ABSTRACT
Like other genres of Byzantine literature, historiography also was permeated by the principle of mimesis, or the imitation of linguistic and stylistic models.1 The imitation of models manifests itself on various levels. It begins with the usage of ‘aĴicistic’ vocabulary, employing words found in the model texts, and culminates in the incorporation of slightly adapted passages into a new textual environment. The laĴer phenomenon has given rise to doubts concerning the veracity of accounts that borrow whole passages from other texts, but in general these doubts have proved to be unfounded. For example, only recently D.R. Reinsch offered a brilliant analysis of how John Kantakouzenos, writing on the plague of 1347, bases himself linguistically on Thucydides, but gives the linguistic material a new sense.2 Another difficulty is the conceptual confusion produced by the interference of different linguistic layers that stretch over
* I would like to thank my colleague Chris Schabel for improving my English.
