 The plague had continued through the day and the night to present the Empire with a terrible plight. The Queen and the General were at each other's throat while the Kometos Emperor for weeks had not spoke. The Persians and gods continued to fight while the Byzantine chances seemed ever so slight, but Justinian's will was strong as an oak and against all odds the Emperor awoke. Hi there viewer. If you enjoy my content, please consider liking the video and subscribing to help the channel grow. Enjoy. Fatigued. Exhausted. Dabilitated. Listless. These are a few of the words that described those who survived the plague. Even after recovery, the victims who had once been touched by the plague would continue to experience fatigue, the energy of their youth permanently sapped. Many would have difficulties speaking, their vocal cords damaged by the plague. Yet in spite of the plague's potency, in spite of all the potential complications and its horrific destruction of the body from the inside, it would not claim Justinian. When he awoke, he was older, now approaching his 60s. It was a miracle he had survived the plague at all. The Emperor's hair had grayed, his face had become more wrinkled. Yet in spite of his more elderly appearance, the Emperor had not lost a step. He was still as energetic as ever, his attention to detail never faltering and he continued to engage in the same behaviors of staying up all night contemplating on religious doctrine. Behaviors which perhaps in the minds of the day's conspiracy theorists lent some credence to the suspicions that Justinian was not actually human, but demon. But before we get too far, let's take a moment to remind ourselves of what was going on when Justinian awoke. 1. The deadliest plague yet to be seen had a stranglehold over the entire empire. 2. The immediate death caused by the plague contributed to large-scale food shortages across the empire. 3. The immediate death caused by the plague led to a dramatic decline in economic activity with the living barely leaving their homes. 4. The drastic economic collapse destroyed the empire's ability to collect taxes and the empire's treasury was virtually depleted. 5. The empire was having difficulty paying its troops. 6. The troops the empire couldn't pay were surrounded by enemies. 7. The enemies surrounding the troops were Castro who was costing the empire thousands with his pillaging and Totila who was successfully retaking Italy and winning its people. 8. Justinian did not trust his best general to handle any of the aforementioned military issues. And 9. The empire's best general and emperors had feuded and caused major discord within the government. Okay you got all that? Wow I think we can all agree it's really nice to not be in charge of all that. Justinian however did not agree and immediately set out to solve the heaping mess of problems that laid at his feet. To be quite frank there simply wasn't much Justinian could do to stop the plague or any of its immediate consequences but the empire's financial situation needed to get under control yesterday. Doing so would at least help resolve some of the other issues. Before the plague the tax reforms of John the Cappadocian had brought an immense wealth to the government but it also gave Justinian the liberty to spend spend spend which he did not hesitate to do. He had become engaged in a number of wars which required thousands of expensive troops to fight. Many of these troops were now dead and needed to be replaced. This would not come cheap especially given Justinian was already scraping the bottom of the barrel and there were few living men left to actually join the military. In the wars he had taken territory that was not currently turning a profit and needed to be sustained by the rest of the empire as they too were being consumed by plague and famine. He had also spent lavishly in the rebuilding of Constantinople after the Nica riots most notably with the construction of the Agia Sophia a building which still stands today as a landmark in Istanbul and a monument which was as expensive as it was massive in scale. Justinian knew he needed to tighten his belt and that the empire needed to be pulled up by its bootstraps. To begin, Justinian took a hard look at the empire's budget. Spending was out of control and they barely had enough to keep the lights on. He drastically reduced spending on civil infrastructure such as building projects, road maintenance and the civil post and courier service that had gone on in one way or another since the days of Caesar Augustus. These are important projects for sure but we just can't afford to keep them going. Next on the chopping block was the largest expense of all, the military. Even since before the partition of Rome the empire had funded local militias on the frontiers which in the case of an invasion would garrison nearby fortifications and try to slow down or hold off the enemy until a larger Roman field army could arrive. They were a pretty important part of Roman military history but their days as an effective