CHARTING GREGORY NAZIANZEN’S POETRY IN THE EAST. IANUARINUS CANDIDATUS OF AMIDA AND HIS FIRST SYRIAC TRANSLATION OF POEM II, 1, 1

After providing a thorough and updated overview of the Syriac translations of Gregory of Nazianzus’ poetry and their authors, this study focuses on the work of one of the earliest among them, Ianuarinus Cadidatus of Amida, who around the mid-7th century translated Gregory’s poem II, 1, 1, a long autobiographical piece, in Homeric hexameters. The sole fragment of Ianuarinus’ enterprise is still preserved in the Vat. sir. 96: this may represent the earliest example of Greek poetry being rendered into Syriac. Besides reassessing the previous scholarship on this mysterious author, the study additionally places him in the wider educational and intellectual context of Amida and Upper Mesopotamia in the 7th century, an area still deeply Hellenized. The final part of the study is devoted to the analysis of the literary features of Ianuarinus’ translation and to the side-effects that this fragment yields on the Greek text of Gregory. A new edition of the fragment with an English translation, alongside the Greek text, concludes the essay as an appendix.