Christopher of Mytilene

Evidence about Christopher's life is scarce, and mostly comes from his own works or titles which he is given in the manuscripts of his work. Although his epithet implies ancestry in Mytilene on Lesbos, Christopher himself was born in Constantinople, between 1000 and 1015. His family appears to have been wealthy and influential. His poems indicate that he had at least one brother (Ioannes) and sister (Anastaso), both of whom predeceased him, as did his mother. He lived for at least a time in the central Constantinople district of Protasiou. Christopher was an important official: there is evidence that at different times he held the positions of patrikios, proconsul, protospatharios of the Chrystotriklinos, and krites (judge) of the themes of Armeniakon and Paphlagonia. His works indicate that his acquaintances included monks, bishops, and high-ranking state officials. Events described in his poems suggest that he started writing in the reign of Romanos III (1028–1034), but most poems can be dated to the reign of Constantine IX (1042–1055), an emperor who favoured culture and literature.

Various Verses (Στίχοι Διάφοροι) is the title of his collection of 145 poems, which covers a wide range of genres and topics. The collection seems to have been arranged chronologically. The text of many poems is severely damaged. The metre of most poems is the dodecasyllable, but for some Christopher uses the dactylic hexameter, written in artificial Homeric Greek. Elegiac couplets and one anacreontic occur as well. The content of these poems is rather heterogeneous. The most remarkable among them are satirical. In these poems Christopher makes fun of unsuccessful chariot drivers, cheated husbands, hypocritical monks, pseudo-intellectuals, etc. Other poems are directed against the mice devouring his books, and an owl that prevents him from sleeping. Many poems are epigrams with religious undertones, touching on Biblical figures or Christian feasts. Some longer poems are funeral orations for his mother and his sister. Others describe historical events, such as the death of Romanos III and the riots of 1042. The longest poem is an encomium on the spider. The rest of the collection is filled with epitaphs, riddles, dedicatory epigrams, and the like. Christopher composed also four calendars in four different metres (hexameter, dodecasyllables, stichera, and canones), commemorating all the saints and feasts of the Orthodox Christian liturgical year. Christopher's poetry is characterized by a witty tone seldom found in Greek poetry of this period. The mix of Christian and classical elements and the self-asserting intellectual elitism are distinguishing features which link him to other poets of the period, like John Mauropous and Michael Psellos, who also were responding to the cultural climate under Constantine IX.