The Byzantine Further Subject provides the only opportunity for historians to study in depth the dramatic transformation of the Near East at the end of the classical period. The scope of the subject is vast, encompassing as it does eight cultures and two seismic events. The twin civilized powers of classical antiquity, the Roman and Persian Empires, were both destroyed in the period, under the violent pressure of the Arab conquests and the massive influx of Slavs into the Balkans. These two old and two new cultures stand at the heart of the subject, but four other cultures are illuminated by the prescribed texts – the Coptic society of late Roman Egypt, the Syrian world of the Fertile Crescent, the fragmented society of Armenia, and the great nomad powers of the Eurasian steppes.

Candidates are not expected to accumulate knowledge about every facet of these eight cultures. The prescribed texts focus attention on four major themes: (i) the social and cultural history of the rich eastern provinces of the Roman Empire – Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt – in the reign of Justinian, and, in particular, the half-articulated thought-world of monks and holy men and the strident, sophisticated theological arguments of the higher clergy; (ii) Roman-Persian relations; (iii) the nomad invasions and Slav colonization of the Balkan provinces of Rome; (iv) the rise of Islam and the Arab conquests. For many takers this last theme has proved particularly absorbing, as the prescribed texts, together with the Koran, enable the historian to trace the growth of Muslim power from the first halting words of the Prophet to Islam’s conquest of the Near East.