Nicholas Kallikles: The Stranger and the Tomb: Funerary Verses for Andronikos Palaiologos Doukas

From a literary point of view, the text is distinguished by its dramatic character, as it combines ethopoiia and the dialogical form in a long stichomythia. The epitaph was performed rather than inscribed and it alludes to literary models appreciated in Constantinopolitan circles. What is more, the epitaph for Andronikos Palaiologos Doukas voices the literary consecration of the social and political success achieved by the closest associates of the Komnenoi, such as the Doukas family. The Doukai had secured a dominant position in the empire through marriage alliances with the ruling dynasty.