Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Learning, literature, science, and art

Page 14

On the basis of his political opinions, which he sometimes expressed in his works, Sathas drew an interesting conclusion: inclined neither to democracy nor aristocracy, he had a political ideal of his own, a sort of constitutional monarchy. Diehl remarked; It is not the least mark of originality in this Byzantine of the fourteenth century that he cherished such dreams under the absolute regime of the basileus pledged to the theory of divine right. Of course the history of Byzantine political theory has not yet been told. But this example plainly shows that the history of political ideas in Byzantium is not a tedious repetition of the same things. It had life and it had development. More recent investigation, however, makes it probable that Metochites statement was not a practical political theory but an interpretation of a Platonic idea in the spirit of neo-Platonism.

During the revolution which dethroned Andronicus II, Theodore lost position, money, and home, and was confined in prison. On account of a dangerous illness he was allowed to end his days in the Constantinopolitan monastery of the Chora (the present-day mosque Qahriye-jami). When he was still in power, he had restored the monastery, which was old and in a state of decay, supplied it with a library, and adorned it with mosaics. Today, among other beautiful mosaics preserved in the mosque, one may see, over the main door from the inner narthex to the church, a representation of the enthroned Christ and at His feet the kneeling figure of Theodore Metochites in the gorgeous dress of one of the highest Byzantine dignitaries holding a model of the church in his hand; his name is on the mosaic. He died there in 1332.

The famous Nicephorus Gregoras, who was among his pupils, in his writings has portrayed the personality of his master in a detailed and enthusiastic fashion. His numerous and various works of which many are unpublished and very little studied philosophical and historical essays, rhetorical and astronomical writings, poetry and numerous letters to eminent contemporaries place Theodore Metochites along with Nicephorus Gregoras and Demetrius Cydones as one of the most brilliant Byzantine humanists of the fourteenth century. The most recent investigator defined the work of Metochites as prodigious and various, and styles him probably the greatest writer of the fourteenth century and one of the greatest writers of Byzantine literature. His philosophical studies cause some scholars (for example, Sathas and later Th. Uspensky) to consider Metochites a forerunner of the Byzantine Platonists of the fifteenth century in general and of Gemistus Plethon in particular. Of all his works, the best known is Commentaries and Moral Judgments, usually known as Miscellanies (Miscellanea philosophies et historica). It is a sort of encyclopedia, an inestimable mine of Metochites' ideas, which gives the reader grounds to admire his vast and profound erudition. Metochites cited and, in all probability, had read over seventy Greek writers. Synesius seems to have been his principal source and his favorite author. In his works are scattered many very important historical records on the history not only of Byzantium, but also of neighboring peoples; an example is his detailed account of his embassy to the tsar of Serbia in 1298 to negotiate for the marriage of one of the daughters of Andronicus II.

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