A fantasy of an alternate Byzantine Empire by a Hugo and Nebula Award finalist. Byzantium lies at the intersection of East and West, in the heart of the most opulent empire the world has ever known. Warrior Prince Marric has to fight for his right to defend his position as heir of the kingship. Last in the powerful line of kings descended from Alexander the Great, he is ordained by the gods of the people to rule alongside his beloved and wise sister, Alexa. But a sorcerer of dark magic has usurped the throne and Marric is exiled. To win back his rule, he must learn the arts of magic in order to defeat the dark sorcerer. In the land of Egypt, amidst the slave markets and the luxurious perfumed villas of the wealthy, he encounters a silver‐haired slave girl who can teach him the arts of magic, for Marric knows that he cannot vanquish his enemy with sword and strength alone.

Details the role of sports in the classical world from early Greece through the late Roman and early Byzantine empires.

Byzantium's Balkan Frontier is the first narrative history in English of the northern Balkans in the tenth to twelfth centuries. Where previous histories have been concerned principally with the medieval history of distinct and autonomous Balkan nations, this study regards Byzantine political authority as a unifying factor in the various lands which formed the empire's frontier in the north and west. It takes as its central concern Byzantine relations with all Slavic and non-Slavic peoples - including the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Hungarians - in and beyond the Balkan Peninsula, and explores in detail imperial responses, first to the migrations of nomadic peoples, and subsequently to the expansion of Latin Christendom. It also examines the changing conception of the frontier in Byzantine thought and literature through the middle Byzantine period.

The first systematic study of the practice of royal self-coronations from late antiquity to the present.

The essays in this volume investigate themes related to the place of law in Byzantine ideology and society. Was this a society which was meant to be governed by law? For answers, these essays look to the intent of the legislators; the attitudes toward the law; the relationship between law, religion, literature, and art.

Byzantine art has been an underappreciated field, often treated as an adjunct to the arts of the medieval West, if considered at all. In illustrating the richness and diversity of art in the Byzantine world, this handbook will help establish the subject as a distinct field worthy of serious inquiry. Essays consider Byzantine art as art made in the eastern Mediterranean world, including the Balkans, Russia, the Near East and north Africa, between the years 330 and 1453. Much of this art was made for religious purposes, created to enhance and beautify the Orthodox liturgy and worship space, as well as to serve in a royal or domestic context. Discussions in this volume will consider both aspects of this artistic creation, across a wide swath of geography and a long span of time. The volume marries older, object-based considerations of themes and monuments which form the backbone of art history, to considerations drawing on many different methodologies-sociology, semiotics, anthropology, archaeology, reception theory, deconstruction theory, and so on-in an up-to-date synthesis of scholarship on Byzantine art and architecture. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture is a comprehensive overview of a particularly rich field of study, offering a window into the world of this fascinating and beautiful period of art.