A History of Byzantium (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: A History of Byzantium Lindsay Diggelmann Gregory, Timothy E., A History of Byzantium (Blackwell History of the Ancient World), Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishing, 2005; paperback; pp. xiv, 382; 60 b/w illustrations; RRP not known; ISBN 0631235132. This volume was the first to be published in the Blackwell History of the Ancient World series. Since 2005 further volumes have appeared dealing with the Later Roman Empire, the Ancient Near East and the Archaic Greek World, among others. Several more are in preparation. On the evidence of Professor Gregory's treatment of Byzantium, the series will provide a very useful teaching resource and a thoughtfully presented introduction to a range of ancient societies and cultures. At just under 400 pages this summary of over a thousand years of Byzantine history is of an admirably manageable size. However, compromises inevitably have to be made when covering such a wide area of study. The Blackwell approach is to provide a 'new narrative history' and Gregory discusses the rationale for this in the preface. While acknowledging the risk that a chronological survey based around the rise and fall of dynasties and the reigns of individual emperors may appear 'old-fashioned', he stresses the aim of providing an introduction for readers unfamiliar with the topic and suggests that this is the best way to be 'both concise [End Page 191] and comprehensive' (p. xii). Therefore the narrative undoubtedly leans towards traditional political and religious themes but Gregory compensates for this in several ways. Short bibliographies at the end of each chapter suggest paths that readers may wish to follow to find out more about topics that can be handled only briefly in the central analysis. While this is hardly a novel technique in a survey text, it is apparent that the author and series editors are concerned to alert readers to other possible interpretive approaches. The general bibliography at the end of the book is deliberately narrow in scope and is broken into thematic sections, avoiding the trap of forcing less experienced scholars to wade through large swathes of unfamiliar (and often foreign-language) bibliographic material. The frequent use of 'boxes', brief self-contained sections visually separated from the main text, is also a success. Again these are not at all new but they are used to good effect here, especially to provide a taste of social or cultural themes that are beyond the scope of the main discussion. One senses a slight feeling of guilt from the purveyors of the grand narrative of dead white males: many of the boxes focus on the experiences of Byzantine women in one way or another (for example at pp. 98, 117, 132, and in the fascinating description of transvestite nuns at p. 141). The text is very clearly articulated and the summaries of complex legal or theological controversies are fine examples of how to write for non-specialists. Academic experts are not always good at refashioning their material for a general audience but the crispness of Gregory's prose and the effectiveness of his explanations of issues such as the origins of Iconoclasm (pp. 190–2) or the Christological controversy (pp. 101–6) are among the book's highlights. Primary material also has its place, with translations included (often in boxes, as with the material on icons at pp. 186–8) to alert the intended general readership to the fact that our knowledge of Byzantine affairs is so often shaped by the nature of surviving sources. How should we deal, for example, with the fact that so much of our information about the reign of Justinian comes from Prokopios? Gregory ensures that readers are at least made aware of some important questions concerning methodology and evidence. A list of important sources in English translation is provided at the end of the book (along with a handy glossary of Greek terms). Nor, despite its introductory nature, does the book ignore issues of historiographical debate and interpretation. These are brought in from time to time to give readers a sense of how our understanding of the Byzantine past has changed thanks to developments in scholarship. Thus the idea of 'nationalist' conflicts in the early Church, now largely...