This chapter examines the extent to which Eustratius of Nicaea is indebted to the ancient commentary tradition and at the same time how he departed from the earlier model in order to answer contemporary questions about meaning, some of which had a bearing on morality and ethics. In doing so, the chapter considers in detail Eustratius’ hermeneutics and textual approach, its dependence upon the ancient model and the novelties in his approach to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It argues that Eustratius contributed fundamentally to the formation of a specifically Byzantine commentary tradition by sometimes criticising Aristotle or introducing some motifs that were unrelated to Aristotle’s moral philosophy. Finally, this chapter also investigates the historical circumstances of Eustratius’ career as a commentator and highlights how Eustratius’ literary and philosophical production reflects his patron Anna Comnena as a learned woman who devoted the second part of her life to moral philosophy.

This chapter focuses on ethical training in Byzantium by examining texts from the tenth to twelfth centuries, including Theophanes Continuatus and works by Peter of Argos, Theodore of Nicaea, John Tzetzes and Constantine Manasses, while briefly discussing connections to works on ethical practice by Plutarch and Athanasius of Alexandria. Studies of hymnography, elite rhetoric and gender have displayed the central role of imitating past models in the cultivation of ethical habits and construction of the self in Byzantium. People in the Byzantine period both refined and displayed their character by patterning their emotions and responses on ancient and biblical models. Numerous historical texts presented classical figures as ethical examples to a medieval audience primed to shun or imitate those behaviours. The elite rhetorical habit of likening subjects to great characters of classical antiquity is explored in this chapter as but one aspect of a larger set of cultural practices that aimed at learning ethical behaviour through the imitation of valorised models.