Eustathios of Thessalonica

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Eustathios of Thessalonike, Commentary on the Iliad in the manuscript ( autograph ) Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana , Plut. 59.2, fol. 1r
Eustathios of Thessalonike, Commentary on the Odyssey in the manuscript (autograph) Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, Gr. 460, fol. 1r

Eustathios of Thessalonike ( Middle Greek Ευστάθιος Θεσσαλονίκης ; * around 1110; † around 1195) was an important Byzantine scholar and clergyman .

Eustathios was a deacon at Hagia Sophia and a rhetorician . In his old age he was probably appointed Archbishop of Thessalonike in 1178 (not, as some stated, 1174) , although he was originally supposed to be Bishop in Myra . Due to an intrigue he had to flee briefly to Constantinople , but returned to Thessalonike, where he died around 1195.

Eustathios was a comprehensively educated and very versatile interested scholar who seemed to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge. He is considered to be the most outstanding Byzantine scholar of his time. Eustathios wrote numerous works, including a critical work on monasticism, eulogies for emperors and other personalities, letters, theological works and writings on ancient works.

His literary work is significant for ancient literature mainly because of the commentaries on Pindar , Dionysius Periegetes and especially Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . In the most extensive commentary on Homy that we have received, he referred to all areas of Greek literature and thus passed on very old, otherwise lost material. His explanations are also interesting from a grammatical and linguistic point of view.

Eustathios was also active as a historian and wrote a surviving work that describes the Norman conquest of Thessalonike in 1185.

expenditure

Commentaries on Iliad and Odyssey

Comment on Pindar

Commentary on Dionysios Periegetes

  • R. Stephens: Tēs oikumenēs periēgēsis. Paris 1547
  • Henry Stephens (Ed.): Dionysii Orbis descriptio, annotationibus Eustathii. London 1688 ( digitized ).
  • Gottfried Bernhardy : Dionysius Periegetes Graece et Latine. Weidmann, Leipzig 1828 (reprint: Olms, Hildesheim 1974).

Conquest of Thessalonica

  • Herbert Hunger (translator): The Normans in Thessalonike. The conquest of Thessalonike by the Normans in 1185 AD in the eyewitness account of Bishop Eustathios (= Byzantine historians . Volume 3). Graz 1955.
  • Eustazio di Tessalonica: La espugnazione di Tessalonica. Testo critico, introduzione, annotazioni di Stilpon Kyriakidis. Proemio di Bruno Lavagnini , versione italiana di Vincenzo Rotolo (= Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici , Testi e monumenti. Testi Volume 5) Palermo, 1961 (critical text and Italian translation).
  • John R. Melville-Jones (Ed.): Eustathios of Thessaloniki. The Capture of Thessaloniki (= Byzantina Australiensia. Volume 8). Canberra 1988 (English translation with introduction and commentary).

De Emendanda Vita Monachica

  • Karin Metzler: Eustathios of Thessalonike and monasticism: studies and commentary on the text "De Emendanda Vita Monachica" . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2006 (Supplementa Byzantina. Texts and Studies).

Letters

  • Foteini Kolovou : The letters of Eustathios of Thessalonike. Introduction, regesta, text, indices. KG Saur, Munich / Leipzig 2006.

Other works

  • Peter Wirth (Ed.): Eustathii Thessalonicensis Opera minora. Magnam partem inedita (= Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae . Series Berolinensis, Volume 32). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000.
  • Silvia Ronchey , Paolo Cesaretti (Ed.): Eustathii Thessalonicensis Exegesis in canonem iambicum pentecostalem (= Supplementa Byzantina. Volume 10). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2013.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. See Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium , Volume 2 (1991), p. 754.
  2. For 1195/96: Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium , Volume 2 (1991), p. 754. For 1195/98: Lexikon des Mittelalters . Volume 4, Col. 114.