The Homer’s Iliad in Byzantium: An Analysis of the Constatine Hermoniakos’ Singular Metaphrasis
Authors
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David Pérez Moro
Gent Universiteit
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5663-2187
Abstract
The Byzantine metaphraseis of Homer’s Iliad are instruments elaborated with a common objectives and characteristics, usually works composed in prose, in Atticist or Koine language and employed in the education. However, not all these rewritings seem share those characteristics. Throughout this article we will analyse the metaphrasis composed by Constantine Hermoniakos, a poet of the Epirot court from the 14th century, and we will determine which characteristics have made of this a singular work and completely different from the other rewritings. The result of this analysis will allow, first, to know who this poet was and why he composed his rewriting and, second, to stablish and analyse the four distinguishing characteristics of the Byzantine work, that are: meter, structure and content, level of language and Christianisation of the work.
Keywords:
metaphrasis, Iliad, Homer, Constantine Hermoniakos, poem, Demotic GreekReferences
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