postdoctoral Nicola Holm

She is a historian working on the interface between religion and politics in the later Roman Empire. She has worked on the transformation of imperial policy towards the church, Constantinian ‘propaganda’, and the intersections of civic, ecclesiastical, and imperial elites. Her PhD (from the University of Exeter, 2024) examined the relationships established by the Sons of Constantine with the recently consolidated world of ecclesiastical politics. This project saw her working closely with a range of sources both ‘secular’ and ‘patristic’, including the works of bishops such as Hilary of Poitiers and Athanasius of Alexandria. She is preparing a monograph expanding her doctoral work to consider the wider impacts of imperial policy in ecclesiastical politics between 249-380 CE. She is part of the Constantinian Propaganda project and co-editor of the forthcoming volume Constantinian Representations (2025). Originally from Australia, she received her BA (2014) and MPhil (2017) from the University of Queensland.

While at Warsaw, she will be working on her project, The Urban Dynamics of Mid-Fourth Century Antioch (350-365 CE), which will explore the intersections of civic, ecclesiastical, and imperial politics during the reigns and residences of Caesar Constantius Gallus and Emperor Julian at Antioch. This project seeks to trace the internal and external networks of Antioch in this period and will include the creation of a holistic prosopographical database. This project will demonstrate the interconnectedness of the spheres of political influence (civic and imperial, ecclesiastical and secular, internal and external) and their impact on the urban dynamics of Antioch.