Born in Nicaea 1242 - died in Constantinople c. 1310. Byzantine philosopher and scholar, prolific miscellaneous writer, teacher and ecclesiastical man, representative ofthe intellectual movement in the Early Palaiologan Renaissance (middle thirteenth to middle fourteenth century), and perhaps the most important historian of his age. Pachymeres was member of a Constantinopolitan family that after the Latin occupation moved to Nicaea; there he received his encyclical education and returned to Constantinople after its recovery (1261). Until 1267, he studied rhetoric, the quadrivium, and philosophy with Gregory of Cyprus at the School of George Akropolites.
In Constantinople, the new dynasty of Palaiologans could not reestablish Byzantium as a powerful Empire but the Emperors encouraged the intense study and reappreciation of the Greek past that the Byzantines had inherited. Well-educated high officials formed a learned elite that, besides its occupation with state affairs, found scholarly interest, intellectual excitement, and sometimes relief in the world of ancient Greek literary, philosophical, and artistic culture. The Fourth Crusade and the looting of Constantinople heavily affected higher education, since the texts that used to be easily available in the capital’s libraries were destroyed or scattered. Thus, the rediscovery and reproduction of these texts were one of the main preoccupations of Early Palaiologan scholars.
In this milieu, Pachymeres began his clerical and teaching career. He was only a deacon (1265), but his acknowledged abilities and his knowledge of civil and canon law helped him to ascend to the high office of protekdikos (a member of an ecclesiastical tribunal, 1285) and of dikaiophylax (judge, 1277) by imperial appointment. He had involvement in state and ecclesiastical affairs that he describes in his History. Before 1275, Pachymeres held a chair as oikoumenikos didaskalos (high degree teacher) in the so-called Patriarchal School, where he taught philosophy, the quadrivium, and perhaps rhetoric. He earned great reputation through his teaching activity, and his role as a teacher was strongly emphasized by his contemporaries.
Pachymeres, besides his philosophical work, wrote an extensive history, a paraphrase of the Coprus dionysiacum, a treatise On the Holy Spirit (PG 144, 923-930), manuals on the four sciences of the quadrivium, many rhetorical exercises, a commentary on the Iliad (1275-1276), and few poems. For this reason, he has been called an ‘‘early humanist.’’
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