The Tragedians from a Byzantine Perspective: book epigrams on Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides

The present article contributes to the understanding of the reception of ancient drama Byzantium by examining a wide range of book epigrams that accompany the classical tragedies in Byzantine manuscripts. These epigrams – hypotheseis, encomiastic poems, verse scholia, titles and colophons – are mostly related to the so-called triads, the sets of tragedies used in the Byzantine school curriculum. The article begins with an introduction on the main characteristics of the book epigrams (section I), continues with three sections dedicated to Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (sections II-IV) and ends with one section on the short epigrams marking the ending of the tragedies in the manuscripts
(section V). The article offers short overviews of the book epigrams attached to the work of each tragedian and discusses a number of remarkable examples, providing insight into Byzantine reader responses to ancient drama.