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Latin, Greek, and Roman in the Byzantine Book Of THE LANGUAGE OF ORDER: LATIN, GREEK, AND ROMAN IN THE BYZANTINE BOOK OF CEREMONIES A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Erik Z.D. Ellis Alexander Beihammer, Co-Director Hildegund Müller, Co-Director Graduate Program in Medieval Studies Notre Dame, Indiana April 2019 © Copyright 2019 Erik Z.D. Ellis THE LANGUAGE OF ORDER: LATIN, GREEK, AND ROMAN IN THE BYZANTINE BOOK OF CEREMONIES Abstract by Erik Z.D. Ellis This study of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos’ De Cerimoniis, a compilation of old and new material produced under imperial patronage during the middle of the tenth century, focuses for the first time on the significance of its language. Rather than treating the book as a source for the reconstruction of ceremony, as has been traditional in the past, it looks at the place of ceremonial language in Middle Byzantine culture and its wider social functions. By examining the place of Latin in the specialized linguistic register of De Cerimoniis, this study challenges received wisdom on the place of Latin in Byzantium and the relative prestige of Latin and Greek both within the tenth century and across the long centuries of their contact and mutual influence. Turning to the Greek of De Cerimoniis, the study presents a typology of “technical Greek” to explain some of the linguistic peculiarities of what scholars are now calling the “middle register” or “literary koine.” The linguistic and stylistic features of this register furthermore reveal De Erik Z.D. Ellis Cerimoniis to take part in the long tradition of “practical philosophy,” which encompasses both technical treatises and the moral encheiridion. The study also places De Cerimoniis in its wider cultural and literary milieu, focusing on how the text both reflects and projects a deeply philosophical and theological vision of the ways by which language and ceremony have real effects in the world and how Constantine VII understood his book as an essential tool in his project of recovering the Roman past and restoring cosmic order. In this regard, this study seeks to connect Constantine VII’s programmatic statements to traditional concepts of mimesis, anamnesis, and liturgical realism along with contemporary speech-act and performance theory. Finally, the study looks at the place of De Cerimoniis within the corpus of works produced under Constantine VII’s name, especially the Vita Basilii. De Cerimoniis emerges as an essential and culminating project in the work of the Macedonian dynasty to “recover” order. This study proposes that the “Macedonian Renaissance” be understood as a two-step project, beginning with “analepsis” of the past and pointing towards an as yet unrealized “katalepsis” of an idealized future. In this conception, De Cerimoniis is the practical outcome of Constantine VII’s desire to build on the achievements of his predecessors Basil I and Leo VI. Through ceremony, the basileus and his basileia begin to reflect heavenly rather than historical taxis, and Constantine VII imagines the possibility of directing his empire towards the fulfillment of its transcendent destiny. VXORI OPTIMAE CVIVS ABSQVE AVXILIO NIL FIERI POSSET ii CONTENTS Tables ...................................................................................................................................v Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. vi Chapter 1: Language and Roman Heritage in Tenth-Century Byzantium: Linguistic Insights into the Intellectual Culture of Constantine VII’s De Cerimoniis ................1 1.1 Ordering Language in Tenth-Century Byzantium .............................................1 1.2 Scholarly Literature ...........................................................................................6 1.3 New Methodologies ...........................................................................................8 1.4 Looking Ahead.................................................................................................12 1.5 The Present Study ............................................................................................16 Chapter 2: The Place of Latin in De Cerimoniis and in the Macedonian “Renaissance” ..22 2.1 Status Quaestionis and Prospectus...................................................................22 2.2 A Census of the Latin Loanwords of De Cerimoniis .......................................36 2.3 Methodological Problems and Considerations ................................................38 2.3.1 Nouns as Loanwords .........................................................................41 2.3.2 The Latin Suffix -arius .....................................................................50 2.3.3 Macaronic Coinages..........................................................................52 2.3.4 Greek Terms for Roman Concepts ...................................................57 2.3.5 Loanwords Denoting Places and Things...........................................59 2.4 A Taxonomy of Latin Influence on the Greek Language ................................61 Chapter 3: Rhetorical Unrhetoric: De Cerimoniis between “Technical Greek” and the Mirror of Princes ......................................................................................................75 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................75 3.2 Technical Greek, Schriftkoine, and the Encheiridion ......................................80 3.3 The Origins and Development of Fachliteratur ..............................................85 3.4 Marching Back to Xenophon: A Literary Anabasis ........................................94 3.5 From Xenophon to (East) Rome: The Formation of a Roman Tradition ......101 3.6 From Greek to Latin and from Latin to Greek ...............................................109 3.7 Rebuilding the Roman Tradition of Technical Greek....................................129 3.8 Morale, Practice, and Eternal Victory............................................................150 Chapter 4: Anamnesis and Typology in the Acclamations of De Cerimoniis .................155 iii 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................155 4.2 Historical Orientation.....................................................................................158 4.3 The Problem of Byzantium: Analyzing a Synthesis ......................................160 4.4 Theoretical Background .................................................................................163 4.5 A Way Forward..............................................................................................167 4.6 Procedure and Definition ...............................................................................174 4.7 Anamnesis: Historical and Eschatological.....................................................178 4.8 The Return to Rome .......................................................................................189 4.9 Recovering the Byzantine Theory of Acclamation ........................................196 4.10 From Inauguration to Acclamation ..............................................................216 Chapter 5: The Macedonian Recovery of Order ..............................................................227 5.1 Renaissance or Recovery? .............................................................................227 5.2 The Formation of a Narrative ........................................................................232 5.3 Seeking Models and Emulating Types ..........................................................236 5.4 Vita Basilii and the Recovery of Order ..........................................................241 5.5 The Mythological Foundation of the Macedonian Dynasty ..........................252 5.6 From Lawgiver to Regulator ..........................................................................260 5.7 The Vocabulary of Recovery .........................................................................264 5.8 From Analepsis to Katalepsis ........................................................................268 5.9 Reflecting the Order of Heaven .....................................................................277 Chapter 6: Conclusion......................................................................................................285 6.1 Overview ........................................................................................................285 6.2 De Cerimoniis and the Recovery of Latin .....................................................288 6.3 Technical Greek and Practical Philosophy ....................................................290 6.4 Ceremonial Realism and Anamnesis .............................................................293 6.5 De Cerimoniis as an Instrument of Macedonian Katalepsis ..........................296 6.6 Building on the Foundation ...........................................................................299 Appendix A: Thematic Lists of “Latin” Words in De Cerimoniis ..................................301 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................311 Primary Sources ...................................................................................................311 Reference Works ..................................................................................................314
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