'It is no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object - the very poetry of politics. Only think - a free Italy Why, there has been nothing like it since the days of Augustus.' So wrote Lord Byron in his journal, in February 1821, only days before the outbreak of revolution in Greece, where three years later he would die in the service of the revolutionary cause. For a poet whose life and work are interlaced with action of multiple sorts, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to Byron's engagement with issues of politics....

Called variously the Byzantine epic, the epic of Modern Greece, an epic-romance and romance, the poem of Digenes Akrites has, since its rediscovery towards the end of the nineteenth century, exerted a tenacious hold on the imagination of scholars from a wide range of disciplines and from many countries of the world, as well as of writers and public figures in Greece. There are many reasons for this, not least among them the prestige accorded to national epics in the nineteenth century and for some time afterwards. Another reason must surely be the work s uniqueness: there is nothing quite...