On the last pages of his excellent paper entitled Pages from the Late Byzantine Philosophy of History, C. J. G Turner concludes that contemporary thinkers who interpreted the fall of Byzantium may be categorised in three clearly dif-ferent – but, as we will see later on, also permeable – groups based on their view of the Halōsis and the process that led to it.1
The members of the first group include those authors approaching history from a traditional (“monastic”) viewpoint according to whom it is the punish-ing and rewardpunish-ing God that holds “the reins of history” in his hands brpunish-ingpunish-ing flourishing to believers and decline to sinners. According to this logic also followed by Sphrantzes and Doukas, the two historiographers of the Halōsis as well as Gennadios Scholarios, the fall of Byzantium was caused by sinfulness.
Manuel II and Scholarios – who was selected in this group as well – are the authors of the second group. Although they do not take the reins out of God’s hands and continue to emphasise the role of Providence in history, however, based on Jesus’ teachings, they point out that suffering and decline necessarily go together with true devotion. The members of the third group, on the other hand, leave Christian traditions and interpretations behind totally: they snatch the reins from God’s hands and replace Providence with a relative philosophy of history. These dissenting relativists include Plethon the philosopher as well as Laonikos Chalkokondyles and Kritoboulos of Imbros, two other historiog-raphers of the Halōsis. What this relative philosophy of history boils down to will be shown through Kritoboulos’ historical view.
Before formulating his thesis, of course, Turner examines the loci that show the historical approach of the above cited authors one by one. He also does
* This paper was supported by János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and OTKA NN-104456.
1 Turner, C. J. G., Pages from Late Byzantine Philosophy of History. BZ 57 (1964) 346–373. esp.
372–373.
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this with Kritoboulos’ work2 and during the analysis, he concludes that “[t]he cardinal concept in his philosophy of history is that of τύχη” which – he con-tinues later on – “remains for Critobulus a frighteningly impersonal concept, without purpose, without reason and without providence.”3 In the following, I intend to examine some loci, the analysis of which will hopefully demon-strate Kritoboulos’ view of history and its roots and they may also help me differentiate Turner’s description and, at some points, modify it.
If we depart from what Turner writes borrowing Endre Ivánka’s spirited expression,4 that is, in Kritoboulos’ work τύχη appears as “the ultimate ratio of history”, evoking the Hellenistic period’s approach to history,5 then we should first examine the loci where this Hellenistic concept occurs and comes into action. Turner draws our attention to the fact that, despite its central role, τύχη is nowhere defined precisely and it appears carrying different shades of meaning.6 I could add to Turner’s relevant observation that the situation remotely resembles a key problem of Polybius’ philology – to the extent that the Hellenistic author, as it was pointed out by many scholars,7 used τύχη with a rather broad and uncertain meaning ranging from the everyday connota-tion of luck and chance to as far as the transcendent forces shaping history.
Without drawing a parallel (or rather, forcing it) between the two authors, here, I would like to outline and quantify only the tendencies that characterize Kritoboulos’ word use.
The author uses the word τύχη twenty-two times in his work; eighteen times in singular and four times in plural form. Examining these loci one by one reveals that in fourteen cases the term τύχη, often paired with other words like, for example, ἀρχή or εὐδαιμονία, has no reference to any force influencing the course of history; Kritoboulos uses the word with an everyday meaning
2 Turner (n. 1) 361–365.
3 Turner (n. 1) 361; 362.
4 Ivánka, E., Der Fall Konstantinopels und das byzantinische Geschichtsdenken. JÖB 3 (1954) 19–34. esp. 24.
5 Turner (n. 1) 362.
6 Turner (n. 1) 361–362.
7 See e.g. Walbank, F. W., A Historical Commentary on Polybius. Vol. I, Commentary on Books I–IV. Oxford 1957. 16–26; Pédech, P., Le méthode historique de Polybe. Paris 1964. 331–
354; McGing, B., Polybius’ Histories. Oxford 2010. 195–202; Deininger, J., Die Tyche in der pragmatischen Geschichtsschreibung des Polybios. In: Grieb, V. – Koehn, C. (Hrsgg.), Polybios und seine Historien. Stuttgart 2013. 71–111.
