1.
Manuscript
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A manuscript is any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to being mechanically printed or reproduced in some automated way. More recently, it is understood to be a written, typed, or word-processed copy of a work. Before the arrival of printing, all documents and books were manuscripts, manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, explanatory figures or illustrations. Manuscripts may be in form, scrolls or in codex format. Illuminated manuscripts are enriched with pictures, border decorations, elaborately embossed initial letters or full-page illustrations. The traditional abbreviations are MS for manuscript and MSS for manuscripts, while the forms MS. ms or ms. for singular, and MSS. mss or mss. for plural are also accepted. The second s is not simply the plural, by an old convention, it doubles the last letter of the abbreviation to express the plural, just as pp. means pages. Before the invention of printing in China or by moveable type in a printing press in Europe. Historically, manuscripts were produced in form of scrolls or books, manuscripts were produced on vellum and other parchment, on papyrus, and on paper. In Russia birch bark documents as old as from the 11th century have survived, in India, the palm leaf manuscript, with a distinctive long rectangular shape, was used from ancient times until the 19th century. Paper spread from China via the Islamic world to Europe by the 14th century, when Greek or Latin works were published, numerous professional copies were made simultaneously by scribes in a scriptorium, each making a single copy from an original that was declaimed aloud. Manuscripts in Tocharian languages, written on leaves, survived in desert burials in the Tarim Basin of Central Asia. Volcanic ash preserved some of the Roman library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, ironically, the manuscripts that were being most carefully preserved in the libraries of antiquity are virtually all lost. Originally, all books were in manuscript form, in China, and later other parts of East Asia, woodblock printing was used for books from about the 7th century. The earliest dated example is the Diamond Sutra of 868, in the Islamic world and the West, all books were in manuscript until the introduction of movable type printing in about 1450. Manuscript copying of books continued for a least a century, as printing remained expensive, private or government documents remained hand-written until the invention of the typewriter in the late 19th century. In the Philippines, for example, as early as 900AD, specimen documents were not inscribed by stylus and this type of document was rare compared to the usual leaves and bamboo staves that were inscribed. However, neither the leaves nor paper were as durable as the document in the hot
2.
History of literature
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Some recorded materials, such as compilations of data are not considered literature, and this article relates only to the evolution of the works defined above. Literature and writing, though connected, are not synonymous, scholars have often disagreed concerning when written record-keeping became more like literature than anything else, the definition is largely subjective. Moreover, given the significance of distance as a cultural isolator in earlier centuries, the historical development of literature did not occur at an even pace across the world. Much has been written, for example, about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in the 1st century BC, the deliberate suppression of texts by organisations of either a spiritual or a temporal nature further shrouds the subject. Certain primary texts, however, may be isolated which have a role as literatures first stirrings. Many texts handed down by oral tradition over several centuries before they were fixed in form are difficult or impossible to date. The core of the Rigveda may date to the mid 2nd millennium BC, the Pentateuch is traditionally dated to the 15th century, although modern scholarship estimates its oldest part to date to the 10th century BC at the earliest. Homers Iliad and Odyssey date to the 8th century BC and mark the beginning of Classical Antiquity and they also stand in an oral tradition that stretches back to the late Bronze Age. The great Hindu epics were also transmitted orally, likely predating the Maurya period, the Classic of Poetry is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works by anonymous authors dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. The Chu Ci anthology is a volume of poems attributed to or considered to be inspired by Qu Yuans verse writing. Qu Yuan is the first author of verse in China to have his name associated to his work and is regarded as one of the most prominent figures of Romanticism in Chinese classical literature. The first great author on military tactics and strategy was Sun Tzu, among the earliest Chinese works of narrative history, Zuo Zhuan is a gem of classical Chinese prose. This work and the Shiji or Records of the Grand Historian, were regarded as the models by many generations of prose stylists in ancient China. The books that constitute the Hebrew Bible developed over roughly a millennium, the oldest texts seem to come from the eleventh or tenth centuries BCE, whilst most of the other texts are somewhat later. They are edited works, being collections of various sources intricately and carefully woven together, the Old Testament was compiled and edited by various men over a period of centuries, with many scholars concluding that the Hebrew canon was solidified by about the 3rd century BC. The works have been subject to various literary evaluations, friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “In the Jewish Old Testament, there are men, things and speeches in so grand a style that Greek and Indian literature have nothing to compare to it. One stands with awe and reverence before these tremendous remnants of what man once was, the taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone of greatness and smallness. ”Ancient Greek society placed considerable emphasis upon literature. Notable among later Greek poets was Sappho, who defined, in many ways, a playwright named Aeschylus changed Western literature forever when he introduced the ideas of dialogue and interacting characters to playwriting
3.
