Education
- Ph.D., Greek and Roman History University of Michigan (2008)
- B.A., Literae Humaniores, University of Oxford (2002)
- B.A., Classics and Political Science, University of Chicago (1999)
Research Interests
Professor Chenault (email) is a specialist in the history of the later Roman Empire, with particular interests in the history of the city of Rome and its senators.
He is completing a book titled Rome Without Emperors: The Revival of a Senatorial City in the Fourth Century A.D. This book argues that the years between 306 and 410 deserve to be seen as a distinct period in the history of the city of Rome. This period saw the institutionalization of what in the earlier Roman Empire had been a temporary, aberrant, and occasionally destabilizing phenomenon: the absence of the emperor from the city of Rome. The withdrawal of emperors from Rome called into question the relationship between Rome and its Empire; for the first time in its history, the city of Rome was not the locus of political power in the Roman state. His book explores the political and cultural consequence of the emperors’ absence and argues that the primary beneficiaries of this vacuum were Rome’s traditional elite, its resident senatorial aristocracy.
As a secondary project, Professor Chenault is working on a translation and historical commentary on the surviving fragments of the Orations of Q. Aurelius Symmachus, a leading senator of the late fourth century A.D.
Selected Awards
- Arthur Ross Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize (2007-8)
- Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities (2002-3)
- Marshall Scholarship (2000-2)
- Phi Beta Kappa (1999)
Book Chapters
Chenault, Robert. "Roman and Gallic in the Latin Panegyrics of Symmachus and Ausonius," in A. Omissi and A. Ross (eds.), Imperial Panegyric from Diocletian to Honorius. Translated Texts for Historians Contexts. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (2020) 130–45 (forthcoming).
Chenault, Robert. "Beyond Pagans and Christians: Politics and Intra-Christian Conflict in the Controversy over the Altar of Victory," in M.R. Salzman, M. Sághy, R. Lizzi Testa (eds.), Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome: Conflict, Competition, and Coexistence in the Fourth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press (2016) 46-63.
Chenault, Robert. "Statues of Senators in the Forum of Trajan and the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity." Journal of Roman Studies 102 (2012) 103-132.
Reviews
Chenault, Robert. Review of N. Lenski, Constantine and the Cities: Imperial Authority and Civic Politics. The Catholic Historical Review 103.2 (2017): 330-331.
Chenault, Robert. Review of G. Kalas, The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity: Transforming Public Space. Journal of Roman Studies 106 (2016): 376-377.