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like luck or chance.8 In my opinion, five of the occurrences differ slightly from the everyday usage and carry some extra meaning, but no reference to some transcendent force can be clearly identified.9
I found only three loci where τύχη certainly occurs as an agent influencing history. Two of these can be read in the speech assigned to the Sultan:
νῦν δὲ τίς οὐκ οἶδεν, ὡς τῶν μὲν τοῦ Παϊαζήτου χειρῶν τύχη τίς ποθεν ἀδοκήτως ἐπιφανεῖσα παρὰ λόγον ἐξήρπασεν, ὁποῖα πολλὰ πολλάκις παρὰ τοῦ δαιμονίου τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ξυμβαίνει; ξυγκείμενον γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ ῥηταῖς ἡμέραις ἐνδιδόναι τοὺς πολίτας τήν τε πόλιν καὶ ἑαυτοὺς ἅτε πλέον μὴ δυναμένους ἀντέχειν λιμῷ τε καὶ πολιορκίᾳ μακρᾷ αἴφνης ἐπιφανέντες ἐκ μὲν Εὐρώπης ὁ Παιόνων τε καὶ Δακῶν βασιλεὺς πρῶτον, ἐκ δὲ Ἀσίας μικρὸν ὕστερον Τεμήρης ὁ Βαβυλώνιος ἀνέστησάν τε αὐτὸν τῆς πολιορκίας καὶ τρέψαντες ἐς αὐτοὺς οὕτω ξυνέβη ταύτην περιγενέσθαι ἀπίστῳ τύχῃ περισωθεῖσαν. (Hist. 1,16,10)
“But who does not know that an unexpected piece of luck, coming in contrary to all logic, snatched victory out of the hands of Bayezid – a thing that often happens to man from the Divinity. For an agree-ment had been reached that the people of the City should surrender the City and themselves on a certain day, since they were unable to resist any longer on account of the famine due to the long siege. Then suddenly there appeared from Europe the king of the Paeonians and Dacians, and shortly thereafter, from Asia, Timur the Babylonian, and they made him raise the siege and turned him off to attack them. That was how this came about: the City was saved by an unexpected piece of good fortune.”10
In his oration presented before the council of war, the Sultan encourages his people to occupy Constantinople (Hist. 1,14,1–16,19). The arguments in fa-vour of starting a war include that they could have already conquered the city.
Bayezid II was one of the rulers who almost managed to do so, but some fate suddenly occurring out of nowhere (τύχη τίς ποθεν ἀδοκήτως ἐπιφανεῖσα) deprived him of victory. The active subject of the sentence here is the force
8 Cf. ep. 2; Hist. 1,2,4; 1,3,3; 1,3,5; 1,3,6; 1,3,8; 1,4,4; 1,48,5; 1,51,5; 1,61,5; 1,68,4; 1,68,7; 1,69,2;
1,69,4.
9 Cf. Hist. 1,14,11; 1,15; 1,16,4; 1,17,2; 1,48,2.
10 Henceforth I cite the English translation of Riggs, C. T., History of Mehmed the Conqueror by Kritovoulos. Westport 1970. (Reprint).
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disregarding human reason (παρὰ λόγον) that sent the king of Paeones and Dacians from Europe, and Timur’s army from Asia to defeat Bayezid. The logi-cal subject of the paragraph-ending and thought-framing clause is again fate – accompanied by the adjective unreliable (ἄπιστος), – which saved the City from destruction. Although the two occurrences mentioned above τύχη are in the Sultan’s speech, there is hardly any doubt that they indirectly articulate Kritoboulos’ thoughts on history.
