Byzantium at first sight looks inaccessible to those approaching for the first time, especially without Greek or Latin, or one of the modern languages spoken in regions closely associated with the empire. Native English-speakers may feel like ‘barbarians’ before the walls of Constantinople, excluded and daunted. Yet as with the great City, so with the subject, portals and gateways are available and the newcomer can reach some of the landmarks surprisingly fast, arriving at positions not all that much inferior to those of life-long devotees. The reasons are at once straightforward and specific to some of the main types of the surviving literary and other source-materials. Nothing like a full guided tour of sources available in English translation is attempted here, but the curious should be able to follow the directions towards more detail about them. Some of the more general introductions to the subject are noted below (pp. 90, 94).

sourcebooks

Straightforward considerations first: there are several collections of excerpts from sources, providing historical introductions as well as translations. They make a good first port of call for students, or for teachers who are themselves non-specialists but are thinking of offering a class or two on Byzantium. The earlier period, roughly corresponding to our Part I, is well served by sourcebooks. Michael Maas covers most aspects of life in the Byzantine sphere from the era of Constantine the Great’s conversion until the Arab invasions of the seventh century, general remarks being interwoven with extracts from relevant texts.