Byzantine Poetry in Context 39Herakleios, the emperor whom he would faithfully serve throughout his re-
maining career^51. In the verses quoted above, Pisides obviously asks to become
the favourite court poet of Herakleios: he presents his “small” panegyric and
humbly asks the emperor if he cannot be allowed the honour of writing “greater”
panegyrics (d6coy t2 mikr2 kaò d5daske kre5ttona). However, this straightfor-
ward request is introduced by a few complimentary words about Herakleios
and his generosity, suggesting that the favours he distributes to his followers
are not at all of a material, but of a spiritual kind. This is pure hypocrisy, of
course. But it clearly shows that the barter economy of give and take -poems
for money or jobs- had not yet become so normal that poets dared to ask
shamelessly for material favours. Financial rewards are the sort of thing one
does not discuss. In his later poetry Pisides never again overtly asked for any
favours, but of course, by then he had become the poet laureate and no longer
needed to beg for something he was already receiving.
It can hardly be a coincidence that almost all poets between c. 600 and 1000
belong to the upper echelons of Byzantine society. Most of them are either in
the service of the emperor or the patriarch; a few poets (especially between c.
850 and 900) are teachers and a few others (especially between c. 800 and 850)
are monks. Taking into account the great number of bishops, high civil serv-
ants and generals among the poets treated in this book, there can be but little
doubt that poetry was very much the pastime of the Byzantine elite in those
days. What is more, the language and style of these poems is often so obscure
and recondite that it seems very unlikely that many people, other than the
powerful mandarins at the top, could have understood what was being said.
Did the members of the Byzantine elite (between c. 600 and 1000) write their
poems when they were off duty, or did they write their poems during working
hours? There is not much solid evidence to prove or to refute either option, but
a few texts clearly indicate that some form of official patronage did exist even
before the year 1000. Whether this patronage accounts for the high social
position of some of the poets, is a quandary difficult to solve as there is so little
material to work with. Did poets write poems in order to obtain a lucrative
post, or did people at the top of the Byzantine bureaucracy feel obliged to
flatter their employers? In other words, were poems meant to bring about a
change in the social position of Byzantine poets, or did they simply serve the
purpose of reinforcing the already existing situation? These are difficult ques-
tions to which there is no answer; it may suffice just to have articulated them.
In the Ekphrasis of the Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantine the Rhodian
writes: “O illustrious, purple-born Constantine, how can you order me to
(^51) PERTUSI 1959: 18–19 dates the poem to 619–620. But see STERNBACH 1891: 35 and F.
GONNELLI, in: La poesia bizantina, ed. U. CRISCUOLO & R. MAISANO. Naples 1995, 116.