THE ICONOGRAPHY OF EROS 1 AND THE POLITICS OF DESIRE IN KOMNENIAN BYZANTIUM Christina Christoforatou And there, "in the midst of the hall, I witnessed a sizable throng of attendants, a mixed crowd of men, women, youth, and maidens, all bearing torches in their right hand [while] the left they held submissively against their chests. And in the center was the youth [that had been previously depicted] in the garden. Eros, the king, the terrible, was seated once again on his golden throne." "Eros was depicted as a sovereign, and the whole creation stood before him in complete servitude, with the seasons rendered by the artist as men ... " Hysmine and Hysminias (III, 1, 23; IV, 20.4-5)2 Byzantine literati were masters of political propaganda. Partly classicists, partly orators and satirists, they had a knack for distorting cultural images and political realities, and their talents were utilized in an elaborate system of aristocratic patronage that was instrumental for the preservation of the Byzantine status quo. 3 Their most popular compositions-imperial acclamations in the form of encomia, pane gyrics, and ceremonial ekphrases--celebrated the sovereign image and the power of human logos via rhetoric.• The most significant contri butions of Constantinopolitan intellectuals to late Byzantine bios, however, are captured in their least acclaimed works-the adventurous narratives they produced for the entertainment of the Komnenian court and its aristocratic circles. Similar to their western counterparts that flourished during the same period under the patronage of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Komnenian novels are popular tales of love and adventure that capture in their imagery the angst of an increasingly vulnerable empire; above all, they are remarkable examples of literary ingenuity and political cunning that have yet to be examined systematically in the context of a turbulent socio-political milieu, and in 71 Christoforatou light of the demands aristocratic patronage placed on Byzantine intellectuals.' A total of ten novels survive from the Greek Middle Ages: five of these were written IDlder the rule of the Komnenian dynasty ( I 081- 1180) in hypercorrect and often idiomatic Attic Greek, and in close imitation of their ancient predecessors-the Greek novels of the Second Sophistic;° five additional works were produced after a half century of Latin rule under the patronage of a newly established Palaiologan dynasty (1261-1453) that regained control of the capital. The literary products of this second revival are more western and popular in character partly due to the influence of the Crusades and the expansive westpo/itik of the Byzantine court. 7 Central to the action of all ten surviving novels is the sovereign figure of Eros, a hybrid image of eroticism and tyrannical power that reigns supreme over animate and inanimate creation. Under his influence are his dutiful subjects-the amorous protagonists-who, although well-endowed with reason and rhetorical fluency, are rarely champions of civic causes and advocates of their own desires. So profound is, in met, the passivity of the principal characters in the lace of chance (and of the domineering god oflove) that it is as if the writers of the novels "were at pains to create a world in which the initiative does not lie with the individual," but rather with larger cosmic forces that shape human destiny (Beaton, Medieval Greek Romance 62). As a consequence, the projected world of these novels is intently bleak with the principal characters marginalized and deprived of their civic freedoms. It is a world "in which the individual has been scaled down and stripped of the supportive bulwark of the heroic code or the corporate institutions of the polis, both of which had included some familiarity between man and the divine" ( 62). The helplessness of the protagonists before a destiny shaped by chance and administered by a capricious Eros, however, is by no means Byzantine in origin, although Constantinopolitan writers did employ the theme regularly in imperial compositions;' it is instead very much in accord with the hopelessness that permeates the literary predecessors of the Byzantine compositions-the Greek novels of the Second Sophistic.• Unlike the destitute and often timid characters of the Hellenistic novels, however, the heroes of the Byzantine novels are well-qualified individuals, exceptional in every way,'° which in turn begs the question: why create such promising characters if you don't intend to challenge their potential in the course of the narrative? Why 72 Christoforatou further endow them with reason and political conscience if you plan to keep their civic involvement under wraps? Roderick Beaton has attributed this peculiar paradox to the propensity of the Byzantines for dramatic expressions of suffering. Public acts of suffering were often seen as an expression of virtuous conduct in Komnenian Byzantium; thus, the protagonists' apathy to Eros's torments was most likely seen as an act of Christian fortitude, alluding to Christ's