Eustathios Makrembolites (; ''fl. c.'' 1150–1200), Latinized as Eustathius Macrembolites, was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

revivalist of the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

romance, flourished in the second half of the 12th century CE. He is sometimes conflated/equated with his contemporary, the Eparch of the City Eumathios Makrembolites (). His title '' Protonobilissimus'' shows him to have been a person of distinction and, if he is also correctly described in the manuscripts as chief keeper of the ecclesiastical archives, he must have been a

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. He was the author of a Byzantine novel, ''The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias'', in eleven books. Although he borrowed from

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and other

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poets, the chief source of his phraseology was the rhetorician Choricius of Gaza. The style is remarkable for the absence of hiatus and a laboured use of

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. The digressions on works of art, apparently the result of personal observation, are considered by some scholars the best part of the work. The novel enjoyed a later influence in connection with the story tradition of

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—Eustathius' scene of the storm at sea and the heroine offered as a sacrifice being adapted in Book 8 of the

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and, by way of that, forming a portion of the plot of

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's ''

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'' (particularly in Act III). A collection of eleven ''Riddles'', of which solutions were written by the grammarian Manuel Holobolos, is also attributed to Eustathius.

Editions

* Isidor Hilberg (1876), edition of both romance and riddles, with critical apparatus and prolegomena, including the solutions. He fixes the date of Eustathius between 850 and 988. *M. Treu (1893), edition of the ''Riddles'' alone. *''Four Byzantine Novels'', translated with introductions and notes by Elizabeth Jeffreys, Liverpool University Press, 2012. Includes English translation of ''Hysmine and Hyminias''.

Notes

References

* This work in turn cites: ** J. C. Dunlop, ''History of Fiction'' (1888), new ed. in Bohn's Standard Library ** E. Rohde, ''Der griechische Roman'' (1900) ** Karl Krumbacher, ''Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur'' (1897) {{DEFAULTSORT:Makrembolites, Eustathios Riddles 12th-century Byzantine writers Eustathios