ABSTRACT
Some modern linguists understand stylistics as the study of alternative modes of expressing the same (or approximately the same) content, and an author’s stylistic selection as the choice between items that mean more or less the same thing 1 . Such a formulation should be acceptable to Byzantinists concerned with literary styles, for they, too, concentrate on their author’s stylistic selection. The preceding definitions suggest that the best conditions for .the study of levels of style are offered by texts displaying alternative forms, but the same or related content: consecutive reworkings of the same text by its author: an original that can be juxtaposed with its paraphrases, done by another author; or, finally, works of the same author dealing with similar topics or falling within the same literary genre. We shall make use of Byzantine examples that belong to each of these three categories.
