is significant as the only one of the group of wills
which furnishes the authors thoughts on the origins of slavery, or suggests any qualms in the
author about holding slaves. As in other wills which have come down to us from this period, the
author emancipates all of his slaves. Eustathius uniquely expresses a view that slavery should
not exist, and tries to justify his personal ownership of slaves.
The opening part of the will presents an exposition of the origins of slavery which is
quite foreign to the sacred office Eustathius held. Instead of referring to the Old Testament
narratives about the beginnings of slavery (the stories of Esau and of Canaan), he offers a
version of the Degeneracy of the World topos familiar from classical authors. Initially, he says, all
were equally constrained to labor, but the love of luxury led to hireling-service. Further
degeneration induced men to introduce slavery. Only at this point does he offer a Christian
concept, that slavery is unjustified, because God has raised mankind, his slaves, to brotherhood.
In the concluding section, he insists that while he frees his slaves effective with his
death, he will in the meantime maintain them with paternal care. Indeed, he asserts that he
nurtures his slaves better than their parents had. To acknowledge that slaves had had parents,
and thus family, was to break with the legal tradition that the slaves had no relatives, no family.
The rest of the text is concerned with safeguarding the liberty of the slaves who are to be
emancipated at his death. He declares that they will be free Romans, a reflection (found in other
wills of the period) of the fact that, in the early Roman Empire, emancipated slaves became
Roman citizens.
The background of Eustathius discussion of the origins of slavery will be the primary
focus of the paper. One of Eustathius sentences closely reflects a definition of slavery offered by
Chrysippos, an early Stoic, preserved for us by Seneca. Since Eustathius probably did not read
Seneca, we must look to Greek sources for the mediation of Stoic and related ideas about slavery
and human brotherhood. Presumably, early Christian authors, and very likely John Chrysostom,
were the sources of Eustathius ideas.
To what extent is Eustathius argument rhetorical fluff? To a considerable degree, it
certainly was. Eustathius was a scholar and rhetorician; he needed to preface his emancipation
with appropriate words. Nevertheless, the fact that he blended pagan philosophy with
declarations of Christian brotherhood is significant.
SESSION XX

Byzantine Identities II
Chair: Tia Kolbaba (Princeton University)
Strategies of Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity
Naomi Janowitz (University of California-Davis)
Late antique Jews were once seen as having identities based on normative rabbinic beliefs and
doctrines, but are no longer. How better to conceive Jewish identity is not clear. This paper will
address two issues related to this problem, first, the question of when identity becomes salient in
the first place and second, rethinking the once-standard Judaism vs Hellenism dichotomy.
On the first point, Jewish identity was not marked in such a way that Jews in late antiquity were
immediately recognizable to the general public as such. We must ask, then, what specific
circumstances necessitated a clear labeling of someone as Jewish. Ironically, in the Greek world
we are more likely to see people identified as Judaeans when they are located outside of
Judaea, designating identity based on a homeland. For those who remained in Judaea,
identification was signaled based on other criteria. Here theological beliefs were used for marking
identity (in texts but not inscriptions), employing the terminology of sects which were the basic
form of identification used in philosophical and hence theological circles (Pharisees, etc). These
fine demarcations of identity also capture only a minority of what we think of Jews since most
individuals did not subscribe to any of these labels. Because these theological categories were
influenced by philosophical considerations, the categories around which these groups coalesced
were issues which are not unique or limited to what we think of as distinct religious traditions. On
specific issues such as the role of fate, the soul, and salvation we are confronted with the odd
possibility that baptists of Jewish and Christian persuasion might agree with each other over
against other members of their respective traditions. Our picture of identity depends on the setting
in which identity is being established.
On the second point, the dichotomies that we find employed in ancient texts, and then re-used in
modern scholarship, are inherently deceptive. The dichotomy Judaism vs Hellenism, constructed
mainly from a few references in II Maccabees, stubbornly remains a defining concept, despite
extensive criticism. Here I will attempt to offer another way of thinking about these terms
especially as they map identity. Juxtaposing Judaism and Hellenism, I would argue, is a
particular strategy for establishing identity which contrasts with other strategies, including some
used in the same period which employ the same terms. That is, in some uses Jew was
equated with Hellene and both terms were juxtaposed against still other terms. Contrasting
these examples with the more familiar Judaism/Hellenism dichotomy gives us an idea of the
rhetorical goals for which the contrasts were constructed.
Polemics against the Jews during the Ninth Century
Roly Zylbersztein (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
The post seventh-century polemic against the Jews in Byzantium has been relatively neglected in
modern scholarship contrary to its interest in the attitude among the Church Fathers of the 4th,
5th, and 6th centuries.
During the Iconoclastic period and later, works against the Jews were still produced (albeit only a
small portion of the literature is extant), following both traditional genre (dialogues, florilegia,
homilies) and as episodic within more extensive compositions, e.g., hagiography . We should
remember that secular and ecclesiastical laws against the Jews continued in force, although their
constant repetition in later codes suggests many were observed in the breech. Abjuration
formulae too are widely attested. The ninth-century sources (supplemented by late eighth- and