fighting force were long gone. Now they could barely fend off a roaming band of marauding huns let alone hold against a massive Persian field army. Justinian took one look at them and decided nope he was done paying for them. It was far more important to pay the field armies, you know, the ones that were actually doing the fighting against the persians and gods. Still this was easier said than done and even with all the fiscal belt tightening, Justinian had trouble adequately paying his forces. As many people throughout history can attest to, not paying huge groups of guys with spears and swords is a bad, bad idea. Justinian also knew this but there really wasn't much that could be done about it right now. He paid the troops when he could and they seemed to be okay with this for the time being and hopefully soon he could make up for it. To go along with the austerity measures already taken, Justinian also did the other thing governments do when they need to balance their budget. Can any of you guess it? Yep, you got it. He raised taxes. Now the thing about taxation during this time is it was not an individual burden, it was a community burden. Justinian's tax collectors with tax communities, namely villages, based on an assessment of the value of their land, value in this case meaning agricultural productivity, they would then tax the village as a whole. This means if 40% of the village suddenly died of, say, a devastating plague, the other 60% would still be responsible for coughing up the entire tax. There were other taxes too but the lion's share of the imperial tax revenue came from this land tax. So Justinian not only continued to demand the same taxes as before the plague but ensured not a single couch cushion penny would remain uncollected as he bolstered the number of collectors under the ruthless leadership of his newest council member, Peter Burismis, who made sure everyone paid a little more than their due and didn't want to hear any excuses about plagues or famines. Peter Burismis also declared that they were done lugging around the Italian freeloaders and it was time for them to pull their weight. So tax collectors were sent to the holdings still under their control to extract everything they could from the beleaguered Italians. In addition to experiencing years of hardship and the devastation of war, the Italians were now being thrashed by the plague and famine that followed. With the tax crackdowns giving them even more reason to resent Justinian, the remaining populace of Italy became further estranged from the Roman identity that was supposed to unite them with the Byzantines. Yet as the tax collectors did their work, the financial issues began to improve. Now let's be real, this was an incredibly harsh taxation policy to enact on communities across the empire that had already endured unimaginable suffering. Oftentimes, villages whose populations were a fraction of what they once were had no way of meeting these quotas and many of their problems were magnified as a result of this. There was now even less money to go around for essentials like food, but as the Benjamin Franklin quote goes, the only certainties in life are death and taxes, and here that was really put on display. But I digress, Justinian's fiscal reforms for better or for worse put the empire on significantly better financial footing than it had been before, even if they ruffled a lot of feathers in the process. In the war against the Byzantines, everything seemed to be breaking Castro's way. Belisarius, who is now recalled, had been months late allowing Castro to thoroughly loot Byzantine Syria. The gods in Italy were thoroughly kicking the Byzantines' butts and the plague was devastating the empire and a wreaking havoc on the Byzantine military. Belisarius, before being recalled and almost arrested by Theodora, had been a genuine threat to Castro. He outmaneuvered Castro on multiple occasions stopping his raids and had even threatened the Persian capital of Tessiphon at one point. He was now gone and his military talent would most certainly be missed. Now, there didn't seem to be much standing in Castro's way. Perhaps he would start raiding Anatolia as well, maybe even marching all the way to Chalcedon, where he could view the great Theodosian walls of Constantinople from across the Bosporus. There was just one problem with this. Castro was terrified of catching the plague. Because of the hostilities between the two nations, trade and commerce between Persia and Byzantium was minimal. As such, the plague had a far more difficult time really crossing the border. For now, the Persians were safe. But just because there was no trade, does not mean Castro had no contact with anyone across the border and he was well aware of what was happening in Constantinople. So when I say he was terrified, I mean terrified. So much so that during one of Castro's raids, when the Byzantine sent diplomats to negotiate, Castro made a hasty and sudden retreat back to Persia when one of the Byzantine diplomats fell ill. No deal was made, no