Podcast episodes – The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP) · Earl Fontainelle

One Empire, Many Names: Reading “Byzantium” with Anthony Kaldellis

October 22, 2024·1 hr 22 min·5 clips

Earl and Antony Kaldelis explore why Byzantium is crucial for understanding hidden shifts in Western thought.

This episode features host Earl in conversation with historian Antony Kaldellis, exploring the concept and historical reality of Byzantium and its relevance to Western esotericism. The discussion is framed as timely because the podcast's chronological progression into the 6th century crosses an invisible disciplinary boundary. The shift moves the focus from classical studies, which typically end with ancient Rome, into the domain of Byzantine studies. Classicists traditionally specialize in ancient Greek and Latin languages and the history of Greece and Rome up to around the 4th or 6th century. The Western Roman Empire collapsed into Germanic successor states in the 5th century after repeated sacks of Rome. In contrast, the Eastern Empire, ruled from Constantinople, persisted for another thousand years. This enduring Eastern polity is known to modern scholarship as the Byzantine Empire. Specialists who study it are called Byzantinists. Kaldellis argues that this empire always considered itself the Roman Empire, not a new entity called "Byzantium." The term "Byzantine" is a later scholarly construct that emerged long after the empire's fall in 1453. A central insight is that the disciplinary divide between classicists and Byzantinists can artificially separate a continuous historical tradition. This separation has consequences for tracing the transmission of esoteric ideas, which flowed uninterrupted through the Eastern Roman world. The conversation likely examines how Neoplatonic and other philosophical currents survived and evolved in this context. Kaldellis's perspective challenges the notion of a clean break between antiquity and the medieval period. The episode underscores that the empire's longevity provided a crucial conduit for preserving and transforming ancient knowledge. The tone is educational and conversational, delving into historiographical nuance. It adopts a scholarly yet accessible style, unpacking academic terminology for a general audience. Listeners interested in the transition from late antiquity to the medieval world, or in the legacy of Roman institutions, would find this episode compelling. Those seeking narratives focused purely on mystical practices or secret societies might find the disciplinary discussion too academic.

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