Byzantium & Friends

A conversation with Lea Niccolai (University of Cambridge) on the challenge faced by emperors and theologians who claimed authority on the basis of their religious positions while simultaneously admitting that the truth about God lay beyond reach. How did they cope with this self-professed ignorance or deploy it as an asset in polemics, e.g., against heretics who presumed to know too much? The conversation is based on Lea's contributions to a forthcoming volume, co-edited with Giulia Maltagliati and entitled Not Knowing in Classical Antiquity: Discourses of Ignorance in the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge University Press).

A conversation with Derek Krueger (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) on homoerotic language and imagery in the works of Symeon the New Theologian (eleventh century). These passages are unusual enough that earlier editors and scholars were made uncomfortable about them. We discuss their devotional context but also the broader context of homoeroticism and homophobia in the monastic world of that time. The conversation is based on Derek's recent monograph, Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and the Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge University Press 2026).

A conversation with Naomi Pitamber (Clark University) about the art and architecture of the empire of Nicaea (Nikaia), the convention name of the Roman state that emerged in Asia Minor after the disaster of 1204. This art is often overlooked by scholars and overshadowed by the Palaiologan "Renaissance" that supposedly kicked in after the return to Constantinople in 1261. Naomi casts that development as a continuation of the art of Nikaia in her recent book Byzantium and the Landscapes of Loss: The Recreation of Constantinople in the Laskarid and Palaiologan Eras (Cambridge University Press 2026).

A conversation with Christopher Bonura (Mount St. Mary's University) about the apocalyptic tradition of identifying the Four Kingdoms prophesied in the Book of Daniel. Which one was the Roman empire? The fourth, scheduled to fall with the others, or something that came afterward (a tradition sometimes called imperial eschatology)? Among other topics we discuss Eusebios of Caesarea and the reign of Herakleios as possible turning points in this tradition. Christopher has published a monograph on one of the most important of these texts: A Prophecy of Empire: The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius from Late Antique Mesopotamia to the Global Medieval Imagination (University of California Press 2025), though our discussion focuses more on two articles, 'Eusebius of Caesarea, the Roman Empire, and the Fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy,' Church History 90 (2021) 509-536; and 'Eschatology and Apocalypticism in the Age of Heraclius,' forthcoming.

A conversation with Jeremy Swist (Michigan State University) on the emperor Julian (361-363 AD) and how he tried to combine his love of philosophy with ruling the Roman empire. We talk about why Julian continues to excite such passions, how in some ways he may have been more Roman than Greek, and how he read Roman history in light of the theurgical Neoplatonism that he espoused. The conversation is based on Jeremy's recent book, Julian Augustus: Platonism, Myth, and the Refounding of Rome (Oxford University Press 2025).