Johannes Tzetzes

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Johannes Tzetzes ( Gr. Ιωάννης Τζέτζης ; * around 1110 in Constantinople ; † around 1180 ibid) was a Byzantine scholar whose extensive commentary on classical authors provided a lot of information about Greek literature of the Classical period and Hellenism .

Life

After a good education, Tzetzes was secretary to the Eparchen von Beroia at a young age , who threw him head over heels when he learned that Tzetzes was chasing after his wife. Tzetzes then spent some time in poverty and had to sell almost all of his books. In addition to his work as a scribe ( grammateus ), he was soon fed by that of a teacher ( grammatikos ), in which he soon became very successful, certainly also due to family relationships that extended into the imperial family. He was commissioned to teach Bertha von Sulzbach , who later became the wife of Emperor Manuel I , in the literature of her new homeland after her arrival in Byzantium. He apparently lived in a monastery for a long time and was looked after by the monks in return for his lessons.

Tzetzes was extremely taken with himself, attacked alleged competitors violently and at the same time regularly complained about his material situation, which did not allow him to buy the books that were important to him.

His brother is likely to have been Isaak Tzetzes (Greek: Ἰσαάκιος Τζέτζης ).

Works

From the period from 1135 to 1170, 107 letters from him to high-ranking personalities, but also to fictional characters, have been handed down, which on the one hand contain valuable historical and biographical information, on the other hand the author already spreads extensive mythological, literary and historical knowledge. As a comment on these letters (!) Tzetzes wrote his main work, the Biblos historion ("Book of Stories"), a collection of 660 notes and digressions in 12674 fifteen-syllables, so-called "political verses". Because the work was arbitrarily divided into sections of a thousand verses each when it was first printed in Basel in 1546 , it has since been called Chiliades , "Thousands".

Also in "political verse" he wrote Homeric allegories , interpretations of the Iliad and the Odyssey according to all the methods used in antiquity. He dedicated the work to the new empress, who was now called Irene . In addition, he wrote a commentary on the Iliad, in which he attacked other interpretations, and the later so-called Carmina Iliaca , "Poems on the Iliad" in three parts: The first contains stories from the Trojan sagas that take place before the plot of the Iliad, the second the material of the Iliad, the third later events that are no longer reported by Homer . Tzetzes also commented on his Carmina .

At a young age he wrote scholias for Hesiod , for several comedies by Aristophanes ( The Wealth , The Clouds , The Frogs , The Knights , The Birds ) and for Alexandra Lycophrons. The author of the latter work is mentioned in the manuscripts as his brother Isaac, who died in 1038, but since everything points to John, it is assumed that the mention of Isaac is a kind of dedication.

There are also writings on poetry, some of which are again in poetry, on logic (a commentary on Porphyrios ' introduction to Aristotle's writing on categories ), on the allegorical interpretation of myths, a work on the emergence of the gods , comments on Klaudios Ptolemy , Pindar , Aeschylus , Euripides , Thucydides , etc.

The fact that Tzetzes wrote many theoretical works and commentaries in the form of poems is related to their use in class: they were easier to memorize.

meaning

Tzetzes had much more extensive editions of numerous authors than we do today. On the other hand, he often quotes incorrectly, apparently from memory. Nevertheless, his writings are important sources on ancient literature and cultural history.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Johannes Tzetzes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Byzantine author
DATE OF BIRTH around 1110
PLACE OF BIRTH Constantinople
DATE OF DEATH around 1180
Place of death Constantinople