early tenth-century materials) illuminate a continuing and lively polemic against the Jews, who,
apparently and despite their small numbers, were still considered a challenge by the Church and
the Empire; and their way of life was perceived to be attractive in some manner among the
general population (as we can see in the decisions of Nicaea II and the acceptance of Judaism by
the Khazars). It is likely too that some of these polemical writings may express attacks on
Iconoclasm and heretical groups such as the Paulicians; they may occasionally represent internal
political conflicts within the Church.
The main purpose of this paper is to categorize the polemics of the ninth century and to explore, if
not qualify, the relationship between them and earlier polemical literature. Also the paper will
discuss a possible connection between them and the anti Jewish policy of Basil I. Did the latter
mask a State-Church confrontation? Perhaps it reflects or continues the eighth-century Church
rejection of the forced baptism of the Jews by Leo the Isaurian as for example in the ninth-century
treatise of Gregory of Nicaea.
Examination of such sources as Photios anti-Judaic homilies (with his historical approach),
dialogues that discuss specific subjects (the Trinity, for example) or the mention of conversion of
Jews to Christianity (as in the Life of Constantine the Jew), indicates that we are not dealing with
some kind of imaginaire, but with a reality that defied (or was perceived to defy) both Church
and the State. Each of these two institutions, of course, had their respective approaches to such
challenges: the Church argued within the framework of its doctrinal attitude toward the Jews,
while the State pursued its own policy of unification and the functionality of the Empire.
Moreover, it seems that we can find a different language usage in the sources in different periods.
During the second phase of Iconoclasm until Photios times an aggressive language replete with
curses and epithets is widely spread. In the latter part of the ninth century, through the reign of
Leo VI, the discourse on the Jews becomes more sympathetic, at least a more genteel speech.
Despite the constant recycling of the polemical literary motifs, we also find traces of differentiation
in language that may encapsulate the historical tendencies in each time. The search for cultural
unification by Basil I transformed into a policy of forced baptisms (continued by his son Leo VI),
showed a more respectful discourse towards the Jews, using a more diplomatic approach, as we
can also find in Jewish sources. On the contrary, in previous times the Jews were not the focus of
interest by rulers and Church. Therefore, the discourse was aggressive, fitting the confrontational
context of Iconoclasm and other heresies. The reconstruction of Orthodoxy after the Iconoclastic
crisis maintained the aggressive brand of polemics (that also served the edification of Christians)
only for a short time.
A new conclusion that emerges from this survey is that there is no necessary correlation between
forced baptism and aggressive discourse on the one hand and peaceful times and genteel
language on the other. Further research will test this thesis for other periods as well.
Prophetic Iconography in Cilician Armenia
Ioanna Rapti (Collge de France, Paris)
Book production was thoroughly transformed from the second half of the twelfth century in
Cilician Armenia. In addition to the increased production of manuscripts, works from this region
display two important developments: the illustration of new texts and the depiction of subjects that
had not previously appeared in Armenian art. These developments in later Armenian illumination
must be understood within the context of intercultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean in
this period.
One artistic innovation of this period is the emergence of prophetic iconography.
Although illustrations based on prophetic texts are found in Early Christian sculpture in the
Caucasus, there is no evidence of prophetic iconography before the middle of the thirteenth
century. Portraits, and occasionally visions, open the prophetic books in Bibles as well as relevant

