Only just learned of the passing last month of the ancient historian Kurt Raaflaub, professor emeritus of classics at Brown University. Raaflaub, who died after a fall at his home, was 82. Known for his studies on Julius Caesar, on ancient historiography and on ancient political thought, Raaflaub was born in Cameroon as the son of Swiss missionaries and earned his PhD from the University of Basel.
@histodons I knew Kurt Raaflaub through the Association of Ancient Historians, at whose meetings he was a stalwart. I found him always polite and inquisitive, with insightful questions and comments. He was continuing to work on scholarship up to his unexpected death, and I remember hearing him speak two years ago at an AAH online meeting bringing modern theories to bear on understanding Julius Caesar and Roman perceptions of the Gauls within ancient ethnographic traditions.