Brian Swain

Brian Swain is a historian of the ancient Mediterranean world. He teaches courses on the Greek, Roman, and medieval pasts and on pre-modern history more broadly. Swain received his doctoral training in Greek and Roman history, and he is a specialist in late antiquity (c. 300 - 700 AD), the liminal period that witnessed the transformation and fall of the Roman empire and the emergence of the post-Roman societies of medieval Europe. His research focuses on the complex interactions between Romans and barbarians, and engages the questions of ethnicity and identity that arose from their cultural convergence. He has published papers on Jordanes, the sixth-century AD historian of the Goths, and on Ostrogothic Italy. His current book project, 'Empire of Hope and Tragedy: Jordanes and the Making of Roman-Gothic History', is a study of Jordanes’ historical corpus, the Gothic War in Italy, and the nature of barbarian and Roman identities.

Select Publications:

 “Human Paleogenetics and Late Antique Migration: A Cross-Discipline Discussion” Studies in Late Antiquity 9.4, 451-86, 2025, co-authors: Anthony Kaldellis, Hannah M. Moots et al.

“Goths”, in Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, (eds.) D. Hunter, P. van Geest, and B. Peerbolt (Brill: Leiden, published online 2020; in print 2022)

“Goths and Gothic Identity in the Ostrogothic Kingdom”, in A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy, (eds.) J. Arnold, M.S. Bjornlie, and K. Sessa (Brill: Leiden, 2016) 

“Jordanes and Virgil: A Case Study of Intertextuality in the Getica”, Classical Quarterly, 60.1, 243-49, 2010 (Cambridge University Press)