Plague of Justinian

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Plague of Justinian

this plague incident after the Eastern Roman Emperor


Justinian I, who was emperor at the time of the initial
outbreak; he contracted the disease himself yet survived.

1 Cause
The Plague of Justinian is generally regarded as the rst
recorded[9] instance of bubonic plague. This conclusion
is based on the historical description of the clinical man-
ifestations during the epidemic[10] and the detection of
Y. pestis DNA from human remains at ancient grave sites
A characteristic of the Plague of Justinian was necrosis of the
dated to that period.[11][12] A genetic study of the bac-
hand
terium causing bubonic plague based on samples taken
from the remains of 14th-century plague victims in Lon-
don and a survey of other samples suggests that the Plague
of Justinian and others from antiquity arose from either
now-extinct strains of Yersinia pestis genetically distinct
from the 14th-century strain or came from pathogens en-
tirely unrelated to bubonic plague.[13][14] However, fur-
ther work by the same researchers noted that the spread
of several unusual modern variants of plague worldwide
can be dated to an evolutionary radiation event approxi-
mately coinciding with the Plague of Justinian, support-
A map of the Byzantine Empire in 550 (a decade after the Plague ing the notion that it was caused by a strain of bubonic
of Justinian) with Justinians conquests shown in green plague.[12][15]

The Plague of Justinian (541542) was a pandemic that


aicted the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, espe- 2 Origins and spread
cially its capital Constantinople, the Sassanid Empire, and
port cities around the entire Mediterranean Sea.[1] One of
The outbreak in Constantinople was thought to have been
the deadliest plagues in history, this devastating pandemic carried to the city by infected rats on grain ships arriv-
resulted in the deaths of an estimated 25 million (at the
ing from Egypt.[8] To feed its citizens, the city and out-
time of the initial outbreak that was at least 13% of the lying communities imported massive amounts of grain,
worlds population) to 50 million people (in two centuries
mostly from Egypt. Grain ships may have been the orig-
of recurrence).[2][3] inal source of contagion, as the rat (and ea) popula-
In 2013 researchers found that the cause of the pandemic tion in Egypt thrived on feeding from the large granaries
was Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for bubonic maintained by the government. The Byzantine historian
plague.[4][5] The plagues social and cultural impact dur- Procopius rst reported the epidemic in 541 from the port
ing the period of Justinian has been compared to that of of Pelusium, near Suez in Egypt.[8] Two other rsthand
the similar Black Death that devastated Europe 600 years reports of the plagues ravages were by the Syriac church
after the last outbreak of Justinian plague.[6] The princi- historian John of Ephesus[16] and Evagrius Scholasticus,
pal historian during the 6th century, Procopius, viewed who was a child in Antioch at the time and later be-
the pandemic as worldwide in scope.[1][7] Genetic studies came a church historian. Evagrius was aicted with the
point to China as having been the primary source of the buboes associated with the disease but survived. During
contagion.[8] the diseases four returns in his lifetime, he lost his wife,
The plague returned periodically until the 8th century.[1] a daughter and her child, other children, most of his ser-
The waves of disease had a major eect on the future vants and people from his country estate.[17]
course of European history. Modern historians named Procopius,[18] in a passage closely modeled on

1
2 4 SEE ALSO

Thucydides, recorded that at its peak the plague Saxon sources from this period are silent, as there are no
was killing 10,000 people in Constantinople daily, but 6th-century English documents.
the accuracy of the gure is in question, and the true The Romano-British may have been disproportionately
number will probably never be known. He noted that aected because of trade contacts with Gaul and other
because there was no room to bury the dead, bodies factors,[23] such as British settlement patterns being more
were left stacked in the open. Funeral rites were often dispersive than English ones, which could have served to
left unattended to, and the entire city smelled like the facilitate plague transmission by the rat.[24] The dier-
dead.[19] In his Secret History, he records the devastation ential eects may have been exaggerated. British sources
in the countryside and reports the ruthless response by
were then more likely to report natural disasters than
the hard-pressed Justinian: Saxon ones. In addition, the evidence for artifact trade
between the British and the English implies signicant
When pestilence swept through the whole interaction and just minimal interaction would surely
known world and notably the Roman Empire, have involved a high risk of plague transmission.[24]
wiping out most of the farming community and However, scholars (like L. Lester in their Plague and the
of necessity leaving a trail of desolation in its End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541750), as evidence
wake, Justinian showed no mercy towards the that the plague damage done on the Sub-Roman Britons
ruined freeholders. Even then, he did not re- was greater than the one suered by the Anglo-Saxons,
frain from demanding the annual tax, not only believe that the sudden disappearance around 560 AD of
the amount at which he assessed each individ- the important Roman town of Calleva[25] was probably
ual, but also the amount for which his deceased due to the Plague of Justinian, which later created a kind
neighbors were liable.[7] of curse on the city damned by the Anglo-Saxons.[26]

