Epilogue

Abstract

AbstractThis epilogue to the book suggests several avenues for future research. Eustathios’ rhetorical analysis of Homer can be fruitfully put into dialogue with the broader literary culture of the time: his reflections on literature and language in the Homeric commentaries shed light on the stylistic and compositional underpinnings of his own writings as well as those of his students and contemporaries. Eustathios’ rhetorical reading accounts for only one (albeit significant) part of his Homeric exegesis. A comprehensive study of the material other than the rhetorical and grammatical can further flesh out what it means to be a polymath in the twelfth century. Largely unexplored remains also what Eustathios’ scholarship can tell us about medieval thought beyond the linguistic and literary. Eustathios’ moralizing reading of Homer, his reflections on heroism and rulership, and his incidental remarks on human behaviour and interhuman relations can open a perspective onto contemporary political thinking and social values. By continuing to unlock the classical scholarship of intellectuals such as Eustathios, we will gradually come closer to a fuller appreciation of the Byzantine study of ancient literature as an expression of Byzantine thought.