own suffering (Medieval Greek 65). Beaton's exegesis, although plausible, does not, however, account for the creation and subsequent introduction of overqualified characters in action-packed narratives that make so little use of their talents; what's more, it falls short on the iconographic front: if the Komnenian authors had indeed the suggested metaphoric allusion in mind, then why did they choose to showcase their rhetorical talents on elaborate representations of Eros (elevating him to the status of a sovereign) and not on the angst of his tormented subjects instead? I believe we must allow for the very real possibility that the ongoing struggle between sovereign power and human subject in the narratives of the four novels was seen for what it really was: a shameless act of sovereign tyranny. We must keep in mind that the sovereign icon of Eros, as it emerges in the narratives of Manasses and Makrembolites, bears tremendous potential for abuse and destruction, which is signi ficant in light of the administrative and political turmoil of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Furthermore, the lovers' questionable passivity in the face of an abusive sovereign, exposes the dangers of imperial absolutism and brings to the fore the value ofbio-political existence. In order to do justice to the sovereign image of love and to the men who conceived it, we must consider Eros in the socio--political milieu that inspired its origin and in the context of aristocratic patronage that legitimized its presence in the orthodox bios of late Byzantium. Such an inquiry will help us appreciate the ingenuity and political savvy of Constantinopolitan literati-traits that set them apart from western humanists and establish a standard for Byzantine innovation. 11 A short review of the characteristics of Eros as he appears in the four Komnenian novels leaves little doubt that his actions were meant to carry political significance. In Hysmine and Hysminias, a twelfth century novel that represents the highest point of Byzantine literary creation under the Komnenoi, Eros is vested with all the appurtenances of Byzantine imperial might. He is depicted as the lord of the natural taxis that makes the world go round; 12 he is additionally "the only figure in the story that the author invests with what the Byzantines 73 Christoforatou recognized as the apparatus of divine and monarchical authority: Eros comes complete with a throne, a court, a ceremonial, and a well developed ruler iconography."13 In Drosilla and Charikles, an earlier novel from the same period, Eros is similarly given the unprecedented title "lord of all" and described as "absolute tyrant over mortals"; he is waited on by the Graces and even hailed in the adaptation of the religious formula, "glory be to Eros the tyrant."" The same phrase recurs in Konstantinos Manasses' fragmentary Aristandros and Kallithea: "there is nothing which Eros the tyrant will not dare," in a passage which also refers to a lover's vassalage in tenns that anticipate the feudal·submission of the hero to the god oflove in Makrembolites' romance, Hysmine and Hysminias: " ... and having become a slave by the hands of Eros." 15 This sovereign portrait of desire bears significant affinities with the iconographic tradition of love as it emerges in the ancient Greek novels of the Second Sophistic and the rhetorical works of Nikephoros Basilakes, the twelfth-century Constantinopolitan intellectual who revived the classical iconography of love in his own rhetorical compositions.16 In at least three ancient Greek novels that are associated with the revival of the genre in twelfth-century Byzantium narnely, Xenophon's Ephesiaka, Achilles Tatius's Leucippe and C/itophon, and Longus's Daphnis and Chloe-Eros emerges as a formidable physical force: 17 he habitually meddles in the affilirs of the amorous protagonists, toys with their passions, and prolongs their travails out of sheer boredom or spite. In Xenophon's Ephesiaka, in particular, the god of love casts himself as a seasoned interrogator who breaks his subjects using the right balance of intimidation and force, 18 while in Tatius's and Longus's novels he assumes the role ofa cosmic potentate whose dominion over animate and inanimate creation is well established through edificatory speeches delivered by converted lovers and works of art that document his most notable conquests. 