John Tzetzes: The Little and Big Iliad

Twelfth-century Byzantium is often described as a period of renewed engagement with Homer and the classical past, marked by literary experimentation and heightened authorial self-consciousness. Few figures embody this trend more comprehensively than John Tzetzes (c. 1110–after 1180), one of the most prolific and idiosyncratic scholars of Komnenian Constantinople. Composed at the outset of his career and intended to establish his reputation, the Little and Big Iliad is a hexametric retelling of the Trojan Saga that combines narrative concision with encyclopaedic ambition. In reshaping the Troy material in his own voice, Tzetzes situates himself not only in dialogue with Homer, but also within the broader continuum of Greek literature. The poem is accompanied by an extensive body of scholia through which Tzetzes displays his learning across disciplines ranging from grammar and rhetoric to military tactics and astrology. This is the first English translation of Tzetzes’ Little and Big Iliad – and the first translation of the accompanying scholia into any modern language. Together, poem and scholia offer valuable insights into Byzantine intellectual culture, illuminating educational practice, learned debates and aristocratic taste, and contributing to the study of the transmission and the mediaeval reception of the Trojan tradition.