AGATHIAS

Oxford Clarendon Press. Very Good with no dust jacket. 1970. Hardcover. 0198143524 . Minor shelfwear. Former owner's name to ffep ; 168 pages; Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus (c. AD 536-582/594) , of Myrina, an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor, was a Greek poet and the historian who is a principal source for that part of the reign of Justinian I covered in his history. He studied law at Alexandria, returned to Constantinople in 554 to finish his training and practised as an advocate (scholasticus) in the courts. Literature, however, was his favourite pursuit. He wrote a number of short love-poems in epic metre, called Daphniaca. He also put together an anthology of epigrams by earlier and contemporary poets and himself, under the title of a Cycle of New Epigrams. Agathias re-edited the Greek Anthology, which preserves about a hundred of his epigrams, showing considerable taste and elegance. He also wrote marginal notes on the Periegetes of Pausanias. After the death of Justinian (565) , some of Agathias's friends persuaded him to write the history of his own times. This work in five books, On the Reign of Justinian, continues the history of Procopius, whose style it imitates, and is the chief authority for the period 552-558. It deals chiefly with the struggles of the Byzantine army, under the command of the eunuch Narses, against the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Persians. .