Download or read book The Byzantine Empire and the Plague written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-11 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of medieval accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading "[Theodore] made very large pits, inside each of which 70,000 corpses were laid down. He thus appointed men there, who brought down corpses, sorted them and piled them up. They pressed them in rows on top of each other, in the same way as someone presses hay in a loft ... Men and women were trodden down, and in the little space between them the young and infants were pressed down, trodden with the feet and trampled down like spoilt grapes." - John of Ephesus The Bubonic Plague was the worst affliction ever visited upon Europe and the Mediterranean world. Within a few short years, a quarter of the population was taken after a short but torturous illness. Those who escaped faced famine and economic hardship, crops were left unsown; harvests spoiled for lack of harvesters, and villages, towns, and great cities were depopulated. Markets were destroyed, and trade ground to a halt. It must have seemed like the end of the world to the terrified populace. The horror abated, only to return years later, often with less virulence but no less misery. Many who read a description of that plague might immediately think of the Black Death, the great epidemic that ravaged Europe and the Middle East from 1347-1351, but it actually refers to the lesser-known but arguably worse Plague of Justinian that descended upon the Mediterranean world in 541 and continued to decimate it over the next 200 years. The effects of the pestilence on history was every bit as dramatic as the one in the Late Middle Ages. In fact, the case could be made that the Plague of Justinian was a major factor in the molding of Europe and, consequently, the rest of the world as it is known today, marking a monumental crossroad between the ancient and medieval worlds. It might also be asked why so little is known about the Plague of Justinian and the epidemics following it, which stands in stark contrast with the Black Death, which has been the subject of numerous books and papers. The explanation, at least in part, is probably cultural. The 300 years between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and its revival by the Franks has long been referred to as the Dark Ages, negatively comparing the cultural enlightenment of the Roman Empire with the supposed barbarity of the Germanic kingdoms that replaced it. This was popularized by the Romantic Movement in the 19th century and was premised on the belief that Western Civilization was superior. In doing so, Western Europeans ignored the rich cultural traditions of the Byzantine Empire and Persia and overlooked that the Germanic peoples actually preserved some elements of Roman civilization. Moreover, tribes converting to Christianity embraced the Catholic Church and thus Roman culture. Contrary to popular opinion, learning did not decline during this time in the West because monasticism brought schools, libraries, and institutes of higher learning throughout Western Europe. The Byzantine Empire and the Plague: The History and Legacy of the Pandemic that Ravaged the Byzantines in the Early Middle Ages charts the history of the pestilence over the course of two centuries and how it shaped subsequent events, bringing down nations while inadvertently lifting others. It also describes the diseases' victims, and how certain segments of society may have avoided contracting it. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Byzantine Empire and the plague like never before.
Download or read book Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire written by Dionysios Ch. Stathakopoulos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire presents the first analytical account in English of the history of subsistence crises and epidemic diseases in Late Antiquity. Based on a catalogue of all such events in the East Roman/Byzantine empire between 284 and 750, it gives an authoritative analysis of the causes, effects and internal mechanisms of these crises and incorporates modern medical and physiological data on epidemics and famines. Its interest is both in the history of medicine and the history of Late Antiquity, especially its social and demographic aspects. Stathakopoulos develops models of crises that apply not only to the society of the late Roman and early Byzantine world, but also to early modern and even contemporary societies in Africa or Asia. This study is therefore both a work of reference for information on particular events (e.g. the 6th-century Justinianic plague) and a comprehensive analysis of subsistence crises and epidemics as agents of historical causation. As such it makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on Late Antiquity, bringing a fresh perspective to comment on the characteristic features that shaped this period and differentiate it from Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Download or read book Justinian s Flea written by William Rosen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-05-03 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Miracle Cure and The Third Horseman, the epic story of the collision between one of nature's smallest organisms and history's mightiest empire During the golden age of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian reigned over a territory that stretched from Italy to North Africa. It was the zenith of his achievements and the last of them. In 542 AD, the bubonic plague struck. In weeks, the glorious classical world of Justinian had been plunged into the medieval and modern Europe was born. At its height, five thousand people died every day in Constantinople. Cities were completely depopulated. It was the first pandemic the world had ever known and it left its indelible mark: when the plague finally ended, more than 25 million people were dead. Weaving together history, microbiology, ecology, jurisprudence, theology, and epidemiology, Justinian's Flea is a unique and sweeping account of the little known event that changed the course of a continent.
