It is normally assumed that Artemius was dux Aegypti at the time of his martyrdom at Antioch on 20 October 362. The present paper argues that Constantius II had actually promoted him as his magister equitum per Orientem about a year beforehand, just before his own death. In accordance with his anti-Christian bias, however, Ammianus Marcellinus conceals this fact in order to create a false association between Artemius and the disreputable bishop George of Alexandria, attacking not only the cult of martyrs in general but that of Artemius at Antioch in particular.

How did an early Byzantine hematite amulet address physical illness? Contemporary medical texts explain that the stone itself was believed to cure bleeding, but how can we account for its engraved words and images depicting Christ healing the bleeding woman? The biblical narrative offers a persuasive analogy to the personal narrative of the Byzantine woman’s own sickness, positing the possibility of a cure for the Byzantine woman through identity with the biblical woman. It provides a model for the infirm Byzantine woman to understand her own personal narrative, and a model of the desired ending to the Byzantine woman’s narrative.

Archaeological and numismatic evidence for Byzantine activity in Paristrion, the lands beside the lower Danube, are surveyed and interpreted alongside the few pertinent written sources. It is suggested that the onset of Pecheneg invasions across the lower Danube, shortly after the death of Basil II (d. 1025), provoked his successors to implement a policy which allowed the Pechenegs, and other northern peoples, controlled access to markets and merchandise. This system allowed ‘barbarians’ to acquire the goods and trappings of distinction they desired, and was generally effective in promoting trading over raiding. An attempt to Reform the system, and recoup bullion — perhaps by the introduction of a phoundax — provoked a rebellion c. 1072.

In Gregoras’ history, the most important building project during the second decade of the fourteenth century is not Theodore Metochites’ redecoration of the Chora monastery, but Andronikos II’s restoration of II. Sophia and the nearby column of Justinian. Two mosaics at the Chora, the Deesis in the inner narthex and the adjacent lunette of Metochites and Christ, make visual reference to the Great Church. The nature of such relationships is explored through reference to Mikhail Bakhtin and his analysis of dialogic language.

During the clearance, excavations and conservation of the Land walls of Constantinople in 1992-93 at the Porta Romanus (Topkapi) some original details of the Theodosian construction techniques and the subsequent repairs were found. It was seen that the structural system of the outer wall which supports the parapet walk and the battlement had been altered during the Late Byzantine era. It was also affirmed that the inner and the outer terrace had been used as a burial ground and ceramic pipes for the water supply system of the moat and stone culverts for the disposal of the ground water of the inner terrace were found.

A long-cherished assumption in standard periodisations of Ottoman history holds that Westernisation in the Ottoman empire had its beginnings in the early eighteenth century. According to the traditional view, the effects of the European Enlightenment began to be felt in the Ottoman empire with the establishment of the Muteferrika Press in 1727, gained pace as the century progressed and achieved a kind of culmination under the rule of the would-be reformist sultan Selim III (reigned 1789-1807). This study examines the evidence for the broader reception of Western, especially secular, ideas at the community level among various of the principal population groups (both Christian and Muslim) of the empire, and attempts a reassessment of the pace of Westernisation divorced from the usual Istanbul-centric and court-centred framework of analysis.

Debate about the strategic importance of Cyprus to Britain during and immediately after World War I has been overlooked by historians. During this period several key departments, politicians and officials argued strongly and in a concerted way for British retention of the island. This article investigates their reasoning and the arguments of those who championed its cession to Greece. Particular attention is given to the opinions of Lord Curzon, whose career was steeped in long-standing Anglo-Russian rivalries in Asia and the strategic doctrines which underpinned it. Reference is also made to the political, diplomatic and strategic context in which Curzon and his colleagues debated the issue.