Byzantine Empire under the Komnenos dynasty
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The Byzantine Empire or Byzantium is a term conventionally used by historians to describe the Greek ethnic and speaking Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople. Having survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, in the context of Byzantine history, the period from about 1081 to about 1185 is often known as the Komnenian or Comnenian period, after the Komnenos dynasty. Moreover, it was during the Komnenian period that contact between Byzantium and the Latin Christian West, including the Crusader states, was at its most crucial stage. Above all, the impact of Byzantine art on the west at this period was enormous. The Komnenoi also made a significant contribution to the history of Asia Minor, by reconquering much of the region, the Komnenoi set back the advance of the Turks in Anatolia by more than two centuries. In the process, they planted the foundations of the Byzantine successor states of Nicaea, Epirus, meanwhile, their extensive programme of fortifications has left an enduring mark upon the Anatolian landscape, which can still be appreciated today. The Komnenian era was born out of a period of great difficulty, in fact, most of the money was given away in the form of gifts to favourites of the emperor, extravagant court banquets, and expensive luxuries for the imperial family. Meanwhile, the remnants of the armed forces were allowed to decay. Elderly men with ill-maintained equipment mixed with new recruits who had never participated in a training exercise, the simultaneous arrival of aggressive new enemies – Turks in the east and Normans in the west – was another contributory factor. In 1040, the Normans, originally landless mercenaries from northern parts of Europe in search of plunder, in order to deal with them, a mixed force of mercenaries and conscripts under the formidable George Maniakes was sent to Italy in 1042. Maniakes and his army conducted a successful campaign, but before it could be concluded he was recalled to Constantinople. Angered by a series of outrages against his wife and property by one of his rivals, he was proclaimed emperor by his troops, however, a mortal wound led to his death shortly afterwards. With opposition thus absent in the Balkans, the Normans were able to complete the expulsion of the Byzantines from Italy by 1071, despite the seriousness of this loss, it was in Asia Minor that the empires greatest disaster would take place. With imperial armies weakened by years of insufficient funding and civil warfare, Emperor Romanos Diogenes realised that a time of re-structuring, consequently, he attempted to lead a defensive campaign in the east until his forces had recovered enough to defeat the Seljuks. However, he suffered a defeat at the hands of Alp Arslan at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Romanos was captured, and although the Sultans peace terms were fairly lenient, on his release, Romanos found that his enemies had conspired against him to place their own candidate on the throne in his absence. After two defeats in battle against the rebels, Romanos surrendered and suffered a death by torture. The new ruler, Michael Doukas, refused to honour the treaty that had signed by Romanos
4.
Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty
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From the start, the régime faced numerous problems. The Turks of Asia Minor had since 1263 been raiding and expanding into Byzantine territory in Asia Minor, Anatolia, which had formed the very heart of the shrinking empire, was systematically lost to numerous Turkic ghazis, whose raids evolved into conquering expeditions inspired by Islamic zeal. By 1380, the Byzantine Empire consisted of the capital Constantinople and a few other isolated exclaves, the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire, the Despotate of the Morea and the Empire of Trebizond, fell shortly afterwards. However, the Palaiologan period witnessed a flourishing in art. The migration of Byzantine scholars to the West also helped to spark the Renaissance in Italy, in addition, the disintegration of the Byzantine Empire allowed the Bulgarians, the Serbs and the various Turcoman emirates of Anatolia to make gains. Although Epirus was initially the strongest of the three Greek states, the Nicaeans were the ones who succeeded in taking back the city of Constantinople from the Latin Empire, the Nicaean Empire was successful in holding its own against its Latin and Seljuk opponents. At the Battle of Meander Valley, a Turkic force was repelled, in the west, the Latins were unable to expand into Anatolia, consolidating Thrace against Bulgaria was a challenge that kept the Latins occupied for the duration of the Latin Empire. In 1261, the Empire of Nicaea was ruled by John IV Laskaris, however, John IV was overshadowed by his co-emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos. In 1261, while the bulk of the Latin Empires military forces were absent from Constantinople, Thrace, Macedonia and Thessalonica had already been taken by Nicaea in 1246. Following the capture of Constantinople, Michael ordered the blinding of John IV in December 1261, as a result, Patriarch Arsenios excommunicated Michael, but he was deposed and replaced by Joseph I. The Fourth Crusade and their successors, the Latin Empire, had much to reduce Byzantiums finest city to an underpopulated wreck. Michael VIII began the task of restoring many monasteries, public buildings, the Hagia Sophia, horribly looted in the Crusade of 1204, was refurbished to Greek Orthodox tradition. The Kontoskalion harbour and the walls of Constantinople were all strengthened against a new expedition by the Latin West. Many hospitals, hospices, markets, baths, streets and churches were built, even a new Mosque was built to compensate for the one burnt during the Fourth Crusade. These attempts were costly and crippling taxes were placed on the peasantry, nonetheless, the city grew new cultural and diplomatic contacts, notably with the Mamelukes. Both had common enemies, Latin aggression, and later on, the Sultanate of Rum was in chaos and decentralized ever since the Mongol invasions in ca. The situation became worse when Charles of Anjou, brother of the King of France, in 1267, Pope Clement IV arranged a pact, whereby Charles would receive land in the East in return for assisting a new military expedition to Constantinople. Unfortunately for Michael VIII, the new union was seen as a fake by the Clements successor, the Greek Church was excommunicated, and Charles was given renewed Papal support for the invasion of Constantinople
5.
Homer
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Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
6.
Iliad
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The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles imminent death and the fall of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. However, as events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly. The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, the Odyssey, along with the Odyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the 8th century BC. Recent statistical modelling based on language evolution gives a date of 760–710 BC, in the modern vulgate, the Iliad contains 15,693 lines, it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects. Note, Book numbers are in parentheses and come before the synopsis of the book, after an invocation to the Muses, the story launches in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War between the Trojans and the besieging Greeks. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, held captive of Agamemnon, although most of the Greek army is in favour of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollos help, and Apollo causes a plague to afflict the Greek army, after nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the Myrmidon contingent, calls an assembly to deal with the problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, angered, Achilles declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon but will go home. Odysseus takes a ship and returns Chryseis to her father, whereupon Apollo ends the plague, in the meantime, Agamemnons messengers take Briseis away. Achilles becomes very upset, sits by the seashore, and prays to his mother, Achilles asks his mother to ask Zeus to bring the Greeks to the breaking point by the Trojans, so Agamemnon will realize how much the Greeks need Achilles. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees, Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him to attack Troy. Agamemnon heeds the dream but decides to first test the Greek armys morale, the plan backfires, and only the intervention of Odysseus, inspired by Athena, stops a rout. Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites, a soldier who voices discontent about fighting Agamemnons war. After a meal, the Greeks deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain, the poet takes the opportunity to describe the provenance of each Greek contingent. When news of the Greek deployment reaches King Priam, the Trojans too sortie upon the plain, in a list similar to that for the Greeks, the poet describes the Trojans and their allies. The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus, urged by his brother and head of the Trojan army, Hector. While Helen tells Priam about the Greek commanders from the walls of Troy, Paris is beaten, but Aphrodite rescues him and leads him to bed with Helen before Menelaus can kill him
7.