Download or read book Plague and the End of Antiquity written by Lester K. Little and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, 12 scholars from various disciplines - have produced a comprehensive account of the pandemic's origins, spread, and mortality, as well as its economic, social, political, and religious effects.
Download or read book Plague in Byzantine Times written by Costas Tsiamis and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-11-07 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lack of reliable demographic data for Byzantine cities raises questions as to the actual rate of expansion and mortality of plague. This essentially leads to the question of change and progress of the nature of infectious diseases in that period. Also, the analysis of the written sources raised a series of questions, mainly epidemiological in nature: the entry points and spreading of the disease in the Mediterranean, the epidemic dynamics as well as the evolution of the microbial agent of plague, i.e. Yersinia pestis. The present study offers a substantial explanation for the outbreaks of plague that struck Byzantium by exploring the multiple factors that caused or triggered epidemics. The study covers the entire period extending from the beginning of the Byzantine Empire until its fall in 1453, which was marked by two major pandemics, namely the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. All known primary sources were collected and grouped from a spatiotemporal perspective, so as to retrace the unfolding of the two pandemics. The focus of the research shifts from known historical frameworks to ones of human activities, endemic foci and natural environment of the era as risk factors of the outbreaks.
Download or read book Plague written by Wendy Orent and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plague is a terrifying mystery. In the Middle Ages, it wiped out 40 million people -- 40 percent of the total population in Europe. Seven hundred years earlier, the Justinian Plague destroyed the Byzantine Empire and ushered in the Middle Ages. The plague of London in the seventeenth century killed more than 1,000 people a day. In the early twentieth century, plague again swept Asia, taking the lives of 12 million in India alone. Even more frightening is what it could do to us in the near future. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian scientists created genetically altered, antibiotic-resistant and vaccine-resistant strains of plague that can bypass the human immune system and spread directly from person to person. These weaponized strains still exist, and they could be replicated in almost any laboratory. Wendy Orent's Plague pieces together a fascinating and terrifying historical whodunit. Drawing on the latest research in labs around the world, along with extensive interviews with American and Soviet plague experts, Orent offers nothing less than a biography of a disease. Plague helped bring down the Roman Empire and close the Middle Ages; it has had a dramatic impact on our history, yet we still do not fully understand its own evolution. Orent's retelling of the four great pandemics makes for gripping reading and solves many puzzles. Why did some pandemics jump from person to person, while others relied on insects as carriers? Why are some strains more virulent than others? Orent reveals the key differences among rat-based, prairie dog-based, and marmot-based plague. The marmots of Central Asia, in particular, have long been hosts to the most virulent and frightening form of the disease, a form that can travel around the world in the blink of an eye. From its ability to hide out in the wild, only to spring back into humanity with a terrifying vengeance, to its elusive capacity to develop suddenly greater virulence and transmissibility, plague is a protean nightmare. To make matters worse, Orent's disturbing revelations about the former Soviet bioweapon programs suggest that the nightmare may not be over. Plague is chilling reading at the dawn of a new age of bioterrorism.
Download or read book Justinian s Flea written by William Rosen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weaving together evolutionary microbiology, economics, military strategy, ecology, and ancient and modern medicine, author Rosen tells of history's first pandemic--a plague seven centuries before the Black Death that killed tens of millions, devastated th
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian written by Michael Maas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-18 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the Age of Justinian, the last Roman century and the first flowering of Byzantine culture. Dominated by the policies and personality of emperor Justinian I (527–565), this period of grand achievements and far-reaching failures witnessed the transformation of the Mediterranean world. In this volume, twenty specialists explore the most important aspects of the age including the mechanics and theory of empire, warfare, urbanism, and economy. It also discusses the impact of the great plague, the codification of Roman law, and the many religious upheavals taking place at the time. Consideration is given to imperial relations with the papacy, northern barbarians, the Persians, and other eastern peoples, shedding new light on a dramatic and highly significant historical period.
