A 12th-century Byzantine novel describes a maiden as a mixture of milk & roses. That’s like the current Russian expression кровь с молоком (blood & milk). … Read the post from Byzantine maiden as mixture of milk and roses to кровь с молоком
In the Byzantine novel Drosilla and Charikles, a couple’s passionate love redeemed a dour old woman who allegorizes college sex tribunal officials. … Read the post Drosilla and Charikles shows college sex police can be redeemed
With pioneering literary realism, Rhodanthe in Prodromos’s 12th-century Byzantine romance occasionally showed that she could be a back-biting bitch … Read the post Rhodanthe as back-biting bitch: the real world of Byzantine romance
The Patria on Constantinople, compiled at the end of the tenth century, reported that statues there could identify non-virgin women and cuckolded men. … Read the post ancient Constantinople statues identified virgins & cuckolded men
In 12th-century Byzantium, Prodromos in his novel Rhodanthe and Dosikles transgressively asserted that men and women have equal intrinsic bodily beauty. … Read the post Prodromos with Dosikles challenged instrumental valuation of men
Unlike the Byzantine epic hero Digenis Akritis, Kallimachos needed instruction from Chrysorroi in slaying a dragon in a Byzantine romance parody. … Read the post damsel instructed hero on how to slay dragon
The medieval Byzantine romance Livistros and Rhodamne subtly critiques social devaluation of men’s lives through the tyranny of omnipotent Eros. … Read the post Livistros and Rhodamne shows men under despotic Eros in Byzantium
In his novel Rhodanthe and Dosikles, Theodore Prodromos described bizarrely reverberating violence and vindication through fierce inquisitorial fire. … Read the post violence against man led to woman’s head crushed by stone
In the medieval Byzantine romance Kallimachos and Chrysorroi, servants and eunuchs exposed Kallimachos and Chrysorroi’s renewed sexual affair in the garden. … Read the post servants and eunuchs destroy joyful sexual fulfillment
Given Chrysorroi’s hypothetical of a laborer tending a vine, Kallimachos’s effort to gain the love of Chrysorroi saved him from execution for adultery. … Read the post Chrysorroi described Kallimachos as deserving her love because of his labors