Professor Kaldellis returns to give us his 10 Worst Emperors.
He is a Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Chicago and the author of dozens of books and articles on key aspects of Byzantine history.
Find out more here.
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The History of Byzantium 
A surprisingly interesting and serious discussion at the beginning that one wouldn’t expect from a podcast on a topic like this haha!
I think Professor Kaldellis is right about the money in regard to the ‘rehabilitation machine’ and the tendency to perhaps overcomplicate things in academia. Of course on the one hand that may seem sensible since reality is endlessly complex, but then you find out that every bad emperor had some things in his favour and every good emperor has some downsides and soon enough you can’t categorise anything at all. You lose sight of the forest for the trees so to speak.
This tendency manifests itself in other areas as well, eg: an overemphasis on continuity, which seems reasonable enough too, for human history is fundamentally continuous and so it is usually a safe bet. But if you take it too far you’ll inevitably end up talking as if no change ever takes place ever, which is obviously a ridiculous notion. For example, there was some tendency in academia roughly a decade ago, which has in recent years penetrated into the public discourse (Which you may have noticed) overemphasising continuity after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, with some pushing the final collapse of Roman fiscal and government structures as late as the 800s, which Chris Wickham (Whom you should definitely have on the podcast someday if possible by the way) have spoken against. It’s another case of not seeing the forest for the trees, just because half-naked barbarians didn’t literally sweep out of the forests of Germania and completely overturn civilisation on its head in 476 doesn’t mean the collapse of the Empire in the West didn’t lead to massive change, some of which (eg: Drastic simplification of material culture) could also be judged negatively if one is so inclined (I’m personally not, but it is an entirely reasonable conclusion one could draw, living through the fall of the Roman Empire must have been an unpleasant experience, even if we recognise that in most areas, most of the time, life kept going on mostly as normal).
Apologies for the rant.
I don’t think that rehabilitation is overcomplicating – looking at events through a different lens is a very useful tool in uncovering new insights. That can lead towards scholars ending up generally pushing back on established thoughts, but that’s a good thing! It can lead us to examining things that really mattered, especially with as little information as we go off of sometimes.
Like the example you give for continuity *is* important – some of the Roman world (eg, Britain or northern Gaul) underwent large changes rapidly, but other parts it took centuries of gradual change for the way of life to drastically change. Do some of the arguments go too far? Of course, but that’s how that should be – when viewing something through that lens, making the argumentation & evidence around that clear will naturally end up overemphasizing it relative to other factors. Without that, you just end up stuck in the same old views.
It’s something that people less experienced with a particular field might not interpret correctly, but I don’t see that as a major negative. There’s always going to be scholars that push things in different directions (Professor Kaldellis seems to be one of those, with his emphasis on Roman identity and his arguments about the form that the political system took), and that ultimately helps us identify more elements of the past and synthesize them in a (hopefully) more and more accurate view of the period.
I don’t have anything nearly as enlightened to add as these previous 2 commentors, but I want to tell you how much I absolutely loved this episode! Thank you for creating this podcast, which has provided me hundreds of hours of intelligent entertainment, and many thanks to Professor Kaldellis for participating. I look forward to his new book. And, I eagerly await episode #275!
Hi Robin, I had a question for you regarding a remark you made early on, about avoiding (and I’m paraphrasing) the sort of “John Julius Norwich style of history”. Could you perhaps clarify that? Norwich was my first real introduction to Byzantine history, but of course I read him 30 years ago now, and not revisited his series since. In the many years of listening to your podcast I think this was the first time you mentioned him. I’m afraid I don’t remember much about his stylings anymore, and my last encounter with him was through his book “Shakespeare’s Kings” (where I thought he did Richard III dirty), and even that was 20-some years ago too. I think his Byzantine history series was the first reasonably popular modern introduction to the topic for many of us of a certain age, with Edward Gibbon being the alternate (and I know well why you would avoid him – not only is he out of date vis. modern scholarship, but his biases are flagrant). Would love to hear your thoughts on Norwich.
Yes of course. I love Norwich and his books were my first way into Byzantium. His style is engaging and entertaining. Obviously his books are now very out of date but they remain the most popular narrative of the Empire as far as I am aware. I forget the exact context of my comment. I would assume I was referring to the tendency of some historians to describe ‘this Emperor as clearly good and this Emperor as clearly bad.’ Which is traditionally how we absorb history. I would hope that the podcast aimed for something a bit subtler. And of course the best academics I read turn our expectations on our head and help us to see historical figures as complex human beings in complex situations. Rather than either a good or bad person who happened to take on the job or running the Empire.
As interesting it is with the guests and as much as I appreciate esteemed scholars being this generous with their time, I still value the evaluation of our host and guide the highest.
You are really doing a great work for the non-expert Byzantine history enthusiasts (like myself) who find it difficult to obtain information nowadays in an easily accessible media platform. It was a wonderful idea to host Prof. Kaldellis, I am now reading his works from Oxford Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, he is a distinguished expert in this field. Do you have a regular contribution method (like monthly subscription to the show, etc.) except for the Donation option above?
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the show. This is where listeners support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/historyofbyzantium
Like the first commenter, I was struck by Professor Kaldellis’ comments on the ‘rehabilitation’ trend. I think he was referring specifically to ‘Byzantine’ history, but it makes me think about whether or not there might not be such a trend in history more generally these days, and how this contrasts with earlier revisionism. That is, a lot of revisionism seemed to be about critiquing those who had been previously seen as heroes, for example, attacking US presidents who owned slaves. Nowadays, there might be more of a trend towards judging people by the standards of their day.