Byzantine romance represents a revival of theancient Greek romance of Roman times. Works in this category were written byByzantine Greeks of theEastern Roman Empire during the 12th century.

Under theComnenian dynasty,Byzantine writers of twelfth centuryConstantinople reintroduced the ancient Greek romance literature, imitating its form and time but somewhat Christianizing its content. Hence the Byzantine stories are traditional in their plot structure and setting (featuring complex turns of events taking place in the ancientMediterranean, complete with the ancient gods and beliefs) but are alsomedieval, clearly belonging to the era of theCrusades as they reflect customs and beliefs of that time. A break of eight centuries exists between the last surviving romance work of late antiquity and the first of this medieval revival.^[1]

Only four of these works exist today, just one of which is written in prose:Hysimine and Hysimines byEustathios Makrembolites. Two are in the dodecasyllable metre:Rodanthe and Dosikles byTheodore Prodromos andDrosilla and Charikles byNiketas Eugenianos. And one is in "political verse,"Arístandros and Kallithéa byConstantine Manasses, but exists only in fragments. Within these Romance novels, the erotic kiss was a delicate ritual phenomenon for characters. Besides the relationship with the Orthodox religion, the erotic kiss was also an important catalyst in the characters' loving affairs.^[2]

Of these four romances, one had been translated into English before the twenty-first century:Ismene and Ismenias, a Novel by L.H. Le Moine, (London and Paris: 1788).^[3] Le Moine, however, had made his translation from the 1756 French translation,Les amours d'Ismene et d'Ismenias, of Pierre-François Godart de Beauchamps,^[4] which had in turn been made from a Latin rather than a Greek text.

More recently, however, interest in these works by English readers has increased, resulting in new translations directly from the Greek.

• A Byzantine Novel: Drosilla and Charikles by Niketas Eugenianos translated by Joan Burton (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc., 2004).^[5]
• Four Byzantine Novels translated by Elizabeth Jeffreys (Liverpool University Press, 2012), which includesRhodanthe and Dosikles by Theodore Prodromos,Hysmine and Hysminias by Eumathios Makrembolites,Aristandros and Kallithea by Constantine Manasses, andDrosilla and Charikles by Niketas Eugenianos^[6]

Later medieval romance works from around the fourteenth century continued this literary tradition. These are the anonymous

• Belthandros and Chrysantza
• Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe
• Lybistros and Rhodamne

available in English translation asThree Medieval Greek Romances: Velthandros and Chrysandza, Kallimachos and Chrysorroi, Livistros and Rodamni, translated by Gavin Betts, Garland Library of Medieval Literature, 98 (B), (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1995). One of them is available in French: M Pichard,Le roman de Callimaque et de Chrysorrhoé: Texte établi et traduit, (Paris: 1956).^[7] Some of them are available in Italian : C CupaneRomanzi Cavallereschi Bizantini (Torino:1995)^[8]Other medieval romance works include the anonymous:

• The Tale of Achilles
• The Tale of Troy: a Byzantine Iliad

• Byzantine literature

• For an investigation of the broader sociocultural context of the twelfth-century Byzantine novel and its complex aesthetics, seePanagiotis Roilos,"Amphoteroglossia": A Poetics of the twelfth-century Medieval Greek Novel, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2005

• 12th century in the Byzantine Empire
• 14th century in the Byzantine Empire
• Byzantine literature

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