“The Emperor Constantine at war: Divine Favour and the Role of Epiphanies” is the title of the upcoming online lecture to be delivered by Dr Yannis Papadogiannakis, Senior Lecturer, King’s College London, in the context of the 4th Lecture Series in Late Antiquity (“When our world became Christian”), which is organised by the Programme "Studies in Hellenic Culture" of the Open University of Cyprus (OUC). The lecture is a Joint Event with the Colloquium in Byzantine and Medieval Studies of the University of Cyprus, and it will be held on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 19:30 (GMT+3) through this weblink: https://bit.ly/34o744M
Constantine’s moment of epiphany on the eve of his decisive battle against Maxentius in A.D. 312, at the Milvian Bridge, sometimes equated with his ‘conversion’, has traditionally been seen both as one of history’s great turning-points and as one of its most enduring enigmas. Given how significant a role epiphanies played in political and military decision-making and victory in battle before Constantine, then, it is puzzling why his encounter with the divine has not been studied against this background, with a view to analysing the ways in which these traditions and epiphanic conventions might have shaped his accounts of the epiphanies that he experienced and the role that he chose to accord them, in his pursuit of military victory and political legitimacy.
Dr Yannis Papadogiannakis is Senior Lecturer at King's College London and specialises in Late Antique and Byzantine intellectual and religious history. His research on the role of debate in the definition of belief and identities in the eastern Mediterranean (6-8c. AD) has been funded by the European Research Council. His current area of research involves the historical study of emotions in Late Antiquity and Byzantium.
The Lecture Series, the programme of which is available online, examines various aspects of the period known as Late Antiquity but tends to focus on issues of Christianization, Late Antique Archaeology, and the Eastern Roman Empire. Convenor of the Series is Georgios Deligiannakis, Associate Professor of the BA Programme "Studies in Hellenic Culture". The Series is supported by the Student and Alumni Union of the Programme and the ERMA Bookstore.
Web form to register your interest for Certificates of Attendance: https://forms.office.com/r/01gzHkDtZN?lang=en