In one case, the author presents fate interfering with history directly, on the level of the narrator:
οἱ δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι καὶ τούτους ἰσχυρῶς ἀπεκρούοντο καὶ ἀπεωθοῦντο λαμπρῶς ἀμυνόμενοί τε γενναίως καὶ τῷ πολέμῳ καθυπερτεροῦντες καὶ ἄνδρες ἀγαθοὶ γινόμενοι· οὐδὲν γὰρ ὅλως αὐτοὺς ἠδυνήθη παρατρέψαι τῶν γινομένων, οὐ λιμὸς ἐπικείμενος, οὐκ ἀγρυπνία, οὐ πόλεμος συνεχής τε καὶ ἀδιάκοπος, οὐ τραύματα καὶ σφαγαὶ καὶ θάνατοι τῶν οἰκείων πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν ὁρώμενοι, οὐκ ἄλλο τῶν φοβερῶν οὐδὲ ἕν, ὥστε ἐνδοῦναί τι καὶ καθυφεῖναι τῆς πρόσθεν ὁρμῆς τε καὶ γνώμης, ἀλλ’
ἐτήρησαν γενναίως τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἔνστασιν διὰ πάντων, ἕως ἡ πονηρὰ καὶ ἀγνώμων τύχη προὔδωκε τούτους. (Hist. 1,56,4)
“But the Romans on their part met them stubbornly and repulsed them brilliantly. They fought bravely and proved superior to the Ottomans in battle. Indeed they showed that they were heroes, for not a one of all the things that occurred could deter them: neither the hunger at-tacking them, nor sleeplessness, nor continuous and ceaseless fighting, nor wounds and slaughter, nor the death of relatives before their very eyes, nor any of the other fearful things could make them give in, or diminish their previous zeal and determination. They valiantly kept on resisting as before, through everything, until evil and pitiless fortune betrayed them.”
Kritoboulos describes that despite the Turkish overpower, the defenders of the city did their best to resist and held up at any cost, until τύχη betrayed them.
The active subject of the sentence projecting the fall of the City is again fate, which this time received the adjectives evil and cruel. What exactly this betray was remains untold – it may refer to the episode narrated a few lines later about the injury of Giustiniani leading the city’s defence; I will discuss this locus in more detail later on, but first let me summarize what has been said so far.
171 Preliminary Investigations into Kritoboulos’ Idea of History
As we can see, there are three loci where the concept of τύχη occurs in the work as a force directing history. This poses the following question: if it is really fate that stands in the centre of Kritoboulos’ approach to history, why does it appear and influence events only three times? In the following, I would like to prove that in Kritoboulos’ view it is not merely unpredictable and arbitrary τύχη that defines the course of history.
We can find two longer discussions in the work that provide us direct insight in the author’s approach of history; the first one is in the proem:
(1,3,3) ἔπειτα οὐδ’ οὕτως εὐήθεις ἢ διακρίσεως ἄμοιροι καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων ὅλως ἐκτὸς ὡς μήτε τὰς τούτων εἰδέναι τύχας τε καὶ μεταβολὰς μήτε τὸ ἄστατον καὶ ἀβέβαιον καὶ ἀνώμαλον, ἀλλ’ ἐν τοσαύτῃ ξυγχύσει καὶ ἀταξίᾳ πραγμάτων καὶ τοῖς κοινοῖς τῆς φύσεως ἀρρωστήμασι παρὰ μόνου τοῦ ἡμετέρου γένους ζητεῖν τὸ ὑγιές τε καὶ στάσιμον καὶ ὅλως ἀκίνητον ὡς ἂν ἔξω τούτων παντάπασιν ὄντος ἢ κρείττονός τινος φύσεως καὶ μηδαμοῦ δυναμένου ξυμφέρεσθαί τε καὶ ξυμμεταβάλλειν τοῖς ἄλλοις. (4) τίς γὰρ οὐκ οἶδεν, ὡς, ἐξότου γεγόνασιν ἄνθρωποι, τὰ τῆς βασιλείας καὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς οὐδ’ ὅλως ἔμεινεν ἐπὶ τῶν αὐτῶν οὐδ’ ἑνὶ γένει τε καὶ ἔθνει περιεκλείσθη, ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ πλανώμενά τε ἀεὶ καὶ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἔθνη καὶ τόπους ἐκ τόπων ἀμείβοντα πανταχοῦ μεταβέβηκέ τε καὶ περιέστη, νῦν μὲν ἐς Ἀσσυρίους καὶ Μήδους καὶ Πέρσας, νῦν δὲ ἐς Ἕλληνας καὶ Ῥωμαίους κατὰ καιρούς τε καὶ περιόδους ἐνιαυτῶν ἐπιχωριάσαντά τε καὶ οὐδέποτε ἐπὶ τῶν αὐτῶν βεβηκότα; (5) οὐδὲν τοίνυν θαυμαστὸν καὶ νῦν τὰ ἑαυτῶν δρᾶσαί τε καὶ παθεῖν καὶ Ῥωμαίους μὲν τὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τὴν τύχην ἀπολιπεῖν, πρὸς ἑτέρους δὲ διαβῆναί τε καὶ μεταχωρῆσαι, ὥσπερ ἐξ ἄλλων ἐς τούτους, πανταχοῦ τὴν ἰδίαν φύσιν τε καὶ τάξιν τηροῦντα. (Hist. 1,3,3–5)