readings in lectionaries. In this paper I will focus on Gospel books from the 1260s. In these
manuscripts, prophets are depicted within canon tables, adjacent to relevant quotations, and
within specific compositions. If these prophetic figures seem mostly characteristic of the work of
the well-known illuminator T^oros R$oslin, illustrations in the gospel book FGA 56.11, produced at
Gr$ner 1263, however, demonstrate that this imagery was more widespread than the work of a
single innovative painter.
Scholars have paid little attention to the expanded representation of prophets in Armenian
manuscripts of this period. Helen Evans suggested that their inclusion revealed Western
influence. Sirarpie Der Nersessian argued that their depiction was intended to demonstrate, in
visual terms, the continuity of the two Testaments. I will examine the motivations for representing
prophets by discussing: 1) the texts inscribed on the scrolls that they hold; 2) iconography and
style, and; 3) the portraits physical relation to the text and its iconographic context. Through their
scrolls dialogue prophets in canon tables highlight the prefatory role of the preliminary quires.
Figures next to the text underline selected prophetic quotations by the depiction of the authors.
More unusually, prophets involved as actors in compositions display additional texts as comments
to the related narratives.
I will argue that specific iconography is governed by the distribution of these manuscripts to the
elite of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and that the increased representation of prophets at this
time must be related, artistically, with iconographic trends in the Eastern Mediterranean and,
historically, with the aspirations of the Cilician Church and secular power to play a leading role in
this region.
Ethnic Identity and Literary Latin in Constantinople, 1261-1305
Elizabeth A. Fisher (The George Washington University)
After 1261, the reconquered capital of Byzantium included among its inhabitants
various ethnic categories of persons sharing a common level of sophistication in Latin literature.
To the extent that surviving sources allow, this paper will describe the ethnicity of such persons
according to primary spoken language e.g., French, Italian, or Greek. The occupations of these
persons will be examined as well. Among Westerners to be discussed, some were scholars
seeking Greek manuscripts in Constantinople, some were attached to Venetian and Genoese
commercial enterprises as secretaries and accountants, and some belonged to the retinues of
imperial brides. Although official translators were expected to demonstrate linguistic fluency, not
literary education, some, both Greek and Western, did know Latin literary texts. Similarly, among
Greek and Western monks in Constantinople, some were scholars familiar with Latin literature.
Opportunities for interaction among these groups will be examined, as well as evidence that
common scholarly interests could on occasion transcend the ethnic, confessional, and
occupational boundaries separating them.
SESSION XXI
Late Byzantine History
Chair: Walter Kaegi (University of Chicago)
SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1 The Equivalence of the Fiscal Terms Pronoia and Oikonomia
Mark C. Bartusis (Northern State University)
Over the years scholars have frequently noted that the word oikonomia could be used to
designate a pronoia. Some have suggested that a pronoia was a type of oikonomia. Others have
gone further and written that the terms in their technical application were often synonymous.

