For this post, I decided to publish an old translation and commentary of mine, which I made while working on a project on the reception of the historian Dexippus in Byzantium. The letter is one of a series of letters that the twelfth century
logophile John Tzetzes wrote to real and fictional characters. This one is to the emperor Manuel Komnenos (1154-1180A.D.) about his visions and prophecies for the emperor. In this
letter, Tzetzes reports and interprets one of his dreams saying that the
emperor must hire Scythian (Cuman) mercenaries to gain victory.
Tzetzes, John. Epistolae. ed. Theodore Pressel. Letter
52
To our mighty and holy emperor Manuel the
pophyrogennetos
As your unworthy servant, I salute your holy and
mighty Imperial Highness, mighty emperor, and I will become a herald of victorious
good news for you using well sent dreams if you will accept a Scythian horse as
an ally of your Majesty. I, your Majesty’s unworthy servant, am “neither a
diviner, nor a reader of omens” nor am I a holy father, priest, or any other
position of virtue, but I sometimes have dreams almost like divinations and
prophecies whose endings I know. I don’t get my dreams when I’ve eaten a lot,
gotten drunk, or when I’m deep in sleep, but when I haven’t touched anything
and I remain sober hardly asleep. As many people are aware of our mode of life
and condition, I will proceed to explain what happened to on this present bright
and shining Sunday. [Saturday nights] I usually keep to myself and don’t go
walking through the forums or the highways, I fell upon my bed to go to sleep,
but like always I was not permitted to fall asleep because I was being attacked
and under siege from a hoard of fleas outnumbering the immeasurable army of
Xerxes. Trapped in the net of such an evil, I rolled around all night long more
than Ixion’s wheel until daybreak, hardly shutting my eyes due to the pain and
aggravation remaining almost still without sleep, when I had a vision I was
walking to the Forum of Leomacellum where I met Basil, a goldsmith, reading a
book near the workshop of perfumer named Victor Short, reading a book. At first
I thought the book was none other than a cheap copy of the Holy Scripture, but
since I heard him reading, I said, “Basil, is that not The Scythian
Wars by Dexippus?”
He told me, “Yes”
And I said, “Who gave you it?”
He told me, “The keeper of the seal.”
There are two keepers of the seal, a father named
Theodore and his son the deacon Constantine. I decided it must have been his
son who gave him the book. I was thrice surprised that a person with so little
education like Basil, who had only learned his rudimentary letters, would be
reading such a book as well as by the fact that it appeared to me that he lives
close to Victor’s workshop when he lives much further south, and I was also
surprised that the book I wanted to read, the keeper of the seal had given to
the gold smith to read. The book’s binding is coming undone and it has been
shriveled up by fire. And yet, although it is in such a state, there is a good
work inside and the pages and binding don’t really matter. So I decided that
the goldsmith Basil was Your Imperial Majesty who lived farther to the south of
Victor’s workshop than he seemed to. I also thought the fact that he would come
into the workshop of Short Victor worked with gold and received the Scythian
horse to his aid by means of the seal keeper and general Theodore or
Constantine his elder, ordained son, who seal and bind what opposes, meant that
with the aid God and the saints by those names as well as with Scythian
horsemen as your ally paid with gold, you shall shortly and concisely win
victory and its spoils. I wrote this as your unworthy servant, but also as
someone who loves his emperor and his country.
Commentary to the Letter
To the emperor
Manuel: This is none other than Manuel I Komnenos (1154-1180) who had a
penchant for prophecies and dream interpretation something Tzetzes could
provide him. Manuel was so superstitious that at one point that if his dynasty
followed the order of the letters of the Greek word for blood AIMA (Alexios,
Ioannes (John), Manuel), it would rule forever. That was why he named his son
and successor Alexios in opposition to the traditional Greek practice of naming
a son after his grandfather.
A Scythian horse: This
is the first of the many ways that Tzetzes uses the term. In this context, he
is referring to his ancestry. Tzetzes was half Georgian on his mother’s side.
Neither…omens: This
is quoted from Homer’s Odyssey line 203.
Ixion’s wheel: Ixion
was a mythical figure who was expelled from Olympus
by Zeus after trying to have sex with Hera. In punishment for this, he was
bound to an ever turning wheel of fire.
Had a vision: The use of ἐδόκησα
for ‘I had a vision’ is not a standard use of the word which usually would mean
‘I decided’, but the use makes sense when one considers that the noun δόκησις can mean ‘vision.’ Tzetzes simply has altered the
verbs meaning based on a noun.
The forum of Leomacellum: This was the forum built by the emperor
Leo Macellus ‘the Butcher’ (457-474A.D.), which was located on the northern
side of the city.
The Scythian Wars: This was a work by Publius Herennius
Dexippus written in the late third century A.D describing the wars of the Roman
Emperors with the Goths, the Scythians in the classicizing language of
Dexippus. The work does not survive in full.
To be your Imperial
Majesty: From here on the interpretation of the dream becomes clear. Basil
the goldsmith is the basileus (emperor) Manuel who will have to use gold
to hire the Scythian horsemen i.e. foreign mercenaries so that in the
near future he will come to Short Victor’s place which we have used instead of
the Greek name Kontos Stratonikos meaning ‘short victory of the army.’ Theodore
the keeper of the seal represents the martial saint, the general Theodore,
while his elder son Constantine represents the saint and emperor Constantine
the Great.
