Byzantium & Friends

A conversation with Daphne Penna (University of Groningen) about Byzantine law, or (what it really was) the Greek-language phase of Roman law. We talk about the study of east Roman law, its experts (both then and now), and the interaction of Greek and Latin in legal texts. What did the law do and what do we learn from studying it? For an accessible introduction to the main sources, see the anthology edited by Daphne Penna and Roos Meijering, A Sourcebook on Byzantine Law: Illustrating Byzantine Law through the Sources (Brill 2022).

Jesse Torgerson (Wesleyan University) and I take a stab at understanding time, as it was measured, structured, and experienced in so many overlapping ways by Christian east Romans. Their days, months, and years were defined by the state tax cycle, the Church festival cycle, and nature itself, to name the most important temporal grids. Jesse's recent monograph focuses on an author (or two) who made interesting innovations in chronology: The Chronographia of George the Synkellos and Theophanes: The Ends of Time in Ninth-Century Constantinople (Brill 2022).

A conversation with Diana Mishkova (Center for Advanced Study, Sofia) about how the national historiographies of Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania cope with Byzantium -- how they try to appropriate, incorporate, circumvent, or abjure it, and so always reinvent it in the process. The conversation is based on Diana's comprehensive and lucid analysis in her recent book Rival Byzantiums: Empire and Identity in Southeastern Europe (Cambridge University Press 2023).

A conversation with Ben Anderson (Cornell University) and returning guest Mirela Ivanova (University of Sheffield) on their co-edited volume of papers on the question Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Toward a Critical Historiography (Penn State University Press 2023). We talk about how colonial, imperialist, or exploitative practices and ideologies have marked the history of our field, whether by making it complicit in them or by colonizing it. You can access Ben and Mirela's compelling introduction to the volume here.

In this episode, Marion and I talk about our new co-authored book, The Field Armies of the East Roman Empire, 361-630 (Cambridge University Press, 2023). For those interested in the military history of this period, this book contains a downright mutinous revision of the organization of the East Roman field armies and the changing priorities behind their deployments. We also take the opportunity to discuss revisionist scholarship in general, the kinds we like and those we would court-martial.

A conversation with Peter Heather (King's College, London) about his new book Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300 (New York: Knopf, 2023). Peter is one of the leading historians of the fall of the western Roman empire and the emergence there of the post-Roman, "barbarian" kingdoms. He now brings a revisionist approach to the emergence of the Church in (mostly western) Europe. This book covers a lot of ground, and so we focus on the early period, where his arguments affect the east too. We talk about the role of contingency, the near-miss of Homoian Christianity, the decisive role of secular rulers, and much more. 

A conversation with Jennifer Westerfeld (University of Louisville) on the scripts that were used to write ancient Egyptian, especially hieroglyphs. Their last attested use was in the 390s AD, putting the end of their long history in our period. Meanwhile, Greek, Roman, and Christian observers were developing their own theories about how the script worked, often quite fantastic, and reacted to texts that were inscribed in public spaces. The conversation is based on Jennifer's fascinating book Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the Late Antique Imagination (University of Pennsylvania Press 2019). For more on Coptic in this period, see episode 13.

A conversation with Timothy Miller (Salisbury University) about philanthropic institutions in Constantinople, especially hospitals, orphanages, and leprosaria. Tim has done more than anyone to illuminate these remarkable places, starting with his impressive monograph The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire (Johns Hopkins University Press 1985, 2nd ed. 1997). His current thinking on hospitals, orphanages, leprosaria can be found in the chapter 'Philanthropic Institutions,' in S. Bassett, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Constantinople (Cambridge 2022) 245-261. 

A conversation with Valentina Grasso (Bard College) on Arabia before Islam. This used to be known primarily from preserved Arabic poetry, but the picture is now filling in from inscriptions and contemporary texts. There were competing kingdoms, tribal coalitions, and foreign empires with a stake in trade routes. There were pagans, Jews, and Christians, as well as generic or "cautious" monotheists. The cultural background of the Koran has never been known in such richness and complexity. The conversation is based on Valentina's recent book, Pre-Islamic Arabia: Societies, Politics, Cults, and Identities during Late Antiquity (Cambridge 2023).

A conversation with Jeremy Swist (Brandeis University) on why some heavy metal bands write music about Roman and Byzantine history. Expect "good" and "bad" emperors to be reversed here! Jeremy has published much on this, including 'Satan's Empire: Ancient Rome's Anti-Christian Appeal in Extreme Metal,' Metal Music Studies 5 (2019) 35-51; 'Headbanging to Byzantium: The Reception of the Byzantine Empire in Metal Music,' in "What Byzantinism is this in Istanbul!" Byzantium in Popular Culture (Istanbul 2021) 200-231; and online, 'Enjoy My Flames' (Lapham's Quarterly) and 'Dawn of a Dark Age: Constantine the Great in Heavy Metal Music.'