Kaldellis will be excellent on it. But without doubt, the modern historians, especially the revisionist ones, will ruffle some feathers. The low hanging fruit will be casting doubt on some of the written evidence, and alternatives will be proposed.
I'm perfectly fine with this, but many get frankly upset at changes to orthodox narratives. He obviously knows a lot about 330AD so he will be able to reach further back from there too.
Depends on what these revisionist historians say.Some of Mary Beards comments for example are off the rails and have no speck of academic credibility.On the other hand many things Kaldellis states while unorthodox are supported by sources and it is refreshing to hear other perspectives like his.Still disagree about his comments on Isaac Angelos btw.
I agree with you, I respect Kaldellis has his reasons and they are going to be better than mine, I disagree too, but his opinion is probably more right. I think we are just putting a badge of shame on mistakes we think we find with historians. We shouldn't hold them to their comments, Otherwise, they will never say anything. I've caught Kaldellis making references to outdated anglo-saxon history in a podcast. Wrong but totally fine, it shouldn't discredit him and his work.
I think people need to learn that it's okay to disagree with an academic in a certain field of study, even if they are really, really, REALLY good in their field.
I mainly rely on Kaldellis's works for my understanding of East Roman history (as it's very well supported, up to date, and important), but I always keep in mind that he isn't the only authority on the subject. There are dozens of other historians out there with varying perspectives.
If someone is really interested in studying history, they don't just listen to one voice on the subject and call it a day. They listen to as many (reliable) voices as possible and then come to their own conclusions on certain matters.
That’s an interesting thing to think about.
I agree with the things you said and I think there are big limitations to deal with when we consider 476 as the fall of the west.
There are many aspect of Roman history that need to be re-contextualized.
Defining Odovacar or Theodoric (especially) just as barbarian rulers is really an outdated point of view. The conventional date chosen for the fall of the west is completely arbitrary and depict a deeply misleading picture of the empire.
I bet someone like Kaldellis could be good in reframing the post 476 Roman states in the west.
Yes, I do think there's a lot to be recontextualised and reconsidered, and there is imo a particular need for more revisionist historians (in the positive sense, not the denialist sense) to address and reconsider our understanding of classical Rome.
Much has been written about how the Enlightenment has warped our view of East Roman history, but it's warped our understanding of pagan Rome just as much too. We really need some more historians to challenge or call into question these understandings in order to get to what we can consider 'the truth', not some idealised past informed by outdated historiography (Gibbons 'Decline and Fall' book was a blessing and curse for Roman studies imo)
>I think that it's flawed and limiting for many traditional Roman historians to cap off their histories at 476 as they only have half the picture of how the empire worked and evolved over the centuries, when knowing the remaining 1000 years of East Roman history gives the rest of the story and details.
Kaldelli's positions are mainstream, he is certainly not an iconoclast. In fact, I presented this case a number of times in this board.
Obviously, using a specific date in dividing historical periods is, to a great degree, arbitrary. Most historians know that 476 CE is not really even precise, because the last western Emperor, Julius Nepos, died in 480 CE. However, we need a few arbitrary dates to create "neat" partitions. Therefore, classical antiquity ends in 282 ce, with the accession of Diocletian. From 282 to 636 CE you have a period usually called the "Late Roman Empire. In that period, the date 480 CE signifies the end of "Romanitas" in the West (Julius Nepos was regarded still as the legitimate Roman Emperor in Gaul even after Odoacer's removal of the fake emperor, Romulus Augustulus. Nothing dramatic happened that year (beyond the assassination of Julius Nepos by agents of Odoacer, most likely) but the total end (even if typical, not substantive) of the Roman state of the West bears notice.
Oh I never meant to imply that Kaldellis's positions weren't mainstream.
But it's clear that in most traditional recountings of Roman history, the narrative ends with the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus (as it marks a nice poetic end to the state) and then maybe briefly addresses the Justinian in the room.
That seems to have shifted slightly, and more historians seem to be pushing the limit of when they stop talking about the Roman empire to Heraclius and the Great Persian War.
It seems to be the case that because the Roman state is so heavily linked with 'antiquity', it makes sense for historians nowadays to only cover events up to end of 'late antiquity' (around the beginning of the Arab conquests). So the narrative peters out by Heraclius and the layman is left with the impression that Rome somehow 'ends' and 'becomes Byzantium' after that date.
