George of Pisidia, in an epigram about the church of *Mary (Mother of Christ S00033) at Pege ('the Spring'), outside the walls of Constantinople, refers to Mary's defeat of the barbarians and the Persians, and, probably, to a restoration of this church. Written in Greek in Constantinople, in 628 or shortly afterwards.
Evidence ID
E08596
Type of Evidence
Literary - Poems
Major author/Major anonymous work
George of Pisidia
Georgii Pisidae carmina inedita LXIII
Εἰς πηγήν (= εἰς ναὸν τὸν εἰς (=ἐν) πηγὴν)
σωτηρίας ἔξαρχε τῆς οἰκουμένης,
λύσασα τὴν θύραθε βαρβάρων μάχην
καὶ σκῆπτρα συνθλάσασα Περσικοῦ κράτους
σαυτῇ τρόπαιον εἰκότως τὴν οἰκίαν
ἤγειρας, ὥσπερ ηὐδοικήσας, Πάρθενε.
'On Pege (= On the church at Pege)
You, who are the origin of the salvation of the universe, after resolving the battle of the barbarians from outside and crushing the sceptres of Persian power, with good reason, as a trophy to yourself, you raised up the house, since you were well pleased, Virgin.'
Text: Sternbach 1892, 59–60.
Translation: Mary Whitby
Cult Places
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityRenovation and embellishment of cult buildings
Source
George of Pisidia (or George Pisides; PLRE IIIA, Georgius Pisides 54) was among the foremost literary figures of the reign of Heraclius I (r. 610–641). A member of the clergy of Saint Sophia and a personal friend of the Patriarch Sergius I (patriarch 610–638), he composed poems that celebrate the emperor and patriarch, while others reflect on religious topics. He also wrote a prose panegyric of St Anastasius the Persian.Leo Sternbach published (Wiener Studien 13 (1891), 1–62, and Wiener Studien 14 (1892), 51–68) a previously unknown group of poems by George, found in the manuscript Paris Suppl. Gr. 690 - an anthology of poems by Byzantine writers, together with a few prose texts towards the end. This is the oldest extant manuscript containing George’s poetry, dated to the late eleventh or twelfth century.
The epigram presented here is in iambic trimeters.
The word epigram literally means an inscription. Although most Greek epigrams were in prose, the word came to be specifically connected to those written in verse, and eventually to include poetic texts that were not necessarily inscribed. From the earliest period of Greek literature, epigrams were mostly sepulchral or dedicatory: they either memorialised the dead or marked the dedication of an object to a god.
Discussion
The church of Mary at Pege was located just outside the Theodosian walls of Constantinople, at their southern end, towards the Golden Gate. It dated back at least to the time of Justinian, since it is described by Procopius (Buildings. 1.6–9) in conjunction with the church at Blachernae (Buildings. 1.3–5).It is likely that this poem was composed to be inscribed in the Pege church, following the repulse of the Avar siege of Constantinople in 626 and the emperor Heraclius’ defeat of the Persians in 628. George’s term ‘raised up’ (ἤγειρας, l. 5) may refer, as often, to an enhancement or refurbishment. Theodore Syncellus, in his account of the 626 siege, mentions an Avar defeat at Pege on the third day of the siege (Homily 19; Whitby 2024, 103-104), which may have caused damage.
Bibliography
Editions:Sternbach, L. ‘Georgii Pisidae carmina inedita, pars II’, Wiener Studien 14 (1892), 59–60.
Tartaglia, L., Carmi di Giorgio di Pisidia (Classici Greci; Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinense, 1998), 102 (pp. 498–501), with Italian translation.
Further reading on Paris Suppl. Gr. 690 and the epigrams of George:
Lauxtermann, M.D., Byzantine poetry from Pisides to Geometres. Texts and contexts, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Wiener byzantinischen Studien, Band XXIV/1; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003), Appendix VI and Appendix VII, 329–337.
Further reading:
Janin, R., La Géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantine I.3: Les églises et les monastères de la ville de Constantinople (2nd ed.; Paris, 1969), 223-228.
Kimmelfield, I., 'The shrine of the Theotokos at the Pege', in Brooke Shilling and Paul Stephenson (eds.), Fountains and water cultures in Byzantium (Cambridge 2016), 299–313.
Whitby, Mary, 'The patriarch Sergius and the Theotokos', Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 70 (2020), 403–425, at 412–414.
Whitby, Michael, Theodore Syncellus: The Homilies 'On the Robe' and 'On the Siege', (Translated Texts for Historians 86; Liverpool University Press 2024).
Record Created By
Mary Whitby
Date of Entry
02/07/2025
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00033 | Mary, Mother of Christ | Certain |
|---|
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