The Late Antique Podcast #4: The Justinian Plague

December 3, 2021February 9, 2022 ~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

I have decided to restart my podcast, it has been a while since my last one, but now feels the right time to do another one. My plan, going forward, is to publish when I want, as I always intended. I see these podcasts as a bit like an average post on my old blog, where I introduce people to particular debates or ideas and take a more general approach, rather than in some of my more philosophical or speculative posts. As in the past, I have copied my script below, as well as posting a podcast player. A warning- I am getting used to podcasting and Audacity again, so apologies in advance.

Podcast:

Script:

Introduction

Hello, this is the Early Medieval Podcast. Before I begin discussing today’s topic, I want to welcome new listeners as well as old ones. Furthermore, as there has been a considerable gap between the third and fourth podcast, I want to emphasise that I will need to get used to making podcasts again, especially with regards to editing using the software Audacity. This may account for the podcast not being as smooth as possible.

So what am I going to talk about today? Well, I am going to cover the Justinian Plague, which I shall introduce below. I will talk about how some scholars take a ‘maximalist’ position that emphasises the plague’s disruption or indeed its impact on the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. I shall also cover those who take a ‘minimalist’ position, some even calling the Justinian pandemic ‘inconsequential’. Finally, I will discuss about the relationship between science and the humanities, in particular I will highlight how the former can contribute to our understanding of the plague when considered alongside over forms of evidence.

What was the Justinian Plague?

There have been three known major plague pandemics caused by the bacterium Yersinia Pestis. There was one in the twentieth century which affected South and East Asia and another beginning with the Black Death which devastated later medieval and early modern Europe. However, the one I will talk about today, is the Plague of Justinian, which lasted initially from 541 to 544, and reoccurred for the next two centuries.

The plague of Justinian was first reported in the Egyptian port town of Pelusium in 541. From Pelusium it spread quickly east to Gaza and West to Alexandria. By 542, at the latest, it had reached Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as places such as the rest of Greece and also Italy. By 543, it had reached Armenia and Gaul. Rosen suggests it total it could have caused 25 million deaths, however one must be careful when trying to calculate demographic figures for this era, as it is hard to guess the exact population levels.

While the Justinian Plague was first identified in Pelusium, Egypt, it is likely to have originated further south in Africa, according to Sarris. The geopolitical situation of the sixth-century provided the perfect opportunity for it to spread. The Eastern Romans had contact with the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum, whereas the Persians had influence over Arabia. The Eastern Empire and the Persians were both using these contacts in their war against each other. Aksum, itself, was likely in contact with the interior of Africa, thereby allowing the plague to transmit from interior Africa to Ethiopia to the Mediterranean world.

‘Minimalist’ Position

I want to start my discussion of the debate surrounding the Justinian Plague by suggesting it is actually very hard to assess its impact. This is in part due to the lack of demographic data we have, but also because we have to draw a causal link between the Plague and certain alleged responses to it. It is hard to identify whether the plague actually made these changes or whether it was other factors, such as Justinian’s conflicts, or even the longer-term transformations of Late Antiquity. Nevertheless, all that considered, I tend to believe the pandemic did have a large impact, even if it was not the only factor that affected the transformations of the sixth century and of Late Antiquity in general.

Before I discuss the reasons for believing the pandemic did have a big effect, I want highlight the arguments for believing it was not as important as has been argued. The first issue to consider is demography. Wickham suggests demographic decline was localized and was not general across the whole empire. He highlights the longer-term processes that began before the plague in the fifth century, rather than in the sixth-century. By far one of the most critical accounts of the plague’s impact comes from Mordechai, Eisenberg and Newfield, among other scholars, who call the pandemic ‘inconsequential.’ These authors focus on quantitative measures (though not at the expense of qualitative analysis). For example, they look at databases containing inscriptions. These include the IGLS database for Syria, which according to them shows no evidence of decline between 500 and 650. There was no decrease inscription levels at all. Meanwhile, the authors also looked at the Heidelberg Epigraphic database, which has over 79,000 inscriptions, mainly from the central and western Mediterranean. Although a general decrease in number was seen over time, there was no immediate impact from the plague. The final demographic evidence to consider is mass burials. The authors of the paper on epigraphic evidence, suggest that there presence does not necessarily indicate that they were victims of the plague. In fact, they could be the result of social and cultural factors.

