UC historian explores Roman identity after fall of Rome

A new book by University of Cincinnati assistant professor Marion Kruse examines the way emperors, poets and bureaucrats in the eastern Roman Empire used a combination of history and mythology to reaffirm their identity after the fall of Rome.

His book investigates how the fall of Rome influenced political rhetoric in Constantinople. They believed that they were the only Romans deserving of the name, Kruse said.

Kruse is an assistant professor of classics in UC’s McMicken College of Arts and Sciences. His previous research has examined other influential authors and events during this remarkable period of history.

University of California San Diego history professor Edward Watts called the book “an exciting addition to the scholarship” of the eastern Roman Empire.

University of Tennessee Knoxville history professor Jacob Latham praised the book as well.

“Highlighting an often overlooked group of authors and a time period often bypassed by memory studies, Marion Kruse persuasively articulates the ongoing but changing significance of the city of Rome for literate elites of early- to mid-sixth century Constantinople,” Latham said.

Kruse relied on diverse sources to unpack the politics and beliefs of the eastern Roman Empire.

“Histories began to be written at the end of the fifth century that put what happened to the western Roman Empire in context,” he said. “The first explicit statement that the western Roman Empire had fallen was 514 in the chronicle of Marcellinus Comes. He’s the first to say it that bluntly.”

One surprising source was the legislation drafted by the emperor Justinian — some 160 laws, each accompanied by a lengthy preamble.

“All ancient laws were published with these elaborate justifications for why they were made that expressed the priorities and propaganda of the regime,” Kruse said. “But these are just about the only ones that survive.”