Indeed one often encounters in the treatment of the institution of pronoia an implied equivalence
between the two terms.
A comparison of pronoiai and oikonomiai shows that the two were very similar. Both were
granted by the emperor and were held by soldiers, officials, and aristocrats, monasteries,
churches, and clergymen; both at times could be inherited or otherwise alienated; both at times
could be burdened with a military obligation and could be taxed; and both contained the same
diverse variety of income-producing elements. Once the long-held reluctance to admit the
existence of monastic pronoiai is overcome, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the words
pronoia and oikonomia, when used to describe a particular kind of imperial grant, were
synonymous.
But what was the relationship between the two words such that they would be employed
to designate the same thing? Evidently, the appearance of one of the words rather than the other
reflects an evolution in fiscal terminology, something that has not been heretofore noticed. A
comparison by decade of the number of documents that use the fiscal term pronoia (or its verbal,
adjectival, and adverbial forms) with the number that use the fiscal term oikonomia permits
several observations regarding the relative frequency of the appearance of the words over time:
The thirteenth century, in particular the reigns of John Vatatzes and Michael VIII,
appears to be the golden age for the use of the word pronoia in its fiscal sense.
Imperial documents are the first to refrain from using the word pronoia and its other
forms. Of the sixteen documents containing a form of the word pronoia issued between 1214 and
1272, nine are either prostagmata or chrysobulls. But after 1272 and until the fifteenth century,
only one imperial document uses any form of the word pronoia.
After 1301, only eight fourteenth-century documents make any mention of the word
pronoia or its other forms. Of these, four are revisions of documents from 1301, and two are
private acts.
From 1259 on, only a handful of extant documents use oikonomia in a fiscal sense. After
1301, the appearance of oikonomia surges. The great number of extant documents from the first
half of the fourteenth century may explain the dramatic increase in the number of appearances of
oikonomia, but it cannot explain the decline in the use of pronoia. The relatively infrequent
appearance of the word pronoia in its fiscal sense is best explained by the supplanting of pronoia
by oikonomia.
The reappearance of pronoia (in the form pronoiarios) in the early fifteenth century
reflects a further evolution of Byzantine fiscal practices. For the first time we can discern a
difference between pronoiai and oikonomiai, a product of Manuel IIs pronoiarization of the
metochia of Athos and Thessaloniki, and the introduction of Ottoman fiscal practices.
Hail, Tsar! Hail, Autokrator!
Shifting Political Loyalty in Fourteenth Century Edessa
Dusan Korac (CPIT, The Catholic University of America)
Serbian tsar Stefan Duan annexed Western Macedonia, Thessaly and Epiros in 1348, without
having fought a single battle. Many among the local Byzantine elite readily accepted the new
ruler. All the major cities, including Edessa, the only exception being Thessalonica, opened their
gates to his troops. The change of power was smooth and relatively painless for the former
Byzantine subjects, except for the relatively few, who remained openly loyal to John V
Palaeologos or John VI Kantakouzenos. In such times of chaos and prolonged civil wars, weak
central authority, and fragmentation of political power, personal loyalty to the current ruler became
the critical factor of political life. The emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks, saw himself as one

of the participants in a Byzantine civil war, rather than as a conqueror. Stefan Duan acted as a
legitimist, and most of his new subjects accepted him as a legitimate sovereign. Provincial and
urban elites in Byzantine Macedonia and Thessaly did not adjust to Serbian authority by migrating
to the Serbian capital or seeking court offices. They survived by staying at home. Naturally, the
people who governed the newly acquired territories came from the closest circle of the Serbian
ruler: his trusted commander caesar Preljub was appointed governor of Thessaly. He relied on
local archons, often the very people who held the same offices under the Byzantine basileus. The
Serbs remained a very small minority in local administration. The only local antagonism was
between factions among the local Greek elite, exploited by Stefan Duan for his political goals.
In the fall of 1350 Stefan Duan was engaged in operations against the Bosnian ban along the
coast of Dalmatia. The only force he had left in the south were several city garrisons, consisting
of Serbian detachments and German mercenaries. John VI Kantakouzenos accompanied by local
Byzantine archons, who chose to flee the Serbian rule, invaded the newly acquired Serbian
territories with a small army of sailors and Turkish mercenaries, 1500 men altogether. After an
initial charge of Byzantine sailors on the very well fortified citadel, the Serbian garrison in Edessa
surrendered without much fighting and was allowed to leave. All members of the pro-Serbian
party were expelled from the city. It seemed that, after all, political loyalty paid off better than
political opportunism. However, Stefan Duans governor Preljub successfully defended the
strategic city of Servia and thus preserved Serbian rule in Thessaly. With the beginning of the
winter rain season John VI Kantakouzenos returned to Thessalonica. The Serbian tsar hastily
concluded his operations against the Bosnian ban and appeared suddenly under the walls of
Thessalonica. After a three-day stand off with Kantkouzenos Stefan Duan crossed the Axios
heading towards Thessaly. Early in January of 1351 the Serbs took Edessa by storm, using siege
ladders and partially breaking city walls. The city was plundered, and this time the supporters of
the pro-Byzantine party had to leave. Soon thereafter the entire region was brought back to
Stefan Duans control. Throughout the south of the Serbian Empire, including the imperial
capital Skoplje, supporters of Kantakouzenos were prosecuted for high treason. Citizens of
Edessa realized once again how risky the game of shifting political loyalty might be in precarious
and uncertain times.
A New Eyewitness Source and the Prosopography of the Defenders
in the Siege of Constantinople (1453)
Marios Philippides (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
The Slavonic narrative of Nestor-Iskander is usually entitled Povest o Tsaregrade. It has now
been demonstrated by Professor W. K. Hanak and myself that the Povest is a document of
primary significance, presenting authentic testimony. Thus far this Slavonic document has been
used sparingly by various historians and has only played a secondary role in modern accounts of
the siege and fall; primarily, it has been used to support the statements reported by other
accounts, at best, or, at worst, it has been ignored by modern analyses. A number of reasons can
account for this omission: the difficult Slavonic text, the complicated structure of the narrative, the
unavailability of this chronicle in western languages, and the erroneous impression that NestorIskander was present in the Ottoman camp and not with the defenders.
In this presentation the neglected information that Nestor-Iskander supplies on the
defenders, their positions on the walls, and their activities during the siege will be examined and
evaluated: New facts will surface to help us understand the operations along the land walls and
specifically in the critical sector of Saint Romanus defended by Giovanni Guglielmo Longo
Giustiniani and the elite troops, as Nestor-Iskander was present in this location.
In addition, previously ignored information on key figures in the defense will be
evaluated and new defenders will be added to the existing list, such as Strategos/Stratig
Rhangabes, Khiliarkhos/Khiliarkh Theodor [Theodoros Karyste-nos?], and Palaeologus
Singourlas. In addition, important information on Giustinianis wound and withdrawal on May 29,