Download or read book The Fate of Rome written by Kyle Harper and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How devastating viruses, pandemics, and other natural catastrophes swept through the far-flung Roman Empire and helped to bring down one of the mightiest civilizations of the ancient world Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome’s power—a story of nature’s triumph over human ambition. Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes readers from Rome’s pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted. Harper describes how the Romans were resilient in the face of enormous environmental stress, until the besieged empire could no longer withstand the combined challenges of a “little ice age” and recurrent outbreaks of bubonic plague. A poignant reflection on humanity’s intimate relationship with the environment, The Fate of Rome provides a sweeping account of how one of history’s greatest civilizations encountered and endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature’s violence. The example of Rome is a timely reminder that climate change and germ evolution have shaped the world we inhabit—in ways that are surprising and profound.
Download or read book Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World written by Nükhet Varlik and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-22 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first systematic scholarly study of the Ottoman experience of plague during the Black Death pandemic and the centuries that followed. Using a wealth of archival and narrative sources, including medical treatises, hagiographies, and travelers' accounts, as well as recent scientific research, Nükhet Varlik demonstrates how plague interacted with the environmental, social, and political structures of the Ottoman Empire from the late medieval through the early modern era. The book argues that the empire's growth transformed the epidemiological patterns of plague by bringing diverse ecological zones into interaction and by intensifying the mobilities of exchange among both human and non-human agents. Varlik maintains that persistent plagues elicited new forms of cultural imagination and expression, as well as a new body of knowledge about the disease. In turn, this new consciousness sharpened the Ottoman administrative response to the plague, while contributing to the makings of an early modern state.
Download or read book The Secret History written by Procopius and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Roman Empire and the Plague written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of ancient accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading The era of the Five Good Emperors was one of unparalleled success and wealth, and the reasons Rome reached its zenith at this time are worthy of scrutiny. Perhaps most noteworthy is that none of these five emperors were blood relatives - while the final two are often referred to as the Antonines, they were not, in fact, related except by adoption, a practice that may in itself provide at least part of the answer to the question as to why this particular period was so magnificent. With all of that said, according to some academics, the success these rulers had in centralizing the empire's administration, while undoubtedly bringing huge benefits, also sowed the seeds for later problems. After all, as so many Roman emperors proved, from Caligula and Nero to Commodus, the empire's approach to governance was predicated on the ruler's ability. When incompetent or insane emperors came to power, the whole edifice came tumbling down. Moreover, the success of the emperors ironically brought about the worst plague in Rome's epic history. Due to constant warfare on the borders and attempts to defend positions against various groups, Roman soldiers came into contact with foreign diseases, and they unwittingly brought them home when campaigns ended. This culminated around 165 CE, when an unidentified disease brought the empire to its knees and afflicted an untold number of individuals, one of whom may have been Lucius Verus, the co-emperor of Rome alongside Marcus Aurelius. In addition to the enormous number of casualties, which has been estimated at upwards of 5 million people, the pandemic disrupted Roman trade to the east, affected societies culturally across Europe, and compelled physicians like Galen to study the symptoms in an effort to figure out not only what the disease was, but any potential cures. The Bubonic Plague was the worst affliction ever visited upon Europe and the Mediterranean world. Within a few short years, a quarter of the population was taken after a short but torturous illness. Those who escaped faced famine and economic hardship, crops were left unsown; harvests spoiled for lack of harvesters, and villages, towns, and great cities were depopulated. Markets were destroyed, and trade ground to a halt. It must have seemed like the end of the world to the terrified populace. The horror abated, only to return years later, often with less virulence but no less misery. Many who read a description of that plague might immediately think of the Black Death, the great epidemic that ravaged Europe and the Middle East from 1347-1351, but it actually refers to the lesser-known but arguably worse Plague of Justinian that descended upon the Mediterranean world in 541 and continued to decimate it over the next 200 years. The effects of the pestilence on history was every bit as dramatic as the one in the Late Middle Ages. In fact, the case could be made that the Plague of Justinian was a major factor in the molding of Europe and, consequently, the rest of the world as it is known today, marking a monumental crossroad between the ancient and medieval worlds. The Roman Empire and the Plague: The History of the Worst Pandemics to Strike Rome and the Byzantines in Antiquity and the Middle Ages charts the history of the diseases and how they shaped subsequent events, bringing down nations while inadvertently lifting others. It also describes the diseases' victims, and how certain segments of society may have avoided contracting it. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Roman Empire and the plague like never before.