19 Some eight hundred years after his initial debut in the Greek novels of the Second Sophistic, the god of love continues to dominate the action of the narratives that host him, rivaling the status of the amorous protagonists under the guise of a repressive potentate. In fact, Eros's conniving nature in conjunction with his sadistic temperament is arguably the single most important attribute of his idiosyncratic character that remains intact after some eight hundred years of cultural, iconographic, and literary evolution. In his Byzantine revival the god of love emerges as a peculiar amalgam of classical Hellenism and 74 Christoforatou Byzantine utopianism, and this literary innovation raises questions about the needs and purposes this unorthodox image was created to fulfill. In what fullows, I shall examine in detail the dramatic transfiguration of love against the political backdrop of Komnenian Byzantium, and in the narrative context of the four novels that revived the genre in twelfth-century Constantinople: namely, Theodore Prodromos' Rhodanthe and Dosik/es, Niketas Eugenianos' Drosil/a and Charilc/es, Konstantinos Manasses' Aristandros and Kallithea, and Eustathios Makrembolites' Hysmine and Hysminias.'0 My intent is to show that the figure Eros, "glorious and regal,"21 as it emerges in Makrembolites' novel, is an ingenious construct-a flexible model (TV7!0S') of sorts-that was revived to serve the literary yearnings of an increasingly sophisticated aristocracy and the political aspirations of powerful patrons who sought new ways to revive the glory of the imperial image in the literature and art they commissioned. 22 The Birth of An Unlikely Tyrant Both the personification of desire and the revival of romance in the East have been widely attributed to new and closer (if not always amicable) contacts between Byzantium and the West, and to the changing sensibilities of aristocratic patrons on both ends of the empire. The twelfth century was a period of unprecedented cultural and intellectual ferment both in the East and in the West as Latin and Byzantine intellectuals were simultaneously rediscovering their respective inheritance in classical literature, and affluent patrons were commissioning works that traced their lineage to fumed Greco-Roman stock. In the court of Henry II Plantagenet and his queen Eleanor of Aquitaine this intellectual rebirth brought forth the three vernacular romans d'antiquite-Thebes, Eneas, and Troie. In the court of the · Komnenoi, a similar initiative resuscitated a Hellenistic genre that had lain dormant since the fourth century-Greek narrative fiction-in the form of the Byzantine novel as we know it today.23 This almost simultaneous literary flourishing has proven particularly vexing to scholars studying both traditions since it has made a reliable pattern of influence (from East to West or from West to East) almost impossible to establish. In the past thirty years, in par ticular, compelling arguments regarding the rehabilitation of the genre in the East and the transformation of Eros as a mighty sovereign in it 75 Christoforatou have been put furth by two polarizing groups of scholars: those who trace the figure's origins (and thus that of the genre) to western sources that arguably predate the production of narrative fiction in Byzantium; and those who consider Eros's anthropomorphism a Byzantine innov ation-an ingenuous reworking of a classical archetype. 24 Carolina Cupane, in what remains the most thorough investigation of the image to date, has argued that the transformation of Eros from a mischievous cupid (fipi~) into a fully-grown figure of imperial authority <Po,u,~) owes little-if anything-to Greco-Roman iconographic traditions, and much more to western influence than had previously been acknow ledged." More specifically, in "E,,ws- BanlAEIJ\"' La figura di Eros nel romanzo bizantino d'amore," Cupane asserts that the royal imagery of Eros is more likely to have first emerged in Old French and Provenl'3l literature-in the Fable/ du Dieu d'Amour (late twelfth or early thirteenth century) and in the Roman de la Rose in particular-since there the image appears more integral to the narrative structure of the romances.26 In defense of her argument, Cupane cites "the innate conservatism of Byzantine literature, its lack of a strong allegorizing tradition, and the western influences at work at the Byzantine court during the period of the Crusades. "27 Although I agree with Cupane that cultural influences contributed significantly to emergent literary and aesthetic sensibilities in Komnenian Byzantium, I remain unconvinced that western contacts alone were responsible for the revival of a genre that had lain dormant for some eight hundred years. Here, we need only consider the strict control that both Church and Emperor exercised over literary institutions and intellectuals in late Byzantium to acknowledge the shortcomings of such a suggestion.28 And besides, even if we were to perceive the revived genre as the result of western influence alone, how do we account for the emergence of westernizing trends in a culture that had very little regard for Latin. literature and which subsequently lacked the critical apparatus for its evaluation and appreciation? Deeper forces must have been at work for a secular-and by definition marginal-genre to achieve the popularity and influence of the Komnenian novels, and such forces were vested in imperial and ecclesiastical figures that were adept at exploiting ancient Greco Roman registers to their advantage. It is also worth noting in this con text that higher learning was by no means an independent enterprise in Komnenian Byzantium. Both the Patriarchal School and the Imperial University were