which precipitated the fall of the city will be examined, as Nestor-Iskander presents a new
account.
The compilation of the prosopography of the participants in the siege and sack of
Constantinople in 1453 has become imperative. There has never been any systematic study of
defenders, attackers, and survivors. Such a project could provide us with a solid background to
carry out an authoritative, military study of the operations. A prosopography based on reliable,
authoritative texts composed by eyewitnesses and not on secondary documents that have
passed thus far as primary texts must be carried out as the numerous analyses of the siege that
have already appeared are deficient and seriously flawed on various aspects. The definitive
investigation remains to be concluded. In this future project the narrative of Nestor-Iskander will
play an important part, as it is indicated in this presentation.
One Source, Two Renditions:
The Tale of Constantinople and Its Fall in 1453
Walter K. Hanak (Shepherd College)
Two manuscript versions, the early sixteenth-century Russian Troitse-Sergieva Lavra
ms. No. 773, and the Serbian Old Slavonic rendition, the Hilandar Slavic ms. 280*, accomplished
in 1585 by a schimonk Vasilie, though based on an Old Slavonic/Medieval Russian original,
present a marked contrast in interpretations. While the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra ms. is a singular
work, standing alone within a Medieval Russian manuscript tradition, the Hilandar ms. constitutes
folia 257r-289v of a much larger text, the book of Flavius Josephus, that is his Bellum Judaicum
or The Jewish Wars. Given the brevity of this paper, time does not permit an examination of why
The Tale of Constantinople was included in the text of The Jewish Wars. Rather, what is
significant is how the Serbian transcriber viewed and interpreted the fall of Constantinople to the
Turks in 1453. The schimonk Vasilie has not only emended textual passages, but has
reinterpolated, altered terminology, rephrased sentences, and substantially deleted whole
sections of the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra ms. In essence, Vasilie, contrary to his innocent claim of
simply translating a text into Serbian/Old Slavonic, has attempted to rewrite the diary account of
Nestor-Iskander without making any attribution to him as an eye-witness to the fall of
Constantinople. Perhaps, we should view and label Vasilie first among a long line of revisionist
textologists who sought to document the tragic but not unexpected events of 1453. Notable is
Vasilies treatment of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI. The emperor is regularly
identified as the Orthodox Emperor unlike the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra ms. which makes no
such similar claim or attribution but views the fall of the city due to the pro-Uniate proclivities of
Constantine XI. Other significant textual alterations and reinterpolations will be addressed in this
paper as well.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the significant and substantial differences
between the two manuscript traditions and their contributions to the rewriting of the history of the
fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Turks.
* I should graciously acknowledge that a copy of the Hilandar Slavic ms. 280 was furnished to me
by Predrag Matejic, Curator of the Hilandar Research Library, The Ohio State University, and I am
indebted to him for his kind assistance.
SESSION XXII
Late Antiquity II
Chair: Michael Gaddis (Syracuse University)
Into the Flames: Destruction by Fire in Late Antiquity

