Abstract
Tarasius, the dedicatee of Photius' Bibliotheca, has not attracted too much scholarly interest as yet, although his role in the process of genesis of this work may be the key to understand some of the circumstances of this process. The opinions commonly held are based on a notion of availability of the books resumed in this work in Constantinople.
Yet if so, how are we to understand Tarasius' absenteeism and his having missed reading of so many books? Bertrand Hemmerdinger's ridiculed hypothesis, recently, however, substantiated by observations by Benjamin Jokisch and Olof Heilo according to which the books were read in Baghdad by Photius, accounts better for this issue, as well as it does for some others. On the other hand, this notion need not be taken as implying a complete unavailability of books in Constantinople.
There are other sources of information proving the contrary.