tribute in hand, Castro just packed his bags and left. Now that's not to say Castro was doing nothing. He made sure to spend as little time as possible in Byzantine territory. But his occasional raids were costly and with this time he had entered the kingdom of Lasica, who if you remember were unhappy with Byzantine rule, and he set them up as a client state of Persia. Now he was planning an invasion of Byzantine Armenia, it all seemed to be going his way. Suddenly, in the midst of drying up these plans, the flaps of Castro's tent were thrown open. With a palpable tension in the air, a man rushed in carrying an urgent message for the emperor. As the message was read aloud to Castro, his cheeks flushed with anger and frustration. In the south, one of Castro's sons had risen arms in rebellion. He meant to take the throne, Armenia would have to wait. As Castro withdrew his army to deal with his son, the Byzantines on the other side couldn't believe their eyes. They urgently informed Justinian, who without hesitation ordered all of his forces into Persian Armenia. This was it, Justinian's big opportunity to turn the tides in this war had arrived. With these orders, the Byzantine generals had begun their preparations. There was just one problem with all this. After Belisarius nearly took the Gothic crown while he was in Italy, a paranoia snuck its way into Justinian, a paranoia that he could lose everything to an ambitious general. As such, Justinian was wary of Belisarius and was hesitant to give him control of a large army. But this paranoia wasn't just limited to Belisarius. The event in Italy had made Justinian distrustful towards all his generals, and he refused to give any of them control of large armies either. As a result, the invasion of Persian Armenia had no real chain of command, and after the generals couldn't agree on what to do, a couple of them just rushed their armies in with the rest following soon after. The disorganized, uncoordinated mess was swiftly beat back by a tiny Persian force, and the Byzantine hopes of taking purse Armenia were crushed. In the south, after dealing with his upstart, rebel son, and after the Byzantine's pathetic failure in Armenia, Kostro felt emboldened with power and opportunity. He decided to launch another invasion into Syria as soon as he could. When the time came, Kostro marched his army across the border to the most prominent city in the region, Edessa. He set his army up outside the city's powerful walls, trapping the inhabitants. But the city was tough, its garrison tenacious. They would meet Kostro's fire with fire of their own, sallying out to disrupt Kostro's troops and make their lives miserable, and even sometimes tunneling underground to set fire to the Persian equipment. Eventually, Kostro assaulted the city. Tense fighting had erupted all across the walls, and it was close. For a while, it was looking bad for the Byzantines, that the Persians might win and be free to march across Syria for a second time. But eventually, a horn signalling retreat. The Byzantines watched as the Persians returned to their camps. It was over. They had held out. Kostro's assault had been defeated. Having tasted defeat, the Shah knew it was about time to throw in the towel. He was able to secure some tribute from Edessa before he met with Byzantine diplomats to discuss an armistice. The diplomats agreed to meet with him, and a short time later, a truce had been signed between the two nations. Relations more or less returned to their previous state, with fighting continuing between the Arabic and Caucasian client states, but the two great powers were not directly engaging with each other. With the truce, and with some semblance of peace, Kostro's army set out to return to Persia. As they crossed deserts and fields, stopping in towns and cities along the way as they traveled, with the comfortable sense of peace that came with the truce, the enemy lurked behind them, slowly creeping in on the unsuspecting Persians. Soon, the comfortable feeling of peace would turn to terror. As the troops dispersed visiting their homes all across the land, they invited the terror with them. While they had been insulated for some time, there was no stopping it now, and the pestilence was knocking at the door, here to collect its dues. Just as helpless as the Byzantines, the plague reached the same unholy havoc on the Persians that it had in Constantinople. On next week's episode, join us as we catch up with Tatyla. What was he up to all this time? How has the war been faring in the West? What was Justinian's plan to reconquer Italy? To find out, tune in next week to Contagions. Be sure to subscribe to stay tuned and like the video to help the channel grow. Over on Patreon, your host Sean Sharp will be regularly posting content that delves deeper into some of the subjects we would like to explore further, but don't have time for, on the YouTube channel. Go check it out and become a patron for more content and to support the channel. That's it for us today, we'll catch you next time viewer.