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The Epitomator Ioannes Xiphilinos and the Eleventh-Century Xiphilinoi

    Marion Kruse

Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 69, pp. 257-274, 2020/05/28

doi: 10.1553/joeb69s257

doi: 10.1553/joeb69s257

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doi:10.1553/joeb69s257



doi:10.1553/joeb69s257

Abstract

Ioannes Xiphilinos, the nephew of the eponymous patriarch Ioannes VIII Xiphilinos (1063–1075), played a critical role in the transmission of the text of the Roman historian Cassius Dio. Despite his importance, however, scholars continue to reproduce an inaccurate and arbitrary biography according to which he was a monk and the author of three works: the Epitome of Cassius Dio, a collection of fifty-three homilies, and a Menologion dedicated to Alexios I Komnenos. The current article lays out the shortcomings of the prevailing consensus before surveying the evidence for the family of the Xiphilinoi in the eleventh century and positing an identification of our epitomator informed by the testimony of lead seals and the letters of Michael Psellos. It argues that our epitomator was not a monk, but was likely a student of Psellos and a high-ranking member of the imperial administration whose only extant work is the Epitome of Cassius Dio.

Keywords: Ioannes Xiphilinos, family Xiphilinos, Michael Psellos, Byzantine Seals, Cassius Dio