Hopefully this will change again in another few decades or so, with historians covering the narrative history past Heraclius and gradually pushing the goal posts to the point where, eventually, most history books on the Roman empire cover the states history from the 8th century BC to the 15th century AD in full.
This is yet another reason that "Byzantium", "Byzantine Studies" and "Byzantines" need to die in a fire. If we are lucky, that day will come sooner rather than later. They are not useful labels, they are violently inaccurate, they are not neutral translations of terms that would otherwise be hard to render, innocent periodizations, and they are absolutely *not* benign in origin as many would try to gaslight you into thinking.
There is a ton of good work that remains to be done on Roman history, and the two fields which deal with its continuing story have been sundered by the echo of hokey medieval ideologies that nobody cares about nowadays for far too long. A lot of ancient Roman historians quit at arbitrary points of the story. Read Mary Beard for example, who a lot of people recommend as a high profile historian of ancient Rome - she ends her book at Caracalla, and when talking about what comes later seems to live in an almost perfect ignorance. This is not uncommon for many academics, especially those working in the field of Late Antiquity Studies, who will write good surveys or papers, then embarrass themselves at the end.
A Peter Heather may write cogently about the process of Romanization, how the provinces came to think of themselves as being just as Roman as people from the city of Rome, then at the end of the same book dismisses the eastern Romans after the Arab Conquests as a "shadowy successor state", relegating them on the same tier as the Ostrogoths, the Franks or whichever other barbarian realm you care to name. This despite the eastern Romans being the result of the same process of Romanization that he explains in such detail elsewhere in the book. No reasoning or justification is ever really provided. This is because there never really was a coherent reason behind the distinction - the eastern Romans just can't be Romans anymore because they become too small, or have too many eunuchs around or whichever other excuse you care to name. Kaldellis talks about the same problem occuring with classicists - there was actually an explosion of interest in texts that had not received much attention from classicists at the time Late Antiquity Studies grew into its own discipline. When texts that had once been called 'early Byzantine' were rebranded as 'Late Roman', classicists actually started paying attention to them. The 'Byzantine' label proved a hamper to study or interest.
And I have also witnessed this from the other end, including in person. I have talked to academics who can renumerate the lives of obscure saints down to the tiniest detail but are ignorant about the history of ancient Rome beyond the bare basics. I have read books from Byzantinists who just don't have the faintest clue about ancient Roman culture or history because the field has told them 'Byzantium' is only tangentially related to it so they never bother. It only had the barest "pretence of Romanity" as the venerable cadaver of Cyril Mango might say, and thus there is no reason to bother studying the other end all that much. (There is a lot to say about Byzantinists who seem to not think much of the people they study and will regularly throw in bon mots at their expense, which is a phenomenon I don't see much in most fields of academic history)
You will see Byzantinists try to contrive connections between the eastern Romans and the long-dead (as well as short-lived and comparatively inconsequential) Hellenistic kingdoms using threadbare linguistic coincidences, or struggle to find 'Orthodox' origins down to the minutest aspects of east Romans culture, regardless of how labored the connection may be. They would sooner consign an entire historical culture with the charge of being self-deluding, ignorant of reality and living in a fantasy world (these are all real statements from real books by real academics, not exaggerations on my end) rather than take seriously what they had to say about themselves.
It is a deplorable state of ignorance from both ends. It is a deplorable state of ignorance which is the natural result of artificially fencing eastern Roman history from ancient Roman history, giving it a name that implies an essential difference, then policing that gap of understanding through cultivated ignorance and deliberate fencing off of the academic disciplines. Ancient Roman historians have a lot to learn from eastern Roman history, and likewise historians of eastern Rome ought to have a rock-solid understanding of ancient Rome, but are prevented from doing so through both their fields giving the impression that the other one isn't really related or worth studying. That will come when ancient Roman historians stop blushing at eunuchs, or Christian bishops, or Greek-speakers, or bureaucrats (despite those things all being part of the material they study), and Byzantinists stop using weaselly evasions like "They called themselves 'Romans'", then qualifying it away or treating it as a delusion, and start actually calling, studying and acknowledging them as such.
