The Etymological and Scholarly Roots of Byzantina Nova

1. Introduction: The Weight of a Name

In the landscape of academic publishing, a journal's title is far more than a convenient label; it is an epistemological statement, a historiographical positioning, and a promise to the scholarly community. When the editors of Byzantina Nova: Journal of Byzantine History, Culture, Philosophy and Medicine convened to christen their new venture, they undertook a process of profound philological reflection, cognizant that the chosen name would inevitably signal the journal's intellectual lineage, its methodological commitments, and its aspirational horizon.

The decision to adopt the hybrid Graeco-Latin appellation Byzantina Nova was not accidental. It represents a deliberate synthesis—a fusion of the ancient Greek toponymic tradition with the Latin grammatical framework that has historically mediated Byzantine studies to the Western academic world. This linguistic hybridity is itself deeply fitting, for it mirrors the very nature of the civilization under investigation: a polity that spoke Greek, preserved Roman political and legal institutions, and was transmitted to modernity largely through Latin scholarly intermediaries.

This essay undertakes a systematic exploration of the etymological and scholarly genealogy embedded within the title Byzantina Nova. It proceeds through four major movements: first, an examination of the ancient roots of Byzantion and the transformation of this toponym into the modern historiographical construct of "Byzantine"; second, a linguistic analysis of the Latin suffix -ina and its function in transforming a geographic designation into a collective substantive framework; third, a survey of the historical precedents for the use of Byzantina in scholarly compendia from the Suda to the present; and fourth, a consideration of the semiotic significance of Nova as a marker of methodological renewal and interdisciplinary expansion.

2. Part I: The Ancient Roots of Byzantion — From Foundation Myth to Historiographical Construct

2.1 The Foundation of Byzantion in Myth and History

The foundational element of the journal's title traces back to the ancient Greek city of Byzantion (Βυζάντιον), traditionally understood to have been founded by Megarian colonists in the seventh century BCE. The conventional date assigned to this foundation is approximately 667 BCE, placing it within the broader context of the great Greek colonial expansion that transformed the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins. According to the prevailing foundation myth, the colony was established under the leadership of one Byzas, son of King Nisos of Megara, who had consulted the oracle at Delphi for guidance on the location of his new settlement.

The etymological relationship between the city's name and its legendary founder is preserved in the works of several ancient authorities. The most explicit treatment appears in the Ethnika of Stephanos Byzantinos, a sixth-century CE grammarian whose geographical lexicon constitutes an invaluable repository of toponymic information derived from earlier sources now lost. In his entry on Byzantion, Stephanos records the tradition that the city was named after Byzas and provides grammatical observations on the declension and adjectival forms derived from the toponym (Stephanos Byzantinos, 1849). While modern philologists have occasionally questioned this derivation—suggesting instead a Thracian origin for the name, possibly connected to the Thracian personal name Byzas meaning "he-goat"—the Byzan foundation narrative remained the authoritative explanation throughout antiquity and the Byzantine period (Kazhdan, 1991).

2.2 Byzantion in the Classical and Late Antique Literary Tradition

The city's strategic location at the southern entrance of the Bosporus, controlling the maritime route between the Aegean and the Black Seas, ensured its prominence in Greek and Roman geopolitics long before Constantine's momentous decision to refound it as his new capital. The historian Herodotos, writing in the fifth century BCE, makes several references to Byzantion in his Histories, noting its commercial importance and its resistance to Persian domination during the Ionian Revolt. The city's eventual incorporation into the Athenian-led Delian League, its subsequent defection, and its later allegiance to Sparta all attest to its status as a prize hotly contested among the Greek poleis.

By the Roman imperial period, Byzantion had acquired the status of a prosperous provincial city, though it remained subordinate to its regional rival, the nearby metropolis of Perinthos. The city's fortunes were transformed irrevocably with the rise of Constantine the Great, who selected Byzantion as the site for his new Christian capital, dedicating it as Nova Roma (New Rome) in 330 CE. The emperor's choice was astute: the city's strategic position, combined with its defensible peninsula and access to major land and sea routes, rendered it an ideal administrative and military center for the eastern half of the empire (Procopius, 1940).

