Le citazioni dei poeti antichi all'interno delle opere di Niceta Coniata

The aim of this study is to give an in-depth analysis of the use of quotation from archaic, classical and Hellenistic poetry in the three main works by the Byzantine historian and rhetorician Niceta Coniata (XII c.): the Chronicle of the history of Constantinople, his eighteen orations and eight letters from his epistolarium. First of all, this analysis points out Niceta’s familiarity with a very large number of expressions from the ancient literature, but, at the same time, it clarifies that this author had no in-depth knowledge of ancient poetry (contrary to what has been sometimes stated), but turned often to indirect tradition, inserting these expressions with an aesthetic aim or, more often, in order to highlight – by words from an auctoritas – his own opinion relevant to some aspects of contemporary history, especially the political ones – with whom he didn’t agree. There are at least two kind of quotations: the literary ones – single words or phrases – and the mythological cross-references; the first ones are often sentences and have some elements of variation, used by the author in order to show his own ability in reprocessing. With regard to the second ones, Niceta draws a parallel between ancient myths and contemporary events, which always surpass the mythological narrations. Frequently melted with references to Old and New Testament, quotation becomes an expressive mean of personal judgments on the Emperor and the Byzantine Empire, which the author was not allowed to express directly.