| Maximus Planudes |
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| 1260 births | |
| planudes, maximus | |
| 1330 deaths | |
| byzantine grammarians | |
| planudes, maxiumus | |
| byzantine theologians | |
| greek monks | |
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Planudes possessed a knowledge of Latin remarkable at a time when Rome and Italy were regarded with hatred and contempt by the Byzantines. To this accomplishment he probably owed his selection as one of the ambassadors sent by Andronicus II in 1327 to remonstrate with the Venetians for their attack upon the Genoese settlement in Pera . A more important result was that Planudes, especially by his translations, paved the way for the introduction of the Greek Language and literature into the West. He was the author of numerous works, including: a Greek Grammar in the form of question and answer, like the ''Epurlluara'' of Moschopulus , with an appendix on the so-called "political" verse; a treatise on Syntax ; a biography of Aesop and a Prose version of the Fable s; '' Scholia '' on certain Greek authors; two Hexameter poems, one a eulogy of Claudius Ptolemaeus — whose ''Geography'' was rediscovered by Planudes, who translated it into Latin— the other an account of the sudden change of an Ox into a Mouse ; a treatise on the method of calculating in use amongst the Indians (ed. C. J. Gerhardt , Halle, 1865); and ''scholia'' to the first two books of the ''Arithmetic'' of Diophantus . His numerous translations from the Latin included 's ''Gallic War''; Ovid 's ''Heroides'' and ''Metamorphoses''; Boethius' ''De consolatione philosophiae''; and Augustine's ''De trinitate''. These translations were very popular during the Middle Ages as textbooks for the study of Greek. It is, however, for his edition of the '' Greek Anthology '' that he is best known. The , has this to add of him: :Among his works were translations into Greek of Augustine's ''City of God'' and Caesar's ''Gallic War''. The restored Greek Empire of the Palaeologi was then fast dropping to pieces. The Genoese colony of Pera usurped the trade of Constantinople and acted as an independent state; and it brings us very near the modern world to remember that Planudes was the contemporary of Petrarch . FURTHER READING
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