The sixth-century historian Prokopios, writing in the reign of Justinian I, provides an extensive account of the city's topography, monuments, and fortifications in his De Aedificiis (On Buildings). Prokopios's work is of particular significance for understanding the transformation of ancient Byzantion into the imperial capital of Constantinople, as he describes with evident admiration the numerous churches, public buildings, and defensive works erected by Justinian, including the magnificent cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Procopius, 1940). For Prokopios, the city represented the apotheosis of Roman imperial ambition fused with Christian piety—a theme that would echo through later Byzantine historiography.

2.3 The Historiographical Invention of "Byzantine"

A critical point that must be emphasized is the relatively recent provenance of the term "Byzantine" as a designation for the medieval Eastern Roman Empire. The inhabitants of this polity never referred to themselves as "Byzantines"; they called themselves Romaioi (Ρωμαῖοι)—Romans—and considered their state to be the direct and unbroken continuation of the Roman Empire. This self-understanding is reflected throughout the Byzantine literary tradition, from the chronicle of Ioannes Malalas in the sixth century to the histories of Michael Psellos in the eleventh and Niketas Choniates in the thirteenth (Malalas, 2000).

The term Byzantinus in Latin, and its vernacular equivalents in modern European languages, emerged only gradually in the post-Byzantine period, driven primarily by Western European humanists who sought to distinguish the medieval Greek-speaking empire from the classical Roman Empire of antiquity. The German scholar Hieronymus Wolf is conventionally credited with popularizing the term in the sixteenth century through his publication of a corpus of Byzantine historical sources under the title Corpus Historiae Byzantinae (Wolf, 1557). Wolf's innovation was adopted and reinforced by subsequent generations of scholars, including the French historian Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange, whose monumental Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis (Du Cange, 1688) established the linguistic foundations for Byzantine philology.

The usage was later cemented by the great historians of the Enlightenment and nineteenth century, including Montesquieu and Edward Gibbon. Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788), while famously critical of Byzantine civilization, did more than any other work to fix "Byzantine" as the standard English term for the Eastern Roman Empire, a nomenclature that has persisted despite periodic scholarly critiques of its anachronism. Nevertheless, the Latinized root Byzant- has become the universal academic shorthand for the medieval Eastern Roman civilization, a convention that Byzantina Nova acknowledges and employs while simultaneously inflecting it with new meaning.

3. Part II: The Linguistic Power of -ina — From Adjective to Collective Substantive

3.1 The Grammatical Function of the Latin Suffix -ina

The second component of the journal's title requires careful grammatical analysis. In Latin, the suffix -ina functions as a derivational morpheme that transforms a proper geographic designation or a personal name into a substantive with collective connotations. Specifically, when appended to the stem of a toponym or ethnonym, -ina yields a neuter plural noun that denotes "matters, affairs, works, or studies pertaining to" the referent.

Ernout and Thomas (1953), in their standard reference work on Latin syntax, identify the suffix -ina as belonging to a class of nominal suffixes that express belonging, provenance, or association. The productivity of this suffix is evident in numerous Latin formations, such as Augustina (matters pertaining to Augustus), Constantiniana (affairs relating to Constantine), and Justinianea (works associated with Justinian). While the suffix can attach to various stem types, its application to place names produces a characteristic semantic shift from the specific and localized to the general and collective.

Thus, Byzantina is grammatically constituted as a neuter plural substantive; it does not function as a simple adjective modifying an implicit noun, but rather stands independently as a nominal entity signifying "Byzantine matters," "Byzantine works," or "the field of Byzantine studies." This grammatical independence is critical for understanding the title's intellectual ambition, for it elevates the designation from a mere place name to an active sphere of scholarly inquiry.

