I
was born in Transylvania (a Romanian region) in Simeria, a small railway town steeped in Roman history. Later in my life I worked
as a research psychiatrist and my pioneering contribution to the treatment of depression in the medically ill
is cited in the American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Consultation-Liaison
Psychiatry and other established textbooks of medicine such as De Vita. I am also a pioneer in the pharmacological treatment
of stuttering. Other books, journals and web sites also cite my work. Currently, I am a psychiatrist in private practice in Canada.
In 2003, I traveled with my wife to Celico, her hometown in Calabria, southern Italy. There I came across
the legend of Alaric's rich burial under the stream Busento near Cosenza, a city I could see in the valley
below Celico. At that point, something hard to explain happened to me. I began almost immediately a campaign of research,
reading and traveling aimed at writing The Lost Gold of Rome: The Hunt for Alaric's Treasure. Sutton Publishing, now an
imprint of The History Press, included it in their portfolio and now the book is available in many parts of the world. It
will be distributed in USA and Canada in the future. I relatively recently began spreading the word about the commemoration
of the fall of Rome in August 2010.
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| A picture of me in June 2007 |
About this blog
Here I will explain in more detail why I
started this blog and describe the topics I am primarily interested in covering in it. Researching and writing The Lost Gold
of Rome was an excellent opportunity for me to learn the very simple truth that the events of late
ancient and early Dark Ages Rome have had and still have an enormous influence on what is happening in the world today.
In fact, many problems of our time can be understood fully only if one is familiar with the history of late ancient
and early medieval Rome. It is unbelievable and disquieting that most people in the West do not know what happened in
Rome in August 846. A profound ignorance of that part of European history dominates the minds of many Westerners.
I am not going to spend too much time trying to understand what is the explanation of this anomaly. I prefer to offer something
that fills this gap in the knowledge of the public. The readers believe that The Lost Gold of Rome
can do the job as it is an easy, entertaining and highly informative introduction to the history of late
ancient and early Dark Ages Rome. In addition, I will recommend other enjoyable and edifying books that
examine this little known, but extremely important period in the history of Europe, such as the monumental and magnificent
Storia di Roma nel Medioevo (History of Medieval Rome) by Professor Ludovico Gatto from the University La Sapienza, Rome.
But not only books can have a strong impact on the public's interest in historical knowledge important for
cultural survival. Commemorations of famous events can also be very effective in this regard. That is why I
think a remembrance of the fall of Rome in 2010 must be attempted. The Lost Gold of Rome and other books that I
will recommend on this website can serve as handy source books to those interested in commemorating
the fall of Rome, as well as to those wishing to expand their knowledge of late ancient and early medieval Rome in order to
understand better the world of today.
Another reason I had to begin this blog was my interest in the formal
application of the models and methods of psychiatry and clinical psychology to the study of historical motivations. I
believe this is a fascinating and underexploited interdisciplinary field that may yield in the future more answers
to our perennial questions about what drives history-making behaviours.
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| I wrote much of The Lost Gold of Rome in a cottage on this peaceful lake in Ontario. |
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