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A Companion to Late Antiquity (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World)

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Our knowledge of the so-called Late Antiquity continues to improve, as more archeological findings are excavated, and as more analysis is done of existing documents and other artifacts. This book is an extensive summation of numerous aspects of how that period is currently understood.

Concerning Byzantium, the span is some thousand years from the fall of Rome to that of Constantinople. Part of the book's focus is on how views of Byzantium changed over the centuries. Including, and not incidentally, how in their thousand years, the Byzantines saw themselves. Hence, there is evocation of various Byzantine historians and how they perceived their empire.

Mixed in with all this are studies of other peoples around the Mediterranean. Including Egypt, Syria, Persia and Greece itself. There is also an awareness of a shift from a Romanocentric view, based on the Roman Empire, and the Hellenistic view that asserted itself more prominently in Byzantium.