The Workshop on Late Antiquity and Byzantium is pleased to announce its next meeting.
Nathan Leidholm will present “The Representation and Appropriation of the Persian Past in Middle Byzantine Court Rhetoric.”
It is commonly acknowledged that Byzantine culture owed a particular debt to and maintained certain affinities with elements of the Ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian past. This is particularly visible in imperial court rhetoric, which served as a vital means of constructing the public image of the emperor and reinforcing the cultural values that held the empire together. This paper, however, explores a fourth, often overlooked element in such rhetoric, which played an important role in the construction of the image of the Byzantine ruler and of the empire’s place in history: the Achaemenid Persian past.
Please join us on Tuesday, April 12th, at 4:30 pm in CWAC 152.