MANASSES

manasses, constantine, byzantine chronicler, flourished in the 12th century during the reign of manuel i. (comnenus) (1143-1180). he was the author of a _chronicle_ or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of nicephorus botaniates (1081), written by direction of irene, the emperor's sister-in-law. it consists of about 7000 lines in the so-called "political" metre.[1] there is little to be said of it, except that it is rather more poetical than the iambic chronicle of ephraim (about 150 years later). it obtained great popularity and appeared in a free prose translation; it was also translated into slavonic. the poetical romance of the _loves of aristander and callithea_, also in "political" verse, is only known from the fragments preserved in the [greek: rhodonia] (rose-garden) of macarius chrysocephalus (14th century). manasses also wrote a short biography of oppian, and some descriptive pieces (all except one unpublished) on artistic and other subjects. editions.--_chronicle_ in bonn, _corpus scriptorum hist. byz._, 1st ed. bekker (1837) and in j. p. migne, _patrologia graeca_, cxxvii.; _aristander and callithea_ in r. hercher's _scriptores erotici graeci_, ii. (1859); "life of oppian" in a. westermann, _vitarum scriptores graeci minores_ (1845). a long didactic poem in "political" verse (edited by e. miller in _annuaire de l'assoc. pour l'encouragement des etudes grecques en france_, ix. 1875) is attributed to manasses or one of his imitators. see also f. hirsch, _byzantinische studien_ (1876); c. krumbacher, _geschichte der byzantinischen litteratur_ (1897). footnote: [1] "political" verse or metre is the name given to a kind of verse found as early as the 6th century in proverbs, and characteristic of byzantine and modern greek poetry. it takes no account of the quantity of syllables; the scansion depends on accent, and there is always an accent on the last syllable but one. it is specially used of an iambic verse with fifteen syllables, i.e. seven feet and an unaccented syllable over. byron compares "a captain bold of halifax who lived in country quarters." such facile metres are called "political," in the sense of "commonplace," "of the city." cf. gibbon's _decline and fall_ (ed. bury, 1898), vi. 108; du cange, _gloss. med. et infin. lat._ (vi. 395), who has an interesting quotation from leo allatius. leo explains "political" as implying that the verses are "scorta et meretrices, quod omnibus sunt obsequiosae et peculiares, et servitutem publicam serviunt."