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PANTELIS GOLITSISGeorge Pachymeres was born in Nicaea in 1242 and died sometime after 1307, perhaps as late as 1315, in Constantinople, where he served as a highranking member of the clergy at St Sophia.Pachymeres has long been well known among Byzantinists for his important historical work, which covers the first forty-eight years of the Palaiologan dynasty (1259-1307). 1 As a historian he has been repeatedly praised for his objectivity and his mastery of ancient Greek language and literature, 2 which have made him appear in the history of culture as an illustrious example of the so-called 'Byzantine Humanism'.3 His humanism is certainly not irrelevant to his status as one of the most prolific writers of philosophy in Byzantium.Apart from his Philosophia, a synopsis of the corpus aristotelicum in twelve books, which has been widely known in the West from the time of the Renaissance via its Latin translation, 4 Pachymeres also produced for teaching purposes, as I have argued elsewhere, a series of 'running commentaries' on Aristotle, 5 * I would like to thank Katerina Ierodiakonou and Panos Dimas for inviting me to participate at the meeting held in the Norwegian Institute at Athens.While discussing my paper, Börje Bydén made many fruitful comments and suggestions; to him, as well as to Sten Ebbesen and Dominic O'Meara, I am particularly grateful for correcting my previous understanding of v. 17 of Pachymeres' poem.I would also like to thank George Bolierakis, George Karamanolis and Lutz Koch, who kindly discussed with me a much earlier draft of this paper.Finally, thanks are due to the anonymous readers, who helped me improve it significantly. 1 Failler & Laurent (1984-2000).2 See Hunger (1978: 447-53); Fryde (2000: 315-19); Failler (2004).3 See, most characteristically, Arnakis (1966-67).4 P. Becchius (Basel, 1560).The first book of the Philosophia, which abridges the Organon, was published earlier in Greek (Paris, 1548).An edition of the whole work is being prepared by the Academy of Athens; three books have appeared until now: Book 10 (on the Metaphysics, cf.Pappa 2002), Book 11 (on the Nicomachean Ethics, cf.Oikonomakos 2005) and Book 6 (on the De partibus animalium, cf.Pappa 2008).A new, critical edition of the first book has been recently undertaken by the present author.
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