This volume grew out of friendship and loss. We were all friends, colleagues, and students of Garrett George Fagan, known to those closest to him as Garry or simply G. He was the kind of ancient historian that many of us wish we could be. His abundant energy and passion for his field was infectious to colleagues and students alike, and he worked tirelessly to encourage excellence in the field. His death March 11, 2017 at the age of 54 ended far too early the career of a beloved, charismatic, and respected scholar of the Roman world. His presence is sorely missed in meetings, classrooms, and conferences.
Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Garrett attended Trinity College for his undergraduate degree, studying Ancient History and Archaeology, and Biblical Studies. He continued at Trinity with his Master’s degree under the direction of Brian McGing, writing a thesis on Roman imperial succession under the Julio-Claudians, before moving across the pond to pursue his Doctorate at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario under the supervision of Richard Talbert. He completed his Doctorate in Roman Studies in 1993, with his dissertation, “Three Studies in Roman Public Bathing: Origins, Growth, and Social Aspects,” building on contemporary archaeological work on Roman baths to construct an understanding not only of the process of Roman bathing, but also the social function of bathing and the baths.
Garrett spent the first years of his post-PhD life teaching at Davidson College in North Carolina. He once said that Davidson—a small liberal arts college with a focus on teaching—had been his ideal job at the time. He never imagined working at a large research institution. However, after holding a Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia, and then moving to The Pennsylvania State University in 1996 as a joint-appointment in the Departments of History and Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies (CAMS), he realized that research was as much his passion as teaching. He excelled at both throughout the remainder of his career at Penn State, where in 2011 he achieved the rank of Professor of Ancient History. He quickly became a key figure in both the History and CAMS programs, teaching a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses and supervising masters and doctoral students. His scholarly work garnered him a series of grants and prizes, most notably the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the University of Cologne in 2003–2004 under the sponsorship of Werner Eck.
Garrett made a name for himself not only because of the quality of his scholarship, but also because of his collegiality and charisma. Several of his colleagues have noted that he was far from a solitary scholar—he was most energized when exchanging ideas with others, whether they be colleagues, students, or the general public. In his memorialization of Garrett posted to the Society of Classical Studies news in May 2017, Stephen Wheeler described Garrett as “a breath of fresh air not only in the current academic climate, but also thirty years ago at a time when the air had been sucked out of the room by the last generation of traditionalists.” This characteristic drew people to him. Mark Munn, Chair of CAMS at the time of Garrett’s death, said it was, “no exaggeration to state that Garrett’s departure leaves a great gap among us, a presence in the classroom and in the department that was always a strong influence, and a recognized strength of ancient history … at Penn State.”
Garrett spent his last full year of teaching in the city he loved, serving as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome from 2015–2016. Despite growing fatigue during his time there, it was only upon his return to Pennsylvania that he discovered he was suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer. In spite of his diagnosis, Garrett continued to work on his scholarship until the very end, determined to leave a few last thoughts before he was gone. And despite the doctors’ expectations, he even managed to visit his patria in his final months to say farewell to family and friends. Garrett still had much to give to his field, his colleagues, his students, and his family, and his absence is palpable.
Before Garrett passed away, we set the goal of bringing together a number of Garrett’s colleagues and friends to honor him with a volume covering topics that he too had explored over the years. We are grateful that we were able to present him with a preliminary overview of the volume before he passed. Bringing a volume like this together is never as straight-forward as some might expect, and while some obstacles can be smited and others accounted for, chance always has a role to play. The unexpected SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic provided roadblocks for some of our contributors. Further, our co-editor and one of Garrett’s long-time friends, Matthew Trundle, passed away July 12, 2019 after a ten-month battle with Acute Lymphoid Leukemia. We were devastated to lose Matthew, too, but he urged us to get on with the task at hand and bring this volume to fruition.
There are a number of people to thank for their assistance along the way. This effort has been a multi-generational project in the sense that it has included senior scholars who mentored or assisted Garrett, as well as collaborators and colleagues, and of course students of his or of his research. We thank everyone who has contributed to the project. Mark Munn and Stephen Wheeler of the CAMS Department at Penn State were extremely helpful in supplying us with their memories of Garrett and details of his service and comradeship. We thank Garrett’s former advisors, Brian McGing and Richard Talbert, for their support of this project and their own remembrances of Garrett, which we have included following this preface. We also thank all the authors in this volume, who have been generous with their time and thoughts. We much appreciate their patience through this process. The support of the teams at Brill and Mnemosyne, especially Mirjam Elbers and Giulia Moriconi, was most helpful in bringing it to a swift close. We are also grateful to the numerous readers who examined individual chapters and our anonymous peer reviewers for all their helpful suggestions; any errors that remain are our own. We are each immensely thankful to our respective spouses and families for their patience and support throughout the project.
And most of all, we are grateful to Garrett’s family for their encouragement and trust throughout: George and Emmett, Garrett’s two sons, and their mother, Katherine; Mark and Linda, Garrett’s siblings; and Julia, his partner until the end.
We dedicate this volume to Garrett, who touched the lives of so many.
Andrea F. Gatzke and Lee L. Brice
2020