This paper will toggle between modern and late ancient explanatory frameworks for material disasters, with the goal of gaining further insight into how late Roman authors interpreted how, why, and for what reasons ruinous events like earthquakes, plagues, and urban sieges damaged and disrupted their communities.  Among other interventions, it will demonstrate that late Romans were both capable of and invested in a wide range of epistemological paradigms and did not always explain disasters providentially through recourse to divine agency.

Kristina Sessa (AB, Princeton; PhD UC Berkeley) is a cultural and social historian of Late Antiquity, with a strong (and relatively recent) interest in environmental topics.  She is currently writing a book about late ancient responses to and experiences of natural and human-made disasters.  She teaches ancient and medieval history at The Ohio State University.