There are other reasons summoned by defendants of the ‘minimalist’ view. They often suggest that the literary evidence might have exaggerated the numbers killed by the plague for rhetorical effect. Michael the Syrian, for example, suggests the initial occurrence killed 99.9% of the population. Meanwhile, Procopius, claims the Emperor Justinian killed one trillion people during his reign due to various disasters. Of course, authors may have exaggerated, but this does not mean the pandemic did not kill millions of people. In fact, the ‘apocalyptic’ tones of the authors may point to how serious the plague was. Finally, the ‘minimalists’ suggest that Justinian decreased issuing legislation before the first wave and that this was not the result of the pandemic.

‘Maximalist’ Position

On the other hand, if one examines the legislation qualitatively, it is possible to see that Justinian believed the plague was worth responding to in the years 542-545. In the March of 542, he implemented laws that helped to prop up the banking sector, by making it easier to pursue the heirs of debtors and providing the banks access to a special court. In 543, there were clearly so many deaths that the emperor had to respond to the issue of people dying without making proper wills, in fact he had to go as far as clarifying the inheritance rights of minors. In 544, Justinian attempted to impose wage and price controls due to the fact that individuals tried to take advantage of the high demand for labour to obtain higher wages or higher prices for selling goods. Also in 544, the emperor tried to prevent people negotiating for lower costs when it came to church land, he also tried to encourage cultivation by allowing the Church to rent out land perpetually. In my opinion, Sarris summarises the issuing of all this legislation the best when he says, ‘Justinian’s legislation in the face of the first wave of plague not only paralleled, but far exceeded the efforts later recorded on the part of the English state in the face of the Black Death in the 1340s and 1350s.The social hierarchy, and the fiscal machinery of the East Roman Empire, had to be buttressed at any cost.’

Yet, legislation is not the only evidence we have for the serious impact of the Justinian plague, Mischa Meier suggests it created a lot of cultural changes as well. She writes ‘I believe that the Justinianic Plague marks a significant caesura in the transition from late antiquity to the Byzantine Middle Ages – not necessarily because of its immediate effects such as the large death toll and the collapse in trade, military capability and the geography of settlement that most likely accompanied it, but because of its indirect cultural consequences, in other words, because of processes that in the medium term were either partly set in train or at least substantially accelerated by the plague, to which scholars have paid insufficient attention.’ Meier then goes to highlight the different ways in which the plague had this impact.

Firstly, the plague boosted worship of St Mary, this had been gaining some traction since the fifth century, but it was only about the time of the pandemic that it gained its most momentum. This is evidenced by Justinian’s decision to move Hypapante, also known as Candlemass or the Presentation of the Lord, from the fourteenth to the second of February. This transformation, in the year of the pandemic 542, moved the festival from being about Christ to it being about Mary. According to Meier, this was expressly done to alleviate the plague. Secondly, the plague resulted in an increase of iconoclatry, which is the worship of icons, these provided comfort in times of need. The worship of icons was directly tied to disasters during the pandemic. For example, in 544 an icon of Christ in 544 is said to have saved Edessa from the Persians, while a similar icon that appeared in Kamulianai in Asia Minor miraculously reproduced itself. Furthermore, Meier also highlights the role of plague in causing liturgification, which means that religion took an increasingly important role in all aspects of life. The evidence, according to Meier, can come from a comparison between texts before the 540s and those produced in during or after the pandemic. The imitation of Classical writers was no longer desired and religious symbolism was evoked more. Finally, the emperor became more sacralised as a result of the plague and following on from this period, the emperors adopted more religious tones.