Homeric scholarship
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Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in scholarship, for the purpose of the present article, Homeric scholarship is divided into three main phases, antiquity, the 18th and 19th centuries, and the 20th century and later. Scholia are ancient commentaries, initially written in the margins of manuscripts, not necessarily at the bottom, as are their modern equivalents, some are interlinear, written in very small characters. Over time the scholia were copied along with the work, when the copyist ran out of free text space, he listed them on separate pages or in separate works. Today’s equivalents are the notes or the notes section at the end of the book. Notes are merely a continuation of the practice of creating or copying scholia in printed works, although the incunabula, the works of Homer have been heavily annotated from their written beginnings. The total number of notes on manuscripts and printed editions of the Iliad, the number of manuscripts of the Iliad is currently approximately 1800. The papyri of the Odyssey are less in number but are still in the order of dozens, the inventory is incomplete, and new finds continue to be made, but not all these texts contain scholia. No compendium has collated all of the Homeric scholia, following the Principle of Economy, the allocation of scarce publication space to overwhelming numbers of scholia, the compilers have had to make decisions about what is important enough to compile. Certain types, or lines, have distinguished, scholia have lines of descent of their own. The sources of the scholia are noted at the end of each book and their comments, and these scholia, are termed critical. A-scholia are found in manuscripts as well. Venetus A contains some bT scholia, the bT manuscripts descend from an earlier c. bT scholia are termed exegetical, as opposed to critical. They are from Porphyry and Heraclitus, with some from Didymus, the D scholia, or scholia Didymi, named erroneously for Didymus, are the earliest and largest group. They occur primarily in the 9th century Z, and the 11th century Q, but also in others, such as A and T. ”Some are also called the scholia minora and the scholia vulgata. Among the non-minor scholia are mythological aetia, plots, and paraphrases, the order of precedence and chronological order of these Iliad scholia is D, A, bT, and other. Material in them probably ranges from the 5th century BCE to as late as the 7th or 8th century CE, the same scheme applies to the Odyssey, except that A scholia, mainly of the Iliad, are in deficit
8.
Hesiod
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Hesiod was a Greek poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as a persona with an active role to play in his subject. Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs, modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought, archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping. The dating of his life is an issue in scholarly circles. Epic narrative allowed poets like Homer no opportunity for personal revelations, however, Hesiods extant work comprises didactic poems in which he went out of his way to let his audience in on a few details of his life. There are three references in Works and Days, as well as some passages in his Theogony that support inferences made by scholars. Some scholars have seen Perses as a creation, a foil for the moralizing that Hesiod develops in Works and Days. Gregory Nagy, on the hand, sees both Persēs and Hēsiodos as fictitious names for poetical personae. The family association with Cyme might explain his familiarity with eastern myths, evident in his poems, however, while his poetry features some Aeolisms there are no words that are certainly Boeotian—he composed in the main literary dialect of the time, Ionian. Pausanias asserted that Boeotians showed him an old tablet made of lead on which the Works were engraved. If he did write or dictate, it was perhaps as an aid to memory or because he lacked confidence in his ability to produce poems extempore and it certainly wasnt in a quest for immortal fame since poets in his era had no such notions. However, some suspect the presence of large-scale changes in the text. Possibly he composed his verses during idle times on the farm and he was in fact a misogynist of the same calibre as the later poet, Semonides. He resembles Solon in his preoccupation with issues of good versus evil and how a just and he resembles Aristophanes in his rejection of the idealised hero of epic literature in favour of an idealised view of the farmer. Yet the fact that he could eulogise kings in Theogony and denounce them as corrupt in Works, two different—yet early—traditions record the site of Hesiods grave. This tradition follows a familiar ironic convention, the oracle that predicts accurately after all, the other tradition, first mentioned in an epigram by Chersias of Orchomenus written in the 7th century BC claims that Hesiod lies buried at Orchomenus, a town in Boeotia. Eventually they came to regard Hesiod too as their hearth-founder, later writers attempted to harmonize these two accounts. Greeks in the fifth and early 4th centuries BC considered their oldest poets to be Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod
9.
