• Rulership in the late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine periods (c. AD 400-800)
• Roman and Byzantine generals, officials, and court politics
• Empresses, elite women, and gender history
• Ecclesiastical politics, patronage and benefaction in Rome and Byzantium

Dr Meaghan McEvoy is a Senior Lecturer in History at the Australian National University. She is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, where she received the University Medal, and the University of Oxford, where her research was supported by a John Crampton Travelling Scholarship. She has held several funded research fellowships, including the Rome Scholarship at the British School at Rome; a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford; a Fellowship and Summer Fellowship at the Dumbarton Oaks Centre for Byzantine Studies, Washington DC; and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main. Prior to joining the ANU in July 2022, she worked as Senior Lecturer in Byzantine Studies at Macquarie University.

Dr McEvoy is the author of Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367-455, published by Oxford University Press in 2013. It has been praised as 'a major contribution to our understanding of one of the great transitional periods in European and world history' (English Historical Review),  'a definitive account for years to come' (Classical Journal), an 'impressive analysis' (Early Medieval Europe) and 'a fine, clearly-written study which advances our understanding of the exercise of political power' (Journal of Roman Studies).

She is the co-editor (with Caillan Davenport) of The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity, published by Oxford University Press in 2023.

She is the co-editor of three thematic journal issues, Imperial Presence in Late Antique Rome (2nd-7th centuries) for Antiquité Tardive (with S. Corcoran and M. Moser, 2017), Envisioning the Roman Emperor in Speech and Word in Late Antiquity for the Journal of Late Antiquity (with J.-W. Drijvers, 2021) and Shaping Christian Politics in Late Antiquity for the Journal of Late Antiquity (with Richard Flower and Robin Whelan).

Her research has appeared in journals such as Papers of the British School at Rome and Antichthon and in edited collections on Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome, The Emperor in the Byzantine World, The Sons of Constantine, Leadership, Ideology and Crowds in the Roman Empire of the Fourth Century, and The Fifth Century: An Age of Transformation?

Dr McEvoy is currently working on the following projects:

• A biography of the fifth century empress Licinia Eudoxia, for the Oxford University Press Women in Antiquity Series
• A series of conferences, a co-edited journal issue, and a co-edited volume on Christian Political Cultures in Late Antiquity, with Robin Whelan (Liverpool) and Richard Flower (Exeter)
• An international collaborative project on Elite Women in the Late Roman World

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

BOOK 

• M. McEvoy, Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367-455 (Oxford University Press, 2013).

EDITED BOOK

• C. Davenport and M. McEvoy (eds), The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity. (Oxford University Press, 2023). 

EDITED SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUES

• R. Flower, M. McEvoy and R. Whelan (eds), Shaping Christian Politics in Late Antiquity. Journal of Late Antiquity 15.2 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022)
• J. W. Drijvers and M. McEvoy (eds), Envisioning the Roman Emperor in Speech and Word in Late Antiquity. Journal of Late Antiquity 14.1 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021)
• S. Corcoran, M. McEvoy and M. Moser (eds), La présence impériale dans la Rome tardo-antique / Imperial presence in late antique Rome. Antiquité Tardive 25 (Brepols, 2017)

REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES

• M. McEvoy, “Emperors, aristocrats and columns: Christian imperial politics in the late fifth century CE as reflected in the Life of Daniel the Stylite”, Journal of Late Antiquity (2022) 15.2, pp. 428-461.
• M. McEvoy, “Orations for the first generation of Theodosian imperial women”, Journal of Late Antiquity (2021) 14.1, pp. 117-141.
• M. McEvoy, “Shadow emperors and the choice of Rome, AD 455-476” in Antiquité Tardive (2017) 25, pp. 95-112.
• M. McEvoy, “Becoming Roman: the not-so-curious case of Aspar and the Ardaburii”, in Journal of Late Antiquity (2016) 9.1, pp. 483-511.
• M. McEvoy, “Constantia: the last Constantinian”, in Antichthon (2016) 50, pp. 154-179.
• M. McEvoy, “Rome and the transformation of the imperial office in the late fourth – mid-fifth centuries”, in Papers of the British School at Rome (2010) 78, pp. 151-192.

