Power Play in the Middle East: Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace

Jason Schlude is an Associate Professor of Classics and Chair of the Department of Languages and Cultures at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Minnesota and Co-Director of the Omrit Settlement Excavation Project in Israel. A former Getty scholar, he is an ancient historian and archaeologist who specializes in the Roman Near East and the relationship between the Roman and Parthian Empires. He published Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East in 2020 (Routledge Press) and co-edited Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites: Cross-Cultural Interactions of the Parthian Empire in 2017 (Oxbow Books), with related articles appearing in journals including Latomus, Athenaeum, and Anabasis. A member of the Avon Hills Salon (https://avonhillssalon.com), he also engages in public scholarship exploring the significance of the liberal arts and Classics in the modern world.​ His essays have appeared in Foreign Policy Journal (“Rome, Iran, and the Specters of Antiquity”), Minneapolis Star Tribune (e.g., “A Minnesota scholar shows how we could find common ground with, and through, Shia Islam”; “Ted Cruz, Cicero, and the classics”), The Activist History Review (e.g., “The Problem of White People, with Insight from St. Paul”; “The Politics of Consumption: From Trimalchio and Gatsby to Trump and Beyond”), Bible History Daily (“Herod the Great: Friend of the Romans and Parthians?”), and Avon Hills Salon (e.g., “The Art of Liberation: Life in the Liberal Arts”; “Infectious Nationalism: Pericles and Public Health Crises”). His poetry has appeared in Pericles at Play (“We Lived among the Bones”), with more forthcoming in Jesuits Magazine (“The Teacher”).