Daniel Sarefield (The Ohio State University)

The fifth-century ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus records a well-known incident of
religious violence that occurred in Alexandria, a city notorious for its religious conflicts in this
period. In A.D. 415, the pagan philosopher Hypatia was thrown from her carriage by an angry
mob of Christians as she returned to her residence in the city. She was dragged to a nearby
church, and there, stripped her of her clothing, she was murdered. The mob literally tore her limb
from limb. According to Socrates, they employed potsherds to carry out this grotesque task; other
sources report that they used sharpened oyster shells. After they butchered Hypatia, her remains
were brought to a place called Cinaron, where they were burned. As a final insult, her ashes were
scattered into the sea.
In Late Antiquity, this pattern of ritualized destruction became all too familiar in Alexandria. In
religious conflicts there, fire came to be broadly employed as a means of symbolic eradication,
destroying not only people, like Hypatia, George of Cappadocia, and others, but also (notably in
this period) books, and religious structures too, like a Mithraeum in Alexandria, which was
consumed by flames amid acute violence between pagans and Christians in 389-390. Such
immolation was commonly performed in a highly public setting, like in front of a church or in
conjunction with some other community event in order to achieve the greatest impact on
spectators. The purpose of the flames was twofold. Fire consumed the object completely and so
its incineration purged the offense from the community. Its annihilation also cleansed the
community and thereby restored or maintained good relations with the divine sphere.
This paper will examine the use of fire in ritualized violence during the Late Antique period in
Alexandria and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. At the heart of the discussion will be the
question whether such public immolations were a uniquely Alexandrian habit or part of a larger
trend of Late Antiquity. As will be argued, this pattern of violence was rooted in traditional Greek
and Roman practices and conceptions of pollution and expiation.
Feasting at the Grave: Funerary Commemoration and the Catacombs of Rome
Stephanie L. Smith (Youngstown State University)
Archeological evidence clearly indicates that people gathered at the Christian catacombs of
Rome but makes no suggestion of their entry into the decorated galleries and cubicula. In
addition, literary mention of catacomb visitation in Rome is rare and does not include descriptions
of the wall paintings, carved sarcophagi, and sundry objects left to adorn the tombs. The extant
structural remains, outside a select group of Roman catacombs, present the possibility that the
necessary funerary obsequies, focused on a commemorative meal, occurred outside the
catacomb, and that funerary visitation, in the early Christian period, did not oblige the visitor to
enter the catacomb in order to participate in the act of commemoration.
Christians, like their pagan predecessors and contemporaries, observed a series of
commemorative celebrations in the first few months after death and then annually on special
occasions. Christian continuation of these traditions is proven in the reference to such practices
made by many early Christian writers such as Augustine, who indicates that the early Christian
banquet was closely based on pagan prototypes. These banquets included a cooked meal and
required access to fresh water. The practice of such a meal within the catacombs of Rome is
unlikely given the constricted space, difficulty navigating the ever-growing maze of dark galleries,
and the horrific smell produced by the decomposition of bodies, a process that normally takes
from one to three years.
Understanding the nature of commemoration and where the commemorative activities took place
is of paramount importance in any attempt to understand the full significance of the Roman
catacombs. It is the intent of this paper to look more closely at the archeological and literary
evidence of grave visitation as a way of bringing certain scholarly assumptions, regarding the use

