BYZANTINE LITERATURE. Byzan tine literature comprises the writings of the Greeks from Constantine the Great (324 A.D.) to the fall of the Byzantine empire (1453). The period, however, down to the time of Justinian (527) is generally regarded as be longing to the ancient Greek literature. The Byzantine literature does not so completely lack individuality as is commonly assumed, although it continues substantially the ancient Greek tradition and borrows antique forms. Being of a learned nature, it deals in large measure with the science of antiquity. Through excerpts, compilations, textbooks, scholia and lexica, the Byzantines preserved the knowledge of the ancient world. Even do‘vn to the 10th century men were keenly interested in antiquity, as, for example, Arethas and Photius in the 9th cen tury and Emperor Constantinus VII Porphy rogenitus (945-59), who was himself a political and historical writer, and established commis sions of scholars, who had compiled encyclo paedias for the various sciences. To the same century belongs the great encyclopaedic lexicon of Suidas. In the following centuries there came about a revival of classical studies, which were zealously prosecuted, thanks to the enthusiasm and activity of such men as Psellus (11th century), Tzetzes, Eustathius, Gregory of Corinth (12th century) and Planudes (14th century). With these scholars many Greeks associated themselves in uninterrupted succes sion: Theodorus of Gaza, Lascaris, Musurus, who introduced the epoch of °humanism° in the West. Christianity presented entirely new H problems to Byzantine scholarship. theological literature occupies by no means a small space inByzantine literature. This is mainly a continuation of the tradition of the Church Fathers, but it also unites with ancient philosophy, and reaches its summit in the Aristotelian and theologian, John of Damascus (8th century), and in Psellus. After the 11th century theological literature was revised by the controversy with the °Latin ists.° Fully developed also was the science of writing history, which dealt with universal his tory either in imitation of the manner of pres entation or of the language of the ancient models. Special attention too was given to Church and to contemporaneous history. The former is represented by the °Chroniclers,* that is, the composers of world-chronicles, such as John Malalas (6th century), George Syncel lus, Theophanes Nicephorus and George Monachus (8th century), John Stylizes (11th century), John Zonaras (12 century), Michael Glycas (12th century). In the foreground, however, stand the historians, who treat con temporaneous history, or merely a section of the history of the world. If we count, also,
the historians of the 5th century (Eunapius, Zosimus, Priscus), who lived in a period really prior to the beginning of Byzantine literature, then we should reckon as the first of the early Byzantine time (to the death of Heraclius, 640), Procopius, Agathias, Petrus Patricius, Menan der Protector, and Theophylactus. After the two following centuries, which mark a period of literary barrenness, we find in the 9th cen tury a revival of literature, which manifests it self particularly in the manifold and varied his torical activities of the patriarch Photius, and was further promoted by Constantine VII of the Macedonian house, and continued by his torians such as Joseph Genesius and Leo Dia conus. With the many-sided Michael Psellos - statesman, philosopher, philologian and his torian — begins in the Ilth century another rise of Byzantine literature (Michael Attaliates among others), which reaches the summit in the 12th century in the historical works of Nicephorus Bryiennius, of Anna Comnena, John Cinnamus and Nicetas Acominatus. This period is also separated from the old develop ment by the form of the language, for, while down to the 10th century concessions were made more and more to the spoken language, with the revival of classical studies in Byzan tium the authors endeavored also to approach the antique form in the written speech; and so the gulf widened more and more between the language employed in books and that spoken by the people. Consequently, in. the 12th century a reaction set in also against this current in the so-called °vulgar Greek° literature, which selected the popular language as its vehicle of expression (see GREEK LITERATURE). This branch of Byzantine literature confined itself, to be sure, to didactic and elegiac poems, epic and romantic verse and popular books. In the official literature also later, the archaizing form of speecfi held undisputed sway, for example, in the historians, especially in the polyhistors, George Acropolites and Pachymeres (13th cen tury), Nicephorus Gregoras and Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus (14th century), Laonicus Chal condyles and George Phranzes (15th century), who portray the downfall of the Byzantine and the establishment of the Turkish empire in Europe. The Greek authorship of the follow ing centuries (down to the Greek revolution) must be looked upon as a branch of Byzantine literature, so far as it does not deal with the products of the popular language.