Plague of Justinian

Saint Sebastian pleads with Jesus for the life of a gravedigger afflicted by plague during the Plague of Justinian. (Josse Lieferinxe, c. 1497–99)

A characteristic of the Plague of Justinian was necrosis of the hand

A map of the Byzantine Empire in 550 (a decade after the Plague of Justinian) with Justinian's conquests shown in green

The Plague of Justinian (541–542 AD) was a pandemic that afflicted the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire and especially its capital, Constantinople, as well as the Sasanian Empire, and port cities around the entire Mediterranean Sea,^[1][2] as merchant ships harbored rats that carried fleas infected with plague. One of the deadliest plagues in history, the devastating pandemic resulted in the deaths of an estimated 25–50 million people during two centuries of recurrence, a death toll equivalent to 13–26% of the world's population at the time of the first outbreak;^[3][4] the plague's social and cultural impact has been compared to that of the similar Black Death or Black Plague that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages, 600 years after the last outbreak of Justinian's plague.^[5]

In 2013, researchers confirmed earlier speculation that the cause of the Plague of Justinian was Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for Black Plague (1347–1351),^[6][7] which was much shorter, but still killed an estimated one-third to one-half of Europeans. Ancient and modern Yersinia pestis strains closely related to the ancestor of the Justinian plague strain have been found in Tian Shan, a system of mountain ranges on the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China, suggesting that the Justinian plague may have originated in or near that region.^[8][9]

Procopius, a Greek who was the principal historian of the 6th century, described the pandemic as worldwide in scope,^[2][10] and this first plague returned periodically until the eighth century;^[2] the waves of disease had a major effect on the subsequent course of European history. Modern historians named this plague incident after the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I, who was emperor at the time of the initial outbreak. Justinian himself contracted the disease, but survived.

Origins and spread[edit]

Genetics of the Justinian plague strain[edit]

Genetic studies of modern and ancient Yersinia pestis DNA suggest an origin for Justinian plague in Central Asia; the most basal or root level existing strains of the Yersinia pestis as a whole species are found in Qinghai, China.^[11] After samples of DNA from Yersinia pestis were isolated from skeletons of Justinian plague victims in Germany,^[12] it was found that modern strains currently found in the Tian Shan mountain range system are most basal known in comparison with the Justinian plague strain.^[8] Additionally, a skeleton found in Tian Shan dating to around 180 AD and identified as an "early Hun" was found to contain DNA from Yersinia pestis closely related to the Tian Shan strain basal ancestor of the Justinian plague strain German samples;^[9] this suggests that the expansion of nomadic peoples who moved across the Eurasian steppe, such as the Xiongnu and the later Huns, had a role in spreading plague to West Eurasia from an origin in Central Asia.^[9]

Earlier samples of Yersinia pestis DNA have been found in skeletons dating from 3000–800 BC, across West and East Eurasia;^[13] the strain of Yersinia pestis responsible for the Black Death, the devastating pandemic of bubonic plague, does not appear to be a direct descendant of the Justinian plague strain. However, the spread of Justinian plague may have caused the evolutionary radiation that gave rise to the currently extant 0ANT.1 clade of strains.^[14][15]

Historical perspective[edit]

Partially-completed basilica in Philippi; its construction is believed to have been halted by the Plague of Justinian.

The Plague of Justinian is generally regarded as the first historically recorded epidemic of Yersinia pestis;^[16][17] this conclusion is based on historical descriptions of the clinical manifestations of the disease^[18] and the detection of Y. pestis DNA from human remains at ancient grave sites dated to that period.^[19][20]

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.^[21] To feed its citizens, the city and outlying communities imported large amounts of grain, mostly from Egypt. Grain ships may have been the original source of contagion, as the rat (and flea) population in Egypt thrived on feeding from the large granaries maintained by the government; the Byzantine historian Procopius first reported the epidemic in 541 from the port of Pelusium, near Suez in Egypt.^[21] Two other firsthand reports of the plague's ravages were by the Syriac church historian John of Ephesus^[22] and 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.^[23]

Procopius,^[24] in a passage closely modeled 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.^[25] In his 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.^[10]