3.2 The Semiotic Resonance of the Neuter Plural

The neuter plural form carries additional semantic weight in the Latin grammatical tradition. The neuter plural is frequently employed in Latin to denote abstract collectives—not merely a collection of individual objects, but a unified domain or field of knowledge. This usage is consistent with broader patterns of abstract nominalization in both Latin and Greek, where plural forms of neuter adjectives are used to designate whole disciplines or bodies of knowledge (e.g., ta physika in Greek, signifying "natural things" or "physics").

The choice of Byzantina over a singular form is thus no accident. It conveys that the journal is concerned not with a single aspect of Byzantine civilization, nor with a narrowly delimited geographical entity, but with the entire complex of cultural, intellectual, political, and material productions associated with that civilization across its millennium-long history. It announces an intention to engage with the totality of Byzantine studies as an integrated field, rather than with isolated sub-specializations.

3.3 Grammatical Hybridity and Constructio ad Sensum

It is worth noting that the combination of Byzantina (neuter plural) with Nova (feminine singular adjective agreeing with an implied res or series) creates a grammatical tension that is, from a strictly normative Latin perspective, irregular. However, this hybridity is best understood through the rhetorical device of constructio ad sensum (construction according to sense), whereby grammatical agreement is determined by intended meaning rather than formal concordance. In this reading, the collective "Byzantine matters" is conceptualized as a single new entity—a unified intellectual enterprise—and is thus treated as notionally singular despite its plural morphology.

This grammatical flexibility reflects the broader cultural and intellectual hybridity that characterizes the journal's editorial vision. Just as Byzantine civilization itself mediated between Greek and Latin, East and West, classical antiquity and medieval Christendom, so too does Byzantina Nova mediate between linguistic traditions, scholarly conventions, and methodological approaches.

4. Part III: Historical Precedents — Byzantina in the Scholarly Tradition

4.1 The Suda and the Early Conception of Byzantina Syngrammata

The use of Byzantina as a designation for a body of texts or a field of inquiry has a venerable tradition extending back to the Byzantine period itself. The most significant early precedent appears in the tenth-century encyclopedia known as the Suda (Σοῦδα), a monumental compilation of historical, literary, and lexical information that represents one of the most important surviving witnesses to Byzantine scholarship (Adler, 1928-1938). The Suda's very name—meaning "fortress" or "stronghold" in Greek, but also possibly deriving from the Latin sudis (stake)—signifies its ambition to serve as a bulwark of knowledge against the erosion of time.

In the entry under the heading Byzantios (Adler, 1928-1938, ε 2002), the compiler employs the phrase Byzantina syngrammata (Βυζαντινὰ συγγράμματα) to refer collectively to the literary works originating from or pertaining to the Byzantine world. This usage establishes an important precedent: already in the tenth century, the adjective Byzantinos in its plural substantive form could denote a corpus of written materials associated with the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire. The Suda's compiler evidently considered this a natural and readily intelligible designation, suggesting that such nominalized uses were established features of Byzantine scholarly discourse.

4.2 The Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae and Nineteenth-Century Philology

The most significant modern precedent for the use of Byzantina in a collective sense is undoubtedly the monumental Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Corpus of the Writers of Byzantine History), published in Bonn between 1829 and 1897 under the editorship of Barthold Georg Niebuhr and his successors. This series, commonly known as the Bonn Corpus, represented an unprecedented effort to gather, edit, and publish the principal Greek historical sources for the Byzantine period (Niebuhr, 1829-1897).

The Bonn Corpus was a product of the great nineteenth-century philological project that sought to establish reliable critical editions of all major classical and medieval texts. While its editorial standards have since been superseded by more recent editions, the Bonn Corpus exercised an immense influence on the development of Byzantine studies as an academic discipline. Its very existence confirmed the legitimacy of Byzantine historical sources as worthy of systematic scholarly attention, at a time when Byzantine civilization was often dismissed as decadent or unworthy of serious study.

