Episode 4 – The Romano-Hellenic Near East, 500-633 AD

Graeco-Roman civilisation of the Near East, now Christian, existed for almost a millennium prior to the Islamic Invasions. The evidence for this world lies all about us, in monumental ruins just as spectacular as those on the northern shores of the Mediterranean and on our library shelves. But our shared historical memory has no image of this world after the time of Cleopatra. Our forgetfulness renders the subsequent history of medieval Christendom unintelligible. This episode aims to provide an image of what the Near East was, before 640 AD.