Steven D. Smith

An embedded epigram in Book 2 of the Histories by Agathias of Myrina offers an interesting case study for analyzing the double-voicedness that emerges when one genre (classicizing historiography) absorbs another (epigram). Agathias inserts an invented epigram as documentary evidence for the victory of the Byzantine army over Frankish-Alemanni forces in Capua in 554 CE. On one hand, the epigram buttresses the ideological superstructure of the historian’s narrative of military conquest...