Plague of Justinian

The plague's severity and impact remain debated. Some scholars assert that as the first episode of the first plague pandemic, it had profound economic, social, and political effects across Europe and the Near East and cultural and religious impact on Eastern Roman society. Other scholars such as Mordechai and Eisenberg have argued that the Plague of Justinian was overstated by primary sources and, while it would have been incredibly impactful on a personal level, did not have a severe or even a long lasting impact on the population of the Mediterranean in the Age of Justinian. These claims have been criticised for their methodology and handling of sources.

In 2013, researchers confirmed earlier speculation that the cause of the plague of Justinian was Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for the Black Death (1346–1353). Ancient and modern Yersinia pestis strains are closely related to the ancestor of the Justinian plague strain that has been found in the Tian Shan, a system of mountain ranges on the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China, suggesting that the Justinian plague originated in or near that region. However, there would appear to be no mention of bubonic plague in China until the year 610.

History

The Byzantine historian Procopius first reported the epidemic in 541 from the port of Pelusium, near Suez in Egypt. Two other first-hand reports of the plague's ravages were by the Syriac church historian John of Ephesus and by Evagrius Scholasticus, who was a child in Antioch at the time and later became a church historian. Evagrius was afflicted with the buboes associated with the disease, but survived. During the disease's four returns in his lifetime, he lost his wife, a daughter and her child, other children, most of his servants, and people from his country estate.

According to contemporary sources, the outbreak in Constantinople was thought to have been carried to the city by infected rats on grain ships arriving from Egypt. The Romans in Byzantium imported a significant amount of grain from Egypt, where rats and fleas potentially affected by y. pestis were a significant pest control issue.

Procopius, in a passage closely modelled on Thucydides, recorded that at its peak the plague was killing 10,000 people in Constantinople daily, but the accuracy of the figure is in question, and the true number will probably never be known. He noted that because there was no room to bury the dead, bodies were left stacked in the open, funeral rites were often left unattended to, and the entire city smelled like the dead. Given such circumstances, it is highly probable that a sudden increase in mortality rates may not have been as accurately recorded, hence the overall death toll is based on an estimate.

In Procopius' Secret History, he records the devastation in the countryside and reports the ruthless response by the hard-pressed Justinian:

When pestilence swept through the whole known world and notably the Roman Empire, wiping out most of the farming community and of necessity leaving a trail of desolation in its wake, Justinian showed no mercy towards the ruined freeholders. Even then, he did not refrain from demanding the annual tax, not only the amount at which he assessed each individual, but also the amount for which his deceased neighbors were liable.

As a result of the plague in the countryside, farmers could not take care of crops and the price of grain rose in Constantinople. Justinian had expended huge amounts of money for wars against the Vandals in the region of Carthage and against the Ostrogoths' kingdom in Italy. He had invested heavily in the construction of great churches, such as Hagia Sophia. As the empire tried to fund the projects, the plague caused tax revenues to decline through the massive number of deaths and the disruption of agriculture and trade. Justinian swiftly enacted new legislation to deal more efficiently with the glut of inheritance suits being brought as a result of victims dying intestate. The plague had also led to the narrowing of the wealth gap between the upper and lower classes. During the height of the plague, Justinian's property confiscations had affected the wealthy landowners deeply. On the other hand, the labour shortage caused by the plague drove wages higher, and papyrus documents from Egypt documented wage increases of up to 150%.

The plague's long-term effects on European and Christian history were enormous. As the disease spread to port cities around the Mediterranean, the struggling Goths were reinvigorated and their conflict with Constantinople entered a new phase. The plague weakened the Byzantine Empire at a critical point, when Justinian's 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 Empire. Although the conquest occurred in 554, the reunification did not last long. In 568, the Lombards invaded Northern Italy, defeated the small Byzantine army that had been left behind and established the Kingdom of the Lombards.

Gaul is known to have suffered severely from the plague, and plague victims at an early Anglo-Saxon burial site at Edix Hill near Cambridge show that it also reached Britain.

Archaeological evidence from Greek-language epitaphs in Byzantine Palestine and Arabia supports the traditional dating of the first outbreak to 541 CE. Scholar Nancy Benovitz also describes a notable spike in the number of Christian epitaphs in the 540s, particularly around Gaza and the Negev, which she interprets as a possible memorial response to the plague's impact. Recently, a mass grave from the casualties of the pandemic was found in Jerash, Jordan. The plague may also be documented as far south as in the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula, in Sabaic inscriptions from the Himyarite Kingdom.

Procopius said that plague sufferers experienced delusions, nightmares, fevers, swellings in the groin, armpits and behind the ears, and coma or death. Treatments included cold baths, powders "blessed" by saints, magic amulets or rings, and various drugs, especially alkaloids. When these treatments failed, people went to hospitals or tried to quarantine themselves.

Onset of the first plague pandemic

The Plague of Justinian is the first and the best known outbreak of the first plague pandemic, which continued to recur until the middle of the 8th century. Some historians believe the first plague pandemic was one of the deadliest pandemics in history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 15 to 100 million people during two centuries of recurrence, a death toll equivalent to 25 to 60% of Europe's population at the time of the first outbreak. Research published in 2019 argued that the 200-year-long pandemic's death toll and social effects have been exaggerated, comparing it to the modern third plague pandemic (1855–1960s). Furthermore, some historians argue that the eyewitness accounts of the disease are hysterical in tone and therefore misleading.