4.3 Analecta Byzantina and the Tradition of Byzantine Miscellanies

In addition to the Bonn Corpus, a parallel tradition of Byzantine miscellanies and collections of shorter works emerged under titles incorporating the Byzantina designation. The term Analecta Byzantina (Byzantine Selecta or Byzantine Gleanings) has been employed for various collections of primary sources, critical essays, and bibliographical studies from the seventeenth century to the present. These collections reflect the enduring scholarly intuition that Byzantine studies constitute a distinct and coherent field of inquiry, warranting a collective designation that transcends individual authors or discrete historical periods.

The establishment of specialized periodicals devoted to Byzantine studies further confirmed this conceptual consolidation. Journals such as the Byzantinische Zeitschrift (founded 1892), Dumbarton Oaks Papers (founded 1941), and the University of Thessaloniki's Byzantina (founded 1969) all testify to the institutionalization of Byzantine studies as a distinct academic discipline. The journal Byzantina, published by the Centre for Byzantine Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki since 1969, is of particular relevance here, as its very title exemplifies the substantive use of the neuter plural to denote "Byzantine matters" or "the field of Byzantine studies" (Thessaloniki, 1969-present). Byzantina Nova enters this distinguished lineage with full awareness of its intellectual debts and with an explicit intention to extend and renew the tradition.

5. Part IV: The Methodological and Semiotic Significance of Nova

5.1 Beyond Nostalgia: Nova as Paradigm Shift

The addition of the modifier Nova ("new") to the traditional Byzantina is the most innovative and conceptually charged element of the journal's title. Far from a mere chronological marker indicating that the journal is a recent foundation, Nova announces a deliberate paradigm shift in the approach to Byzantine studies. It signals a commitment to breaking with entrenched interpretive frameworks, to expanding the boundaries of the field, and to introducing fresh methodological perspectives.

This use of Nova carries with it a rich intellectual genealogy, recalling the various "new" philosophical and scientific projects of early modernity—from Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620) to Giambattista Vico's Scienza Nuova (1725). In these earlier contexts, novus signified not simply recent innovation but a fundamental reconsideration of first principles, a renovatio that involved recovering forgotten traditions even as it broke with contemporary orthodoxies. The revival of Byzantine studies in the present century similarly requires both the recovery of neglected source materials and the critical revaluation of received historical narratives.

5.2 Interdisciplinary Expansion and the New Byzantine Studies

One of the most significant dimensions of the Nova program is the deliberate expansion of Byzantine studies beyond its traditional philological and historical confines. For much of its existence as an academic discipline, Byzantine studies has been dominated by a relatively narrow set of approaches centered on textual criticism, political history, and ecclesiastical history. While these remain indispensable components of the field, the present moment offers unprecedented opportunities for integration with a wider array of methodological traditions.

Archaeology and material culture studies have transformed the study of the Byzantine world, revealing the lived realities of ordinary people beyond the elites who dominate the textual record (Cameron, 2006). Numismatics and sigillography—the study of coins and seals—offer uniquely concrete evidence for administrative, economic, and social history. Art history and architectural history provide access to the visual and spatial dimensions of Byzantine religious and secular culture. Environmental history and climate studies are beginning to illuminate the ecological contexts in which Byzantine society flourished and ultimately declined.

Perhaps most significantly, the "new" Byzantine studies is characterized by a renewed attention to the intellectual and scientific dimensions of Byzantine culture. The longstanding prejudice that Byzantium was a civilization of theological disputation and sterile scholasticism, incapable of genuine scientific achievement, has been decisively refuted by recent scholarship on Byzantine medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and technology (Temkin, 1962; Duffy, 1984). The inclusion of "Medicine" in the journal's subtitle signals an explicit commitment to this revisionist project, recognizing that the Byzantine medical tradition—drawing on Galen, Hippocrates, and the late antique encyclopedists while transmitting these traditions to the Islamic world and to Renaissance Europe—constitutes a major chapter in the history of science.

