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Education, learning, literature, and art
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Page 7
Michael Acominatus left a rich literary inheritance in the form of sermons and speeches on various subjects, as well as a great number of letters and some poetry, which give very valuable information on the political, social, and literary conditions of his time. Among his poems the first place belongs to an iambic elegy in honor of the city of Athens, the first and also the only lamentation of the ruin of the ancient glorious city that has come down to us. Gregorovius called Michael Acominatus a ray of sunlight which flashed in the darkness of medieval Athens, the last great citizen and the last glory of that city of the sage. Another writer said: Alien by birth, he so identified himself with his adopted home that we may call him the last of the great Athenians worthy to stand beside those noble figures whose example he so glowingly presented to the people of his flock.
In the barbarism which surrounded Athens and of which Michael wrote, as well as in the corruption of the Greek language, one may see some traces of Slavonic influence. Moreover, some scholars, for example Th. Uspensky, judge it possible, on the basis of Michael's works, to affirm the existence in the twelfth century around Athens of the important phenomenon of Slavonic community and free peasant landownership. I cannot agree with this statement.
The younger brother of Michael, Nicetas Acominatus or Choniates, holds the most important place among the historians of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. Born about the middle of the twelfth century in the Phrygian city of Chonae, Nicetas, like his brother, had been sent in his childhood to Constantinople, where he studied under the guidance of his elder brother Michael. While the latter devoted himself to a spiritual career, Nicetas chose the secular career of an official; beginning, apparently, with the last years of the rule of Manuel, and rising to especial importance under the Angeli, he was attached to the court, and reached the highest degrees. Forced to flee from the capital after its sack by the crusaders in 1204, he sought refuge at the court of the Nicean emperor, Theodore Lascaris, who treated him with consideration, restored to him all his lost honors and distinctions, and enabled him to devote the last years of his life to his favorite literary work and to bring to an end his great history. Nicetas died at Nicaea soon after 1210. Michael outlived Nicetas and wrote at his death an emotional funeral oration which is very important from the point of view of Nicetas' biography.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/literature-education-learning-art-6.asp?pg=7
