σσ. 185-205 The scholarship and erudition of John Apokaukos (1153/1160 - before April 1235), bishop of Naupaktos, are evident from the creative integration into his writings of a large number of references to and passages borrowed from ancient Greek and Christian authors alike. One of the most prominent ancient Greek authorities that influenced Apokaukos was Thucydides, which was quite reasonable given the high esteem his work enjoyed throughout the Hellenistic and Byzantine period and its nearly perpetual presence in school curriculum. It has to be stated though that not all the instances that have been hitherto recognised as references to the ancient Athenian historian, or at least as thucydidean echoes, can be credited as such. Exactly this is the case of a very interesting passage in a letter of Apokaukos to Nikephoros Gorianites, mesazon of the ruler of Epiros Theodore Doukas Komnenos (1215-1230), which was considered by the editor of the letter Sophrone Petrides as an allusion to the devastation of Acharnae by the Spartan king Archidamos in 431 B.C. (Thuc., II.19). Kosmas Lambropoulos many decades later followed Petrides in that respect considering too the passage a clear reference to Thucydides. As a matter of fact the total lack of any textual similarities between the relevant passages of Thucydides and Apokaukos, or any other obvious connection for that matter, seems to point out that the learned bishop alludes to another author altogether. In the present article we have been able to prove that this author can be non other than the renowned Synesios, bishop of Kyrene (4th/5th c. A.D.). The passage of Apokaukos is almost identical with a passage of the latter’s satirical work Eulogy of Baldness (Φαλάκρας’Εγκώμιον) in terms of wording, while the quotation is also used in a very similar fashion, since in both cases there is inherent an element of comparison. Indeed the respective authors state, as a way of emphasis apparently, that what befell them -hair loss for Synesius, health problems for Apokaukos- was far worse than the destruction of the Athenian landscape. As far as the way in which Apokaukos came to know the work and quote from it, it is argued that a definitive answer cannot be given for the time being on the grounds that the scholar could have easily had access either to a full copy of Synesius’ work, which does have a wide manuscript tradition, or an anthology, while the fact that he could have simply quoted by memory cannot be rejected altogether. Δωδώνη : επιστημονική επετηρίδα Τμήματος Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας; τ. ΜΓ '-ΜΔ' (2014-2015)