Chronographia (Michael Psellus)

words like these, “We are not governed by Pericles or Themistocles Famous leaders of ancient Athens during its Golden Age, representing the height of Greek democracy and military strategy., but by the vilest of the Spartacus tribe Likely a reference to Spartacus, the gladiator who led a major slave uprising against Rome; here used as a derogatory term for low-born or rebellious upstarts. whom we have bought for gold from the barbarians.” It is notable that these expressions were not removed by the censure which mutilated the author’s writings; he is praised in the following century by Anna Comnena A Byzantine princess and author of the Alexiad, one of the most important historical accounts of the 11th and 12th centuries.; and her father Alexius I, though he anathematized Formally cursed or excommunicated. John Italus the pupil of Psellus, passed over the name of Psellus himself in silence.

Unfortunately his history was mutilated and falsified in his lifetime, as he tells us himself; and it is aggravating that the work has come down to us in a single MS. Manuscript. copied by an illiterate calligrapher of the 12th century. Another MS. however existed towards the end of the 17th century, and was examined by Dositheus, the learned patriarch of Jerusalem. Its disappearance is also to be regretted, as the bit cited by Dositheus shows that it differed from ours¹. Two other MSS. of the same history existed at Rhaedestus in the 15th century, as we see by the catalogue which A. Busbecq Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, a 16th-century Flemish diplomat and herbalist who collected many ancient Greek manuscripts while serving in Constantinople. brought to Vienna². The mysterious disappearance of the Rhaedestian library has robbed us not only of the historical MSS. of Psellus but also of his commentaries on twenty-four comedies of Menander An ancient Greek playwright known for "New Comedy"; most of his work is now lost, making Psellus's missing commentaries a significant loss to literature. with the text. We must pray that the patriotic possessor of this precious treasure, who guarded it so well from the pecuniary offers of the enthusiastic manuscript-collectors of the Renaissance, hid it in some corner of Greece, to be a surprise in store for us in the future.

¹ Here is the passage quoted by Dositheus: original: “Λέγει δὲ ὁ Ψελλὸς εἰς τὸ τέταρτον τῶν ἱστοριῶν αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἐπειδὴ αἱ πόρναι παραινέσεις οὐκ ἀποδέχονται, οὔτε μὴν βίᾳ σωφρονοῦσιν, ὁ Μονομάχος ᾠκοδόμησε μοναστήριον πλουσιώτατον, καὶ ἐκήρυξεν εἴ τις πόρνη καταλείψοι τὸ μύσος καὶ ἔλθοι εἰς τὸ μοναστήριον ἔχειν τὴν κυβέρνησιν αὐτῆς ἐκεῖ ἱκανήν. Ὅθεν πολλαὶ ἔδραμον μεταβαλοῦσαι τὸ σχῆμα καὶ τὸν τρόπον.” “Psellus says in the fourth book of his histories that since prostitutes do not accept advice, nor are they made virtuous by force, Monomachus Constantine IX Monomachus, Byzantine Emperor from 1042 to 1055. built a very wealthy monastery, and proclaimed that if any prostitute would leave behind her filth and come to the monastery, she would have sufficient support there. Whereupon many ran there, changing both their dress and their way of life.” Dositheus, History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, p. 747. Cf. the present edition pp. 59, 27—60, 7, where Michael IV is mentioned instead of Constantine Monomachus.

² R. Foerster, Concerning the antiquities and manuscript books of Constantinople original Latin: "de antiquitatibus et libris MSS. Constantinopolitanis", Rostock, 1877. Cf. Sathas, On the Byzantine commentaries relating to the comedies of Menander original French: "sur les commentaires byzantins relatifs aux comédies de Ménandre", 1875.