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138 Reviews Eustathios of Thessaloniki, The capture of Thessaloniki: a translation with introduction and commentary, trans. J. R. Melville Jones (Byzantina Australiensia, 8), Canberra, Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1988; paperback; pp. xxiii, 244; 1 plan; R. R. P. AUS$21.00. This volume rounds off in a very satisfying way the series of translations into English of the major Byzantine historians of the twelfth century. All those teaching twelth-century Byzantine history, from the Crusades to rhetoric, are very much in the translator's debt for the skilful way he has done his job. This is not, as Melville Jones points out in his introduction, the first translation of Eustathius's account of the capture of Thessalonica into a modern European language. There were nineteenth-century translations into German and Italian and two fairly recent new translations into the same languages. Where his version scores is in the breadth and the depth of the commentary that he provides. Thanks to the care he lavishes on the classical allusions and figures of speech, so essential to a Byzantine stylist, the reader can the more easily appreciate Eustathius's literary aims, methods, and abilities. The commentary is equally good on history, prosopography, and topography. It is always possible, of course, to take issue about individual points. There is a passage on p. 32 about the Paphlagonians, who, as the translation has it, are 'barbarians in the eyes of the ancient Greeks' (en Hellesi). This touches on the resonances that the word Hellene had for an educated Byzantine in the late twelfth century. A previous editor, Stilpon Kyriakidis, whose Greek text is reproduced here, thought that this passage was a very early example of the use of Hellene to refer to the Byzantines themselves, as upholders of Hellenic civilization against barbarism. The fact that the present editor cannot find any classical examples where the Paphlagonians are castigated as barbarians in contrast to the Hellenes suggests that Kyriakidis might weU have beenright.These Paphlagonians were largely responsible for the massacre of Latins that took place in Constantinople in 1182. These Latins 'in accordance with long established custom were set apart along the shore of the horn of Byzantion on the eastern side, and were setded thickly there to the number of more than sixty thousand' (p. 35). Nobody is going to quarrel with the translation. In the commentary this is taken as evidence that the Latins were setded in considerable force around Galata on the eastern shore of the Golden Horn. Doubts have recendy been expressed as to the accuracy of thefiguregiven by Eustathius, but no matter. More serious is the fact that apart from this passage there is really no evidence for Latins setded on this side of the Golden Horn before 1204. They were instead concentrated on the other side, where the Italians, but also the French and Germans, had their establishments. The word Eustathius used for eastern is phosphorios. Other commentators have seen the difficulty and have emended it to Bosphorios, but this scarcely helps. Perhaps on this occasion Reviews 139 Eustathius's sense of direction was deficient. After all, from the vantage point of St. Sophia, where Eustathius must have spent much of his time in Constantinople, the western shore of the Golden Horn is on the eastern side of the city. Another possibdity is that the slighdy obscure form of words chosen by Eustathius should be translated as 'eastern-facing'. It may be that Melville Jones did not want to elaborate his commentary needlessly but discussion of Eustathius's connections with personalities that appear in his text might have been illuminating. For example, on p. 22 Eustathius introduces the 'Good' Lapardas. Melville Jones identifies him with one of Manuel Comnenus's best generals, but he misses his Thessalonican connection. In his capacity as Grand chartoularios, or for some other reason, the 'Good' Lapardas had been responsible for strengthening the defences of the acropolis of Thessalonica by the construction of a new tower [J. -M. Spieser, 'Les inscriptions de Thessalonique', Travaux et Memoires, 5 (1973), no. 15, p. 165]. The epithet suggests that his work was gratefully remembered at Thessalonica. Another possible Thessalonican connection that Melville Jones misses relates...

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