Eustathius Macrembolites

Eustathius (Eusthatios (Greek polytonic|Εὐστάθιος) or Eumathius (Greek polytonic|Εὐμάθιος)) surnamed Macrembolites (Greek polytonic|Μακρεμβολίτης) ("living near the long bazaar"), a medieval revivalist of the Greek romance, flourished in the second half of the 12th century CE.

His title "Protonobilissimus" shows him to have been a person of distinction and, if he is also correctly described in the manuscripts as chief keeper of the ecclesiastical archives, he must have been a Christian. He was the author of "The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias" in eleven books. Although the author borrowed from Homer and other Attic poets, the chief source of his phraseology was the rhetorician Choricius of Gaza. The style is remarkable for the absence of hiatus and a laboured use of antithesis. The digressions on works of art, apparently the result of personal observation, are the best part of the work. A collection of eleven Riddles, of which solutions were written by the grammarian Manuel Holobolos, is also attributed to Eustathius.

References

*Edition of both romance and riddles by Isidor Hilberg (1876), who fixes the date of Eustathius between 850 and 988, with critical apparatus and prolegomena, including the solutions;
*Edition of the Riddles alone by M. Treu (1893).

On Eustathius generally, see

*J. C. Dunlop, "History of Fiction" (1888), new ed. in Bohn's Standard Library
*E. Rohde, "Der griechische Roman" (1900)
*Karl Krumbacher, "Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur" (1897)

*1911