The Ghost of Clytemnestra is the first afterlife figure in extant Greek literature to call for vengeance instead of ritual burial. Speaking for the sake of her own soul (psychē), the Ghost cites the ethical wrongs done to her as a mother killed by her own son and as a queen dishonored in the afterlife. The Ghost’s claims, however, have never been seriously considered by scholars. By contrast, the Erinyes do take up her cause, chasing down Orestes and arguing a universal version of Clytemnestra’s case in the trial. This chapter delves into the specifics of the Ghost’s rhetoric, her metatheatrical self-awareness, and her first-person depiction of the afterlife. The living Clytemnestra has already proven manipulative, politically usurping, and murderous; she continues these behaviors after death. Further, the Ghost’s lack of substance (as image, soul, or dream of the Erinyes) distances her from the living world. How can a character so far outside of societal norms demand serious ethical consideration?

Theodora Palaiologina Kantakouzene Raoulaina was a wealthy educated patron, a true bibliophile with a rich collection of books, among which her autograph Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 1899 holds a prominent place. Raoulaina copied forty-three out of the fifty-three works of Aelius Aristides, a highly popular orator in the Palaiologan period for the teaching of rhetoric. The manuscript was copied most probably before 8 October 1273 and was intended to be Raoulaina’s gift to future generations. This chapter paper offers the first edition of hitherto unedited scholia to Aristides’ two Platonic discourses, Ὑπὲρ Ῥητορικῆς Λόγος Α΄&Β΄.

Announcing victory in the Trojan War, the Herald has been seen as a cheerful character, thoroughly enjoying life. Why, then, does he dwell on his own grave from the moment of his arrival? Why does he attempt to silence lament and, unsuccessfully, any speech about his fallen companions? The Herald never directly mentions the afterlife and insists on treating death as the end of all ties to life. Nevertheless, his approach to his own death and to the war dead serves as indispensable background for the rest of the trilogy. The Herald’s traumatized approach to warfare and death contrasts with his official function. His attempt at guiding social memory excludes the dead as impinging on society’s profit (kerdos) or glory from war. He reckons them out of the account with the language of calculation and voting. We thus see individual and societal values being formed in response to death as closure, in ways the Oresteia will later overturn and complicate. Moreover, the Herald provides the first mention of heroes as worshipped beings, of Hades, and of the “unseen” forces that affect human fate.

The extended mourning for Agamemnon in the kommos scene of the Choephoroi dramatizes relationships to the dead not found previously in the trilogy. Unlike in the Agamemnon, in the kommos, death is neither an end point nor a peaceful rest. Instead, the mourners repeatedly alternate contradictory conceptualizations of Agamemnon’s existence and power in the beyond: They insist on his outraged, avenging spirit; paradoxically, they also refer to his honored place among kings in the underworld. At some points, they call on him to send his power from below; at others, they beg him to rise from the dead. None of the characters seems to know which of these possible afterlives, if any, are true. The “poetics of multiplicity” evident in the kommos affects the emotional, epistemic, and ethical aspects of the scene. The Chorus’s contrafactual image of Agamemnon as glorious king in the afterlife, jammed against their insistence on his dishonored death and burial, compels Orestes to begin the second coup d’état. It is potentially the first instance in extant Greek literature in which a fictional depiction of the afterlife motivates extreme political action.

Theocritus’ Syrinx is one of the Technopaegnia, a corpus of Hellenistic and Roman calligrames with an intricate and enigmatic vocabulary. The Palaiologan scholars Maximos/Manuel Holobolos and John Pediasimos rediscovered this poem and composed commentaries for didactic purposes. The first part of this chapter delves deeper into the teaching of Holobolos, who has not received as much attention as other Palaiologan scholars. With a particular focus on his commentary on the Syrinx, it analyses Holobolos’ work on the Technopaegnia and addresses questions such as: Why was Holobolos interested in these poems? Which sources did he employ and how did he adapt them to his didactic needs? What literary competence did his students acquire by reading the Technopaegnia? The second part of the chapter explores Pediasimos’ detailed commentary on Theocritus’ Syrinx by addressing the same questions. It also deals with the scholarly context and dating of his exegetical work on the poem. The last part presents a comparative study to explore how Holobolos’ work influenced Pediasimos’ commentary. In this framework, the chapter also examines the manuscripts preserving the Technopaegnia in order to shed light on the scholarly milieu and production of these copies as well as the commentaries by Holobolos and Pediasimos.

This chapter opens a perspective onto the more theoretical or conceptual side of humorous discourse in twelfth-century Byzantium by exploring the reflections on ridicule and comedy in Homeric poetry in the commentaries by Eustathios of Thessalonike. Eustathios addresses the social aspects of ridicule, as well as its rhetorical dynamics and its role in narrative. In his view, Homer uses comic elements to counterbalance the gloominess of the Iliad’s war narrative, as a good rhetor should do. Flyting has the same function: even if the addressees in the narrative are stung by such insults, Homer’s primary narratees are expected to be amused by the often humorous verbal abuse. Eustathios repeatedly points to the moral tensions inherent in ridicule and laughter; as the consummate orator, however, Homer always finds a way to keep his dignity intact. Throughout his commentaries, Eustathios offers his target audience of prose writers numerous examples of how to adopt and adapt Homer’s words in order to ridicule certain bodily defects, excessive behaviours or less-than-perfect intellectual skills. Such comments shed light on what was worthy of mockery in the mind of a Byzantine audience and show that it was expected of urbane rhetors to use ridicule in their writings.

The Periegesis or Description of the Known World by Dionysius of Alexandria (second century ad) is the only Greek didactic poem composed to teach the Roman student elementary notions about the inhabited world. Eustathios of Thessalonike, who prior to his nomination for the position of archbishop of Thessalonike in 1175/8 was maistor ton rhetoron, the leading professor of rhetoric in Constantinople, wrote a systematic commentary on the poem in the form of parekbolai, as he had previously done for the Homeric epics. The prefatory letter addressed to John Doukas, the son of Andronikos Kamateros, suggests that the influential Kamateros family was the primary addressee of a work that certainly was also used by Eustathios in his teaching. Eustathios did not seek to correct errors and ambiguities or to question the validity of Dionysius’ vision of the world, even if he did not shrink from pointing out some of the contradictions found throughout the poem. Rather, his aim was to expand the brief information that the poem gives about towns and places, explain the poet’s stylistic decisions and specify the origin and spelling of toponyms and demonyms.

The Eumenides contains one of the earliest descriptions anywhere of Hades as a universal judge. The Erinyes threaten Orestes with a continuation of his punishment after death by “the great assessor of mortals beneath the earth.” This passage contains the first extant catalogue of Hades’ ethical concerns: he is said to punish human–divine, parent–child, and guest–host transgressions. Although he “sees all things,” the name Hades derives from a-idein, literally the “unseen,” a moniker that exemplifies the human inability to confront this nonpolitical, absolute judge. By differentiating Hades from the Erinyes, this chapter draws out the dynamics of his character and ethical law. Like them, Hades’ connection with blood and punishment entails pollution, but unlike them, he is never subordinated to Athens. The analysis then contrasts Hades’ law to the “new law” that Athena creates. It argues that Hades represents an alternate, yet still valid ethical code that can be used to critique the jingoistic and bellicose politics of the trilogy’s ending.