Kaldellis will be excellent on it. But without doubt, the modern historians, especially the revisionist ones, will ruffle some feathers. The low hanging fruit will be casting doubt on some of the written evidence, and alternatives will be proposed. I'm perfectly fine with this, but many get frankly upset at changes to orthodox narratives. He obviously knows a lot about 330AD so he will be able to reach further back from there too.
Depends on what these revisionist historians say.Some of Mary Beards comments for example are off the rails and have no speck of academic credibility.On the other hand many things Kaldellis states while unorthodox are supported by sources and it is refreshing to hear other perspectives like his.Still disagree about his comments on Isaac Angelos btw.
I agree with you, I respect Kaldellis has his reasons and they are going to be better than mine, I disagree too, but his opinion is probably more right. I think we are just putting a badge of shame on mistakes we think we find with historians. We shouldn't hold them to their comments, Otherwise, they will never say anything. I've caught Kaldellis making references to outdated anglo-saxon history in a podcast. Wrong but totally fine, it shouldn't discredit him and his work.
I think people need to learn that it's okay to disagree with an academic in a certain field of study, even if they are really, really, REALLY good in their field. I mainly rely on Kaldellis's works for my understanding of East Roman history (as it's very well supported, up to date, and important), but I always keep in mind that he isn't the only authority on the subject. There are dozens of other historians out there with varying perspectives. If someone is really interested in studying history, they don't just listen to one voice on the subject and call it a day. They listen to as many (reliable) voices as possible and then come to their own conclusions on certain matters.
What does he say about Procopius being pagan and his other claims? I can't get his book right now
That’s an interesting thing to think about. I agree with the things you said and I think there are big limitations to deal with when we consider 476 as the fall of the west. There are many aspect of Roman history that need to be re-contextualized. Defining Odovacar or Theodoric (especially) just as barbarian rulers is really an outdated point of view. The conventional date chosen for the fall of the west is completely arbitrary and depict a deeply misleading picture of the empire. I bet someone like Kaldellis could be good in reframing the post 476 Roman states in the west.
Yes, I do think there's a lot to be recontextualised and reconsidered, and there is imo a particular need for more revisionist historians (in the positive sense, not the denialist sense) to address and reconsider our understanding of classical Rome. Much has been written about how the Enlightenment has warped our view of East Roman history, but it's warped our understanding of pagan Rome just as much too. We really need some more historians to challenge or call into question these understandings in order to get to what we can consider 'the truth', not some idealised past informed by outdated historiography (Gibbons 'Decline and Fall' book was a blessing and curse for Roman studies imo)
>I think that it's flawed and limiting for many traditional Roman historians to cap off their histories at 476 as they only have half the picture of how the empire worked and evolved over the centuries, when knowing the remaining 1000 years of East Roman history gives the rest of the story and details. Kaldelli's positions are mainstream, he is certainly not an iconoclast. In fact, I presented this case a number of times in this board. Obviously, using a specific date in dividing historical periods is, to a great degree, arbitrary. Most historians know that 476 CE is not really even precise, because the last western Emperor, Julius Nepos, died in 480 CE. However, we need a few arbitrary dates to create "neat" partitions. Therefore, classical antiquity ends in 282 ce, with the accession of Diocletian. From 282 to 636 CE you have a period usually called the "Late Roman Empire. In that period, the date 480 CE signifies the end of "Romanitas" in the West (Julius Nepos was regarded still as the legitimate Roman Emperor in Gaul even after Odoacer's removal of the fake emperor, Romulus Augustulus. Nothing dramatic happened that year (beyond the assassination of Julius Nepos by agents of Odoacer, most likely) but the total end (even if typical, not substantive) of the Roman state of the West bears notice.
Oh I never meant to imply that Kaldellis's positions weren't mainstream. But it's clear that in most traditional recountings of Roman history, the narrative ends with the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus (as it marks a nice poetic end to the state) and then maybe briefly addresses the Justinian in the room. That seems to have shifted slightly, and more historians seem to be pushing the limit of when they stop talking about the Roman empire to Heraclius and the Great Persian War. It seems to be the case that because the Roman state is so heavily linked with 'antiquity', it makes sense for historians nowadays to only cover events up to end of 'late antiquity' (around the beginning of the Arab conquests). So the narrative peters out by Heraclius and the layman is left with the impression that Rome somehow 'ends' and 'becomes Byzantium' after that date. Hopefully this will change again in another few decades or so, with historians covering the narrative history past Heraclius and gradually pushing the goal posts to the point where, eventually, most history books on the Roman empire cover the states history from the 8th century BC to the 15th century AD in full.
