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IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 1314: Empire between Empires: Understanding Empire in the Long 7th Century

Wednesday 9 July 2014, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Thomas J. MacMaster, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
Moderator/Chair:Hugh Kennedy, Department of the Languages & Cultures of the Near & Middle East, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
Paper 1314-aInvestment of Power: Sacralizing Roman Imperial Insignia in the Early Byzantine World
(Language: English)
Maria Lidova, British Museum, London / Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Art History - General, Byzantine Studies, Political Thought
Paper 1314-b'Aeraglius emperatur erat speciosus conspecto': Imagining Emperors in the Chronicle of Fredegar
(Language: English)
Thomas J. MacMaster, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1314-cAdministering Conquest: The Role of Commanders and Governors in al-Balādhurī’s Futūḥ al-Buldān
(Language: English)
Ryan J. Lynch, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
Abstract

Much of the history of the 7th-century is dominated by struggles between empires; between the Sassanians and Byzantines in the earlier years and between those two and the rising power of the Islamic caliphate later on. One of the great empires of antiquity, the Persian, ends in this period. How did 7th-century peoples conceptualise empire in a period where it no longer had a clear meaning? Did universal empire retain power as a political/ideological goal? Was the meaning of empire transformed in the period? Was empire an aspiration among peoples of the time? Did visions of past and future empires colour understandings of the present?

This session proposes to examine the ways in which 7th-century peoples conceptualized Empire across cultures and seeks to find meaningful common points as well as divergences between the visions of Empire in the period.