When Roman “Barbarians” Met the Asian Enlightenment
Author admits he wrote a spin-piece<p>&quot;So why, then, would I write such an anti-Roman article? Because I’m trying to give people who’ve received a eurocentric education a different set of goggles to try on: the lenses of Roma’s Asian contemporaries, some of whom genuinely did believe the Romans were “primitive” and “unclean.” This is a perspective we almost never hear about in the West, and I think it’s an interesting one to ponder.
I do my best to keep my facts straight — but all the historical stories I write are colored heavily by my own interpretations and blind spots. My favorite history writers are Will Durant and Pierre Briant. I realize that this kind of “interpretive” historical writing is now considered obsolete — maybe even dangerously slanted and over-simplistic — but it’s the stuff I enjoy reading, so it’s what I write.&quot;