Overview

Homer the Rhetorician is the first monograph study devoted to the monumental Commentary on the Iliad by Eustathios of Thessalonike, one of the most renowned orators and teachers of the Byzantine twelfth century. Homeric poetry was a fixture in the Byzantine educational curriculum and enjoyed special popularity under the Komnenian emperors. For Eustathios, Homer was the supreme paradigm of eloquence and wisdom. Writing for an audience of aspiring or practising prose writers, he explains in his commentary what it is that makes Homer's composition so successful in rhetorical terms. This study explores the exemplary qualities that Eustathios recognizes in the poet as author and the Iliad as rhetorical masterpiece. In this way, it advances our understanding of the rhetorical thought of a leading intellectual and the role of a cultural authority as respected as Homer in one of the most fertile periods in Byzantine literary history.

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9780192865434

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Baukje van den Berg is Assistant Professor of Byzantine Studies at Central European University (Vienna). She obtained a PhD in Ancient Greek Literature from the University of Amsterdam in 2016, held postdoctoral positions at the University of Silesia in Katowice and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and was a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks in 2020. Her main research interests are Byzantine scholarship, Byzantine education, and the role of ancient literature in Byzantine culture.

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