5.3 Confronting the Nineteenth-Century Legacy

The Nova of the journal's title also implies a critical engagement with the nineteenth-century philological paradigm that has so profoundly shaped Byzantine studies. The Bonn Corpus and its contemporaries were products of a Romantic and historicist intellectual environment that valued the recovery of texts as an end in itself and viewed the Byzantine period primarily through the lens of classical Greek antiquity, measuring its achievement by its relative fidelity to or deviation from classical norms.

The nineteenth-century approach, for all its scholarly virtues, tended to neglect large swathes of Byzantine cultural production. The rich traditions of Byzantine philosophy, which engaged deeply with Aristotle and Plato and produced original syntheses of classical and Christian thought, were often dismissed as derivative or decadent (Tatakis, 2003). The sophisticated legal and administrative traditions of the empire received attention primarily as precursors to modern European legal systems, rather than as objects of study in their own right. Byzantine scientific literature, including medical, astronomical, and mathematical works, was largely relegated to the margins of the field.

Byzantina Nova is committed to redressing these imbalances, not by rejecting the philological tradition but by complementing it with a wider range of interpretive frameworks. The journal welcomes contributions that employ literary theory, postcolonial critique, gender studies, and comparative cultural analysis alongside traditional historical and philological methods. In this respect, Nova signifies a methodological pluralism that acknowledges the multifaceted character of Byzantine civilization and the need for equally multifaceted analytical tools.

5.4 The Journal's Scope: A Comprehensive Vision

As articulated in the journal's editorial policies (AnKa Publisher, 2027), Byzantina Nova embraces an exceptionally wide scope that encompasses the full temporal and thematic breadth of Byzantine studies. The journal invites submissions on:

• Byzantine political and administrative history from Late Antiquity through the Palaiologan period
• Byzantine social and economic history
• Byzantine cultural history, including literature, philosophy, and theology
• Byzantine art, archaeology, and material culture
• Byzantine medicine, science, and technology
• Byzantine law, canon law, and legal institutions
• Byzantine liturgy, monasticism, and religious practice
• Byzantine architecture and urbanism
• Byzantine numismatics, sigillography, and epigraphy
• Reception and transmission of classical traditions
• Relations with neighboring cultures—Islamic, Slavic, Armenian, Georgian, and Latin
• Post-Byzantine studies and the survival of Byzantine traditions in the Ottoman period and beyond
• Historiography and methodology of Byzantine studies

This comprehensive vision is inseparable from the title's significance. The substantive Byzantina captures the unity and coherence of the field, while Nova indicates that the field is to be understood expansively, creatively, and with intellectual courage.

5.5 Continuous Publication and Scholarly Accessibility

The Nova of the title also resonates with the journal's commitment to modern scholarly publishing practices. Byzantina Nova operates on a continuous publication model, meaning that articles are published online as soon as they complete the peer review, editorial, and production processes, rather than being held for thematic issues or seasonal volumes. This model, increasingly common in contemporary academic publishing, ensures that research reaches the scholarly community with minimal delay and eliminates the arbitrary waiting periods associated with traditional quarterly or biannual publication schedules.

Furthermore, Byzantina Nova is a fully open-access journal, ensuring that its contents are freely available to readers worldwide without subscription or paywall barriers. This commitment to open access aligns with the Nova ethos of renewal and accessibility, breaking down the restrictive publishing models that have historically privileged well-funded institutions and creating a truly global scholarly conversation.

6. Part V: Synthesis — Byzantina Nova as Intellectual Manifesto

6.1 The Unity of the Title

In its full articulation, Byzantina Nova achieves a remarkable synthesis of linguistic heritage, historiographical awareness, and contemporary methodological innovation. The title is at once a respectful nod to the great tradition of Byzantine scholarship—from the Suda to the Bonn Corpus to the journal Byzantina—and a confident assertion that the field is poised for a new and exciting phase of development.

