Their topics include on the threshold: </Paul the Silentiary's> ekphrasis of Hagia Sophia, from taboo to icon: the entrance to and the exit from the church in the first three Greek liturgical commentaries (about 500-730 CE), the paradise of Saint Peter's, the door to the sanctuary from Paulinus of Nola to Gregory of Tours: enduring characteristics and evolutions from the Theodosian to the Merovingian periods, and filters of light: Greek temple doors as portals of epiphany.

(149) Similarly, Paul the Silentiary, the sixth-century poet, by gazing in the eyes of the depicted Christ on a cloth saw Him as 'preaching His immortal words'.

Among the topics are the poem of Gilgamesh; Richard Lattimore's mistaken ambition of exactness in the Odyssey; Bacchylides and the translation of Greek poetry, the beastly house of Atreus, Introduction to Antigone, and lights in Santa Sophia from Paul the Silentiary. The original notes are included in the back matter, along with a bibliography of Carne-Ross' work and indexes of classical passages and of translators.

Some specific topics include the Nika Riot, the use of pagan mythology in the Christian Empire, Christian epigrams, Paul the Silentiary, Palestinian monasticism, and Byzantine homiletics.