George Pachymeres ( el, Γεώργιος Παχυμέρης, Geórgios Pachyméris; 1242 – 1310) was a
Byzantine Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman co ...
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
,
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
,
music theorist
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
and miscellaneous writer.
Biography
Pachymeres was born at
Nicaea
Nicaea, also known as Nicea or Nikaia (; ; grc-gre, Νίκαια, ) was an ancient Greek city in Bithynia, where located in northwestern Anatolia and is primarily known as the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seve ...
, in
Bithynia
Bithynia (; Koine Greek: , ''Bithynía'') was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Pa ...
, where his father had taken refuge after the capture of
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
by the Latins in 1204. Upon the recovery of Constantinople from the
Latin Empire
The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzanti ...
by
Michael VIII Palaeologus
Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus ( el, Μιχαὴλ Δούκας Ἄγγελος Κομνηνὸς Παλαιολόγος, Mikhaēl Doukas Angelos Komnēnos Palaiologos; 1224 – 11 December 1282) reigned as the co-emperor of the Empire ...
, Pachymeres settled there, studied law, entered the church, and subsequently became chief advocate of the church and chief justice of the imperial court.
His literary activity was considerable, his most important work being a Byzantine history in thirteen books, in continuation of that of
George Acropolites George Akropolites ( Latinized as Acropolites or Acropolita; el, , ''Georgios Akropolites''; 1217 or 1220 – 1282) was a Byzantine Greek historian and statesman born at Constantinople.
Life
In his sixteenth year he was sent by his father, the ...
from 1261 to 1308, containing the history of the reigns of
Michael
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
and
Andronicus II Palaeologus
, image = Andronikos II Palaiologos2.jpg
, caption = Miniature from the manuscript of George Pachymeres' ''Historia''
, succession = Byzantine emperor
, reign = 11 December 1282 –24 May 1328
, coronation = 8 Novembe ...
. Pachymeres was also the author of
rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
al exercises on philosophical themes; of a ''
Quadrivium
From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the ''quadrivium'' (plural: quadrivia) was a grouping of four subjects or arts—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the ...
'' (arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy), valuable for the history of music and astronomy in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
; a general sketch of
Aristotelian philosophy; a paraphrase of the speeches and letters of
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) was a Greek author, Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the ''Corpus Areopagiticum'' or ...
; poems, including an autobiography; and a description of the square of the ''
Augustaeum
The ''Augustaion'' ( el, ) or, in Latin, ''Augustaeum'', was an important ceremonial square in ancient and medieval Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey), roughly corresponding to the modern ''Aya Sofya Meydanı'' ( Turkish, "Hagia Sophia Squar ...
'', and the
column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...
erected by
Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
in the church of
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Ortho ...
to commemorate his victories over the
Persians
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.
...
.
The ''History'' was first published in print by
I. Bekker
August Immanuel Bekker (21 May 17857 June 1871) was a German philologist and critic.
Biography
Born in Berlin, Bekker completed his classical education at the University of Halle under Friedrich August Wolf, who considered him as his most promis ...
(1835) in the ''
Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae
The ''Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae'' (CSHB; en, Corpus of Byzantine history writers, italic=yes), also referred to as the Bonn Corpus, is a monumental fifty-volume series of primary sources for the study of Byzantine history (–1453) ...
''; also by
J. P. Migne
Jacques Paul Migne (; 25 October 1800 – 24 October 1875) was a French priest who published inexpensive and widely distributed editions of theological works, encyclopedias, and the texts of the Church Fathers, with the goal of providing a u ...
, in ''
Patrologia Graeca
The ''Patrologia Graeca'' (or ''Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca'') is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers and various secular writers, in the Greek language. It consists of 161 volumes produced in 1857– ...
'' (vol. cxliii, cxliv); for editions of the minor works see
Karl Krumbacher
Karl Krumbacher (23 September 1856 – 12 December 1909) was a German scholar who was an expert on Byzantine Greek language, literature, history and culture. He was one of the principal founders of Byzantine Studies as an independent academic ...
, ''Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur'' (1897). A more recent edition with French translation of the ''History'' by
Albert Failler (editor) and
Vitalien Laurent
Vitalien Laurent (born Louis Philippe Olivier Laurent; Séné, 26 May 1896 – Paris, 21 November 1973) was a French priest and Byzantinist. He was editor of the journal '' Échos d'Orient'' (predecessor of the ''Revue des études byzantines'').
...
(translator) was published in 1984. An English translation of Books I and II (up to the recovery of Constantinople in 1261), with commentary, exists in the form of a Ph.D. thesis by Nathan John Cassidy held in the Reid Library of the University of Western Australia.
Notes
References
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*
Further reading
*
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*
External links
Opera Omnia by Migne Patristica Graeca with analytical indexesG. Pachymeres, Hierocles and Philagrios, Declamationes XIII, Philogelos. G. Pachymeris, De Michaele et Andronico Paleologis, Bonn, 1835. Greek and Latin text.
13th-century Byzantine historians
Byzantine philosophers
Byzantine theologians
14th-century Byzantine writers
13th-century Byzantine writers
Commentators on Plato
1242 births
1310 deaths
People from Nicaea
Music theorists
14th-century Eastern Orthodox theologians
13th-century Eastern Orthodox theologians
14th-century Byzantine historians
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