麻豆传媒

Around 2016, as I was finishing a major textbook on the end of the Roman Empire, which is the specific area of my research, I was thinking about how to communicate the ideas of that time to a wider audience.

The end of Rome is a period when the idea of world history really takes hold, in an exciting way, I think, especially in students鈥� minds, because it represents the first time when really far flung cultures and places, like China and Africa and Europe, start regularly encountering each other. I thought it would be neat to find a single life that brought that moment in world history to life. Alaric turned out to be the ideal person for it.

Alaric was a member of the Gothic people who grew up on the border of the Roman Empire, at the edge of the Danube River in what constituted the empire鈥檚 northeastern frontier. He immigrated to Rome, joined the army, and was on his way up in Roman society until several structural features of the age 鈥攊ncluding rabid xenophobia and religious bigotry against outsiders 鈥� forced him to change his plans. The story of his 40-year-life from ambitious boy to disaffected adult is what really captured my imagination.

To me, what was interesting was trying to tell the story of Rome 鈥� a really well known, well-studied topic 鈥� but through the eyes of an immigrant. That, in my mind, was a way to make ancient history feel interesting again because it turned the tables on who was important. People from the margins are not often put at the center of the story of the Roman Empire. I felt it was well past time to do so.

Romans often whispered about Alaric that he acted more like them than a Goth. That line really hit me because it spoke to a really disturbing, discriminatory aspect of Alaric鈥檚 time that Roman historians had never really paused to reflect on before. While it was true that Gothic person could be accepted into society, even be promoted in a government job if he impressed Romans with the way he dressed, talked, or acted, there were hundreds of thousands of Gothic people who were mocked, sometimes even enslaved, because they valued their own culture or their own Gothic language or their native dress.

The Romans in Alaric鈥檚 day harbored a horrible sense of cultural superiority, and I think the thing I came to appreciate the most in telling Alaric鈥檚 story was how ingrained these terrible ideas were in the Romans鈥� minds.

Fear of foreigners and Rome鈥檚 tenuous notion of what counted as 鈥渃ivilization鈥� made it very difficult for any outsider to be accepted. Outsiders were stigmatized with words like 鈥渂arbarian,鈥� and everyone from the Roman elite to the Roman lower classes looked down and dismissed them. This book really emerged from my wanting to bring a sense of fairness and justice to the historical time.

Even though it was hard, and the sources were much thinner than I had hoped, it was important for me to let Alaric and the Goths have their voice.

One of the topics that defined Alaric鈥檚 life in Rome was the issue of citizenship: who had it, who could earn it, and who was denied it.

Ultimately, the Goths鈥� story and the story of what happened to the Roman Empire, including why it feel apart in 476 C.E., is a story about a political system that refused to incorporate foreigners into its state. The results its inaction were disastrous.

I don鈥檛 make any modern comparisons in the book. So I鈥檒l let readers explore why that matters.

Suffice to say, I think history, even deep ancient history, is still incredibly relevant to us today. We just have to bring a fresh perspective to it, which I hope this book does.

Introductory history always used to be taught as a survey of 鈥淲estern Civilization,鈥� and in some places, that stale approach still predominates. I would like my students to encounter a broader global perspective even in their early history classes because I believe that understanding the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-racial of antiquity might make them better citizens, too. So even though I鈥檓 trained in Classics, with Latin and Greek and an ability to teach the Mediterranean from Homer to early Islam, I always try to incorporate different perspectives in my undergraduate courses. My research into the Goths came out of that desire to show my students that ancient history didn鈥檛 have to boring.

As a product of a Jesuit high school in Chicago and of a Jesuit college, where I also taught prior to coming to SLU, I鈥檇 have to say there are two ideas which have most shaped my work as a historian.

First, I think I have come to appreciate how a rich, immersive sense of imagination really informs the way I think about the past. Ignatius always encouraged his followers to put themselves in a scene, like an actor inhabiting a part, and that practice, which I learned in high school, has really helped me empathize with people in history who might have been overlooked, like Alaric.

And the second aspect of my Jesuit education that has really defined my work is its emphasis on finding fulfillment in the broader world. Jesuits were smart, but they were also not monks. That model of a scholar fearless about engaging with society is one that does not fit the ivory tower picture of an academic, but I think it鈥檚 a perfect picture of Jesuit identity.

I love reading, any topic, and any kind of book: Shakespeare, literature in translation, novels, micro histories and global histories. Books were my world growing up. I鈥檓 fascinated by good stories and in awe of good storytellers. I鈥檓 also a historian.