“Furthermore, I am not so stupid or so lacking in judgment, nor so altogether unacquainted with human affairs as not to recognize their fortunes and changes or the inconstancy, uncertainty, and irregularity of the events, or to think that in such confusion and disorder of things, and in the diseases common to all mankind, I should seek in my own nation alone for healthy and stable and altogether immutable condi-tions, as though it were absolutely above all others and not under any circumstances to be compared or contrasted with any others. Who does not know that since men have existed the kingly or ruling power has not always remained in the same people, nor has it been limited to one
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race or nation? Like the planets, rule has gone from nation to nation and from place to place in succession, always changing and passing, now to the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, and then to the Greeks and Romans, according to the times and epochs establishing itself in a place and never returning to the same. There is therefore nothing astonishing if the same things happen and are endured now also, and the Romans [Byzantines] lose their rule and prosperity, which pass on and are transferred to others, just as they came from others to them, so forever preserving the same nature and order of events.”
In the text, Kritoboulos first elaborates on the variability of human things applying this to the faith of his own people, then from the universal human sphere he moves on (or rather up) to describe the nature of power, which evokes another idea of Hellenistic origin, that is translatio imperii.11 Without a detailed analysis of these lines, let me confine myself to examining two observations important for our further investigations.
This is the first one: it is not τύχη that plays the leading role in the discus-sion; although it occurs two times (in plural and singular form), but instead of some kind of transcendent force – paired up with μεταβολή and ἀρχή –, it is only one characteristic feature of human existence (τὰ ἀνθρωπίνα πραγμάτα) and power (τὰ τῆς βασιλείας καὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς). So the sophisticated first sen-tence is not about blind fate, but much rather recites the archaic Greek say-ing that teaches us the changeful nature of human life and happiness, which Herodotus phrased briefly: “the human prosperity never continues in the same place”12 (τὴν ἀνθρωπηίην [. . .] εὐδαιμονίην οὐδαμὰ ἐν τὠυτῷ μένουσαν – Hdt.
1,5,4). Even though no linguistic parallel can be shown, I believe that it is this Herodotean idea that underlies Kritoboulos’ discussions of how changeful human things are.13
The second observation: these few lines merge not only the tropes of vari-ous periods but the influences of different authors, which is characteristic of
11 On this, see: Ševčenko, I., The Decline of Byzantium Seen Through the Eyes of Its Intellectuals.
DOP 15 (1961)167–186. esp. 184–185; Reinsch, D. R., Mehmed der Eroberer in der Darstellung der zeitgenössischen byzantinischen Geschichtsschreiber. In: Asutay-Effenberger, N. – Rehm, U. (Hrsgg.), Sultan Mehmet II. Eroberer Konstantinopels – Patron der Künste. Köln – Weimar – Wien 2009. 15–30. esp. 17–18.