As a result of the plague in the countryside, farmers could


not take care of crops and the price of grain rose at 3 Virulence and mortality rate
Constantinople. Justinian had expended huge amounts
of money for wars against the Vandals in the region of
The number of deaths is uncertain. Modern scholars be-
Carthage and the Ostrogoths' kingdom in Italy. He had
lieve that the plague killed up to 5000 people per day in
dedicated signicant funds to the construction of great
Constantinople at the peak of the pandemic. The initial
churches, such as Hagia Sophia. As the empire tried to
plague ultimately killed perhaps 40% of the citys inhab-
fund the projects, the plague caused tax revenues to de-
itants and caused the deaths of up to a quarter of the
cline through the massive number of deaths and the dis-
human population of the Eastern Mediterranean.[27] Fre-
ruption of agriculture and trade. Justinian swiftly enacted
quent subsequent waves of the plague continued to strike
new legislation to deal more eciently with the glut of in-
throughout the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, with the disease
heritance suits being brought as a result of victims dying
becoming more localized and less virulent.
intestate.[20]
This outbreak seems to have left a trace in the genome of
The plagues long-term eects on European and Christian
Y. pestis itself.[28]
history were enormous. As the disease spread to port
cities around the Mediterranean, the struggling Goths After the last recurrence in 750, pandemics on the scale
were reinvigorated and their conict with Constantinople of Plague of Justinian did not appear again in Europe until
entered a new phase. The plague weakened the Byzantine the Black Death of the 14th century.
Empire at a critical point, when Justinians armies had
nearly retaken all of Italy and the western Mediterranean
coast; the evolving conquest would have reunited the core
of the Western Roman Empire with the Eastern Roman
4 See also
Empire. Although the conquest occurred in 554, the re-
unication did not last long. In 568, the Lombards in- List of historical plagues
vaded Northern Italy, defeated the small Byzantine army
that had been left behind, and established the Kingdom Medieval demography
of the Lombards. The plague may have also contributed
to the success of the Arabs a few generations later in the Plague of Emmaus
Byzantine-Arab Wars.[8][21]
The extreme weather events of 535536
Some scholars[22] have suggested that the plague facili-
tated the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, as its after- The Yellow Plague of Rhos (c. 547)
math coincided with the renewed Saxon oensives in the
550s. Maelgwn, king of Gwynedd in Wales, was said to The Black Death
have died of the Yellow Plague of Rhos around 547
and, from 548 to 549, plague devastated Ireland as well. The Third plague pandemic
3

5 Notes [15] Bos, Kirsten; Stevens, Philip; Nieselt, Kay; Poinar, Hen-
drik N.; Dewitte, Sharon N.; Krause, Johannes (28
[1] The Sixth-Century Plague November 2012). Gilbert, M. Thomas P, ed. "Yersinia
pestis: New Evidence for an Old Infection. PLoS
[2] Rosen, William (2007), Justinians Flea: Plague, Empire, ONE. 7 (11): e49803. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...749803B.
and the Birth of Europe. Viking Adult; pg 3; ISBN 978- doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049803. PMC 3509097 .
0-670-03855-8. PMID 23209603.
[3] The Plague of Justinian. History Magazine. 11 (1): 9 [16] John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History, part 2. Transla-
12. 2009. tion of relevant portions here.
[4] Modern lab reaches across the ages to resolve plague
[17] Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiae, IV.29.
DNA debate. phys.org. May 20, 2013.
[18] Procopius, Persian War II.2223.
[5] Maria Cheng (January 28, 2014). Plague DNA found
in ancient teeth shows medieval Black Death, 1,500-year [19] Procopius: The Plague, 542
pandemic caused by same disease. National Post.
[20] Justinian, Edict IX.3; J. Moorhead 1994; Averil Cameron,
[6] Christakos, George; Olea, Ricardo A.; Serre, Marc L.;
The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395600,
Yu, Hwa-Lung; Wang, Lin-Lin (2005). Interdisciplinary
1993:111.
Public Health Reasoning and Epidemic Modelling: the
Case of Black Death. Springer. pp. 11014. ISBN 3- [21] Rosen, William. Justinians Flea: Plague, Empire, and the
540-25794-2. Birth of Europe. Viking Adult, 2007. Pg. 321322. ISBN
978-0-670-03855-8.
[7] Procopius, Anekdota, 23.20f.

