Paul the Silentiary, also known as Paulus Silentiarius ( el, , died AD 575–580), was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
poet and courtier to the emperor
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 ...
at
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 (" ...
.
Life
What little we know of Paul's life comes largely from the contemporary historian and poet
Agathias
Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus ( grc-gre, Ἀγαθίας σχολαστικός; Martindale, Jones & Morris (1992), pp. 23–25582/594), of Myrina (Mysia), an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor (Turkey), was a Greek poet and the principal histo ...
, a friend and admirer, who describes him as coming from a rich and illustrious family, with a father, Cyrus, and a grandfather, Florus, who both probably held public office.
Paul also entered public life and became a ''silentiary'' – one of a group of 30 court officials of privileged backgrounds organised under three officers (''decurions'') whose first duty was maintaining order and silence in the
Great Palace of Constantinople
The Great Palace of Constantinople ( el, Μέγα Παλάτιον, ''Méga Palátion''; Latin: ''Palatium Magnum''), also known as the Sacred Palace ( el, Ἱερὸν Παλάτιον, ''Hieròn Palátion''; Latin: ''Sacrum Palatium''), was th ...
. They also fulfilled important commissions, especially in church matters, and by the sixth century their order had attained the social rank of ''illustris'', the highest in the late empire. Paul himself may have risen to become their chief (''primicerius''). He died some time between 575 and 580.
Works
Agathias considered Paul's greatest work to be his long verse
ecphrasis
The word ekphrasis, or ecphrasis, comes from the Greek for the written description of a work of art produced as a rhetorical or literary exercise, often used in the adjectival form ekphrastic. It is a vivid, often dramatic, verbal descrip ...
of Justinian's Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), composed after the reconstruction of the dome in 562/3. Paul sees the church as a "meadow" of many-coloured kinds of marble, and helps us to imagine the church before its many subsequent remodellings. The poem was probably commissioned by Justinian himself, with verses to be recited by Paul himself during the rededication ceremony. The panegyric consists of 1029 verses in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, starting with 134 lines of
iambic trimeter
The Iambic trimeter is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic units (each of two feet) per line.
In ancient Greek poetry and Latin poetry, an iambic trimeter is a quantitative meter, in which a line consists of three iambic ''metra''. Eac ...
, with the remainder in
dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, ...
.
Of his other poems, some eighty epigrams in the classical tradition have been preserved in the
Greek Anthology
The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...
. Forty of these are love poems. Two are replies to poems by Agathias. In another Paul laments the death of Damocharis of Cos, Agathias's favourite pupil.
J. A. Symonds
John Addington Symonds, Jr. (; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies of writers and artists. Although m ...
calls these verses "the last autumnal blossoms on the tree of Greek beauty." Although his subject matter is varied, much is explicitly erotic and uses
Pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
imagery, as in the following example:
I press her breasts, our mouths are joined, and I feed in unrestrained fury round her silver neck, but not yet is my conquest complete; I still toil wooing a maiden who refuses me her bed. Half of herself she has given to Aphrodite and half to Pallas, and I waste away between the two.[''Anth. Pal''. v. 272. Paton, 1916. p]
271.
/ref>
Bibliography
Texts and translations
*
reek texts with facing German translation*
reek texts*Bell, Peter Neville, ed. (2009
''Three Political Voices from the Age of Justinian: Agapetus, 'Advice to the Emperor'; Dialogue on Political Science'; Paul the Silentiary, 'Description of Hagia Sophia Liverpool: Liverpool University Press
nglish translation and commentary*
''The Greek Anthology I'' (Loeb Classical Library) translated by W. R. Paton (1916) Cambridge MA: Harvard UP; London: Heinemann)
riginal Greek with facing page English translations
Secondary literature
*
reek texts with Italian translation*
nglish translations only*"Paulus Silentiarius", William Smith (ed.) ''
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 p ...
.'' Vol. III (London, 1870)
*Symonds, J. A. (1876) ''Studies of the Greek Poets''. Vol. II (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880)
Notes
Further reading
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External links
Paul the Silentiary: The Magnificence of Hagia Sophiaa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul the Silentiary
Greek male poets
6th-century Greek poets
6th-century deaths
Epigrammatists of the Greek Anthology
Ministers of Justinian I
6th-century Byzantine writers
Byzantine poets
Year of birth unknown
Year of death uncertain