Epigrammatic Commemoration in the Histories of Agathias

digital

Articolo

Rivista

AEVUM ANTIQUUM

Fascicolo

AEVUM ANTIQUUM - 2022 - 22

Titolo

Epigrammatic Commemoration in the Histories of Agathias

Autore

Steven D. Smith

Editore

Vita e Pensiero

Formato

Articolo |

Pdf

Online da

12-2022

Doi

10.26350/020747_000099

Issn

1121-8932 (stampa) | 1827-7861 (digitale)

€ 6,00

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Descrizione

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. But the centrifugal force of the poetic voice persists in ways that resist Justinianic ideology. Read against the grain of the historiographic context in which it is embedded, Agathias’ epigram on the Byzantine victory over the Franks gives voice to an independent poetic authority.