John Tzetzes and the pseudo-Aristotelian Peplos in middle-Byzantium. The testimony of the Matritenses 4562 and 4621

Abstract

In the aftermath of my edition of the pseudo-Aristotelian Pepli Epitaphia, this paper focus on the apochrypha to those epitaphs written by John Tzetzes in the twelfth century, a group of eight elegiac couplets for those heroes he felt worthy of one, and for whom he was unable to sort an extant epitaph in the manuscript sources he had access. In order to do so, it also investigates the acknowledge and transmission of that epigrammatic corpus in Byzantine literature, besides considering the readings and deeper meaning of two codices held at the National Library of Spain (M and Md), where Constantine Lascaris copied, directly from Tzetzes, two brief anthological garlands of these components.