BOOK CHAPTERS

• M. McEvoy, “Warfare and politics from Arcadius to Justin I, AD 395-527”, in The Oxford History of the Roman World, Volume 5, ed. N. Lenski (under contract with Oxford University Press).
• C. Davenport and M. McEvoy, "The circulation of news and rumour from the imperial courts at Rome and Constantinople in the fifth century CE", in From East and West in Late Antiquity: Studies in Honour of Jan Willem Drijvers, ed. N. Lenski, R. Rees and O. van Nijf (Bari, 2024), pp. 211-230
• M. McEvoy, “Educating Theodosius II: Theodosian child-emperors and manipulation of the imperial image”, in Representing Rome’s Emperors: Historical and Cultural Perspectives through time, ed. C. Davenport & S. Malik (Oxford, 2024), pp.144-172
• M. McEvoy, “Sharing the imperial limelight: the age of the magister militum”, in The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity, ed. C. Davenport & M. McEvoy (Oxford, 2023), pp. 172-202.
• C. Davenport and M. McEvoy, “Introduction: connecting courts”, in The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity, ed. C. Davenport & M. McEvoy (Oxford, 2023), pp. 1-38.
• C. Davenport and M. McEvoy, “The evolution of the Roman imperial court in historical context”, in The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity, ed. C. Davenport & M. McEvoy (Oxford, 2023), pp. 310-358.
• M. McEvoy, “Imperial cities under the sons of Constantine”, in The Reigns of the Sons of Constantine, A.D. 337-361, ed. S. Tougher & N. Baker-Brian (London, 2020), pp. 275-307.
• M. McEvoy, “A pagan philosopher at the imperial court: the case of Pamprepius”, in Eastern Christianity and Late Antique Philosophy, ed. E. Anagnostou-Laoutides and K. Parry (Leiden, 2020), pp. 261-279.
• M. McEvoy, “The jelly-fish emperor: the emperor Arcadius and imperial leadership in the late fourth century, 395-408 AD”, in Leadership, Ideology and Crowds in the Later Roman Empire, ed. D. Slootjes and E. Manders (Stuttgart, 2020), pp. 181-200.
• M. McEvoy, “Leo II, Zeno, and the transfer of power from a son to his father in 474 AD”, in Shifting Frontiers: The Fifth Century – Age of Transformation, ed. J.W. Drijvers and N. Lenski (Bari, 2019), pp. 197-208.
• M. McEvoy, “Celibacy and survival at the Byzantine court from Theodosius II to Leo I, 408-474 AD”, in The Emperor in the Byzantine World, ed. S. Tougher (London, 2019), pp. 115-134.
• M. McEvoy, “Dynastic dreams and visions of early Byzantine emperors”, in Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium, ed. E. Anagnostou-Laoutides and B. Neil (Leiden, 2018), pp. 99-117.
• M. McEvoy, “Between the old Rome and the new: imperial co-operation ca. 400-500 AD”, in Byzantium: Its Neighbours and its Cultures, ed. D. Dzino and K. Parry (Sydney, 2014), pp. 245-267
• M. McEvoy, “The mausoleum of Honorius: late Roman imperial Christianity and the city of Rome in the fifth century”, in Old St Peter’s Basilica, ed. R. McKitterick, J. Story, J. Osborne and C. Richards (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 131-149.
• M. McEvoy and P. Tuffin, “Steak à la Hun: food, drink and dietary habits in Ammianus Marcellinus”, in W. Mayer and S. Trzcionka, Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and Drink in Byzantium (Brisbane, 2005), pp. 69-84.

I welcome enquries from students wishing to undertake Honours, MPhil or PhD theses in my areas of research interest (see above).

PhD - Alexandra Kujanpaa - "Rethinking Byzantine Ceremonial: the Hippodrome at Constantinople"