of the Roman catacombs by the living, into question. It may be argued that the construction and
decoration of the Roman catacombs did not play a role in continued commemorative activity but
existed specifically and exclusively for the dead.
The Contemporary Entries in the Theodosian Code: AD 429-437
Ralph Mathisen (University of South Carolina)
On March 26, 429, a constitution was issued by Theodosius II (402-450) authorizing the
compilation of a law code that would include the laws quas Constantinus inclitus et post eum divi
principes nosque tulimus (CTh 1.1.5). The resultant compilation, the Codex Theodosianus, was
not issued until early 437 (Nov.Theod.1: 15 Feb.). This means that for nearly eight years new
legislation continued to be promulgated, legislation that, by the terms of the enabling constitution,
also was liable to inclusion in the Code. On this basis, therefore, the texts included in the Code
can be simplistically divided into two categories: (1) those issued prior to 429, which would have
been archival in nature, that is, ferretted out of either central or provincial archives, and (2)
those issued while the compilation process was going on, which might be dubbed current. One
of the few writers to place any significance on these final entries is John Matthews, who in his
Laying Down the Law. A Study of the Theodosian Code (Yale, 2000: p.243) suggests that certain
very late inclusions may have been given to the editors of the Code by sources close to the
centre of power.
This paper will take a concentrated look at the 44 entries drawn from 34 laws in the
Code (augmented by entries from the Code of Justinian) that were issued while the compilation
process was going on. As contemporary rather than archival inclusions, one might ask (1)
whether they had any formal differences as compared to the archival documents, (2) whether
they were treated any differently by the compilers, (3) what, if anything, as a discrete control
group they can tell us about the volume of legislation, (4) whether any special role was played or
influence brought to bear by members of the editorial committees who also held high public office
at the same time, and (5) whether these laws were treated any differently in the Codex
Justinianus, where they then would have been in the category of archival entries.
A few preliminary observations. Of 8 entries for 429, 6 are western, and the last western
entry is from 432: what does this tell us about the compilation process? Why are only 4 of the 10
CTh entries for 436 in the CJ? Four entries taken from two laws issued to Celer, proconsul of
Africa, in 429 suggest that the collection process began immediately, with the African archives
having been ransacked as early as mid-429.
Procopius of Caesarea, Theophanes Confessor,
and the Beginnings of Vandal Kingship
F. M. Clover (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Long before Poseidonius of Apamea [fl. 100 BCE] traveled among the Celts of southern
Gaul, the Greeks had exhibited curiosity about the northern barbarians. The fascination
persisted in the Roman East, long after Constantine the Great re-founded Byzantium. Around the
turn of the fifth century, for instance, Ammianus Marcellinus and Olympiodorus of Thebes took
care to note the northerners spare use of the title of king they gave their chieftains a variety
of titles. Olympiodorus employed the generic term phylarch [tribal leader] to cover the nonroyal titles.
Two Byzantine writers, Procopius of Caesarea and Theophanes Confessor, offer the
most precious information about the beginnings of kingship among the Vandals in Africa. In the
War Commentaries Procopius chronicles the commencement of royal succession among the
Hasdingi, the Vandals ruling clan. The first visible leader was Godagisil. After he died [around
406 CE], his two sons, half-brothers, Gundiric and Geiseric, succeeded him. Upon Gundirics

death [around 428 CE], Geiseric became sole ruler, and subsequently held sway at Carthage
for 39 years. The regnal years Procopius gives to Geiseric match the period 439-477 CE, the
year the Vandals captured Carthage and the year in which Geiseric died respectively. But what of
the years before 439 CE? Was Geiseric king at that time, too? Procopius seems to think so.
The ninth-century chronicler Theophanes Confessor offers an interesting corrective to
Procopius sweeping interpretation surprisingly so, for much of Theophanes discussion of
Vandal affairs comes from Procopius. An exception is the chroniclers entries for Years-ofCreation 5941 and 5942 [=448/9 and 449/50 CE] entries which derive from another early
Byzantine historian and rhetorician, Priscus of Panium [fl. 450-470 CE]. Theophanes [Priscus]
places Geiserics seizure of the royal title amidst events such as the Robber Council of Ephesus
[449 CE] and the death of Theodosius II [450 CE]. Close inspection of the Vandal portion of
Theophanes notices will show that Theophanes [Priscus] actually locates Geiserics
appropriation of the royal title around 440/441 CE, soon after the Vandals entered Carthage.
Theophanes [Priscus] gives another significance entirely to Procopius 39 years of reign: those
were the years during which Geiseric was king. What title did Geiseric hold before 439 CE?
Using the perspectives of Olympiodorus of Thebes, I will argue that before 439 CE all Hasding
leaders were phylarchs.
INDEX OF SPEAKERS
(Name, Session, Page)