Download or read book Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire written by Yaron Ayalon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yaron Ayalon explores the Ottoman Empire's history of natural disasters and its responses on a state, communal, and individual level.
Download or read book The Emperor Justinian and the Byzantine Empire written by James Allan Stewart Evans and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2005-01-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This survey of the reign of the Emperor Justinian and the Byzantine Empire dissects the complicated political and military environment surrounding Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in the 6th Century CE, and discusses the ambitions and achievements of the Emperor Justinian.
Download or read book Rome Resurgent written by Peter Heather and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the fall of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century and the collapse of the east in the face of the Arab invasions in the seventh, the remarkable era of the Emperor Justinian (527-568) dominated the Mediterranean region. Famous for his conquests in Italy and North Africa, and for the creation of spectacular monuments such as the Hagia Sophia, his reign was also marked by global religious conflict within the Christian world and an outbreak of plague that some have compared to the Black Death. For many historians, Justinian is far more than an anomaly of Byzantine ambition between the eras of Attila and Muhammad; he is the causal link that binds together the two moments of Roman imperial collapse. Determined to reverse the losses Rome suffered in the fifth century, Justinian unleashed an aggressive campaign in the face of tremendous adversity, not least the plague. This book offers a fundamentally new interpretation of his conquest policy and its overall strategic effect, which has often been seen as imperial overreach, making the regime vulnerable to the Islamic takeover of its richest territories in the seventh century and thus transforming the great Roman Empire of Late Antiquity into its pale shadow of the Middle Ages. In Rome Resurgent, historian Peter Heather draws heavily upon contemporary sources, including the writings of Procopius, the principal historian of the time, while also recasting that author's narrative by bringing together new perspectives based on a wide array of additional source material. A huge body of archaeological evidence has become available for the sixth century, providing entirely new means of understanding the overall effects of Justinian's war policies. Building on his own distinguished work on the Vandals, Goths, and Persians, Heather also gives much fuller coverage to Rome's enemies than Procopius ever did. A briskly paced narrative by a master historian, Rome Resurgent promises to introduce readers to this captivating and unjustly overlooked chapter in ancient warfare.
Download or read book Justinian s Flea written by William Rosen and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-07-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Miracle Cure and The Third Horseman, the epic story of the collision between one of nature's smallest organisms and history's mightiest empire During the golden age of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian reigned over a territory that stretched from Italy to North Africa. It was the zenith of his achievements and the last of them. In 542 AD, the bubonic plague struck. In weeks, the glorious classical world of Justinian had been plunged into the medieval and modern Europe was born. At its height, five thousand people died every day in Constantinople. Cities were completely depopulated. It was the first pandemic the world had ever known and it left its indelible mark: when the plague finally ended, more than 25 million people were dead. Weaving together history, microbiology, ecology, jurisprudence, theology, and epidemiology, Justinian's Flea is a unique and sweeping account of the little known event that changed the course of a continent.
Download or read book Geographies of Plague Pandemics written by Mark Welford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geographies of Plague Pandemics synthesizes our current understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics of plague, Yersinia pestis. The environmental, political, economic, and social impacts of the plague from Ancient Greece to the modern day are examined. Chapters explore the identity of plague DNA, its human mortality, and the source of ancient and modern plagues. This book also discusses the role plague has played in shifting power from Mediterranean Europe to north-western Europe during the 500 years that plague has raged across the continent. The book demonstrates how recent colonial structures influenced the spread and mortality of plague while changing colonial histories. In addition, this book provides critical insight into how plague has shaped modern medicine, public health, and disease monitoring, and what role, if any, it might play as a terror weapon. The scope and breadth of Geographies of Plague Pandemics offers geographers, historians, biologists, and public health educators the opportunity to explore the deep connections among disease and human existence.
