This two-year course has been devised as a multi-purpose introduction to the Roman world in Late Antiquity, to Byzantium, the medieval successor of the East Roman Empire, and to neighboring peoples and their cultures. This is a two-year taught course that can be taken as a free-standing degree, or as the first step towards doctoral research. The course includes the completion of a 30,000-word dissertation. You have the option of selecting a focus of study dependant on your knowledge of languages or on your primary interests in the field. Two basic pathways lead into each field of study, one in language training and one in auxiliary disciplines, and you are expected to choose between them at the beginning of the course. Although the two components of the course, Late Antiquity and Byzantium, have been designed to the same specification and are conjoined in a single course, you are expected to concentrate on one or other of the fields. If you wish to apply for the DPhil you will be encouraged to develop your doctoral proposal in consultation with your supervisor during the first few months of your second year, so that you will be well placed to make a doctoral application. About a quarter of master’s students proceed to doctoral work at Oxford; others continue academic study at other institutions. Other career destinations are as diverse as, but broadly in line with, undergraduate history career destinations: law, finance, management consultancy, civil service etc.