This study explores the language of the Histories of Agathias Scholasticus, the sixth-century poet and historian. Through two case studies – the syntagm πλὴν ἀλλά and the optative future – and their synchronic and diachronic contexts, it argues that Agathias’ classicizing prose should not be seen as a flawed version of Classical Greek. Rather, his usage reveals a stylistic negotiation between inherited literary models and contemporary linguistic developments. Agathias’ case demonstrates how the choices of individual authors – often hidden behind modern labels like ‘linguistic classicism’ or ‘highbrow literature’ – illustrate the evolution of high-register Byzantine Greek and challenge previous assumptions about its rigidity.

This article offers the first critical edition of and philological commentary on a previously unpublished prefatory text (Ἕτερον προοίμιον) transmitted under the name of Theophilos Korydalleus and found in over forty-five manuscripts of his Aristotelian Logic. It examines the status, content, and manuscript transmission of this brief philosophical treatise, which has hitherto been neglected in favour of the more extensive prologue printed in the 1729 edition. Drawing on new manuscript evidence, particularly a marginal scholion by Iakovos Argeios (Add MS 7143, British Library), the study argues that the Ἕτερον προοίμιον constitutes the authentic preface by Korydalleus himself, whereas the longer prologue should be attributed to his disciple and successor Ioannes Karyophylles. This attribution, if accepted, sheds light on the process of textual interpolation and ideological appropriation within the Patriarchal Academy of Constantinople during the late seventeenth century. The study situates the controversy over the two prologues within the broader intellectual and political conflict between the Korydallean tradition, represented by Karyophylles, and the faction aligned with Alexander Mavrokordatos. By highlighting the interplay between manuscript transmission, authorship, and institutional power, the article contributes to ongoing efforts to reassess the contours of post-Byzantine philosophical education and the editorial challenges posed by early modern Greek Aristotelianism.

The case of Caelia Q.l. Chia – named on an inscribed block decorated with a balustrade and pilasters from the Venizeleion burial ground that formed part of the North Cemetery of Knossos – raises the question: how can we identify some of the colonial families at Roman Knossos? This freedwoman can be identified in multiple ways as a member of a colonial family. The text naming her adds a new inscription of early date, and one in Latin, to the corpus of the Roman colony. She was, moreover, one of a small number of individuals known to have been buried in Italian-style mausolea in the Venizeleion burial ground. Her family name is one that suggests migration to the colony in the imperial period, perhaps when Colonia Iulia Nobilis Cnosus was founded, or not long thereafter. Her full name also utilises a distinctly Roman onomastic formula to identify her as a freedwoman, one of those who formed a distinctive part of the colonial population. Caelia’s monumental funerary inscription and others from this burial ground join colonial coinage and a range of inscriptions on stone and ceramics as sources of evidence for identifying some of the colonial families at Roman Knossos.