Gregory Antiochos

Gregory Antiochos was born in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, some time around 1125.[1] He hailed from an obscure family, but his father, whose name is unknown was sufficiently to found a small female convent at the Forum Bovis.[1][2] Antiochos was apparently an only child,[2] and received an excellent education under Nicholas Kataphloron (whose funeral oration he held in 1160), Nicholas Hagiotheodorites, and Eustathius of Thessalonica.[1][2] Closely tied to the capital's intellectual circles, already before 1159 he abandoned a literary career in favour of entering the civil service, soon becoming a member of the central imperial bureaucracy.[1][2]

Before 1175 Antiochos was judge of the velon, and was sufficiently prominent to hold the funeral oration of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180) on 22 January 1181.[2] His career under the subsequent regency and the regime of Andronikos I Komnenos (r. 1183–1185) is unknown,[2] but modern scholarship considers it plausible that he supported Anronikos, and was forced to resign under Isaac II Angelos (r. 1185–1195, 1203–1204).[1] Antiochos only reappears in c. 1196 as megas droungarios tes vigles, with the rank of protonobelissimohypertatos.[1][2] His subsequent fate, and the date of his death, are unknown.[2] He had numerous children, of whom the oldest became a monk.[2]

Antiochos left a varied corpus of letters, speeches, eulogies and epitaphs, which are an important source for contemporary Byzantine history.[2] In his work, he appears "a defender not only of imperial omnipotence, but also of the senate; he favored 'democratic' phraseology but stood aloof from military commanders".[1] One of his chief influences was his teacher, Eustathius of Thessalonica.[1] In his works, he "gives life to books and fruits, and endows animals with reason".[1]

• Guilland, Rodolphe (1967). "Le Drongaire et le Grand drongaire de la Veille". Recherches sur les institutions byzantines, Tome I (in French). Berlin: Akademie Verlag. pp. 563–587.
• Kazhdan, Alexander (1991). "Antiochos, Gregory". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.