CONSTANTINOPLE (1453). The latest of the writers mentioned in the preceding section might be counted in this period. For more than a thousand years after the removal of the capital from Rome, Constantinople was the metropolis of an empire whose language was Greek, and from which a vast literature has been preserved, much of which is of value. No adequate account can be given in the brief space here allowed; only the most important fields can be named. In history no genius appeared; but a long line of historians and chroniclers, from Agathias, in the sixth century, to Georgius Phrantzes and Laonicus Chalcondyles, in the fifteenth, have preserved to us the record of the great By zantine Empire. Rhetoric was best represented by Johannes Doxopater, Alexis Comnenus rBy zantine Emperor, eleventh century), Georgius of Cyprus, Nicephorns Chumnus, and Theodorus of Hyrtace (thirteenth century), and Demetrius Cydones (fourteenth century). Philosophy was not a favorite pursuit; but Michael Psellus (1018-c.1100) deserves mention for the enormous range of his intellectual activities. The most famous of theologians was Johannes Damascenus (eighth century), while in the polemical strife of the fourteenth century Nicephorus Gregoras, Gregorius Palamas, Johannes Cantacuzenus, and Cyparissiotes took the leading parts. Naturally the study of the ancient authors occupied the learned in this period, and many commentaries have come down to us; in most cases, unfortu nately, these are hardly more than stupid dilu tions and expansions of ancient commentaries still extant. The best known of the Byzantine
scholiasts are: Tzetzes (twelfth century) ; Eusta thius (twelfth century), famous for his great commentary on Homer; Moschopulus (thirteenth century), who wrote on Homer, Pindar, the tra gedians, and Theocritus; Thomas Magister (thir teenth-fourteenth centuries), commentator on the tragedians and others; Johannes Pediasimus, whose scholia on Hesiod have a slight value; and Triclinius (fourteenth century), whose writings include commentaries on Hesiod, Pindar, and the tragedians. The lexical work of the time is rep resented chiefly by Photius, Suidas, and the sev eral Etymologica. In poetry the great anthologies were collected, but little of original value was accomplished. Profane verse was cultivated by Theodorus Prodromus (twelfth century) and by Manuel Philes (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries), but the best poetic composition appears in Chris tian hymns.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. For the classical period, conBibliography. For the classical period, con- sult the histories of Greek literature in English, by Muller and Donaldson, Mahaffy, Jevons, and Fowler; in French, by Croiset; and in German, by Bergk, Bemhardy, Sittl, and Christ. For the Alexandrine age, consult: Susemihl, Geschichte der griechisehen Littera fur in der Alexandriner zeit (Leipzig, 1891) ; Couat, La potsie alexan drine (Paris, 1882) ; for the Byzantine period, Prumbacher, Geschielste der byzantinischen Lit teratur ( Munich, 1897) .