Among the epic romances of post-Barbarian Europe, such as Roland and El Cid, Digenis Akritas has been the least known in the West-outside Greece. It is the story of a half-breed prince who guarded the eastern border of the Roman Empire of Byzantium on the Euphrates in the tenth century. His name and cognomen sum up the curious richness of the heritage: Roman by politics, Arab and Cappadocian by birth, Greek in language and orthodox by faith-Basil, the Two-Blood Border Lord. On an incursion into Byzantine territory, an Arab Emir captures a Christian lady. Her relatives, in raiding to rescue...