Nikephoros Basilakes was a leading intellectual in twelfth-century Byzantium. He was a rhetoric teacher associated with the church of Hagia Sophia and the orthodox patriarch in Constantinople. Basilakes’s progymnasmata (rhetorical exercises) show deep classical learning. They were widely studied in Byzantium.
The Byzantine story of Euphemia and the Goth shows a Roman woman’s appreciation for a barbarian lover and social disparagement of highly masculine men. … Read the post barbarian lover: Goth as good husband to Euphemia
In a brilliant 12th-century Byzantine ethopoeia, Nikephoros Basilake allegorized a gardener lavishing his love on a beautiful, barren cypress tree. … Read the post Byzantine gardener & his cypress: barrenness makes beauty a loss
Sixth-century sophist Choricius of Gaza pretended to make a case for a young war-hero to marry an ugly but wealthy girl. His declamation is a parody. … Read the post men reluctant to marry for money; prefer beautiful women
Nikephoros Basilakes in his 12th-century progymnasmata (rhetorical exercises) brought together in Byzantium classical and Christian literature on love. … Read the post love central to progymnasmata of Nikephoros Basilakes