12 Henceforth I cite Herodotus’ English translation of A. D. Godley with slight modifications.
13 Cf. Emrich, G., Michael Kritobulos, der byzantinische Geschichtsschreiber Mehmeds II.
Materialia Turcica 1 (1975) 35–43. esp. 38.
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Kritoboulos’ writing. The abstract substantives derived from neuter adjectives ἄστατον, ἀβέβαιον and ἀνώμαλον probably reflect Thucydides’ linguistic influence,14 while the sentences discussing translatio imperii exhibit the influ-ence of his other two literary models, Flavius Josephus on the one hand, and Arrian, on the other.15
This eclectic use of literary antitypes suggests that just as his writing, Kritoboulos’ philosophy of history also tapped into various sources and this approach was partly defined by the authors chosen as literary examples.
The following three excerpts aim to support the two observations above with further arguments.
Kritoboulos’ account of the siege is followed by a long lament:
νῦν δ’ ὄντως ἐξήκει τὰ κατ’ αὐτὴν καὶ τὰ καλὰ συλλήβδην ἔρρει, καὶ ἀφῄρηται πάντων, πλούτου, δόξης, ἀρχῆς, περιφανείας, τιμῆς, γένους λαμπρότητος, ἀρετῆς, παιδείας, σοφίας, ἱερωσύνης, βασιλείας, πάντων ἁπλῶς· καὶ ὅσον ἐς ἄκρον εὐδαιμονίας καὶ τύχης ἤλασε, τοσοῦτον ἐς πυθμένα δυστυχίας καὶ κακοδαιμονίας κατήχθη· καὶ μακαρισθεῖσα πρώην ὑπὸ πολλῶν νῦν ὑπὸ πάντων δυστυχὴς καὶ βαρυδαίμων ἀκούει·
[. . .] καὶ ἡ πολλῶν γενῶν ἐπάρξασα πρότερον μετὰ τιμῆς καὶ δόξης καὶ πλούτου καὶ περιφανείας λαμπρᾶς νῦν ὑφ’ ἑτέρων ἄρχεται μετὰ πενίας καὶ ἀδοξίας καὶ ἀτιμίας καὶ δουλείας αἰσχίστης· καὶ παράδειγμα πάντων οὖσα καλῶν καὶ λαμπρᾶς εὐδαιμονίας εἰκὼν νῦν εἰκών ἐστι δυστυχίας καὶ μεγίστων συμφορῶν ὑπόμνημα καὶ στήλη κακοδαιμονίας καὶ μῦθος τῷ βίῳ. (Hist. 1,69,2)
“But this time the City’s possessions vanished, its goods summarily disappeared, and it was deprived of all things: wealth, glory, rule, splen-dour, honour, brilliance of population, valour, education, wisdom, religious orders, domination – in short, of all. And in the degree in which the City had advanced in prosperity and good fortune, to a corre-sponding degree it was now brought down into the abyss of misfortune and misery. While previously it had been called blessed by very many, it now heard everyone call it unfortunate and deeply afflicted. [. . .]
14 Reinsch, D. R. (ed.), Critobuli Imbriotae Historiae. (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 22) Berlin – New York 1983. 244.
15 On Kritoboulos’ imitation of Josephus, see: Reinsch (n. 14) 57*; on Kritoboulos’ imitation of Arrian, see: Tóth, I., Some Thoughts on the Proem of Kritobulos’ Historiai. In: Juhász, E. (Hrsg.): Byzanz und das Abendland: Begegnungen zwischen Ost und West I. (Antiquitas · Byzantium · Renascentia V) Budapest 2013. 305–314. esp. 313–314.
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And the City which had formerly ruled with honour and glory and wealth and great splendour over many nations was now ruled by others, amid want and disgrace and dishonour and abject and shameful slavery.
