This volume contains selected papers from the XV International Graduate Conference, highlighting the latest scholarship from a new generation of Late Antique and Byzantine scholars from around the world. The theme of the conference explored the interaction between power and the natural and human environments of Byzantium, an interaction that is an essential part of the empire’s legacy. This legacy has come down to us through buildings, literature, history and more, and has proved enduring enough to intrigue and fascinate scholars centuries after the fall of Constantinople. From religion and trade at the end of Antiquity, imperial propaganda and diplomacy at the end of the first millennium, to culture and conquest under the Komnenian and Palaeologan dynasties – this volume demonstrates the length and breadth of the forays being made by young academics into the still often undiscovered country of the Late Antique and Byzantine world.

Maximilian Lau was President of the Oxford University Byzantine Society, reading for a DPhil at Oriel College under Mark Whittow on the Reign of Emperor John II Komnenos and the Transformation of the Old Order, 1118–43. Caterina Franchi was Secretary of the Society, reading for a DPhil at Exeter College under Marc Lauxtermann on the Alexander Romance and the reception of Alexander the Great in the Medieval tradition. Morgan Di Rodi was Treasurer of the Society, reading for a DPhil at St Cross College under Bryan Ward-Perkins on the rise of Christianity as a force in the monumental landscape of Levantine cities between the fourth and sixth centuries.