portions of this apocalyptic text are believed to belong to
Eugenius’s original. Eugenius also prepared or at least
commissioned, probably during his later years at court,
an edition of the Greek “mirror of princes” Stephanites
and Ichnelates, itself a translation of the Arabic Kalila
wa-Dimna (selections from the Indian Panchatantra or
Fables of Bidpai).
Eugenius is the front rank of the Greek poets of
medieval Italy. From his larger production, twenty-four
poems survive, preserved in a single fourteenth-cen-
tury manuscript written at the famous monastery of
San Nicola at Casole near Otranto. These poems are
in metrically careful twelve-syllable iambics; some
are epigrams, but most are longer refl ections on eth-
ics and other aspects of the human condition. The two
longest and best-known are the fi rst and last: When he
was in prison (number 1, in 207 lines) and To the most
renowned and trophy-holding king William (number
24, in 102 lines, a panegyric probably addressed to
William I). Other noteworthy pieces include an elegant
description of a locally common water lily (number 10);
a derogatory rejoinder to the ancient satirist Lucian’s
Praise of the Fly (number 15); and the mildly didactic
On kingship, perhaps written for the young William III
(number 21).
In the unique copy of Peter of Eboli’s Liber ad
honorem Augusti, the caption to a group portrait of the
alleged conspirators of December 1194 names Eugenius,
among others. But more names are listed than there are
faces in the illustration, and it is not clear which if any
of those depicted is meant to be Eugenius. Specimens
of his signature survive in offi cial documents. A modern
scholarly attribution to Eugenius of the writings of his
now anonymous contemporary, called Hugo Falcandus,
has found little favor.
Further Reading
Editions and Translations
Gigante, Marcello, ed. and trans. Eugenii Panormitani Versus
iambici. Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici,
Testi, 10. Palermo: Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e
Neoellenici, 1964.
Holder-Egger, O., ed. “Italienische Prophetieen des 13 Jahrhun-
derts, 1.” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche
Geschichtskunde, 15, 1890, pp. 141–178. (Critical edition of
Vaticinium Sibillae Eritheae [sic] and similar texts.)
Lejeune, Albert, ed. and trans. L’Optique de Claude Ptolémée
dans la version latine d’après l’arabe de l’émir Eugène de
Sicile, augumented ed. Collection de Travaux de l’Académie
Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences, 31. Leiden: Brill,
1989.
McGinn, Bernard, trans. “The Erythraean Sibyl.” In Visions
of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1979, pp. 122–125,
312–313. (Annotated selections from the Eugenian portions
of this text.)
Critical Studies
Billerbeck, Margarethe, and Christian Zubler, eds. and trans.
Das Lob der Fliege von Lukian bis L. B. Alberti: Gattungsge-
schichte, Texte, Übersetzungen, und Kommentar. Sapheneia:
Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie, 5. Bern: Peter Lang,- (See especially pp. 39–41, 173–179.)
Falkenhausen, V. von. “Eugenio da Palermo.” In Dizionario
biografi co degli Italiani, Vol. 43. Rome: Istituto della Enci-
clopedia Italiana, 1993, pp. 502–505.
Gigante, Marcello. “Il tema dell’instabiltà della vita nel primo
carme di Eugenic di Palermo.” Byzantion, 33, 1963, pp.
325–356.
——. “La civiltà letteraria.” In I bizantini in Italia, ed. Guglielmo
Cavallo et al. Antica Madre, 5. Milan: Scheiwiller, 1982, pp.
613–651. (See especially pp. 628–630.)
Jamison, Evelyn. Admiral Eugenius of Sicily: His Life and Work
and the Authorship of the Epistola ad Petrum and the Historia
Hugonis Falcandi Siculi. London: Oxford University Press
for the British Academy, 1957.
Loud, Graham A. “The Authorship of the History.” In The His-
tory of the Tyrants of Sicily by “Hugo Falcandus” 1154–1169,
trans. Graham A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1998, pp. 28–42.
McGinn, Bernard. “ Teste David cum Sibylla: The Signifi cance of
the Sibylline Tradition in the Middle Ages.” In Women of the
Medieval World: Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy, ed. Julius
Kirshner and Suzanne F. Wemple. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985,
pp. 7–35. (Reprint, Apocalypticism in the Western Tradition.
Aldershot: Variorum, 1994, article 4.)
Ménager, Léon-Robert. Amiratus—’A/â/: L’émirat et les origi-
nes de l’amirauté. Paris: SEVPEN, 1960. (See especially
pp. 75–78.)
Sjöberg, Lars-Olof. Stephanites und Ichnelates: Überliefer-
ungsgeschichte und Text. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Stu-
dia Graeca Upsaliensia, 2. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, - (See especially pp. 103–111.)
John B. Dillon
EULOGIUS OF CÓRDOBA
(c. 800–859)
Priest and apologist for the Martyrs of Córdoba who died
in 859 Eulogius was born (c. 800) into a noble Christian
family in Córdoba. His parents dedicated him as a child
to the Church of St. Zoylus, where he was educated
and trained for the priesthood by the abbot Speraindeo.
There he met and befriended Paulus Alvarus, later the
author of the Vita Eulogii, upon which much modern
knowledge of Eulogius is based. After his ordination
Eulogius seems to have replaced Speraindeo as the
magister responsible for training future priests. Around
849 or 850 Eulogius traveled north, visiting Navarrese
monasteries and acquiring books.
Shortly after Eulogius’s return, a monk named Isaac
was arrested by the Muslim authorities for blasphem-
ing Islam and was executed on 3 June 851. Within two
months ten more Christians followed Isaac’s example,
launching what has come to be known as the Córdoban
Martyrs’ Movement. Sometime during that summer
Eulogius took it upon himself to begin composing theEUGENIUS OF PALERMO