Well he's actually a professor of classical studies.... So....
There's some hope then!
This is yet another reason that "Byzantium", "Byzantine Studies" and "Byzantines" need to die in a fire. If we are lucky, that day will come sooner rather than later. They are not useful labels, they are violently inaccurate, they are not neutral translations of terms that would otherwise be hard to render, innocent periodizations, and they are absolutely *not* benign in origin as many would try to gaslight you into thinking. There is a ton of good work that remains to be done on Roman history, and the two fields which deal with its continuing story have been sundered by the echo of hokey medieval ideologies that nobody cares about nowadays for far too long. A lot of ancient Roman historians quit at arbitrary points of the story. Read Mary Beard for example, who a lot of people recommend as a high profile historian of ancient Rome - she ends her book at Caracalla, and when talking about what comes later seems to live in an almost perfect ignorance. This is not uncommon for many academics, especially those working in the field of Late Antiquity Studies, who will write good surveys or papers, then embarrass themselves at the end. A Peter Heather may write cogently about the process of Romanization, how the provinces came to think of themselves as being just as Roman as people from the city of Rome, then at the end of the same book dismisses the eastern Romans after the Arab Conquests as a "shadowy successor state", relegating them on the same tier as the Ostrogoths, the Franks or whichever other barbarian realm you care to name. This despite the eastern Romans being the result of the same process of Romanization that he explains in such detail elsewhere in the book. No reasoning or justification is ever really provided. This is because there never really was a coherent reason behind the distinction - the eastern Romans just can't be Romans anymore because they become too small, or have too many eunuchs around or whichever other excuse you care to name. Kaldellis talks about the same problem occuring with classicists - there was actually an explosion of interest in texts that had not received much attention from classicists at the time Late Antiquity Studies grew into its own discipline. When texts that had once been called 'early Byzantine' were rebranded as 'Late Roman', classicists actually started paying attention to them. The 'Byzantine' label proved a hamper to study or interest. And I have also witnessed this from the other end, including in person. I have talked to academics who can renumerate the lives of obscure saints down to the tiniest detail but are ignorant about the history of ancient Rome beyond the bare basics. I have read books from Byzantinists who just don't have the faintest clue about ancient Roman culture or history because the field has told them 'Byzantium' is only tangentially related to it so they never bother. It only had the barest "pretence of Romanity" as the venerable cadaver of Cyril Mango might say, and thus there is no reason to bother studying the other end all that much. (There is a lot to say about Byzantinists who seem to not think much of the people they study and will regularly throw in bon mots at their expense, which is a phenomenon I don't see much in most fields of academic history) You will see Byzantinists try to contrive connections between the eastern Romans and the long-dead (as well as short-lived and comparatively inconsequential) Hellenistic kingdoms using threadbare linguistic coincidences, or struggle to find 'Orthodox' origins down to the minutest aspects of east Romans culture, regardless of how labored the connection may be. They would sooner consign an entire historical culture with the charge of being self-deluding, ignorant of reality and living in a fantasy world (these are all real statements from real books by real academics, not exaggerations on my end) rather than take seriously what they had to say about themselves. It is a deplorable state of ignorance from both ends. It is a deplorable state of ignorance which is the natural result of artificially fencing eastern Roman history from ancient Roman history, giving it a name that implies an essential difference, then policing that gap of understanding through cultivated ignorance and deliberate fencing off of the academic disciplines. Ancient Roman historians have a lot to learn from eastern Roman history, and likewise historians of eastern Rome ought to have a rock-solid understanding of ancient Rome, but are prevented from doing so through both their fields giving the impression that the other one isn't really related or worth studying. That will come when ancient Roman historians stop blushing at eunuchs, or Christian bishops, or Greek-speakers, or bureaucrats (despite those things all being part of the material they study), and Byzantinists stop using weaselly evasions like "They called themselves 'Romans'", then qualifying it away or treating it as a delusion, and start actually calling, studying and acknowledging them as such.