From Athens to Constantinople VI: Late Antique and Byzantine Literature in Context

Beschreibung

By focussing on Greek historiographical writings from the 5th to the beginning of the 7th centuries CE, it is the aim of the workshop to examine how digressions are implemented in late antique ‘classicising’ historiography (e.g. Procopius, Theophylact Simocatta), in chronicle writing (John Malalas) as well as in the works of ecclesiastical history (Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, Theodoret of Cyrrhus). The event also looks at authors from the earlier imperial period (Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus) and the Byzantine Middle Ages (Nikephoros Bryennios).

Programme:

Monday, 23 March 2026:

17:00–17:30 Welcome address: Stefan Büttner (Wien) - Introduction: Nicole Kröll (Wien)

17:30–18:00 Filip Doroszewski (Toruń), Spartacus as Excursus: Digression and Meaning in Plutarch’s Life of Crassus

18:00–19:00 Anna Maria Taragna (Torino), Losing the Thread a Hundred Times and Finding It Again after a Hundred Twists and Turns: On the Art of Digression in Byzantine Historical Writings

Tuesday, 24 March 2026:

9:30–10:00 Mario Baumann (Dresden), Digressive Storytelling in Hellenistic Historiography: Diodorus Siculus and the Allure of Universal History

10:00–10.30 Martin Bauer-Zetzmann (Innsbruck), Geographical and mythological digressions in the Historical Narratives of Olympiodorus of Thebes

10:30–11:00 Jakob Riemenschneider (Hildesheim), Procopius and the Miracles of Christianity: On the Integration of Christian Stories in Classicising Historiography

11:00–11:30 Coffee break

11:30–12:00 Michael Grünbart (Münster), Emulating the Roman Past: Procopius and Latin Historiography

12:00–12:30 Riccardo Stigliano (Innsbruck), Digressions in Procopius of Caesarea’s Bellum Vandalicum

12:30–13:00 Olivier Gengler (Tübingen), And Now for Something Completely Different: Can There be Digressions in Universal Chronicles?

13:00–14:00 Lunch break

14:00–14:30 Marthe Becker (Bielefeld), Beyond Ethnography: On Digressions in Ecclesiastical Histories

14:30–15:00 Karl Dahm (Durham), Digressing into Subversion: Socrates of Constantinople, the Inmestar-Incident, and the Reign of Theodosius II

15:00–15:30 Anna Lefteratou (Cambridge), Classical Digressions and Christian Storytelling in Theodoret’s Religious History

15:30–16:00 Coffee break

16:00–16:30 Nicole Kröll (Wien), Digressive Storytelling in the Histories of Theophylact Simocatta: the Representation of the Sclavenes in Book 6

16:30–17:00 Pırıl Us MacLennan (Gent), Delighting Those Who Love Stories: Narrative Pleasure and Digression in Nikephoros Bryennios’ Material for History

17:00–17:30 Closing session

Zur Webseite der Veranstaltung

Veranstalter

Institut für Klassische Philologie, Mittel- und Neulatein, Universität Wien

Kontakt

Nicole Kröll
Universität Wien
Institut für Klassische Philologie, Mittel- und Neulatein der Universität Wien
+43-1-4277-41912
nicole.kroell(at)univie.ac.at

Erstellt am Mittwoch, 12. November 2025, 15:46
Letzte Änderung am Montag, 02. März 2026, 15:35