I have now discussed the reasons for believing that the pandemic did have a large impact. I tend to agree with these scholars more than those who call it ‘inconsequential.’ The strongest evidence comes from Justinian’s legislation, it seems that he directly responded to the problems it was causing. Meier’s argument is nuanced, so long as we consider that the plague may not have initiated cultural changes, but accelerated them a lot. Finally, I want to highlight how the plague was only one factor that caused the Late Antique world to transform into the Early Medieval Period, while it undoubtedly had a massive impact, it must not be considered in isolation from the other forces at play.

Science and Humanities

I now want to conclude this podcast with a musing on the relationship between science and the humanities. While study of the Justinian Plague has mainly been conducted in the humanities, scientists have increasingly taken interest in it. In particular, they have tried to analyse the DNA of individuals to look for Yersinia Pestis, the bacteria that caused the plague. The authors who did this, including Wagner and Klunk, extracted teeth from two individuals in a cemetery in Aschheim, Bavaria, Germany. They then screened the DNA to identify if they had any Yersinia Pestis in them. They concluded that although the later medieval and modern pandemics were caused by the same organism as the Justinian plague, they were the result of a separate emergence (a different form) of it. Therefore, the plague of Justinian was caused by a significantly different strain than what caused the later pandemics.

Of course, this is not the only way in which science and other disciplines can increase our understanding of the Justinian plague. Sarris discusses some of the questions that could be asked if we take a truly interdisciplinary response. Namely, how did rodents spread the disease and how did it spread to humans? What can genetics and archaeology tell us about the demographic impacts of the plague? All these questions require going beyond a single discipline.

Talking about the relationship between the humanities and sciences requires us to also consider that the ‘sciences’ and ‘humanities’ are not homogenous subjects. For example, a complex systems scientist might tell us about how the pandemic spread, but a geneticist can inform us about the potential biological make-up of the plague. In terms of history, one individual might use qualitative techniques, while another can use quantitative techniques, they could both provide insights.

I agree with Sarris, when he says there is some resistance to science by some Late Antiquarians, due to its association with tracing the supposed origins of ‘ethnic’ groups. Ethnicity, of course, is a constructed and dynamic phenomenon, and there is always a risk that science could be used to promote false discourses about. However, this does not negate the fact that science can positively affect our understanding of the past, so long as it is used in the correct way and within an interdisciplinary framework that is open to the humanities.

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this podcast! It has took me a while to do a fourth podcast, but I have enjoyed it a lot. In terms of what I plan to do in the future, I will continue my policy of recording and publishing without a schedule. I would rather have informative podcasts, then make countless ones for the sake of doing so. Nevertheless, I hope this episode has informed you about some of the debates surrounding the Justinian Plague and my thoughts about the relationship between the sciences and humanities.

Bibliography:

Mordechai, Lee, Merle Eisenberg, Timothy P Newfield, Adam Izdebski, Janet E Kay, and Hendrik Poinar. “The Justinianic Plague: An Inconsequential Pandemic?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS 116, no. 51 (2019): 25546-25554.

Meier, Mischa. “The ‘Justinianic Plague’: The economic consequences of the pandemic in the eastern Roman empire and its cultural and religious effects.” Early Medieval Europe 24, no. 3 (2016): 267-292.

Rosen, William. Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe. London: Pimlico, 2008.

Sarris, Peter. “New Approaches to the ‘Plague of Justinian'” Past and Present (2021)

Sarris, Peter. “The Justinianic plague: Origins and effects” Continuity and Change, 17, no.2 (2002): 169-182.

Wagner, David M., Jennifer Klunk, Michaela Harbeck, Alison Devault, Nicholas Waglechner, Jason W. Sahl, Jacob Enk et al. “Yersinia pestis and the Plague of Justinian 541–543 AD: a genomic analysis.” The Lancet infectious diseases 14, no. 4 (2014): 319-326.

Wickham, Chris. Framing the Early Middle Ages : Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005

Review: The Gothic War, Rome’s Final Conflict in The West

October 6, 2020October 22, 2020 ~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This post shall review Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen’s 2009 book, which is titled ‘The Gothic War: Rome’s Final Conflict in the West.’

