Nicola Holm – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Faculty of History

Nicola Holm has just started her MSCF fellowship at the Faculty of History. Nicola’s project, the Urban Dynamics of Late Antique Antioch (UrbAnt) will consider the civic, ecclesiastical and imperial politics in the city of Antioch between 270-438 CE. This project is concerned with how these different spheres of influence intersected and fed into the dynamics of Antioch. As a significant urban, ecclesiastical, and imperial centre in late antiquity, Antioch’s urban dynamics were constantly changing. The interconnectedness of its different political and social networks and their effect on the urban dynamics of Antioch shifted according to the various contestations of authority that came and went with the numerous imperial residences, bishops and imperial officials. UrbAnt will result in the construction of a prosopographical database of individuals attested in Antioch, and will consider the social networks of these individuals, many of whom led careers both inside and outside of Antioch. Ultimately this project seeks to understand how the urban dynamics of a city, like Antioch, were shaped by internal and external factors.

Prior to this, Nicola was a CRAC postdoctoral fellow (2024-2025), and received her PhD from Exeter in 2024. Her previous work has been primarily focussed upon the fourth century, and the transformation of imperial policy towards the Church, as well as the Constantinian dynasty. She is co-editor of a forthcoming volume, Constantinian Representations: Ideology, Power, and Propaganda (expected 2026, LUP). Nicola also has a series of forthcoming publications about the Constantinian dynasty in the Greek Ecclesiastical Histories, the role of Sirmium as a dynastic space in the 350s, and the Emperor Julian.