Beyond Byzantium: Byzantine “Mirrors of Princes” for Foreign Rulers

Defined by many (though not by all) as a separate literary genre (established either by Synesius or Agapetus), Byzantine “mirrors of princes” continued from Late Antiquity to after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Combining praise with admonition, they addressed current and future emperors by reinforcing the socially desired standards of their political and personal qualities. Focusing on Byzantine “mirrors” for foreign rulers, which has not been a subject of a separate study, my presentation seeks to establish whether such works can be grouped by common traits and how different and similar they are in comparison with the “mirrors” for Byzantine emperors. The three surviving examples of Byzantine “mirrors” for foreign rulers are Patriarch Photius’ letter to the Bulgarian khan Boris (Bogoris) I (865), and letters by Patriarch Nicholas I (Mysticus) to the Calif Al-Muqtadir (913–914 and 922) and the Bulgarian tsar Symeon (913–925). Photius’ long letter to the recently converted khan Boris thoroughly outlines responsibilities and qualities of an ideal Christian ruler, providing a holistic image of a model monarch. Conversely, Nicholas’ letters to Al-Muqtadir and Symeon, immediately provoked by the aggressions of the Arabs and the Bulgarians, respectively, focus on these rulers’ qualities that were germane to the specific situation, often neglecting those that were not directly relevant. Such discrepancies are invalidated mainly, however, by numerous generalizations on ideal rulership in Nicholas’ three letters to Al-Muqtadir and twenty-four letters to Symeon, allowing us to put them together with Photius’ text. At close inspection, these writings appear to offer neither praise nor instruction but, rather, a demonstration of how foreign monarchs could conform to the image (“mirror”) of the model ruler, revealing the same purpose as many (though not all) of such works addressed to Byzantine emperors.