Interviewing... @empressofbyzantium
Bored today? No worries - here’s the remedy. Let’s ask , who writes about the Byzantine Empire, some fun ancient-history-related questions. But first… if you’d like to join her fast-growing hundreds-strong readership and learn more about a fascinating period often overlooked - and I’d strongly recommend you do so! - then you can subscribe to The Empress of Byzantium here. (And keep your eyes peeled for more interviews to come.)
What inspired you to start your newsletter?
I’ve always been really keen on making Byzantium more available and accessible to people. It’s quite an isolated discipline, both in academia and in the public sphere. I kept looking at the amazing work my colleagues and scholars in the field were doing, as well as thinking about how fascinating the history itself actually was, and I just couldn’t believe that more people weren’t talking about it. I guess my newsletter was born from a desire to be at least one more voice talking in a more public, casual way about Byzantium. I really want Byzantine Studies to get as much love as it deserves!
Why late antiquity & the Byzantine empire?
Honestly, I’m still not fully sure. I did a Medieval history paper during my first year of uni, because I had to (I was originally a modernist!). I was so bored, then finally I was set an essay on Byzantium & something about it completely captivated me. It felt like being transported to an entirely new world, where all my presuppositions about art and architecture and religion and literature and what the “medieval” past meant were completely upended. So there’s no definitive reason, it was just once I started I found I couldn’t stop!
How do you approach history, and telling stories?
A good historian is a good story-teller, so I always try and use my imagination as much as logic when I’m reading about or writing history. I also approach it as a very human endeavour. We get very wrapped up in structural factors and analysis of them (still important!) that I think we sometimes forget at its core history is just us making things and telling stories about them, over time and space.
Who are you writing for?
I mean first & foremost I’m writing for anyone who has an inkling that they want to learn about Byzantium, or history from a less strictly academic (and at times limiting) perspective. But I think most importantly to me, I’m writing for people in the past who couldn’t, who were denied opportunities or written out of the record or subject to immense, systemic violence. So many non-male, non-elite people were denied the chance to say anything about themselves. But they were there and they were real and they were human. We always talk about what we owe our descendants, the people who will come to inhabit the world. I believe quite fundamentally that we also owe our ancestors a lot as well. Writing history to me feels like a way of honouring humanity’s ancestors, flawed as many of them may have been, because our experience is defined by them and their choices as much as it is our own.
If you could have any ancient object, what would it be?
Good question! I am going to be really boring and say I’d love a piece of ancient jewellery. The designs are so incredible & I love how they use their designs to play with colour and light. I don’t have a specific piece, but maybe a set of earrings & a necklace would be nice…
You can host a dinner party with any three historical figures. Who would you invite (and, if you'd like, what would you serve, and what would you talk about)?
Another excellent question. The first, of course, is the Empress Theodora, who is my favourite-ever historical figure. Second is Simone de Beauvoir — I think her & Theodora would get along. Thirdly, any historically “unnamed” woman from the ancient or medieval past, anywhere in the world. We know so little about the lives of such women and I would give anything to have a first-hand account of their experience of the world. We’d talk about their lives and womanhood and I’d introduce them to Vanderpump Rules and we’d discuss the works of the Brontë sisters (close contenders for this list) and I think we’d have a late evening playing poker. Because it’s an event for the gals, I’d serve Caesar salad, fries, and diet cokes. And then while we played poker we’d have a good red wine & lots of sweets.