under the aegis of their eponymous patrons and it is 76 Christoforatou highly unlikely that either one would have tolerated (let alone encouraged) western influence without careful scrutiny of its social and political ramifications.29 The figure of an enthroned Eros surrounded by vassals, as it emerges in Makrembolites' novel Hysmine and Hysminias. is an iconographic and textual amalgam of the sacral emperor _with the figure of Jesus Christ, following a tradition that Byzantine audiences would have readily recognized in imperial acclamations and in religious art.30 Both in court ceremonial and in official texts the emperor was often described in terms of Old Testament kingship that highlighted his divine associations and semi-divine status.31 / In fact, Manuel Komnenos, the most frequently celebrated Byzantine emperor whose reign is associated with the commission of the novels, was often likened to Christ, David, and Solomon-in rhetorical acclamations and in imperial portraiture. 32 Besides, as Cupane herself observes in her own study of Eros's origins, the new image of love was by no means foreign to the cultural and literary fabric of Komnenian Byzantium: e "Nuovo ii concerto della sua regalita, ma esso si riveste di colori prettamente bizantini: e infatti in veste di fJa,uik{,, a.vroKpo.Twp Eustazio ce lo presenta, assiso su un trono aureo ed elevato che richiama subito alla memoria quello famoso dell' imperatore nella reggia di Constantinopoli. Cosi come prettamente bizantine sono le due figure allegoriche de! giomo e della notte che fiancheggiano ii sovrano Eros."33 It is additionally worth noting that the celebration of Eros's sovereignty was not only an important literary preoccupation of Komnenian court writers and their respective patrons;34 it was also part of a rich iconographic heritage that reached all the way back to Plato and to the ancient Greek novels of the Second Sophistic35-sources that Byzantine literati were familiar with, either through their rhetorical training or through peer interaction in literary 'salons' (theatra) where many of their works were showcased and'discussed.36 Polldcizing Desire: From Eros Tyrannos to Eros Basileus In the narratives of all Komnenian novels Eros is endowed with the most originary attribute of monarchical authority-unregulated power (i~}-which he exercises indiscriminately in two respective domains: the universal over which he reigns as a tyrannous force in Rhodanthe and Dosi/des and Drosil/a and Charikles; and the civic, which he breaches in Aristandros and Kallithea and Hysmine and 77 Christoforatou Hysminias, assuming the role of a prudent (uw,f,pwv) potentate·. 37 In the novels of Prodromos and Eugenianos that inaugurate the genre, Eros is distinguished for his prowess and uncompromising resolve---two notable yet potentially dangerous attributes when unaccompanied by wisdom (sophrosyne), temperance (phronesis), justice (dikaiosyne), and civility (eunomia), founding principles of civic order and sound Byzantine govemance.38 In Makrembolites' Hysmine and Hysminias, Eros is depicted twice in the company of personified abstractions that help define his political outlook while accentuating his civic virtues. In met, the more memorable of the two iconographic groups appears in Book II of the novel, where the mighty sovereign is portrayed alongside Wisdom (IJ>Po"'IO'•,), Power ('I~). Prudence (~pooiil'l1) and Justice (0,µ.,,), in an elaborate ekphrasis that celebrates the quintessential balance of restraint and prowess. In it, the four virtues, personified as maidens, are depicted in balanced groups of two alongside the mighty sovereign (Wisdom and Power stand to the left of Eros, while Prudence and Justice stand to his right). The sovereign iconography of Eros as it emerges in the novels of Manasses and Makrembolites bears additional propagandistic and iconographic ties to the court of John Komnenos and the courts of his successors, Isaac and Manuel. We know, for instance, that Theodore Prodromos, a court poet and contemporary of Makrembolites, on at least one occasion (an oration to Sebastocrator Isaac Komnenos II) had imagined the Emperor "sitting on a lofty throne attended by Ares, the Four Virtues, Rhetoric, Grammar, Philosophy, and various ancient philosophers," while Manuel I Komnenos, Isaac's successor, was often praised for his prowess (andreia) and wisdom (phronesis) while in the company of legendary worthies such as Alexander, David, and Solomon.39 John II, Manuel and Isaac's rather, was equally notorious for his associations with legendary worthies and was frequently praised for his governance in encomiastic speeches that highlighted his military might and prudent leadership.4° Such allusions, however, were not merely a means to imperial propaganda, even though metaphoric affiliations with such figures were often inspired by political motives. Literary evidence suggests that the celebration of the imperial image in the literature and art of twelfth century Byzantium came to serve propagandistic dreams of two powerful groups, the interests