I must admit a certain deficiency in knowledge with regards to the Gothic War. Mostly, I know about the Ostrogothic Kingdom during the reign of Theoderic the Great, but not after his death. Therefore, it made sense to me to try and find a secondary text that discussed the conflict. Jacobsen’s popular and mainly narrative account is such a suitable introduction.

The book starts by providing the context of the Gothic War. It covers events such as Justinian’s conquest of Africa and the Nika Uprisings. It therefore describes the beginning of Justinian’s so-called ‘reconquests’ of the Western Roman Empire. According to Jacobsen, the stabilisation of the Imperial borders after the chaotic events of the fifth and fourth centuries allowed this focus on reclaiming lost territories. It is notable that the author presents the wars with a ‘reconquest’ viewpoint. This is at odds with Arnold who effectively claims that Theoderic’s Ostrogothic Kingdom was essentially the Roman Empire restored. The introductory chapter also introduces Procopius, who was secretary to Belisarius, one of the main generals during the wars in Italy. Procopius’ History of the Wars is the main source for Jacobsen’s book and it is heavily quoted throughout. The next chapter provides the Ostrogothic context, after the chapter on the Eastern Roman Empire. It discusses early Gothic history and their earlier wars with the Romans. Furthermore, it describes their conversion to Arianism, as well as making other introductory points. The third chapter looks at Theoderic in Italy, including events such as his conquest of Italy from Odoacer, alongside giving a small glimpse into his reign. Interestingly, Jacobsen also writes ‘Theoderic was perhaps the most civilised barbarian the former Western Roman Empire would ever see.’ This would align with the view that Theoderic’s reign was not a period of darkness for Italy and the other possessions of the Ostrogoths. Although, Jacobsen still falls short of calling the kingdom ‘Roman’.

After discussing the early chapters of the text, it is worth highlighting how Jacobsen treats Gothic ‘ethnicity’. Firstly, he does not see it as static, biological and unchanging. In fact, he states ‘ethnicity in a tribe was fluid’ and ‘to be a Goth or to be part of the Gothic confederation was more a question of attitude than a question of race and ethnicity’. The author certainly does not fall into the trap of approaching ethnicity in a outdated manner. A second point to be considered is how Jacobsen describes the early Gothic migrations as ‘a gradual aggregation’ under the name ‘Goth’. There were apparently no great wars or single large migrations. A further noteworthy point regarding ethnicity is also raised later in the text, when the author describes how Goths and Romans often switched sides due to low morale. ‘Gothic’ or ‘Roman’ identities were not pivotal in the theatre of war, with loyalty to particular generals being more important.

After looking at the Gothic and Eastern Roman context, the book switches to a narrative of mainly military events. This is no surprise given the title of the book and its aims to provide a detailed account of the sixth-century Gothic War. Jacobsen initially writes about the early stages of the war, such as the Sicilian campaign and the Siege of Neapolis. He then discusses the deposition of Theodahad as King of the Ostrogoths and his replacement by Vitigis. After this, the first Siege of Rome is described in-depth. The treatment of this siege is particularly notable for how the author covers every minuscule particular of it. The Gothic attempt to retake Rome from Justinian’s armies was however disastrous with Vitigis only setting a full blockade of the city late during the course of the siege. The Goths, a recurring theme throughout the war, were not adept with regards to sieges and they preferred pitched battles instead. The next chapters describe the campaign for Ravenna and its eventual fall to the Romans. The attempts to siege or take certain settlements in Italy, such as Mediolanum and Ancona, are also covered in these chapters. The Roman campaign for Italy and its initial successes are therefore adequately described.

