Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Learning, literature, science, and art

Page 18

To the same epoch belongs a romance in verse (about four thousand verses) Lybistros and Rhodamne, which strongly resembles, in plot and ideas, the romance, Belthandros and Chrysantza. The plot is briefly: Lybistros learns in a dream that Rhodamne is his predestined wife; he finds her in the person of an Indian princess, seeks for her love, and finally, victorious in single combat over his rival, wins her as his wife. Thanks to magic charms, the rival carries off Rhodamne, who at last, after many adventures, is safely reunited to Lybistros. In this romance the blending of Frankish culture with Eastern living conditions is to be emphasized. While in Belthandros and Chrysantza the Frankish culture is still quite distinct from the Greek, in Lybistros the Frankish culture has deeply penetrated the Byzantine soil; but, in turn, it is beginning to yield to Greek influence. Nevertheless, despite the Latin influence, this poem is much more than an imitation of a Western model. Diehl said: If the society described seems to be penetrated with certain Latin elements, it keeps, as a whole, a clearly Byzantine color. The original version of the romance belongs to the fourteenth century. The romance Lybistros and Rhodamne exists in a later revised version.

Probably to the fifteenth century belongs the Greek version of a Tuscan poem The Romance of Fiorio and Biancifiore (Il cantare di Fiorio e Biancifiore), dating from the fourteenth century. The Greek version contains about 2000 lines in popular Greek and in political meter. The Greek text does not give any indication as to the Greek poet. Krumbacher thought that the author of the version was a Hellenized Frank, that is to say, a member of the Catholic religion. But this statement is now regarded as erroneous, and probably the anonymous author of the Greek version was an Orthodox Greek. The Greek version of the Romance of Phlorias and Platzia Phlore ( ) is of great interest as far as the popular Greek of the Palaeologian epoch is concerned.

Probably at the beginning of the fifteenth century originated the poem, The Byzantine Achilleid, also written in political meter. In spite of the classical title calling to mind the Trojan war and Homer, the poem has very little to do with Homer. The scene is laid in a setting of Frankish feudalism. The personality of the hero of the poem, Achilles, is influenced by another Byzantine epic hero, Digenes Akrites. Achilles is Digenes baptised under a classical name. It is not clear whether the author of the Achilleid was acquainted with one of the versions of the Byzantine epic, or whether he drew his similar episodes from the sources common to both poems, i.e. popular songs. The question cannot be definitely decided; but some parallels in both texts make the first assumption more probable. The poem ends with the death of Achilles in Troy at the hands of Paris and Deiphobos, and the sack of the city by the Hellenes in revenge for his death.

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