Through the reception of Solomos, this paper explores the tension between the lyric and the narrative, and the extent to which the roles of national and lyric poet are compatible. The critical reception of Solomos demonstrates that his recognition as a lyric poet was not on an equal footing with his presentation as a national one. It shows that his joint treatment as the national poet of Greece and its greatest lyric poet is problematic and not convincingly argued. It also argues that Solomos’s reception can be summarized as the conflict between the historical and the aesthetic approaches.

This article aims to analyse the Greek struggle against Bulgarian bands and ‘Bulgarian’ villages in Ottoman Macedonia between 1904 and 1908. Greek views on the necessity of violence, the logic of terror, and guerrilla tactics are examined and set against their particular context. It is argued that the form, purpose and intensity of violence were shaped not only by Greek intentions and peasant reactions, but mainly by the prevalence in Macedonia of pre-national religious identities, which obstructed the transformation of peasants into Greeks and allowed violence to function as the ultimate arbitrator of ‘national’ affiliations.

This work examines the way in which the British, Greek and Turkish Governments established a peacekeeping force, the Joint Truce Force, in Cyprus in December 1963 and how the United Kingdom, aided by the United States, subsequently handled the creation of a replacement international peacekeeping force. Although the United Kingdom did everything in its power to keep peacekeeping efforts under its own control for as long as possible, when this was no longer feasible it tried to create a NATO-based peacekeeping force. This was opposed by the (Greek Cypriot) Government of Cyprus which favoured a United Nations peacekeeping force. Given the tensions between the British Government and the Government of Cyprus over which of these two international bodies should be responsible for peacekeeping it is strange that the United Kingdom never took seriously Greek Cypriot calls to have the Commonwealth considered as an alternative to the other two. This work examines these processes and analyses why the United Kingdom favoured NATO, opposed the UN and to all intents and purposes ignored the Commonwealth.

This article takes as its starting point Savidis’ description of certain manuscripts of published and unpublished poems written by Cavafy between 1885 and 1904, manuscripts which evidently once formed a unity. Examples of manuscripts containing two or more poems are considered, in order to show how a chronological sequence of poems on unnumbered pages was reorganized by Cavafy, with the addition of page numbers, to form a thematic sequence. (This is compared to Cavafy’s later practice of progressively transferring poems from chronological to thematic collections.) A third stage is noted involving the dispersal and partial destruction of the manuscripts.

A miscellaneous manuscript in the Mediceo-Laurentian Library in Florence, Conventi soppressi, 20, contains, on fol. 73v, a brief notice about a woman on the Karian coast, a fearsome archer, who repelled two pirate ships. A date, ζωμθ (= 1341), is also written in, presumably the date of the event recorded. The manuscript contains works of Maximos Planoudis; the notice in question follows a poem on meter. The following folio, 74, begins works of Libanius, the first being ‘epistolomaei characteres’. Text (editio princeps) and translation of the notice follow.

The vestibule to the Great Palace of the Byzantine emperors was called the Chalke (ή Χαλκῆ = bronze) gate, a name that the twelfth-century historians George Kedrenos and John Zonaras explain as deriving from the bronze roof-tiles but which their contemporary Niketas Choniates ascribed to its great bronze doors. Which, if either, of these attributions is correct is a moot point: by the time they were recorded, the name Chalke had been attached to the structure for over half a millennium.

The biography of Pope Zacharias (741-52) in the Liber Pontificalis gives an account of his building-works and embellishments at the papal Lateran palace. After describing a new dining-room (triclinium) and an oratory and portico of St. Silvester, the account goes on to say:

I am writing this at the very end of 1998, the bicentenary of Solomos’s birth. Stylianos Alexiou’s controversial selective edition of Solomos’s works, published in 1994, provided a new boost to Solomos studies, and in this survey I propose to discuss work published on Solomos since that date. Dimitris Angelatos conveniently published a survey of Solomos studies from 1964 to 1991. Angelatos’ survey is descriptive rather than critical, and — for non-specialists at least — is insufficiently explicit about such matters as the dispute between Yorgos Veloudis and Louis Coutelle; but at least it lists studies published over a period of a quarter of a century, with some indication of their content.