SOURCE: Mavrogordato, John. Introduction to Digenes Akrites, edited by John Mavrogordato, pp. xi-lxxxiv. London: Oxford University Press, 1956.

In the following excerpt, Mavrogordato examines the discovery of Digenes Akrites, compares the poem's many versions, and surveys assorted critical analyses.

1. Discovery

In the middle of last century nothing was known of the Byzantine epic of Digenes Akrites; but the atmosphere had been prepared by the publication of several ballads of what is now called the Akritic Cycle (a name first used by Legrand in 1874). The discussion of these—(in particular a paper by Büdinger who had used the headline ‘A Greek Mediaeval Popular Epic’, although the Song in question, The Sons of Andronikos, was only seventy lines in length)—had opened the way for further revelations of an heroic age of mediaeval Greece.

(i) The discovery was made at Trebizond. Manuscripts could not be photographed at Trebizond, and after...