of which were often at odds: the aristocratic patrons of the Komnenian novels who identified deeply with the strong military presence of Eros in the literature and art they 78 Christoforatou commissioned, and the writers of the novels themselves who capitali7.ed on the ambivalence of the new sovereign image of Eros in order to expose the dangers of imperial absolutism. The iconographic evolution of Eros front a loathson,e cosmic tyrant in the novels of Prodrontos and Eugenianos to a furmidable sovereign in the novels of Manasses and Makrembolites, thus, points to a rich civic discourse among Byzantine intellectuals on the merits of sovereignty-a discourse that reveals much more about the fears of a politically conscious group of intellectuals than it does about the propagandistic dreams of their patrons. In order to appreciate the prontise of the new imperial icon of love (and the ingenuity of the men who engineered it) we must trace its iconographic evolution in the four surviving novels, starting with the works of Prodron,os and Eugenianos in which the god of love emerges as a primordial cosmic force that bears tremendous potential for violence and destruction. In Prodrontos' Rhodanthe and Dosikles, a novel that inaugurates the genre in Komnenian Byzantium, Eros emerges as a merciless hunter-a predator of sorts-who torments unsuspecting maidens with desire.41 Armed with arrows, wings, and fire, he weaves the fates of all mortals into perfect order, albeit by force: ~ EKEi1lfJIV TWv JIEW"V ~ erm,~. ~ eia&v, 0 ~"""'ffEpwt;, o~ '"''' nri)J..a~ via,, ""'' mi's-lJEa.l( EK""" ffll,,,;,&o.,; mwwv T091Piou. (VIII, 191-94)42 .;y.]KOU E~itel<Tr> 'r'Q t/.c,:,cii ~ (On'Ofa. mi.~ olaev EKTEiJ1E1v "~, ~.m KPa, ffllP"',IADwm i,a,pai,u;). (VIII, 197-99)43 His purpose and sense of justice are questionable, although never by the amorous protagonists who, once initiated in Eros's arts, find themselves advocates of his powers and primal cause.44 In Drosilla and Charildes, the ruler's disrepute worsens as he evolves into a sadistic force. Eros deceives his victims with false hope; he causes them to believe that they "carr[y] [the] beloved in the fold of [their] robe," only to have them trapped in his nets "just like a mouse who's fallen into a pot of pitch" (IV, 406-10). Hero and heroine blame the mighty tyrant repeatedly for their predicaments in their long 79 Christoforatou lamentations, deeming him ''a nasty creature", ua leech", and ''a terrible plague"" that "ignite[s], combust[s], cremate[s], and incinerate[s]" by most unusual means;46 and yet, they never challenge his authority or disobey his will. In fact, there is hardly a sign of active indignation on the part of the grieving: "Against him no one on earth has found a remedy/' a confirmed lover admits in Eugenianos' romance-a phrase that echoes another lover's affirmation in the same work: "I think that anyone who could pass by and escape Eros, the winged tyrant, could even count the stars in the sky.'"' The lovers' disturbing acquiescence in the narratives of Prodromos and Eugenianos exposes the ethical ambiguity at the heart of the sovereign's relation to those he subjects and calls into question the existence of meaningful bios (iSio, 1roA1TIKQ\') under the aegis of a formidable, yet potentially abusive, sovereign. In the character of Eros, the sovereign power drafts the human subject into his service and places upon him the most outrageous demands, which he inevitably accepts in exchange for deliverance and union with the beloved.48 Eugenianos' hero acknowledges the inevitable-"sooner would stones fly winged to the sky I and diamond be cut by sword I than Eros cease to shoot arrows to earth"-and dutifully surrenders his liberties to the loathsome tyrant,'' while Kleandros, his friend and confidant, fearful of yet another separation from his beloved Kalligone, pledges eternal servitude and seals his submission with a humbling plea: "Let no one fear the sword-sharp darts of desire I even if they are poisoned" (Burton II, 125-26). The emergent iconography oflove (Eros Tyrannos) in Komnenian Byzantium appears symptomatic of the crisis the imperial image underwent in the aftermath of Basil's death in 1025 under the reckless administration of no fewer than thirteen ruler8-------<lleven emperors and two empresses--that brought the empire to an all-time political low. The crisis reached its nadir in 1071 with the capture of Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes by the forces of Sultan Alp Arslan in the Battle of Manzikert and with the loss of the last Byzantine strongholds in Sicily to the Normans the same year.'0 During this period of cultural and political reorientation, the concept of the universal empire provided the ideological base of official propaganda and allowed for generous aristocratic patronage of artists and writers eager to secure the good graces and continuous support of affiuent patrons. Prodromos, Eugenianos, Manasses, and Makrernbolites were among the few literati who distinguished themselves in this service while remaining critical 80