While it had been an example of all good things, the picture of brilliant prosperity, it now became the picture of misfortune, a remainder of sufferings, a monument of disaster and a by-word for life.”
The message of this river of complaints may be summarized in a short sen-tence: the city that once was the happiest in the world, now turned into the most miserable place – or, as Herodotus said: “many states that were once great have now become small” (τὰ […] τὸ πάλαι μεγάλα ἦν, τὰ πολλὰ σμικρὰ αὐτῶν γέγονε – Hdt. 1,5,4). We cannot discover direct linguistic evidence in these lines either, yet, it seems likely to display one of the main ideas of the Halicarnassean historiographer’s (semi-)cyclical approach to history.
Kritoboulos knew Herodotus’ work well: not only does he make reference to it in his own work,16 but he also made a copy of it; a Herodotus-manuscript (cod. Laurentianus 70, 32) in Laurentian Library preserves the handwriting of the historiographer of Imbros and serves as a testimony.17 The following excerpt shows how thoroughly he studied his predecessor’s writing.
Some lines after the text quoted above, Kritoboulos briefly describes what happened with the thirty galleys that the Roman pope sent to liberate Constantinople. He writes that learning about the fall of the City, the pope’s fleet returned from Chios to Italy empty handed (cf. Hist. 1,70,1). The account ends with the next sentence:
ἔδει δὲ ἄρα πάντως τὴν δυστυχῆ ταύτην πόλιν ἁλῶναί τε καὶ κακῶς παθεῖν, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πάσης ἐπικουρίας πάντοθεν φαινομένης καὶ δυναμένης αὐτῇ βοηθεῖν παντάπασιν ἀπεστέρητο, ἀλλὰ δὴ καὶ πάντα συνδεδραμήκει πρὸς τοῦτο οὕτω τοῦ θείου ἐνδόντος. (Hist. 1,70,2)
“It was fated that this unfortunate City should inevitably be captured and suffer. Therefore it had to be deprived of all succor from any pos-sible quarter which might have helped it, for so had God decreed.”
Diether Reinsch’s critical edition reveals that Kritoboulos made different amendments to the sentence.18 According to the testimony of the autographical
16 Cf. Hist. 1,4,2. On Herodotus’ influence on Kritoboulos, see: Reinsch (n. 14) 54*–55*.
17 Cf. Reinsch (n. 14) 69*–70*.
18 Reinsch (n. 14) ad loc.; cf. Müller, C. (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Grecorum V/1. Paris 1870. ad loc.
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codex unicus (cod. Seragliensis G. İ. 3) preserved in the Serai’s library, the phrase κακῶς παθεῖν written on the margin of the manuscript was added to the text at a later point. These corrections in the text are not unusual for Kritoboulos.
Reinsch counted approximately seven hundred places where the author made modifications to the text at a later stage.19 These amendments are sometimes of factual nature, although they are mostly linguistic and stylistic changes as, I think, in this case too – more precisely, an insertion inspired by Herodotus.
As Herodotus’ excellent researcher, David Asheri put it, events in the Historiai eventually happen according to divinity’s intentions.20 The formula ἔδεε γενέσθαι κακῶς often applied by Herodotus underlines this determina-tion of history.21 Although with some modification, the same formula reoccurs in Kritoboulos’ work, who probably wrote the words κακῶς παθεῖν accom-panying the main verb ἔδει on the margin of the manuscript in allusion to Herodotus.