Next, the book switches to contextual events outside of Italy. It especially looks at events in Africa, such as the uprisings there as well as conflicts with the Moors, while also examining affairs on the eastern frontier with Persia as well. Jacobsen is keen to show here, as he does throughout the text, that Italy and the Gothic War cannot be viewed in isolation. The Late Antique world was heavily connected, especially throughout the Mediterranean. No part of it can be understood in isolation. This important point is reinforced by the author’s continuous description of events involving the Franks, who periodically intervened in the conflict between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths.

It is clear from Jacobsen’s work, that the accession of Totila to the throne in 541, following the death of Eraric, marked a transition point in the war for Italy. Totila, unlike Theodahad, Vitigis and Eraric, managed to recover large portions of Italy for the Ostrogoths. Therefore, revitalising a cause that at one point had appeared lost. Following on this, the book details the second and third Sieges of Rome, as the Goths and Romans kept on exchanging blows. The accounts of these engagements are not as in-depth as the first one, but they nevertheless provide an insight into how siege warfare was conducted during the Gothic War. Subsequent to these chapters, another change of fortunes in the war is described, with the Romans on the advance again. Their march forward, as covered by Jacobsen, culminated in a battle at Taginae which was a disastrous defeat for the Goths. This battle effectively marked the end of the war for the Goths and so a full account of it is given. Gothic resistance did not collapse after Taginae, for example Teia succeeded the slain Totila to the throne, but it did end any hopes of a Gothic victory. Therefore, the history of the Ostrogothic Kingdom came to a crushing end.

One thing I believe worth noting in this review is how Jacobsen approaches certain historical figures. Belisarius, the Roman general, is shown to be a pivotal figure in Justinian’s attempts to conquer the Western Empire. Jacobsen writes ‘there would have been no wars of Justinian if Belisarius had not been available.’ and he compares the Roman general to figures such as Caesar and Hannibal. Totila is also highly praised, not surprising given his successful military campaigns. ‘He won almost all his battles’ and was ‘a wise politician’ according to the author. However, what is particularly interesting is Jacobsen’s treatment of the Emperor Justinian and his project in the West. His empire may have been enlarged by his wars, but ‘the provinces of the West may have been a liability rather than an asset’ due to the fact that they required soldiers from the East to guard them and also because they yielded insufficient revenue for their own defence. Furthermore, Justinian’s victories were only temporary. Roman Spain was attacked by the Visigoths, Africa by the Moors, and Italy by the Lombards. The portrait given of Justinian is therefore not completely favourable, unlike the accounts of Belisarius and Totila.

‘The Gothic War, Rome’s Final Conflict in the West’ also contains a number of appendices describing the structure of the opposing armies. One source used to do this is the Notitia Dignitatum, which contained a list of all military units in the empire. It therefore highlights the changes in Roman military set-up between the third and sixth centuries. Furthermore, Jacobsen writes about the different types of troops available, as well as logistics, recruitment and other practical factors. The appendix also looks at the Goths, it covers matters such their infantry and cavalry, while also reinstating the polyethnic nature of their army. It combined people, following the defeat of Odoacer, who were part of the Western Roman army as well Rugians, Sueves and Scirians, among others. Jacobsen therefore repeatedly shows that the war was not simply between Goths and Romans surrounding Italy, but rather that there were deserters on both sides, as well as allies from other ‘barbarian’ peoples in the two armies. Overall, the appendices are a welcome addition to the book, as Jacobsen somewhat forfeits analysis of military tactics, throughout the main narrative. The appendices successfully fill in this gap. Finally, a chronology of events is provided towards the end, it offers a helpful reminder of some of the important dates in the war.

To conclude, Jacobsen’s ‘The Gothic War, Rome’s Final Conflict in The West’ offers a good account of the series of military events it describes. Narrative is often used in favour of analysis, but the appendices help to counterbalance this. The author also makes some nuanced points regarding Gothic ethnicity and its relation to the war. Meanwhile, its approach to certain personas, like Belisarius and Justinian, is interesting and thought-provoking. The reminder to place the Gothic War in the context of the world of Late Antiquity is also well made. Therefore, to summarise, if one is looking for a text that describes the war in-depth then Jacobsen’s book is a good option.