Teaching the Critical Edition of Classical Texts in the Early Palaeologan Period: The Case of George of Cyprus

After the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople in 1261 manuscripts and textbooks of classical authors found their way back to the capital from all parts of the empire to meet the needs of teaching the new generation of imperial and patriarchal officials. This paper will briefly present the efforts of George of Cyprus, a teacher of rhetoric, to collect and correct, with the assistance of his promising students, the works of Aelius Aristides, which are comparable to present-day critical editions. The restored text was shared among his circle, whose members seem to have acquired their own copies, making this author popular in the teaching of rhetoric in the late Byzantine world.