Sophocles
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Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were later than those of Aeschylus. He competed in 30 competitions, won 18, and was never judged lower than second place, Aeschylus won 14 competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won 5 competitions. Sophocles influenced the development of drama, most importantly by adding a third actor and he also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus. Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, was a member of the rural deme of Hippeios Colonus in Attica, which was to become a setting for one of his plays. Sophocles was born a few years before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, Sophocles was born into a wealthy family and was highly educated. Sophocles first artistic triumph was in 468 BC, when he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the master of Athenian drama. According to Plutarch, the victory came under unusual circumstances, instead of following the usual custom of choosing judges by lot, the archon asked Cimon and the other strategoi present to decide the victor of the contest. Plutarch further contends that following this loss Aeschylus soon left for Sicily, although Plutarch says that this was Sophocles first production, it is now thought that his first production was probably in 470 BC. Triptolemus was probably one of the plays that Sophocles presented at this festival, in 480 BC Sophocles was chosen to lead the paean, celebrating the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. Early in his career, the politician Cimon might have one of his patrons, although if he was, there was no ill will borne by Pericles, Cimons rival. In 443/2 he served as one of the Hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena, in 420 BC, he welcomed and set up an altar for the image of Asclepius at his house, when the deity was introduced to Athens. For this, he was given the posthumous epithet Dexion by the Athenians and he was also elected, in 413 BC, one of the commissioners who responded to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. Sophocles died at the age of ninety or ninety-one in the winter of 406/5 BC, as with many famous men in classical antiquity, his death inspired a number of apocryphal stories. The most famous is the suggestion that he died from the strain of trying to recite a long sentence from his Antigone without pausing to take a breath, another account suggests he choked while eating grapes at the Anthesteria festival in Athens. A third holds that he died of happiness after winning his final victory at the City Dionysia, one of his sons, Iophon, and a grandson, also called Sophocles, also became playwrights. Several ancient sources mention Sophocles homosexuality or bisexuality, Athenaios reported that Sophocles loved boys like Euripides loved women. The poet Ion of Chios relates an anecdote involving Sophocles seducing a serving boy at a symposium, Aeschylus, who dominated Athenian playwriting during Sophocles early career, followed suit and adopted the third character into his own work towards the end of his life
10.
Aristophanes
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Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete and these, together with fragments of some of his other plays, provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, and are used to define it. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy and his second play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. In my opinion, he says through the Chorus in that play, less is known about Aristophanes than about his plays. In fact, his plays are the source of information about him. It was conventional in Old Comedy for the Chorus to speak on behalf of the author during a called the parabasis. However, these facts relate almost entirely to his career as a dramatist, Aristophanes claimed to be writing for a clever and discerning audience, yet he also declared that other times would judge the audience according to its reception of his plays. He sometimes boasts of his originality as a dramatist yet his plays consistently espouse opposition to new influences in Athenian society. He caricatured leading figures in the arts, in politics, such caricatures seem to imply that Aristophanes was an old-fashioned conservative, yet that view of him leads to contradictions. It has been argued that Aristophanes produced plays mainly to entertain the audience, an elaborate series of lotteries, designed to prevent prejudice and corruption, reduced the voting judges at the City Dionysia to just five in number. These judges probably reflected the mood of the audiences yet there is uncertainty about the composition of those audiences. The theatres were certainly huge, with seating for at least 10000 at the Theatre of Dionysus, the conservative views expressed in the plays might therefore reflect the attitudes of the dominant group in an unrepresentative audience. The production process might also have influenced the views expressed in the plays, throughout most of Aristophanes career, the Chorus was essential to a plays success and it was recruited and funded by a choregus, a wealthy citizen appointed to the task by one of the archons. Thus the political conservatism of the plays may reflect the views of the wealthiest section of Athenian society, when Aristophanes first play The Banqueters was produced, Athens was an ambitious, imperial power and the Peloponnesian War was only in its fourth year. His plays often express pride in the achievement of the older generation yet they are not jingoistic, the plays are particularly scathing in criticism of war profiteers, among whom populists such as Cleon figure prominently. However it is whether he led or merely responded to changes in audience expectations. Aristophanes won second prize at the City Dionysia in 427 BC with his first play The Banqueters and he won first prize there with his next play, The Babylonians. Some influential citizens, notably Cleon, reviled the play as slander against the polis, Cleon also seems to have had no real power to limit or control Aristophanes, the caricatures of him continued up to and even beyond his death
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scholium". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.