Even though no close relation as the previous one can be discovered here, we must also presume Herodotus’ influence in the sentence that introduces the description of the episode considered the turning point of the siege, that is, Giustiniani’s injury:
ἀλλ’ ἔδει ποτὲ καὶ τοὺς ταλαιπώρους Ῥωμαίους τῷ τῆς δουλείας ὑπαχθῆναι ζυγῷ καὶ τῶν ταύτης πειραθῆναι κακῶν· ἤδη γὰρ μαχο-μένων γενναίως καὶ προθυμίας καὶ τόλμης οὐδὲν ἐλλειπόντων ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα βάλλεται μὲν Ἰουστῖνος καιρίαν βέλει τῶν ἀπὸ μηχανῆς κατὰ τοῦ στέρνου διὰ τοῦ θώρακος διαμπὰξ καὶ βληθεὶς πίπτει αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀποκομίζεται ἐς τὴν ἰδίαν σκηνὴν κακῶς ἔχων. (Hist. 1,58,3)
“Instead, the hapless Romans were destined finally to be brought under the yoke of servitude and to suffer its horrors. For although they battled bravely, and though they lacked nothing of willingness and daring in the contest, Giustiniani received a mortal wound in the breast from an
19 Reinsch (n. 14) 30*–35*.
20 Asheri, D. – Lloyd, A. – Corcella, A., A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–IV. Oxford 2007. 37.
21 Ἐπεὶ δέ οἱ ἔδεε κακῶς γενέσθαι, ἐγένετο ἀπὸ προφάσιος τὴν ἐγὼ μεζόνως μὲν ἐν τοῖσι Λιβυκοῖσι λόγοισι ἀπηγήσομαι, μετρίως δ’ ἐν τῷ παρεόντι. (Hdt. 2,161,3); Ἐπείτε δὲ ἔδεέ οἱ κακῶς γενέσθαι, ἐγένετο ἀπὸ προφάσιος τοιῆσδε. (Hdt. 4,79,1); Τῇ δὲ κακῶς γὰρ ἔδεε πανοικίῃ γενέσθαι, πρὸς ταῦτα εἶπε Ξέρξῃ· (Hdt. 9,109,2); cf. Hdt. 1,8,2; 12,1; 2,133,2; 6,135,3. On the role of the δεῖ/χρή γενέσθαι formula, see: Goodell, T. D., ΧΡΗ and ΔΕΙ. CQ 8 (1914) 91–102.
esp. 97–98; Nenci, G.: Erodoto: Le Storie. Volume V. Libro V. Verona 1994; 160, 198; Harrison, T., Divinity and History. Religion of Herodotus. Oxford 2000. 231ff.
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arrow fired by a crossbow. It passed clear through his breastplate, and he fell where he was and was carried to his tent in a hopeless condition.”
The traces of the Herodotean formula can be spotted in this line as well.
At the beginning of the sentence projecting the fall of Constantinople we find the impersonal use of the praeteritum imperfectum of the verb δέω in a stressed position again with the same purpose as before: to draw attention to the inevitability of the event. Maybe the small change that Kritoboulos made at the end of the sentence also derives from the intention of getting closer linguistically to the Herodotean example. In fact, the word δυσκόλων stood originally before the kōlon; the author later on modified this to κακῶν, which he also wrote on the margin.22
As I indicated this before in relation to the text cited from the prooimion, here, it is not merely about the linguistic and stylistic influence of a particular literary antitype, but also the intellectual effects accompanying the linguistic expression that are in interaction with it. The quoted examples prove that Kritoboulos’ philosophy of history is not overruled by the arbitrary τύχη.
The Byzantine historiographer’s idea of history also allows for other approach, although not the Christian, but the classic view. However, the following may justify that here it is not just simple fatalism.
The last phrase of 1,70,2 says that the city could not get any help due to God’s decree. Although, in my opinion, Charles Riggs, the English translator of the text uses the capitalised God – evoking the Christian connotation of the word in readers – quite daringly instead of divinity, which is more neutral in its meaning and fits more in the classical literary context, the brave translation does have the merit of highlighting the role and dubious meaning of the word θεῖον, which occurred several times in the first book.
The word appears in the text eight times.23 It usually occurs when Kritoboulos describes natural phenomena projecting the events. Three such detours can
The word appears in the text eight times.23 It usually occurs when Kritoboulos describes natural phenomena projecting the events. Three such detours can