Leadership in Times of Crisis in Byzantium

From 3–5 December, Macquarie University hosted a conference on Leadership in Times of Crisis in the Later Roman Empire: The Fifth Century and Beyond. As part of the event our Faculty Member, Dr Andrew Mellas, presented a paper on the Justinianic Plague in Constantinople, exploring how the hymns of St Romanos the Melodist on the Second Coming and on the Ten Virgins shaped an emotional and liturgical community during the epidemic and other crises. Alongside other scholars who examined similar themes emerging during the age of Justinian, Dr Mellas reflected on the liturgification of Byzantine society, which Professor Averil Cameron defined as the process whereby the old classical survivals lose ground to a uniformly religious approach to life and whereby the emperor gradually sheds the traditional Roman attributes to emerge fully as the Christ-loving King.