THOMAS, surnamed Magister (i.e. officiorum),[1] also known as a monk by the name Theodulos Monachos, a native of Thessalonica, Byzantine scholar and grammarian and confidential adviser of Andronicus II. (1282–1328). His chief work, Ἐκλογὴ Ὀνομάτων καὶ Ῥημάτων Ἀττικῶν, is a collection of selected Attic words and phrases, partly arranged in alphabetical order, compiled as a help to Greek composition from the works of Phrynichus, Ammonius, Herodian and Moeris. He also wrote scholia on Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (with life), and three of the comedies of Aristophanes; the scholia on Pindar, attributed to him in two MSS., are now assigned to Demetrius Triclinius. His speeches and letters consist partly of declamations on the usual sophistical themes, partly deal with contemporary historical events: an argument between the fathers of Cynegirus and Callimachus (two Athenians who fell at Marathon) as to which had the better claim to have the funeral oration pronounced over him first; a discussion on the duties of, a king and of his subjects; a defence of the Byzantine general Chandrenos addressed to the emperor; a letter on the cruelties of the Catalans and Turks in Thessaly and Macedonia; a congratulatory letter to Theodorus Metochita; a panegyric on the king of Cyprus.
Editions of the Ἐκλογὴ by F. Ritschl (1832), C. Jacobitz (1833) and C. D. Beck (1836); other works in J. P. Migne, Patrologia graeca, cxlv.; see also C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).
- ↑ For the duties of this important office, see J. B. Bury, Later Roman Empire (1859), i. 45.