Teaching Lucian in Middle Byzantium

Abstract

The following paper explores Lucian and his writings through the lens of Byzantine education and investigates how his works could have been used in teaching the Greek language and literature in the Middle Byzantine period. It analyses a number of (didactic) texts which either refer to or are based on Lucianic writings, focusing primarily on two periods — ninth/tenth and twelfth centuries when Lucian-related activities (i.e. mostly writing texts, which were inspired by his works) seem to be especially widespread. Interestingly enough, there was never much interest in Lucian’s biography and the more prevalent view was to cast Lucian as an Attic writer, whose texts were sources of correct grammar, vocabulary and phrases. This paper also offers a preliminary analysis of the four extant schede, that is school exercises, based on the writings of Lucian, which are transmitted in two manuscripts (Pal. gr. 92 and Paris gr. 2556). These schede allow a brief glimpse into the way of using Lucian’s writing in the twelfth-century educational practices. Finally, this contribution brings the diplomatic transcription (which includes also interlinear notes) of the hitherto unedited three schede from Pal. gr. 92. Two of these schede are anonymous while the third one was penned by Michael Attikos, a person possibly mentioned by Anna Komnene in the Alexiad.