Evidence ID
E00547Saint Name
John the Baptist : S00020Saint Name in Source
ἸωάννηςType of Evidence
Inscriptions - Poems
LiteraryEvidence not before
463Evidence not after
463Activity not before
450Activity not after
463Place of Evidence - Region
Constantinople and regionPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
ConstantinoplePlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Constantinople
Constantinople
Κωνσταντινούπολις
Konstantinoupolis
Constantinopolis
Constantinople
IstanbulMajor author/Major anonymous work
Greek AnthologyCult activities - Places
Cult building - independent (church)Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Construction of cult buildingsCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Officials
AristocratsSource
The Greek Anthology is a collection of Greek epigrams from dating from the Archaic period to the 9th century AD. It was initially compiled by Meleager of Megara (100-90 BC), whose collection was edited and expanded by Philip of Thessalonica (under Nero), Agathias of Myrina (AD 567/8) and finally by Konstantinos Kephalas (c. AD 900).
The word epigram literally means an inscription. Although most Greek inscriptions were in prose, the word came to be specifically connected to those written in verse, and eventually to include poetic texts which were not necessarily inscribed. From the earliest period of Greek literature, epigrams were mostly sepulchral or dedicatory: they either memorialised the dead or marked the dedication of an object to a god.
Book 1 of the Greek Anthology contains Christian epigrams from Late Antiquity to the 9th century. It was compiled c. 880-900, containing a considerable number of poems copied directly from monuments. The scholar responsible for the transcriptions may have been Gregorios Magistros, a colleague of Kephalas. Epigrams 1-17 and possibly others were taken down from inscriptions at Constantinople and two of them, namely No. 1 (inscription from the bema arch of St. Sophia) and No. 10 (inscription from the church of St. Polyeuktos) have been found in situ, thus confirming the accuracy of the entries in the Anthology.Discussion
This epigram was originally inscribed in the basilica of John the Baptist founded in Constantinople by the patrician Stoudios (eastern consul in 454: Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire II, 'Studius 2'). Attached to the church was also a monastery, the community of which was drawn from the great monastery of the Akoimetoi (the ‘Sleepless Monks’) on the Bosphorus. The basilica, still standing, though in ruins (İmrahor İlyas Bey Camii), was built in the Psamathia (mod. Samatya) quarter of Constantinople, near the Golden Gate of the Theodosian Walls.
The inscription suggests that the church was built before the election of Stoudios to the consulship in 454, which is presented as a reward granted by the Baptist to the founder of his church. Other sources ascribe the foundation to a slightly later period. The 6th century historian Theodore Lector ascribes the foundation of the Stoudios monastery to the time of Patriarch Gennadios (458-471) (Epitome 384) while the early 9th century Chronicle of Theophanes ascribes it to AD 462 (AM 5955). It is possible that the building was started before the consulship of Stoudios and was dedicated later.
The Stoudios Monastery became one of the major monastic centres of the Byzantine capital and a centre of learning through to the end of the empire.
Further reading:
Janin 1964, 431; Janin 1969, 430-440; Mango 1978; Müller-Wiener 1977, 147-152.Bibliography
Edition and Translation:
Paton, W.R., revised Tueller, M.A., The Greek Anthology, Books 1-5, 2nd ed. (Loeb Classical Library; London, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).
Other editions:
Beckby, H., Anthologia Graeca (Munich: Ernst Heimeran Verlag, 1957).
Conca, F., Marzi, M., and Zanetto, G., Antologia Palatina. 3 vols. Vol. 1 (Classici Greci; Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 2005).
Waltz, P., Anthologie Grecque (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1928).
Further reading on the Greek Anthology:
Cameron, A., The Greek Anthology: From Meleager to Planudes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
Further reading on the basilica:
Janin, R., Constantinople Byzantine - développement urbain et répertoire topographique. Vol. 4A (Archives de l'Orient chrétien; 2 ed.; Paris: Institut français d'études byzantines 1964).
Janin, R., La géographie ecclésiastique de l'empire byzantin. I: Les églises et les monastères de la ville de Constantinople. (2nd ed.; Paris, 1969).
Mango, C., "The date of the Studios Basilica at Istanbul," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4 (1978), 115-122.
Müller-Wiener, W., Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1977), 147-152.
