MOVED TO A LATER DATE 9 X 2025: Simcha Gross (University of Pennsylvania), Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors: Communities and Empire on the Roman-Sasanian Frontier

The competition between the Roman and Sasanian empires for control of the frontier has been told many times, but typically from an imperial perspective. This lecture shifts the focus to the entangled relationships between empires and frontier communities and their impact on intergroup relations. In this volatile landscape, collective identities were not fixed but shaped by shifting political and social pressures. As imperial concerns mobilized, crystallized, and destabilized these identities, they gave rise to opposing forces—fueling both deep friction and intense intercommunal cooperation, reinforcing rigidly policed borders while also fostering forms of belonging that transcended them.