Browsing by Author "Kennedy, Scott"

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Open Access
The Arab conquestin Byzantine historical memory: The long view
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2022-04-12) Kennedy, Scott
In recent decades, historians of the Arab conquest have increasingly turned away from positivist reconstructions of the events of the Arab conquest. Through thematic analysis of conquest narratives, scholars have illustrated how the early Islamic community articulated its identity. Byzantine narratives of the Arab conquest have generally not been considered from this perspective. This paper takes the long view of the Arab conquest illustrating how centuries of Byzantine writers and chroniclers articulated and rearticulated this memory, as their identity shifted along with their political and diplomatic relationships.
Open Access
Bessarion's date of birth: A new assessment of the evidence
(De Gruyter, 2018) Kennedy, Scott
The cardinal Bessarion was a foremost figure of the Italian Renaissance and late Byzantium. However, some of the details of his life are not yet securely established, especially his date of birth. Over the last century, scholars have proposed dates ranging from 1400 to 1408. In this study, I critically interrogate the two most commonly accepted dates (1400 and 1408). In the past, scholars have relied on the age requirements of canon law or the testimony of Italian observers to determine Bessarion's age. By critically examining the validity of these two assumptions, I reprioritize the evidence, approximating the cardinal's year of birth as 1403.
Open Access
A classic dethroned: the decline and fall of thucydides in middle byzantium
(Duke University, 2018) Kennedy, Scott
During the eighth to thirteenth centuries Thucydides lost his prominence in literary culture, as rhetorical schools and historiography rendered him rhetorically, politically, and culturally problematic.
Open Access
Eusebius’ knowledge of Thucydides
(Duke University * Department of Classical Studies, 2023-03-31) Devore, David J.; Kennedy, Scott
Eusebius’ two named citations of Thucydides imply extensive knowledge of other parts of the History, and his comments show awareness of the Thucydidean commentary tradition of the imperial era.
Open Access
Michael Panaretos in context: a historiographical study of the chronicle on the emperors of Trebizond
(De Gruyter, 2019) Kennedy, Scott
It has often been said it would be impossible to write the history of the empire of Trebizond (1204-1461) without the terse and often frustratingly laconic chronicle of the Grand Komnenoi by the protonotarios of Alexios III (1349-1390), Michael Panaretos. While recent scholarship has infinitely enhanced our knowledge of the world in which Panaretos lived, it has been approximately seventy years since a scholar dedicated a historiographical study to the text. This study examines the world that Panaretos wanted posterity to see, examining how his post as imperial secretary and his use of sources shaped his representation of reality, whether that reality was Trebizond’s experience of foreigners, the reign of Alexios III, or a narrative that showed the superiority of Trebizond on the international stage. Finally by scrutinizing Panaretos in this way, this paper also illuminates how modern historians of Trebizond have been led astray by the chronicler, unaware of how Panaretos selected material for inclusion for the narratives of his chronicle.
Open Access
The Siren's song: Senophon's Anabasis in Byzantium
(De Gruyter, 2022-10-24) Kennedy, Scott; Rood, Tim; Tamiolaki, Melina
Frequently known as the Attic bee or the Siren’s song, Xenophon and his Anabasis had an enduring influence in the Eastern Roman empire. Whereas a number of popular ancient authors such as Callimachus and Menander lost their canonical status or alternatively lost their cultural influence while remaining canonical (e.g., Thucydides), Xenophon’s Anabasis never ceased to fascinate Byzantine readers as it had their ancient predecessors. Over more than 1000 years while most Westerners were ignorant of the name Xenophon, Xenophon sparked not only the curiosity of Byzantine readers but also their creativity, as they reshaped the ancient text to glorify themselves and even justify some of the first rumblings of Hellenic proto-nationalism in Byzantium’s final years. ‘Where now is the Siren of Xenophon?’ exclaimed the Byzantine rhetor Manuel Holobolos in his panegyric of his emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (1262–1282), summoning the hypnotic and tempting qualities of Xenophon to bewitch his audience.1 Frequently compared in Byzantium to a bee or a Siren’s song, Xenophon had an enduring influence on Byzantine culture throughout the more than 1,000 year period of Roman history, which we conventually designate as Byzantine. This paper explores how and why Xenophon’s Siren song continued to entice Byzantine intellectuals to engage with the Anabasis. Unlike other classical texts such as Callimachus and Menander, whose magic faded and eventually disappeared in Byzantium, or Thucydides, whose use contracted between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, Xenophon’s readership never diminished between antiquity and Byzantium. Throughout Byzantine history, Xenophon sparked not only the curiosity of Byzantine readers but also their creativity, as they reshaped the ancient text to glorify themselves and even justify some of the first rumblings of Hellenic proto-nationalism in Byzantium’s final years.
Open Access
A tale of two skeletons? Greco-Turkish cultural memory, sacred space, and the mystery of the identity of the occupants of a now lost ciborium Byzantine tomb at Trebizond
(Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2021-04-22) Kennedy, Scott
The body of almost every Roman or Byzantine emperor has been lost.This piece draws attention to two skeletons, recovered from a Muslim türbe at Trabzon during World War I by the Russian excavator Feodor Uspensky. Using local oral tradition, Uspensky identified the two bodies he recovered as the Byzantine emperor of Trebizond Alexios IV (1417–1429) and a local Turkish hero Hoşoğlan. Since Uspensky, his identifications have not been challenged nor scientifically examined. This paper argues that Uspensky did not recover just one but two imperial skeletons. It first dissects his identifications, showing how competition for sacred space between Greeks and Turks in the Ottoman period led each community to identify the tomb’s occupants with foundational figures in their communities. After dissecting Uspensky’s identifications, this paper then makes the case that both occupants of this tomb were unidentified members of the Grand Komnenoi family, urging for scientific examination of what may be the only bones of a Byzantine emperor.
Open Access
The famine and Plague of Maximinus (311 to 312): Between Ekphrasis, Polemic, and Historical Reality in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023) Kennedy, Scott; Devore, D. J.
In Book 9.8 of his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea describes a horrific famine and plague that ravaged the eastern Roman empire. Hith-erto, scholars have generally treated this as an exaggerated but truthful account of these catastrophes. In this paper, we question the veracity of this account. We first demonstrate how Eusebius masterfully models his account on Thucydides’s plague and Josephus’s account of famine during the siege of Jerusalem in order to dismantle Maximinus Daia’s regime and affirm the superiority of Christian philanthropy. While Eusebius’s knowledge of Thucydides has often been disputed, this paper shows that he used not only Thucydides but also the Thucydidean commentary from the rhetorical tradition for his polemicizing against pagans. Having shown how Eusebius used his models, this paper then questions the veracity of Eusebius’s famine and plague, suggesting that it was probably a fairly unimportant localized event, which Eusebius catastrophized to serve the Ecclesiastical History’s polemical aims against Christian persecutors.
Open Access
Thucydides in Byzantium
(Cambridge University Press, 2023-07-06) Kennedy, Scott; Kaldellis, A.
Open Access
Winter is coming: the barbarization of Roman leaders in imperial panegyrics from 446-468 A.D
(Cambridge University Press, 2019) Kennedy, Scott
The Ostrogothic king Theoderic I (a.d. 475–526) drew on his experience of ruling post-imperial Italy when he famously remarked that ‘The poor Roman imitates the Goth and the rich Goth imitates the Roman’. Written well after the fall of the western Roman empire, these words have prefaced many discussions of the process of Roman and barbarian assimilation and mutual acculturation. This topic has long captured the imagination of scholars, who have approached the topic from many different angles, such as archaeology, religion, prosopography and literature.