As a result of the plague in the countryside, farmers could not take care of crops and the price of grain rose at Constantinople. Justinian had expended huge amounts of money for wars against the Vandals in the region of Carthage and the Ostrogoths' kingdom in Italy, he had dedicated significant funds to 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.^[26]

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; the plague may have also contributed to the success of the Arabs a few generations later in the Byzantine-Arab Wars.^[21][27]

Some scholars^[28] have suggested that the plague facilitated the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, as its aftermath coincided with the renewed Saxon offensives in the 550s. Maelgwn, king of Gwynedd in Wales, was said to have died of the "Yellow Plague of Rhos" around 547 and, from 548 to 549, plague devastated Ireland as well. Saxon sources from this period are silent, as there are no 6th-century English documents.^{[citation needed]}

The Romano-British may have been disproportionately affected because of trade contacts with Gaul and other factors,^[29] such as British settlement patterns being more dispersive than English ones, which "could have served to facilitate plague transmission by the rat";^[30] the differential effects may have been exaggerated. British sources were then more likely to report natural disasters than Saxon ones.^{[citation needed]} In addition, "the evidence for artifact trade between the British and the English" implies significant interaction and "just minimal interaction would surely have involved a high risk of plague transmission".^[30] However, scholars (like Lester K. Little et alii in their Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750), as evidence that the plague damage done on the Sub-Roman Britons was greater than the one suffered by the Anglo-Saxons, believe that the sudden disappearance around 560 of the important Roman town of Calleva^[31] was probably due to the Plague of Justinian, which later created a kind of curse on the city "damned" by the Anglo–Saxons.^[32]

The outbreak of the plague was coincided with the Lazic War between the Byzantine and Sasanian empires; the plague affected the advancing Persian army under Khosrow I, which was forced to retreat. Justinian I quickly used the opportunity and invaded Persia, but the campaign was unsuccessful.

Virulence and mortality rate[edit]

The number of deaths is uncertain. Modern scholars believe that the plague killed up to 5,000 people per day in Constantinople at the peak of the pandemic; the initial plague ultimately killed perhaps 40% of the city's inhabitants and caused the deaths of up to a quarter of the human population of the Eastern Mediterranean.^[33] Frequent subsequent waves of the plague continued to strike throughout the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, with the disease becoming more localized and less virulent.

After the last recurrence in 750, pandemics on the scale of the Plague of Justinian did not appear again in Europe until the Black Death of the 14th century.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Harbeck, M; Seifert, L; Hänsch, S; Wagner, DM; Birdsell, D; et al. (2013). "Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague". PLoS Pathog. 9 (5): e1003349. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1003349. PMC 3642051. PMID 23658525.
• Drancourt, M; Roux, V; Dang, LV; Tran-Hung, L; Castex, D; Chenal-Francisque, V; et al. (2004). "Genotyping, Orientalis-like Yersinia pestis, and plague pandemics". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 10 (9): 1585–1592. doi:10.3201/eid1009.030933. PMC 3320270. PMID 15498160.
• Little, Lester K., ed. (2006). Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-84639-4.
• McNeill, William H. (1976). Plagues and Peoples. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell. ISBN 978-0-385-12122-4.
• Moorhead, J. (1994). Justinian. London.
• Orent, Wendy (2004). Plague, The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-3685-0.
• Russell, J. C. (1958). "Late Ancient and Medieval Population". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. New Series. 48 (3): 71–99. doi:10.2307/1005708. JSTOR 1005708.
• Wacher, John S. (1974). The Towns of Roman Britain. Nature. 98. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 468. Bibcode:1917Natur..98Q.468.. doi:10.1038/098468a0. ISBN 978-0-520-02669-8.
• Edward Walford, translator, The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius: A History of the Church from AD 431 to AD 594, 1846. Reprinted 2008. Evolution Publishing, ISBN 978-1-889758-88-6. [1]—The author, 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. Cambridge: Loeb-Harvard UP, 1954.—Chapters XXII and XXIII of Book II (pages 451–473) are Procopius's famous description of the Plague of Justinian. This includes the famous statistic of 10,000 people per day dying in Constantinople (page 465).