IMC 2026: Sessions

Session 1211: EurAsian Transformations, III / Moving Byzantium, I: Officials, Soldiers, and Diplomats on the Move within and beyond the Byzantine Empire

Wednesday 8 July 2026, 14:15-15:45

Sponsor:	FWF Projekt 'Moving Byzantium: Mobility, Microstructures & Personal Agency in Byzantium', Universität Wien
Organiser:	Claudia Rapp, Institut für Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik, Universität Wien
Moderator/Chair:	Claudia Rapp, Institut für Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik, Universität Wien
Paper 1211-a	Moving Power: Proconsular Mobility and the Negotiation of Authority in Early Byzantine Ephesos (Language: English) Arkadiy Avdokhin, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford Index terms: Administration, Byzantine Studies, Epigraphy
Paper 1211-b	How to Move in Battle: Tactical Mobility in the 10th-Century Byzantine Army (Language: English) Petros Nicolaou, Royal Holloway, University of London Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Military History
Paper 1211-c	Byzantine-Fāṭimid Relations in the Early Period, 909-975 (Language: English) Maciej Czyż, Uniwersytet Wrocławski Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract	The Cluster of Excellence “EurAsian Transformations”, funded by the Austrian Science Funds FWF, provides a new framework for an entangled and comparative view on the “Global Middle Ages” from a firm basis in text and manuscript studies. Within the Cluster, the research agenda of the FWF Wittgenstein Project “Moving Byzantium” is also continued and expanded. This session compares the mobility of various officials in administrative, military or diplomatic capacities from the early to the middle Byzantine period, within and beyond the borders of the empire.