145 Representations of travel motivation remember your Basil, asking God to reward me with that for which you, while still alive, often entreated Him on my behalf, that is, to conduct my office in a manner worthy of my calling and my vows.480 Basil asks for supplication to help him lead a virtuous life, so that, as he expresses in a later passage, he may join the saint in the company of God after the Last Judgment.481 Besides addressing a public, possibly both lay urban and monastic, contemporary audience with the aim of promoting the cult of the saint, the text thus also functions as an act of personal devotion, praising the saint and offering the text to him, and as a prayer, asking for protection. In addition, by establishing his own connection to the saint and explicitly drawing attention to himself as author and supplicant in the epilogue, Basil might also have hoped to increase his own authority as a bishop, being trained by the saint himself. 3.4.2 Representation of travel motivation in the Life of Euthymius the Younger The Life of Euthymius the Younger describes 21 journeys made by Euthymius.482 Travel occupies a prominent space in the narrative: the saint’s journeys and travel motivations are included in a third of all chapters.483 Similar to the Life of Gregory the journeys are dispersed throughout the narrative, starting in chapter 6 and ending in chapter 37 (out of 39 chapters), but with a concentration in the middle (chapters 22 to 27). In addition to the number of journeys and chapters devoted to travel, the geographical scope of the journeys also qualifies Euthymius as a widely-travelled monastic saint within the corpus of middle-Byzantine hagiography. Eleven different places where Euthymius lived or passed through are described in the narrative – while listeners with knowledge of possible itineraries will have been able to imagine many more places that Euthymius 480 Translated by Talbot in Alexakis (2016). 481 ὡς ἂν μεθ’ ὑμῶν κἀκεῖθεν […] ἐν ἐσχάτοις τεταγμένοι τοῦ φωτισμοῦ κυρίου μεταλάβοιμεν (‘So when I receive my assignment in the last days, I may share the illumination of the Lord with you from that time forward’) Life of Euthymius 39; translated by Talbot in Alexakis (2016). 482 21 while he was alive; Euthymius is described to make a 22nd journey after his death, where his relics are transferred to Thessaloniki. 483 13 chapters out of 39. Adding to the prominence of the travel theme in the Life of Euthymius are also descriptions of travel by other individuals, such as disciples, messengers, or travel companions, and the implications of local movement by groups of people to visit the saint. 3
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