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196 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS N. G. WILSON. Scholars of Byzantium. London, Duckworth, and Baltimore, John Hopkins, 1983. Pp. x, 283. Cloth, U.S. $27.50. ISBN 0-8018-3052-4. Few scholars could have written this book. One knew from his earlier work that Wilson was one such. The present result does not disappoint. It is hard to decide which is more enviable, his erudition or his powers of synthesis. Sensibly declining to produce a mere handbook, and just as wisely willing to leave things out, Wilson has given us a most satisfying amalgam of raw material and interpretation, all the more welcome since the Byzantines largely fell between Pfeiffer's two volumes on the history of classical scholarship. Between the introduction and the epilogue, both feats of judicious generality, the arrangement is chronological rather than topical. A sensible plan. The paths taken by Byzantine scholarship were often directed by external factors. For instance, interest in and knowledge of Latin depended upon political and theological relations with the West at anyone time. Also, as Wilson and others ~~~~'1~~ltr, ~~~~g~~d i~nsc~r;:n:~(t :r~~I~~ a;a~e~~I:m~lon~uw~~~r~~: cost of the latter, often conditioned the quantity, and thereby the quality, of what was produced. So far, so panegyrical. Wilson's book is a treasure house of learning and insights. But the best compliment one can pay a good book is honest criticism. Hence the rest of this notice attends to a few matters where I was not always comfortable. The quality of what is in the book is very high, which encourages one to take on faith the considerable amount of information based on unpublished material concerning manuscripts, information which a reviewer obviously cannot check. Wilson is frank about this in his preface; so far from worrying, I am glad to take it as a promise of more good things to come. Indeed, I noticed only one blatant error, all the more palpable because of its rarity. When translating the account of Theodore Metochites by Nicephorus Gregoras, Wilson (256 n.2) credits the lively description of Metochites as lI a living libraryll to Philostratus, VS 4.1.3, where it is applied to Longinus. Longinus, yes, and the nUiTierical reference is also right, but Philostratus is a mistake for Eunapius: dormitat Homerus. When dealing with the scholarly work of Ignatius, WIlson (75) observes that he IIsurprises us with a quotation of Euripides, Orestes 140; since this play was scarcely read in Byzantium, one must wonder if he knew the line only as a quotation". Yet later (179), Orestes is described as the third play of the regular school syllabus, ana-other Byzantine references to it recur (162, 205). Something is a bit adrift here. The first three lines of the Orestes were certainly a tag, being on display in such 12th century contemporaries as the Timarion, Theodore Prodromos' Sale of the Lives (p.142, ed. La Porte due Theil), and Anna Comnena, Alexiad 15.11. One reason for this ~~ ~~~ ~~e t~: ttaeti~a;i::be:r~~er~~t~o~:~.n~~:~~4.2L9~~i:~'w~~cEf;~;a~~ BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 197 ~~~~~:~~a ,tha;. :fle~~li~)~00~v:~19~~~~U9Shh~~P~~~d~~n~heerTn~Vi~~~iah: ~o~::edmo~~e~hai;t~~a1~;~tiath~~~e~/~:~. ~~~~;:~~~:s~dd~act:S~~::;sti~~~ 234,396.933 and 1005 (d. H. W. Miller, "Euripides and Eustathius." AJP 61 [1940] 422-8). whilst even such a humble source as the 14th ~~~~~;~ ~1~:e!MhaerOykt~:~~ott~eB;~~~~~~,o~a~~~ ~~~i~~ ~:nA~~t~n~~~~~ 638-9. introducing them not with Euripides' name but simply "in the words of the tragedian". Concerning what AP 15.36-38 actually tell us about the Homeric scholarship of CometaS, Wilson (82) is as uncertain as his distinguished predecessors Browning (IIHomer in Byzantium. II Viator 8 [1975] 22) and Mango (B zantium: the Em ire of New Rome 1TOMon 1980] 140). Let me here mention. with yzantine se -a vertisement. that I am elsewhere arguing that Cometas produced two things, an advanced commentary for fellow scholars and an elementary one for students and apprentice scribes. In his preface, Wilson deprecates ostentatious bibliography and is defiantly...

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