Abstract
The study of Byzantine history can never replace the study of the Classics. With a Thucydidean or Polybian view of history it is useful to gain some knowledge of a world which with its desperate array of long term problems and short term solutions may seem more relevant today than the Peloponnesian or Punic wars. As Eastern Europe becomes more important to us it is useful to know something of Byzantium, since most Slav nations owe almost nothing to the Roman Empire and almost everything to the Byzantine Empire. It is useful if we travel as tourists to Greece, and so many of us do, to know something of the period between Alexander the Great and Zorba the Greek, and yet how few of us do. The achievements of the Byzantines in architecture and painting are at least as impressive and a great deal better preserved than the monuments of Classical antiquity. But the reason why a study of the Classics has and must continue to have pre-eminence for Western man and all mankind lies in its literature. Here the record of Byzantium is far less impressive.
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Notes
For a useful comparison between Roland and Digenis see H. Gregoire, Autour de l’Epopee Byzantine (London, 1975 ).
Well shown by J. Hagin, The Epic Hero and the Decline of Epic Poetry, (Bern, 1964 ).
W. Entwistle, European Balladry (Oxford, 1934) p.315.
J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980 )
L. Politis, A History of Modern Greek Literature (Oxford, 1973) pp.23–5.
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© 1983 Tom Winnifrith, Penelope Murray and K. W. Gransden
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Winnifrith, T. (1983). Homer in Byzantine Dress. In: Winnifrith, T., Murray, P., Gransden, K.W. (eds) Aspects of the Epic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05811-2_6
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