Is there any way the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire could've prevented or contained the devastating spread of the plague of Justinian? Or at least did something to recover?
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Could The Byzantine Empire have contained or somehow prevented the spread of the plague of Justinian which lead to its downfall??
- Thread starter Angel Grace
- Start date
No.
They had never seen or heard of bubonic plague before. They had no idea what caused it or how it spread. Starting with the fact that they had no idea what a bacterium was.
Quarantine was the only effective measure then, and that would be clearly impossible once the plague reached the capital.
They had never seen or heard of bubonic plague before. They had no idea what caused it or how it spread. Starting with the fact that they had no idea what a bacterium was.
Quarantine was the only effective measure then, and that would be clearly impossible once the plague reached the capital.
there is no way in hell could the Romans take steps to prevent or stop the plague, short of a ASB BUT as for the recovery, may be Justinian does not go on a massive expansion trying to re united the west, fight the Sassanids much more judiciously and concentrate on strengthening the defenses spending on local infrastructure, relief measures post plague, would probably help is recovery in the very long run, possibly prevent Arab conquest of Egypt and the Levant, all i see though is pain for about 30 to 40 years
I don't see how they can actually recover that quickly because the biggest problem is that a large number of people died and the tax base has shrunk accordingly. With an almost entirely agricultural economy output really just is a function of how many people you have to commit to growing food. The only thing that can actually create a recovery is time passing and people having children. Also didn't the plague hit after Justinian was already fighting in the west for many years and the Persians attacked while the plague was ongoing so not exactly something that can be avoided.
Did i say quickly? Read the whole post, i was talking a period of 30 to 40 years at least and also written off any prospects of recovery for that time period.
A problem that was exasperated by declining tax revenue as you pointed out, as far as i remember the plague caused a famine that actually killed again a lot of people and that exasperated second and third wave of the plague since the people were malnourished.
Maybe instead of spending money on war, the Romans during the shortage of grains could source grains elsewhere perhaps from Crimea or somewhere since Egypt was well dying.
And i don't have to explain this, since we had lockdowns, but not having wars Is a great way of slowing down the plague because where there is war, you have movement of people, primary and secondary. So with less people moving around spread can be greatly limited.
So from epidemiologylical point of view my argument makes good sense not that in preventing but in reducing its spread and thus helping in recovery
It wasn't effective though as the disease still ripped through the Empire and into the Western world despite ports like Alexandria and Constantinople being closed down. People panicked and some saw it as a punishment from God. The plague hadn't really disappeared until the 8th century. The Romans couldn't really take effective measures as they had no idea what bacteria was, or how the disease spread.
30 to 40 years is quickly though. That is only 1 to 2 generations at most which is nowhere near enough to repopulate after the devastation of a plague on this scale it would take multiple centuries to get back to that level. And they did import grain already but that could really only support places that have the infrastructure in place to take advantage which really only means Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and other cities with access to large scale water borne transport anywhere else really can't move grain in sufficient amounts to replace local production.
War may move people around but this ignores the fact that as the Empire had an administration that did send bureaucrats and administrators around the Empire so people are going to move no matter what. There is also significant trade between all of the powers in the region and internal trade between various regions of both the Sassanids and Romans. It not like the grain can be put onto self driving trucks to get around.
The plague would only really recede once it burns itself out.
I strongly disagree with this, the number of bureaucrats being transferred around the country or trade cannot be compared to the displacement of people during the war. The wars between Rome and sassanid Iran was devastating on local population, heck Khosraw anushirvan took a lot of the population of Antioch into captivity into Iran where he he built another city called Khosraw's better Antioch
Weh Antiok Khosrow - Wikipedia
You simply can't compare the population displacement cause by transfer of bureaucrats to that of displacement caused by wars.
As for trade well.... you'll have large trade centre being effected yes true but at this point you're just moving goal post? I never said the plague can be prevented i said the impact of the plague can be reduced by a lot if wars and the displacement of people that it caused is prevented.
Ok but how does this invalidate my argument that population displacement caused by war made the plague a thousand times worse. Bubonic plague arrived in Egypt probably from the east by trade ship and spread to prominent trade centre of the empire. Even during our lockdown goods moved, some people moved with those goods cause as you said self driving vehicles are reliable even now and they mostly did carry covid yes but what reduced the spread? Other people remained inside.
That's why i said, they can't import grains from Egypt because it was dying of plague so they can source it from other places, by the 7th century they were already importing grains from the Rus and on the cities of the Black sea, grain from Kievan Rus replaced grain from other parts of the empire so it's not like Crimea lacked infrastructure to export grain. The most important item of export of the rus was slave and grain.
Others don't have to, because they're supporting a smaller population now? The cities that you named depended primarily on imported grain because they had unusually large population for its time and since Egypt could not produce surplus those cities starved and disease spread even more.
Read again, i had written off 30 to 40 years , i didn't say it needed so many numbers of years to recover. I said 30-,40 years atleast of economic depression. It's only after that time did i say recovery can begin.