The life of Professor Odahl: Saint Peter’s bones, terrorist captivity

Oregon State University professor Charles Odahl received his doctorate in Greek, Roman and Medieval History at the University of California, San Diego. Odahl has traveled, lived, studied and worked at sites all across the Roman world from Britain to Israel and from Germany to North Africa, and his research and teaching specialties include Ancient Rome, Early Christianity and Late Antiquity. He has written four books and over forty articles on these topics, including his current best sellers "Cicero and the Catilinarian Conspiracy" and "Constantine and the Christian Empire."

Odahl has taught at the University of Avignon in the south of France and at Bath College of Higher Education in England, and for most of the past 30 years was the Professor of Ancient & Medieval History and Director of Classical Languages at Boise State University. Odahl retired from full-time teaching last summer. He now writes at his condo and teaches part time at OSU. The Daily Barometer's Tony Santilli caught up with Odahl

Q: What brought you to OSU?

A: I retired and had enough resources to find a wonderful new condo above Agate beach in Newport. I had been searching up and down the Oregon coast because I have come up here for vacations and have always loved it. I found a place on a cliff between Agate and Nye beach in Newport that is great for me to write. I spend three to four days at the cliff working on my articles and books.

But, it is nice to come in at OSU a few days a week to teach my specialties; Roman Early Christian and Byzantine history. So my main reason for being here is to share the knowledge I've picked up over the years with my students and I will keep doing this as long as OSU wants me here.

Q: Do you have any favorite memories from your experiences?

A: Yes and I can give you two. My favorite one would probably be working with professor Bruno Apollonian Getty who dug up Saint Peter's bones under the high alters in the Vatican. I had gone over there in the mid 1980's to try and figure what the original Constantinian churches were when Rome became Christian in the fourth century.

So, Bruno worked with me day by day and showed me how they dug up the acropolis under modern's Saint Peter's. I'm the only American scholar who has been allowed to touch the bones of Saint Peter and to work in Bruno's home office and see his drawings when he dug up the cemeteries upon which Constantine's had built for the first church of Saint Peter.

Earlier on the trip I was wondering around in the desert and some Palestinian terrorists grabbed me to take me into captivity. I was a champion track athlete and weight lifter so I resisted and was able to knock out one of them and to run away, but they were shooting at me and I have permanent bullet scars in my neck. The Israeli military police came to my rescue; I probably wouldn't have gotten away if it weren't for them.

Q: Are you currently working on a book?

A: Yes I am. My biggest seller "Constantine and the Christian Empire" is currently being adapted into a movie by the producer and script writer of the movie Gladiator. So that's selling worldwide, and my publishers want me to do a follow-up on Constantine's mother, Saint Helena.

Q: What steps do you take to write a book or article?

A: Well in my field, to get a doctorate (ancient early Christian history) you have to learn Greek and Latin in which the ancient texts were written and know several modern languages besides English, such as French, German and Italian, to read modern scholarship so your books can be published around the world and scholars can read them.

So the background is learning the languages, learning the archaeological techniques, learning about art history, and in my case I became an expert on ancient Roman coinage. You learn all those disciplines to be able to interpret the ancient sources, both the written sources and the material sources.

Q: Anything else you want to share?

A: I try to live by the Roman classical motto "Mens sana in corpore sano." The one thing that you should wish for is healthy mind and body. All my life I have tried to be athletic, workout, run and so on. I think that if you have a strong body, that is the basis for a strong mind. You should always be open intellectually and not get stuck in some little group. Always keep an open mind and learn something new every day. If you have that intellectual activity and physical activity and spiritually, you can then be open to balance in life.  

Tony Santilli, staff reporter

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