This volume is a significant addition to the translations of Byzantine texts that make up the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series. Its primary importance lies in the fact that it makes the collection of rhetorical exercises (progymnasmata) by Nikephoros Basilakes accessible in English for the first time, thereby opening up avenues for more in-depth research on Basilakes himself and the intellectual culture of his age.
The book is prefaced by a concise account of Basilakes’s life and public career (including his scholarly output), which is followed by a useful section on the educational nature and the content of progymnasmata depending on the type or subject (for example, mythos, diegema, chreia, and encomium). Moving on to the translation, there is little room for questioning its soundness; it brilliantly captures Basilakes’s individual style as well as the intricacies of his rhetorical skills.
Sophia Xenophontos
Speculum
