Dark Ages - The Plague of Justinian

By the middle of the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian had spread his Byzantine Empire around the rim of the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, laying the groundwork for what he hoped would be a long-lived dynasty.

His dreams were shattered when disease-bearing mice from lower Egypt reached the harbor town of Pelusium in AD 540. From there, the devastating disease spread to Alexandria and, by ship, to Constantinople, Justinian's capital, before surging throughout his empire.

By the time Justinian's plague had run its course in AD 590, it had killed as many as 100 million people -- half the population of Europe -- brought trade to a near halt, destroyed an empire and, perhaps, brought on the Dark Ages.
Most historians consider the reign of Justinian (527-565) as marking a significant break with the Roman past. This is difficult to support—Justinian not only considered himself the emperor of all of Rome, including the territories occupied by the Goths, but also spoke Latin as his primary language. After the fall of Rome, the Byzantine emperors never gave over the idea of reconquering Rome. They did, however, take a lesson from the fall of Rome and all throughout the fifth century, the Byzantine emperors wrought a series of administrative and financial reforms. They produced the single most extensive corpus of Roman law in 425 and reformed taxation dramatically. Most importantly, however, they did not entrust their military to German generals—this had been the downfall of the Latin portion of the empire. They could not, however, maintain a powerful military—the loss of territory in the west had dramatically shrunk their financial resources. Justinian was perhaps the last emperor that seriously entertained notions of reconquering the west—the institution of the western emperor fell permanently vacant in 476 and the Byzantine emperors claimed as theirs. His expeditions against Italy, however, failed. Although he conquered North Africa and retook Italy from the Ostrogoths, this Gothic War drained the Byzantine Empire of much-needed resources. Most importantly, the Gothic War devestated Italy economically. The economic destruction of Italy was so total that it destroyed Italian urban culture for centuries. The great cities of Rome and her allies would be abandoned as Italy would fall into a long period of backwardness. The impoverishment of Italy and the drain on Byzantium made it impossible for the Byzantines to hold Italy—only three years after the death of Justinian, the Italian territories fell into the hands of another Germanic tribe, the "Long Beards," or Langobardi (Lombards).

Category:

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• roman
• empire
• byzantine
• justinian
• rome
• dark
• ages
• the
• plague
• germs
• guns
• steel
• death
• europe
• yt:stretch=16:9

[CreateJade15]

@MiracleKD18 Dude i know...but we also have our own "plague" like MRSA, but soon, it will be cured.

[Lhein33]

@NicholasGeschke Justinian acted like a true Roman Emperor. Since the Western Roman empire had fallen 50 years ago, the only Roman empire left was the Eastern. Justinian, according to the ideology of the state, had the right to reclaim the territories the Empire had lost. The same ideology existed for a lot of centuries afterwards, even if the empire had a lost of its power. Nikephoros Phokas imprisoned Liutprand for calling Otto II "emperor" in front of him.

[NicholasGeschke]

I actually look highly upon Justinian's memory. His reign brought at least some measure of order and stability to a Europe that had been in a terrible state. While some may criticise his campaigns, others consider his efforts to reunite the two empires to have hastened the decline, I actually think that Justinian's rule prolonged the memory of Rome.

Were it not for the strike of the Bubonic plague, future peoples would probably have looked more kindly on him.

[koenan1]

"As the pestilence reached a FEVER pitch..." seriously?

[LVCIVSDEI]

@lilvjdude

Its Theodora. :)

[lilvjdude]

Damn, if Fedora wasn't such a whore than none of that would have happened...

[MiracleKD18]

Damn... thank god I didn't live in those times-