Hello everyone. Today we have another Bacca Rewards episode. But if you'd like to hear more

from me this week, I did another interview for the Wonders of the World podcast. I talked

all about Justinian, Theodora, the Ahir Sophia, and visiting it and other places in Istanbul.

And for anyone thinking, man, it's been ages since we covered Justinian, I've forgotten

all that. Then fear not because the host of the show drew Varron Camp gives you the background

to the story in between our discussion. And for those of you who are keen to get back to

the narrative, I promise you we are not far away. Next week we need to talk about the economy,

then the rise of the Turks, and then I'll answer the rest of your end of the century

questions. Talk about our sources for the post-bazzle of the second world, and then we're

back to business. For now though, we have a major big picture question from Kickstarter

Bacca Jake. Hi Robin, this is Jake. Rather than asking you three separate questions for

the Kickstarter thing, I'm hoping you might offer your thoughts on one big question instead.

So here it is. Setting aside political boundaries and administrative structures and thinking

instead in terms of population movements, cultural conversion, and ethnic identities.

What does the sweep of history look like in the Byzantine world for the period you've covered?

So about 500 to 1000 CE. In other words, how different would the maps look if we focused

on the boundaries between self identifying social groups rather than which emperor or

king controlled which territory at a given time? You've previously commented on the fact

that the political lines drawn on maps are generalizations or overstatements of centralized

control anyway. So which factors would have been the most relevant to the people actually

living there at the time? I appreciate any thoughts you can offer even if you don't have

good sources to draw. And so thanks for giving it a shot.

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