Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 65, pp. 169-194, 2016/04/05
Constantine Manasses, author of the twelfth century known above all as historian, produced a considerable number of texts that included extensive and skilful ekphrastic discourse, but he also composed five independent ekphraseis. In different manners and to varying extent, all these texts reflect the learned environment in which Manasses was active as teacher and thetorician, that ist, the imperial milieu of Komnenian Constantinople. The aim of this article is to present a new edition and translation of one of the independent ekphraseis, the Description of a Little Man, and to offer a thorough discussion of its literary and sociocultural significance. This ekphrasis stands out as regards the curiosity of its motif: a dwarf, originally from Chios, spending time in Constantinople and living at the imperial palace in order to entertain the court. The present article includes an edition of the Greek text, a translation with notes and a detailed introduction on the rhetorical and `scientific` tradition that precedes and informs this text, interpreted in relation to the Constantinopolitan environment of Manasses and his peers.
