Surviving Collapse: The Fall of the Roman Empire Through the Eyes of Those Who Lived It *In-Person* *NEW*

The Roman Empire is one of those periods that is often taught as a great moment in history, a moment when societies changed irrevocably. But what was it like to live through it? In this course, we will look at the collapse from the perspective of composite characters. Using the resources available, we will study figures who might have survived this collapse, soldiers and farmers, "barbarians" and Romans alike. We will cover people from all across the empire, from the cold hills of Britain to the warm city of Alexandria. What was the experience of a Gothic soldier employed in Rome's armies? Or an Egyptian noblewoman seeing the shifts in power over her long life? And through it, we will be able to look through the experiences of regular people in a moment of collapse.

Instructor: John Horan