[8] Nicholas Wade (October 31, 2010). Europes Plagues [22] John S. Wacher (1974, pp. 414422); J.C. Russell (1958,
Came From China, Study Finds. The New York Times. pp. 7199).
Retrieved 2010-11-01.
[23] Josiah C. Russell, Medieval Demography, New York,
[9] Russell, Josiah C. (1968), That earlier plague, Demog- AMS, 1987, p. 123.
raphy, 5: 174184, doi:10.1007/bf03208570
[24] Neville Brown, History and Climate Change: An Eurocen-
[10] Procopius, History of the Wars, 7 Vols., trans. H. B. tric Perspective, Routledge, London, 2001, p.9495.
Dewing, Loeb Library of the Greek and Roman Classics,
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914), [25] End of Calleva Atrebatum
Vol. I, pp. 451473.
[26] Curse on Calleva
[11] Wiechmann I, Grupe G. Detection of Yersinia pestis
DNA in two early medieval skeletal nds from Aschheim [27] Cyril A. Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
(Upper Bavaria, 6th century A.D.)" Am J Phys Anthropol (1980) emphasizes the demographic eects; Mark Whit-
2005 Jan;126(1) 4855 tow, Ruling the late Roman and Byzantine city, Past and
Present 33 (1990) argues against too great reliance on lit-
[12] Harbeck, Michaela; Seifert, Lisa; Hnsch, Stephanie; erary sources.
Wagner, David M.; Birdsell, Dawn; Parise, Katy L.;
Wiechmann, Ingrid; Grupe, Gisela; Thomas, Astrid; [28] Bos KI, Stevens P, Nieselt K, Poinar HN, Dewitte
Keim, P; Zller, L; Bramanti, B; Riehm, JM; Scholz, HC SN, Krause J (2012). "Yersinia pestis: New evidence
(2013). Besansky, Nora J, ed. "Yersinia pestis DNA from for an old infection. PLOS ONE. 7 (11): e49803.
Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals In- doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049803. PMC 3509097 .
sights into Justinianic Plague. PLoS Pathogens. 9 (5): PMID 23209603.
e1003349. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1003349. PMC
3642051 . PMID 23658525.

[13] McGrath, Matt (12 October 2011). Black Death Genetic 6 References
Code 'Built'". BBC World Service. Retrieved 12 October
2011. Harbeck, M; Seifert, L; Hnsch, S; Wagner, DM;
Birdsell, D; et al. (2013). "Yersinia pestis DNA from
[14] Bos, Kirsten; Schuenemann, Verena J.; Golding, G. Brian;
Burbano, Hernn A.; Waglechner, Nicholas; Coombes,
Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals
Brian K.; McPhee, Joseph B.; Dewitte, Sharon N.; Meyer, Insights into Justinianic Plague. PLoS Pathog. 9
Matthias; Schmedes, Sarah; Wood, James; Earn, David J. (5): e1003349. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1003349.
D.; Herring, D. Ann; Bauer, Peter; Poinar, Hendrik N.; PMC 3642051 . PMID 23658525.
Krause, Johannes (12 October 2011). A draft genome of
Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death. Nature. Drancourt, M; Roux, V; Dang, LV; Tran-Hung,
478 (7370): 506510. Bibcode:2011Natur.478..506B. L; Castex, D; Chenal-Francisque, V; et al.
doi:10.1038/nature10549. PMC 3690193 . PMID Genotyping, Orientalis-like Yersinia pestis, and
21993626. plague pandemics. Emerging Infectious Diseases.
4 6 REFERENCES

Little, Lester K., ed. (2006). Plague and the End of


Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541750. Cambridge.
ISBN 0-521-84639-0.

McNeill, William H. (1976). Plagues and Peoples.


New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell. ISBN 0-385-
12122-9.
Moorhead, J. (1994). Justinian. London.

Orent, Wendy (2004). Plague, The Mysterious Past


and Terrifying Future of the Worlds Most Dangerous
Disease. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-
7432-3685-8.

Russell, J. C. (1958). Late Ancient and Medieval


Population. Transactions of the American Philo-
sophical Society. New Series. Philadelphia. 48 (3):
7199.
Wacher, John S. (1974). The Towns of Roman
Britain. Berkeley: University of California Press.
ISBN 0-520-02669-1.

Edward Walford, translator, The Ecclesiastical His-


tory of Evagrius: A History of the Church from AD
431 to AD 594, 1846. Reprinted 2008. Evolution
Publishing, ISBN 978-1-889758-88-6. The au-
thor, Evagrius, was himself stricken by the plague
as a child and lost several family members to it.

Procopius. History of the Wars, Books I and II (The


Persian War). Trans. H. B. Dewing. Vol. 1. Cam-
bridge: Loeb-Harvard UP, 1954.Chapters XXII
and XXIII of Book II (pages 451473) are Pro-
copiuss famous description of the Plague of Jus-
tinian. This includes the famous statistic of 10,000
people per day dying in Constantinople (page 465).
5

7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses


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