OF GEORGE PACHYMERES

DECLAMATIONS*.

DECLAMATION 1.

After a thunderbolt struck his home, a thousand suits of armor were discovered in the house of Pericles, and he is now on trial for attempting to establish a tyranny.¹ We are declaiming on behalf of the defendant,² who speaks both in his capacity as a general and asserts his case as an orator.

Nothing,³ it seems, is more burdensome than a malicious informer.⁴ original: "συκοφάντου"; in ancient Athens, a 'sycophant' was a professional accuser who brought lawsuits for profit or spite. For a man who is a soldier, and who is tested daily by wars

The title in the manuscript is fuller: "The Declamations of George Pachymeres, Guardian of the Laws Dikaiophylax; a high-ranking judicial official in the Byzantine Church and state and Chief Advocate Protekdikos; a legal official who protected the rights of the poor and handled asylum cases, regarding the preliminary exercises and the legal issues." In the manuscript, an 'η' is written over the syllable 'ρους' to make it 'Pachymere,' which is a more modern form of the name. Pachymeres himself mentions his own titles of Guardian of the Laws and Chief Advocate at the beginning of his Histories (see Du Cange's Glossary*): "George, a Constantinopolitan by ancestry, but born and raised in Nicaea, who returned to the city of Constantine Constantinople when, by God’s will, it was recovered by the Romans The Byzantines called themselves Romans; this refers to the 1261 recapture of the city from the Latins. At the age of nineteen, having been saved by divine lot and distinguished by ecclesiastical ranks—reaching the honor of Chief Advocate and being honored as Guardian of the Laws in the palaces—he wrote these things, not taking unverified accounts from above..." Regarding the longer passage I transcribed, I should note that manuscript 1723 preserves a better reading: "this city under the Romans," "at nineteen," and "given to the clergy" (Rossinus defends "saved," but since he provides no suitable example, I do not yet follow him); omitting

the word "in," and, since the Guardian of the Laws was an office of the palace, "Guardian of the Laws of the palaces" is not poorly phrased, though it involves a harsh inversion. Philes, whom Du Cange cited anonymously in his poem On Offices, verse 126: "The Guardian of the Laws, and with him the Guardian of the Statutes." The manuscript also has "from elsewhere" instead of "from above."
¹ I have already published this first declamation, in which Pericles refutes the charge of aiming for tyranny, as a specimen in the fifth volume of Anecdota Graeca; it seemed appropriate to repeat it here in a more corrected form, so that the entire body of Pachymeres' declamations might be contained in a single volume. As with the speech itself, the little historical backstory is fictional. At least regarding Pericles, no such event is recorded in surviving literature.
² I touched upon the declaimers' formula "we declaim" original: "μελετῶμεν" in my notes on Choricius, page 206. A note before the argument states: "The legal issue original: "στάσις" is conjecture." original: "στοχασμός"; a legal term for a case where the facts themselves are in dispute.
³ Note: "The introduction is based on general opinion."
⁴ Below in Declamation IX: "The malicious informer is a terrible thing, terrible indeed, O earth and gods!" This seems to recall the sentiments of Demosthenes...