GEORGE ]PISIDA (GEoRGios PISIDEs), Byzantine poet, born in Pisidia, flourished during the 7th century A.D. He was a deacon and keeper of the records of the church of St. Sophia. His works include a poem in three cantos on the campaign of the emperor Heraclius against the Persians, apparently the work of an eye-witness; the Avarica, an account of a futile attack on Con stantinople by the Avars (626) ; the Heraclias, a survey of the exploits of Heraclius down to the overthrow of Chosroes (627) ; a didactic poem, Hexaemeron or Cosmourgia, on the creation of the world; a treatise on the vanity of life, after the manner of Ecclesiastes; a controversial composition against Severus, bishop of Antioch, and a poem on the resurrection of Christ. The metre chiefly used is the iambic. As a versifier Pisida is correct and even elegant; as a chronicler of contemporary events he is exceedingly useful; but though later Byzantines admired his work, modern criticism pronounces it dull.
Complete works in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, xcii. ; see also De Georgii Pisidae apud Theophanem aliosque historicos reliquiis (1900), by S. L. Sternbach, who has edited several new poems for the first time from a Paris ms. in Wiener Studien, xiii., xiv. (1891-92) • C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (1897) ; C. F. Bahr in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyklopadie.