The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome by Anthony Kaldellis

The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome Reviews

• 
  Phil

  I've read a few books of Dr. Kaldellis' in the last year or so, so, when I saw this particularly provocative title, there wasn't really a question of not reading it. The argument is an interesting one. In reaction to the depiction of the Byzantine Empire as a authoritarian theocracy, Kaldellis argues that there was a strong republican element which operated in Byzantium and was so strong that emperors could ignore it only to their peril. This republican element, ultimately derived from the Roman Republic as transformed into Empire, Kaldellis, was one of the crucial means for justifying and distributing power throughout the Byzantine period.
  
  That is, of course, provocative, but it is important to understand what Kaldellis is arguing. He is not arguing for a strictly republican government in the strictest sense - that would not make sense. Instead, he identifies the republican element as commitment to the res publica or, as close as one can render it, a commitment to the common good of one's people. In this sense, he characterizes the Byzantine Empire as a 'republican monarchy' meaning that this was a monarchy whose power was tempered by the need to demonstrate a concern with the common good. If an emperor failed to do this, then, the people overthrew him and sought a candidate who could deliver.
  
  Even thus qualified, it is a bold argument. Kaldellis is explicitly rejecting the image of the Byzantine emperor as a ruler who could not, legally, be wrong and, even if he was, he didn't have to care because the whatever the emperor said was the law. Instead, he presents us with an emperor who had to pay attention to what would serve to keep the people, the army, the senate and the church onside with him and prevent the transfer of the throne who would do that better. It is a persuasive argument. One of the most troubling aspect of a 'high' view of the power of the Byzantine emperor is that one can demonstrate quite easily and effectively that these all powerful emperors were overthrown with alarming regularity. If they were so powerful, how are they so easily displaced?
  
  Kaldellis also explicitly takes on the 'imperial idea'; the idea that the Byzantines believed that emperors were the vicars of God and needed to be respected as such. He rightly points out that, if that was really believed, there shouldn't be anywhere as many revolutions or overthrows of emperors. That is a strong point and should be reinforced with an understanding that, if the aim in Byzantium was state which was run only by the Scriptures, that project was a profound failure. Instead, Kaldellis argues that project was never really the case, but rather the resort to the 'imperial idea' shows just how insecure emperors were on the throne because they needed to find an alternative means of justification. However, even with this alternative, the republican and theological justifications of power remained parallel methods of legitimizing power, even when they apparently contradict each other.
  
  Kaldellis' Byzantine Republic is provocative, but, unlike many provocative books, sets out a well-reasoned and well-argued thesis. It is well worth reading, but, more to the point, it can potentially transform our understanding of politics of Byzantium. As a classicist, I'm equally intrigued with the application of the same idea to the early Empire. In both realms, this interpretation could change the way we look at these 'empires'.
• 
  The American Conservative

  "Kaldellis admits that Christian teaching supported the Byzantines’ republican commitment to the common good, and he judges Christian Byzantium more republican than the two previous phases of the republic—the Principate and the Dominate. But in his eagerness to argue against the conventional theocratic reading of Byzantine history, he errs in the opposite direction toward an essentially secular reading."
  
  
  http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
• 
  Zachary

  I have long been fascinated by Byzantium, this interest growing organically from my love of Roman history. I found it remarkable that the Roman empire persisted for a thousand years longer than I had thought, and yet this continuation was rarely talked about in school, as though it were a dirty secret of western civilization. I always felt some dissonance, however. Because the Byzantine empire was defined in the Enlightenment and after as something fundamentally different from the Roman empire, I tended to approach it with the non-intersecting lines that it both was a continuation of Rome, and something entirely different. So it was that I accepted the received view that the Byzantine emperor was an absolute, divinely-appointed monarch very different from the emperors of the Principate or even the Dominate, and that he ruled over an effective theocracy of zealously devout Christians. And yet it always seemed a bit odd that the Byzantine emperors were quite insecure. Very few got to die of natural causes, instead being overthrown in rebellions by provincial generals or palace coups by scheming officials (or their own mothers on occasion), or even being toppled by street protests. It seemed incongruous. What kind of quasi-divine absolute ruler is so insecure? Sure, it makes sense if such a figure were to fall in palace coups, because those working closely with a god-king are going to know quite well and that said god-king is just a man who can be taken out. But a god-king routinely overthrown by the urban masses? How would that work? Moreover, how is it that the instability didn't lead to fundamental reorganizations of the entire system, or to outright revolution?
  
  Anthony Kaldellis's wonderful book provides answers. It compellingly and remarkably readably lays out a cogent and compelling argument that these questions stem from a wholesale failure to understand the Byzantine empire as Roman or to approach understanding it as they Byzantines, or properly, the Romans, understood it. Essentially, Kaldellis argues that the imperial position grew out of the Roman republican tradition, and even as far back as Augustus was seen really as a sort of office within the Republic. In the Principate, legitimacy was conferred by acceptance and confirmation by the Senate, complete with the passage of laws granting power, and acclimation by the Roman people, including the Roman people under arms, the Roman army. This was disrupted during the Third Century Crisis, as emperors were made and unmade in rapid succession far away from Rome by the legions. The instability led to increasing use of divine sanction to add to the legitimacy of the emperors that culminated in Constantine's appropriation of the Christian god. The mistake that has been made has been to assume that the form of imperial government created during this time is what persisted into the Byzantine era. However, once the emperors settled permanently in Constantinople, the system really reverted back to the Republican model that was never actually eliminated. In the City, the emperors once again came to be seen by the people as an office holder who had to hold office in such a way as to keep them satisfied that their interests were being looked after. The divine sanction continued in official propaganda, ceremony, and ritual, but it is as though the divine sanction in some way adhered not to the person as emperor so much as the emperor as office. The person could be evaluated, found wanting either for incompetence, tyrannical failure to follow the law or see to the public need, or just outright unlikability, and, if so, violently overthrown. Or, if a usurper presented himself, the current emperor could be evaluated by comparison, and if the usurper found better, the people could weigh in on his side and so delegitimize the current emperor. Is there some dissonance here with the theocratic notions of a divine emperor? Yes, but Kaldellis makes the point that the Byzantines were like pretty much everyone else in history: rather okay with inconsistency. I have to say that it all makes perfect sense to me, and Kaldellis presents enough evidence from primary sources and history that I'm convinced. I come away better understanding the Byzantines that makes far more sense than what I had before. I find this remarkable, as I was skeptical going in. Moreover, Kaldellis makes an excellent point that we have persistently failed to pierce long-held misunderstandings of the Byzantines such that we see them as scholars long ago decided they were, rather than as they actually were. Wholesale re-evaluation of the Byzantine culture, ideology, and political system needs to be undertaken to remove the mask placed over them. In his closing, Kaldellis makes this more explicit, showing that our misunderstanding of the emperor is far from our only one. We tend to think of the Byzantines as benighted, religion-mad theocrats, drunkenly devout and delusional, but the evidence shows that much of the devotion is just at the level of the writings of church officials and holy figures, that the people were just as varied as people of any time, and the government really very pragmatic. I found this book to be revelatory, and it will shape my understanding of the Byzantine empire going forward. Thank you, Dr. Kaldellis! (And thank you to Robin Pierson for bringing Kaldellis and his work to my attention via The History of Byzantium podcast!)
  
  PS As a side note, I found this book remarkably suited to the political climate in which I read it. The irony abounded in the comparisons. I shall leave it at that.
• 
  Christopher

  
  Kaldellis, Anthony, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015)
  Anthony Kaldellis’ work was written as an openly revisionist piece that was designed as “…an effort to recover the Roman dimension of Byzantium and the Roman identity of the Byzantines themselves” (ix). This particular work concentrates on the political dimension and what formed the basis of the Roman identity of the mislabeled “Byzantine Empire” by attempting to demonstrate two primary institutional points; the fact that the “byzantine” era was thoroughly as Roman and republican as it was in the days of Cicero, and that the basis of the empire was just as thoroughly democratic as it was in the Republic. These continuities are less in structures and more so in “…a survival of Roman republican notions about the sources, uses, and legitimization of power” (3). By attempting to parse out how the “average” person identified with the ideology imperial ideal, or not, the author seeks to overturn the monolithic notion of an absolute monarchical Orthodox polity, and assert what the words and actions of the citizenry and the emperors alike reveal, according to Kaldellis, “Byzantium” was a Roman monarchical republic in continuity with its fallen Western counterpart.
  One of the key points that Kaldellis makes towards his claim is that the Greek word “politeiai” was equivalent to the Latin notion of “res republica”. A politeiai is a notion that encompasses all of society, from the lowliest farmer to the state itself, and although the term does have a range of meanings it certainly is understood as defining a notion of the common good and a unified republic (16-17). This is confirmed by his reliance on Cicero defining a republic as the property of the people (21). Moreover, Cicero’s conception of a “republic” is one that refers to the legitimacy of the state, whatever its form, and not the state itself. It is on this line of thinking that Kaldellis rests his notion of popular sovereignty of the people and not in the position of the Emperor. While he fully admits the personal nature of Roman governance, and the patronage that governed the bureaucracy, the author finds that this proved to be a stable and effective ruling assemblage that remained largely unshaken by political shake-ups (34-35), and serves as evidence of an abstracted politeiai in the minds of the Byzantines that did not distinguish between the people and the state or posit a public sphere mediating between the state and private interests (37-38). He claims that the modern imposition of a concept of the state as distinct from civil society and defined by its coercive self-interest is inaccurate as it forms an anachronism. In short, he stresses that because the Byzantine self-understanding divorced a notion of the basilea and politeiai, this then demonstrates a fundamental republicanism (41). The presence of a standing army, fiscal system, and courts of law that functioned separate from the person of the Emperor only serves to underline his point and the Emperor is posited as serving as an authority within the politeiai, but not identified with it (40, 42-43). This establishes a fundamental institutional continuity with their Roman past, and illustrates how the Roman East was as thoroughly “republican” as the fallen Latin half.
  Another key area in Kaldellis’ analysis is his assertion of the Byzantine politeiai as functioning according to a constant state of exception (86). This he sees as sourced in the chaos toward the end of “republican” period in which the role of the emperor was devised as a way to cover the systemic flaws of the Republic, but Kaldellis takes his exploration further and proclaims the entire Byzantine polity vacillated between two radical positions within this state of exception- the rule of the emperor and the uproar of regime change (87). The author cites the value of law and order, and the boundary it drew between the civilized and barbarian world as the basis for his claim(67-69). This created a tension since the role of the emperor implied a contradictory position, primarily because the Emperor was in fact the supreme legislative authority (73-75). Accordingly, the dictum that tended to define the approach to this by emperors was that while the Emperor was above the law, an emperor would follow the law anyway, and at times there was a difference between imperial fiat and functioning law (75-76). Kaldellis sees the situation as being defined less so by legality than by legitimacy and that the issue was ultimately political; this delineates the constant tension as enumerated by Kaldellis, and is a model to explain how the empire seemed to remain so stable in spite of the institutional chaos that was common in the Byzantine east (80, 82).
  The natural corollary is that Kaldellis finds the state of exception to be evidence of the republicanism of the byzantine polity, because the basis of the rule of the emperor is asserted to be that of the acclamation of the people (95). His primary point of proof is that by this point in Roman history there was no fixed point to determine the political legitimacy of a ruler, except popular will, which turned the political field into emperors and potential emperors (114). He highlights many historical examples where the emperor personally acknowledged his vulnerability or an emperor gained or lost the throne due to disfavor of the populace- usually demonstrated in political outrage, popular protest, and civil war or other violent means (131, 160). One area of contention that Kaldellis takes is the rejection that there was no such thing as a sphere of public opinion, and in his examples he sets out to demonstrate just the opposite (126-127). The politicization of the populace meant they were often aware of their rights and which claimants to the throne and who they supported in these states of exception. The author reveals that he sees the politeiai as an ideological cover for power struggles between the rights of the people and the emperor or would-be emperors, which is why these drastic changes in Byzantine society had to be extralegal, although, Kaldellis admits many instances were symbolic or an expression of a sense of justice in limited application (160-161). On the whole, the author crafts an interpretation that envisions a polity that exists only in abstraction for the purpose of aiding a politically aware and politically invested citizenry that uses this to affect their will, in either the acclamation of or against an emperor or potential emperor.
  His final section of the book spends time applying this basic principle of the oscillating state of exception to further demonstrate that the “theocratic imperial ideal” existed alongside the “secular republic”, and that this seeming contradiction is resolved by nominalizing the theocratic aspect and castigating it as being superimposed onto a preexisting republican basis for the purpose of shoring up legitimacy by the emperor. Kaldellis expounds how this functioned as an ideological space that benefited the people as well as ruler, for the people too wanted a ruler who was divinely appointed (173-174, 180-181). Here he flatly advocates that the Roman polity was only accidentally Christian and both had two different, conflicting visions of a politeiai (190), and moreover, that the notion of Byzantine political culture infused with Christianity needs to be done away with in historical analysis. He uses a small selection from one of Photios the Great’s letter as his major example of a secular notion where the saint of the East seems to speak of a purely human origin of states, but the author provides zero context for the reader (184). This allows Kaldellis to establish that there were competing narratives within the byzantine polity and that their employment rested on a situationally determined use of ideology and rhetoric to achieve a goal (184). Additionally, Kaldellis assumes “secular” to mean a modern notion of secular, which is non-religious, and adds a layer of anachronism. To be fair, he does address this, but only to the extent that he dismisses other historians who have asserted “secular” in the Byzantine world did not typically mean without religion or spirituality (186-189) when there is no reason to assume this in Byzantine political or social thinking. This last chapter examines a few pieces of evidence, but spends more time criticizing the historiography as the reader is left with the sense that his deduction in the chapter is effectively “proven” in the preceding chapters. Nevertheless, it does not stop the author from asserting that his understanding of the Byzantine republic is to embody something of a perpetual revolution.
  Kaldellis’ entire analysis hinges on his grounding of his concept of the state in Rousseau in order to oppose what he sees as a more “Hobbesian” interpretation of the state that is allegedly assumed by many historians. He lauds Rousseau for being a “classical thinker” because Rousseau made a distinction between the government and the sovereign, and because Rousseau believed a true constitution was an inward law obeyed by the people, in their hearts (95, 99). This suggests that the author is possibly not basing his interpretation of historical texts qua historical context, but rather interpreting the historical texts in light of Rousseau’s political notions, and specifically his understanding of the role of the “general will”. For instance, he assumes that the term “politeiai”, as an abstract identity for the all within the byzantine polity, must function as Rousseau envisioned. Instead, when an emperor invoked the politeiai there is no reason to believe that this meant he was not in a position of some actual autocracy. This idea that the state must be identical with the ruler if it’s to be non-democratic is a strange anachronism that presumes if the byzantine Basileus did not adhere to the motto of the Sun King Louis XIV, “l'etat c'est moi”, then he was not an actual ruler. The trick that Kaldellis employs is that he utilizes Rousseau’s definition of a republic from the beginning of the book, and lo and behold, by page ninety five Rousseau is praised as classical thinker instead of a modern thinker. This is a clever, subtle attempt at manipulating the reader. To acknowledge these issues would mean the entire book’s premise is founded on anachronism, and ideological interpolation rather than an authentic revision of historical sources.
  The use of Giorgi Agamben’s concept of the state of exception is equally suspect because it is assumed rather than demonstrated in the evidence. Kaldellis certainly makes note that law and order were important hallmarks of civilization and what it meant to be Roman, but on the other hand, instead of seeing the breakdown of legal and operational norms as a moment in which the legal and political process fails, he chooses a convoluted interpretation that legality did not really exist and only the political dimension remained. The author correctly notes in the sources the tension between the Emperor as sole legislative authority, and the ideal of a law-abiding monarch. One such example is when an imperial judge, in the eleventh century, reminded the Emperor that there was distinction between promulgating a new law and following existing law, but Kaldellis chooses this example not to highlight the precise legal technicality, but rather as an instance of putting the Emperor “in his place” (76). He details situations where the emperors were disobeyed, notably outrage over illegal marriages, and concludes that legitimacy and not legality mattered (i.e. the political), but fails to address why this is unique to a republican and not absolutist, monarchical polity. It is as though mechanical adherence to written law is to be expected in non-republican polities according to Kaldellis. Finding the solution to this constructed dilemma is found by defining the Byzantine politeiai as in a perpetual revolution. This is a fanciful understanding that conveniently dovetails with the way the author utilizes Rousseau. The most obvious solution to the issue of extralegal exercise of power lies not in his revision of the sources, but rather in understanding tumultuous, “extralegal” events as a problem that was resolved by appealing to a greater sense of the Good and Justice, in order to ensure the law reflected this properly which is, to be frank, not any more different in our contemporary era as it was in any other most likely.
  This leads into the next issue found in the analysis-that of the fundamental assumptions undergirding what the “imperial idea” represented. Kaldellis blatantly states that “…popular fickleness is a political problem only within republican (or democratic) systems, not in absolute monarchies” and betrays what appears to be a caricature of what constituted living in an absolute monarchy and a republic (149). The idea that everyday people in a given polity have no agency or interaction with political and legal forces is laughably cartoonish. This assumes, in a Manichean manner, that republics and/or democracies are magical places of collective libertine awakenings of agency and absolute monarchies are basically strictures that produce automatons in perfect harmony with every royal dictate. The reality of history is far more complicated, and this fact is left entirely unacknowledged. The role and agency of merchants, guilds, churches, wealthy classes, and peasants is utterly discarded in this analysis in favor of dichotomizing the Byzantine politeiai into the amorphous “people” and sometimes the elites and always the emperor. When Kaldellis claims elsewhere that there existed a public opinion, and that this is incorrectly dismissed in modern historiography in order to create new tautologies may be correct in some history books, but by the same token, its standard in most history books that these “non-political” actors of late antiquity and the medieval era had a visible and important role across the globe as popular dissatisfaction and satisfaction was on the mind of every monarch in all ages of recorded history. In summary, Kaldellis erects a straw-man based on poor conceptualization in order to advance his simplistic and revisionist account.
  Kaldellis does offer two solid contributions in this work; he succinctly demonstrates that the “Byzantines” were thoroughly Roman according to their own self-understanding, as much as to the obvious development of political history, and he shows how in urban areas, primarily Constantinople, the citizens of the city could be incredibly influential in contentious political situations. The problem is that Kaldellis’ former demonstration is a generally recognized fact in Byzantine historiography, and the later, while perhaps not emphasized in Byzantine historiography enough, is not exactly a guarded secret by Byzantine scholars or their works. Kaldellis’ argument rests on assuming Rousseau’s definition of a republic accurately described the Byzantine politeiai, and that the explanation for the apparent tumultuous aspects of the internal history is found by defining the polity to be in a never-ending revolution of the people and their acclaimed monarch. This basis is anachronistic and assumes political caricatures to stand in for nuanced demonstration. In spite of the hype that this book generated in the year prior to its release, it has failed in not only its stated purpose, but in being reliable as a whole.
  Christopher Cline
• 
  Carl Hoogervorst

  Actually well written and interesting throughout.
• 
  Anatolikon

  Kaldellis ‘The Byzantine Republic’ is a timely and important book on the nature of Byzantine governance and emperorship. The argument of the book is that Byzantium retained (or perhaps, reasserted after a third-century lapse, as Kaldellis comes close to admitting) Roman republican methods of governance. The radical thesis of this book should not be understated. In a scholarly tradition accustomed to viewing the Byzantium as a largely theocratic state where political ideals and realities are based in Christian theology, Kaldellis takes an entirely different approach and argues for the primacy of the Roman people as the main legitimating factor in government. These arguments are based on sources that come from a long period of time and are tempered by an awareness of that they might be considered topoi, a matter which Kaldellis handles carefully. The multitude of examples and cases of repetitious and symbolic behavior during them (such as the attacks on Constantinople’s praitorion) do make for an interesting case. While the thesis is radical enough that Kaldellis is unlikely to find instant and widespread reception, he is definitely pointing to an underappreciated phenomenon how the Byzantine state was viewed by its people and how they took a role in it. This challenge to the sacrality of the emperors is particularly intriguing and well-argued by Kaldellis. That there was some form of a Byzantine republic is effectively undeniable now.
  Nonetheless, this book has a number of faults. Chief of these might be its length. Although at 200 pages it is a pretty average academic text, its repetitious nature begins to grate after a while, and some of the theory discussed by Kaldellis does not ultimately seem to make much contribution to the main argument. In terms of evidence, an awful lot of Kaldellis’ materials date from three specific periods. The early sixth century, the eleventh century, and the end of the twelfth constitute the basis of the material that the argument is being based upon. One could, I suppose, equally make an argument that ideas of republicanism happened to find their way to the surface most frequently during periods of uncertain or rapid succession of emperors. Kaldellis justifies this by claiming that the sources happen to be better, but at the same time those are the sources that just happen to be better at saying exactly what he wants them to say. For example, there’s precious little in here pertaining to the period after the Fourth Crusade, despite it being much better sourced than other times. One might also wonder where the role of the church is in all of this. Patriarchs are almost entirely absent from this book despite their role in crowning and legitimating emperors. This critique should not be taken as one attempting to return the theological interpretation to the forefront, but the patriarchs become conspicuous by their absence. How their role was constituted within the republican framework is an interesting question, but it is possible that Kaldellis left the issue aside as a deliberate provocation for further work on the topic.
  Despite these criticisms, the book receives a five-star rating for being thought-provoking, mostly convincing, and for challenging the standard ways of looking at political legitimation in Byzantium. The Byzantine Republic cannot be ignored, and those who seek to pursue the theological interpretation of Byzantine emperorship and the state will now have to do so at their peril. Kaldellis is to be congratulated for producing yet another controversial volume that challenges long-held assumptions and will no doubt help to spur the field forward
  
• 
  Hans Kerrinckx

  This was a hard one.
• 
  Petek Jinkins

  The Byzantines... Were they a religious theocracy? What did they think of state-society relations? These were some of the questions I had going into reading this book. If you're new to the subject, through coursework or general interest, be mindful of the fact that this book breaks with tradition to treat the Byzantine establishment as a Republic.
  
  I'd previously read several edited books by Cyril Mango, which tend to focus more on the religious life that once produced icons and liturgy. So I was more familiar with the Byzantines as a properly Christian peoples. Reading Kaldellis is breaking away with the overemphasis on the religiosity of the Byzantines. He does an incredible job focusing primarily on questions usually raised by political philosophy regarding type of government and style of governance. Kaldellis sets out to not only make his argument, but also to frame that argument in response to past descriptions of the Byzantines as a Christian theocracy, as purported by many historians and art historians.
  
  The most relevant contribution of this book is its study of the "politeia" and the importance of the common good. Kaldellis breaks down these concepts by analyzing more closely the emperor's role and context; the emperor's position and relationship to the state, the people, and the authority of the position of the emperor's leadership. 'Nothing belongs to the emperor,' the author states, 'not event the palace.' An emperor works for the people, subject to the tolerance of the people, so long as he protects the public interest. He must accept his role as the protector of the finances and the strategic well being of his empire to keep his throne.
  
  This is an academic book which, in my experience, reads well as a first (if you would like to read more about late Rome later on). I read it before Kaldellis' other book "Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood," which is more detailed in historical events, particular dynasties and specific rulers.
  I would also say that the book reads smoothly enough if you're somewhat interested in/familiar with political philosophy and have a basic, popular knowledge of Roman civilization. The book certainly gets you thinking about the Byzantines as Romans, following the Roman tradition of laws and governance.
• 
  Ryan Denson

  Anthony Kaldellis' works are often great works of scholarship and this one is certainly no different. It is exceptionally well researched and informative. This is a must read for anyone interested in Byzantine history. Don't worry if you're not well versed on every single rebellion and usurpation in Byzantium's long history, this book explains the neccesary details on such things quite well. To me, Kaldellis' central thesis that the Byzantine politeia was based on an underlying Republican structure is convincing after reading all the evidence. Even more intriguing is his call to begin to more of the Roman culture in Byzantium as it is has been often overlooked by scholars of this field. It will be interesting to see where that line of inquiry goes in future scholarship.
• 
  Eleanor!

  An excellent and compelling, much-needed study on the nature of popular sovereignty in Byzantium that brings a sharp, critical eye to the beliefs about Byzantine society that have held sway in scholarship for the past generation.
• 
  David Kharebov

  пять звезд книжке, которая подтверждает то, о чем я только задумывался!
• 
  Sam

  Groundbreaking and interesting: this book adjusts and reorients our understanding of the Byzantine governmental system
• 
  Bill

  A paradigm-busting book. By unpacking the political ideology of the Eastern Roman ("Byzantine") Empire, which the Romans themselves understood to be a republic, Kaldellis brings vibrancy and life to the last millennium of Román history, which is often handcuffed by misguided stereotypes in popular and scholarly histories. Reimagining the Eastern Romans as they really were is good practice for thinking more deeply and clearly about how power, legitimacy, and political ideology actually operate in modern Western democracies.
• 
  Hana

  I've been feeling this odd longing to time-travel to Byzantium and yesterday I came across a wonderful interview with
  Byzantine and classical scholar Anthony Kaldellis. If the book is even half as lively and provocative as the interview it will be a five star. Moving this one to the top of the TBR list.
  
  Sandusky Register: You have written, and other historians have written, that the Greek speakers in the Byzantine Empire referred to themselves as "Romans."
  
  Kaldellis: The real question is, will western scholars ever accept the Byzantines as true Romans? Not merely to say that “they called themselves Romans” – a strange way of putting it that we use for no other people in history – but to actually accept them as such.
  
  Like economists, historians see what they are trained to see, and prioritize their attention based on the theories they have been taught....Byzantine Studies is an extremely repetitive and conservative field. You read the same thing over and over again....
  
  Do you know that still today, in the year 2015, we have only a single book about the Byzantines’ interest in erotic matters, and that was written thirty years ago in German? The material is all there, but Byzantinists don’t “see” it, even when it’s right there, and they are too addicted to the model of the “Orthodox society” to make sense of it. The Byzantines were not as prudish as modern Byzantinists are, and hardly as respectful of imperial authority or the Church. The field is suffocating in its own incense....
  
  I would recommend that you bypass modern historians and go straight to the sources: start with translations of the historians Ammianus Marcellinus (fourth century), Prokopios (sixth), Psellos and Attaleiates (eleventh), and Choniates (twelfth-thirteenth). That is how I started my study of Byzantium: I read the sequence of the historians in Greek from beginning to end. Man, was that a good investment of my time! And it kept me out of trouble during my twenties.
• 
  !Tæmbuŝu

  Reviewed by
  The National
• 
  Cara Esten

  Fundamentally changed the way I look at Byzantine history. Rather dry, but the author's wit shines through from time to time and makes this a very approachable academic read.