Byzantine Poetry in Context 37example of an intellectual serving different masters without ever feeling
obliged to enter into their service. He writes what they like to hear because it
serves his own interests, not because he feels any obligations towards them.
Geometres writes poems for Nikephoros Phokas; but when the emperor is dead
and no longer of any use, he writes poems for John Tzimiskes and Basil the
Nothos – the very two persons responsible for the death of Geometres’ beloved
emperor. And when Basil the Nothos is ousted from power in 985 and Geome-
tres is dismissed from active service in the military, he repeatedly begs Basil II
to be given back his former position. Not a word about his former masters.
Recognizing that Basil II is now in control, Geometres addresses his pleas to
the very person who can make a difference if he so wishes. Is this sheer
hypocrisy? No, from the viewpoint of tenth-century Byzantium it is not. One
serves the interests of the (always temporary) master as long as necessary, and
then one changes sides and serves the interests of the new -but equally tempo-
rary- master. There is no place here for permanent patronage, for whoever may
seem to gain the upper hand, may very quickly lose it.
Then there is the factor of growing self-assertiveness on the part of Byzan-
tine authors. In the second volume, I shall discuss this phenomenon in more
detail. Among many other things, I shall try to explain why the term “individ-
ualism”, which many scholars use to describe this phenomenon, is not entirely
correct. I have to admit that the term “self-assertiveness” is ugly, but it at
least aptly describes what is going on. Starting from the mid-ninth century,
Byzantine poets claim for themselves a gradually more prominent role in the
literary universe of their own works. They begin to assert themselves. They
begin to talk about themselves. Of course, the lyrical voice of the “I” reflecting
on his “inner self” is as much a figment of the poets’ imagination as all the
other characters that come to life in their literary creations. And yet, it cannot
be denied that the first-person narrator often appears to be identical to the
poet – at least, that is how we moderns are usually inclined to interpret the
word “I”. Although the notorious “intentional fallacy”(that is, the error of
confusing the author with the first-person narrator) is always a clear and
present danger to be reckoned with, there are many poems in which poets seem
to be talking about themselves. In the poetry of Pisides and Sophronios the “I”
who is speaking is almost anonymous: a rather faint voice telling us that he is
the one who wrote the text we are reading, but not a figure of flesh and blood.
In the Psogos and the Apology of Constantine the Sicilian, however, we hear
quite a different voice: the ipse dixit of someone stating his personal beliefs and
desperately trying to defend his ambiguous views on the issue of Byzantine
classicism. In the years after c. 850, Byzantine poets increasingly intrude into
the literary space they create in their poems, and their voices saying “I”
become more and more clamorous. In the late tenth century, this gradual
development eventually leads to the full-blown type of author manifestly