Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtzeff entered the world in 1870 as the son of a Latin teacher. This family background shaped his early intellectual environment before he ever stepped into a university lecture hall. He pursued higher education at the universities of Kiev and St. Petersburg during the late nineteenth century. His academic training laid the groundwork for a career that would eventually span two centuries of history. By 1918, he had already established himself as a full Professor of Latin at one of Russia's leading institutions.
Flight From Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1918 forced Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtzeff to leave his homeland forever. He emigrated first to Sweden and then moved on to England. In 1920, he arrived in the United States seeking new opportunities. There he accepted a chair at the University of Wisconsin, Madison before moving to Yale University in 1925. He taught until his retirement in 1944 after decades of displacement. The upheaval of his youth left him scarred by the experience of fleeing from the Russian Revolution.Excavating Dura-Europos
At Yale University, Rostovtzeff oversaw all archaeological activities of the institution. He directed the excavations of Dura-Europos with particular intensity and focus. These digs became central to his reputation as an authority on caravan cities. He is believed to have coined the term "caravan city" during this period of fieldwork. His most important archaeological findings were later described in Dura-Europos and Its Art published in 1938. This work cemented his status among scholars studying ancient trade routes.Class Conflict And Empire Collapse
Rostovtzeff expounded his notable theories on Roman Empire collapse in The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire published in 1926. He attributed the fall of Rome to an alliance between the rural proletariat and the military in the third century A.D. Despite not being a Marxist himself, he used terms such as proletariat, bourgeoisie and capitalism freely in his work. The importation of those terms into a description of the ancient world caused significant criticism. His theory was quickly understood as one based on the author's own experiences and equally quickly rejected by the academic community.The Last Nineteenth-Century Historian
Glen Bowersock described Rostovtzeff's views as having been largely formed by the age of thirty. He developed mainly only in the quality of execution in later life. This made him "the last of the nineteenth-century ancient historians." Rostovtzeff was known as a proud and slightly overpowering man who did not fit in easily. In later life, he suffered from depression. He merged archaeological evidence with literary sources while maintaining nineteenth-century historical perspectives into the twentieth century. His detailed scholarship impressed contemporaries even when they disagreed with his conclusions.