Albu, Emily (XVI)

68

Angelova, Diliana (XVIII)

75

Bakirtzis, Nikolas (XIX)

79

Ball, Jennifer L. (XVIII)

76

Bartusis, Mark C. (XXI)

87

Beetham, John D. (II)

16

Boeck, Elena N. (VII)

36

Bowes, Kim (I)

Brand, Charles M. (XIX)

80

Britt, Karen C. (VI)

Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene L. (III)
Burris, Catherine (XVII)

29
18
73

agaptay-Arkan, Suna (XIV)

62

Caraher, William R. (XVII)

71

Clover, F. M. (XXII)
Corrie, Rebecca W. (VIII)

96
39

Downing, Caroline (II)

14

Drakoulis, Dimitris (X)

49

Duffy, John (IV)

Fisher, Elizabeth A. (XX)
Geymonat, Ludovico (IX)
Giannoukakis, Nick (XII)

22
86
43
54

Grossman, Heather E. (VI)

30

Hall, Linda Jones (XI)

52

Hanak, Walter K. (XXI)

91

Havice, Christine (VII)

34

Hebert, Laura (I)

10

Hilsdale, Cecily J. (VIII)

40

Horn, Cornelia (XV)

65

Ivison, Eric A. (XIII)

58

Janowitz, Naomi (XX)

82

Johnson, Scott (IV)

21

Jones, Lynn (VIII)

38

Kaldellis, Anthony (V)

27

Kimball, Paul (X)

47

Kindiy, Oleh (II)

16

Korac, Dusan (XXI)

88

Krueger, Derek (XII)

55

Lampinen, Peter (III)

20

Lauritzen, Frederick (X)

Marciniak, Przemyslaw (XII)
Mathisen, Ralph (XXII)

48
56
95

Mergen, Yaln (XIII)

60

Mladjov, Ian S. R. (V)

25

Moore, R. Scott (XIV)

63

Olster, David (XI)

51

Pagoulatos, Gerasimos (II)

Panagakos, Katherine (XVIII)
Parani, Maria (XIX)

13
74
78

Peers, Glenn (IX)

44

Penella, Robert J. (XVII)

70

Pentcheva, Bissera V. (XII)

56

Philippides, Marios (XXI)

Quinn, Kathleen M. (I)

90
11

Rapti, Ioanna (XX)

85

Redford, Scott (III)

19

Ross, Steven K. (X)

46

Sakel, Dean (XV)

66

Sarefield, Daniel (XXII)

93

Schwartz, Ellen C. (XVI)

67

Smith, Stephanie L. (XXII)

94

Stephenson, Paul (IV)

23

Trkulja, Jelena (VI)

31

VanHorn, D. Scott (XVII)

Viscuso, Patrick (V)

69
28

Walker, Alicia (IX)

42

White, Andrew (XV)

65

Witte-Orr, Johanna (XIII)

59

Wright, David H. (VII)

33

Zylbersztein, Roly (XX)

83

BYZANTINE STUDIES CONFERENCE

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES 2001-2002

Officers:
President: Sharon Gerstel
Vice-President: Ellen C. Schwartz
Secretary: Glenn Peers
Treasurer: Rebecca Corrie
Governing Board:
To serve until the 2005 Conference:
Carolyn Connor
John Cotsonis
John Duffy
Glenn Peers
To serve until the 2002 Conference (replacement board member):
Noel Lenski
To serve until the 2004 Conference:
Michael Gaddis
Paul Halsall
Marios Philippides
Ellen C. Schwartz
To serve until the 2003 Conference:
Rebecca Corrie
John Cotsonis
Maria Georgopoulou
Patrick Viscuso
To serve until the 2002 Conference:
Sharon Gerstel
Eric Ivison
Michael Maas
Dumbarton Oaks Liaison Committee:
Sharon Gerstel, ex officio
Program Committee
Emily Albu, Chair
Elizabeth Bolman
Asen Kirin
Tia Kolbaba
Jacqueline Long
Denis Sulllivan

Local Arrangements Committee

Anthony Kaldellis, Chair
Timothy Gregory
Monica Fullerton
Helen Theodotou