The Greek Byzantion reminds us of the ancient and medieval origins of the civilization under study; the Latin -ina and the resulting substantive Byzantina signal the Western scholarly tradition through which this civilization has been transmitted; and the adjective Nova announces that this tradition is not a static inheritance but a dynamic field of inquiry, open to new questions, new methods, and new perspectives. The linguistic hybridity of the title is not a flaw but a virtue, for it reflects the hybrid character of the civilization itself—at once Greek and Roman, Christian and classical, Eastern and Western.

6.2 A Laboratory for the Renewal of Byzantine Studies

The editors of Byzantina Nova envision the journal as a laboratory—a space for experimentation, collaboration, and the cultivation of new knowledge. The metaphor is apt, for laboratories are places where hypotheses are tested, methods are refined, and established paradigms are challenged. In this intellectual laboratory, established scholars and early-career researchers alike are invited to contribute their findings, to engage in debate, and to participate in the collective project of reinterpreting the Byzantine past for the present century.

The laboratory model also emphasizes the collaborative and cumulative character of scholarly research. Byzantina Nova is not a platform for the promulgation of fixed dogmas but an arena for constructive dialogue. The peer-review process, managed with rigor and intellectual integrity, ensures that the research published meets the highest standards while also accommodating methodological innovation. The journal's international editorial board, composed of distinguished scholars from diverse academic traditions and national contexts, provides a global perspective that guards against parochialism and promotes cross-cultural understanding.

6.3 Facing the Future Without Forgetting the Past

Ultimately, Byzantina Nova embodies a dialectical relationship with intellectual tradition. It faces the future—hence Nova—without losing sight of the past that has shaped Byzantine studies as a field. The title's etymological depth invites scholars to reflect on the long and complex history of Byzantine studies as an academic discipline, while its forward-looking orientation challenges them to push the field in directions that its founders could not have anticipated.

The Byzantine Empire, which survived for over a millennium in the face of immense external pressures and internal transformations, offers profound lessons for understanding the dynamics of cultural persistence and transformation. Its literature, its art, its theology, and its science continue to speak to contemporary concerns, from the relationship between political power and religious authority to the challenge of multicultural coexistence, from the preservation of classical learning to the integration of scientific and humanistic modes of inquiry.

Byzantina Nova takes up the task of allowing these voices from the past to be heard once again—but heard in a new key, through the interpretive frameworks and methodological resources of our own time. This is the ultimate meaning of the title: a commitment to scholarly renewal that is at once historically informed and intellectually adventurous, grounded in the best traditions of the field and open to its most promising futures.

7. Conclusion

The nomenclature Byzantina Nova is the product of rigorous philological consideration, deeply rooted in both classical linguistic traditions and modern academic standards. The toponym Byzantion grounds the title in the ancient Greek foundation of the city that would become Constantinople, while the suffix -ina transforms this geographic designation into a collective substantive denoting the entire field of Byzantine studies. The modifier Nova introduces a deliberate paradigm shift, signaling a commitment to contemporary critical methodologies, interdisciplinary expansion, and innovative perspectives.

The historical precedents for the collective use of Byzantina—from the Suda's Byzantina syngrammata to the Bonn Corpus to the journal Byzantina—place Byzantina Nova within a distinguished scholarly lineage. Yet the addition of Nova distinguishes this journal from its predecessors, announcing a break with the limited paradigms of the past and a commitment to exploring the full range of Byzantine cultural, intellectual, material, and scientific production.

By uniting these linguistic elements, Byzantina Nova establishes a solemn yet forward-looking identity. It signals to scholars, historians, archaeologists, art historians, philosophers, theologians, philologists, medical historians, and researchers in all related disciplines that this platform is a dynamic laboratory for the renewal of Byzantine studies. The journal invites the global academic community to join in this enterprise—to contribute, to question, to debate, and to reimagine the Byzantine world for the twenty-first century.