Did the Antonine Plague cause the First Fall of Rome?
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- Опубликовано: 11 июн 2024
- Between 165 and about 180, the Roman Empire, which had stood so tall and so strong for over a century, swayed under the weight of the Antonine Plague. Modern research has centered on smallpox as a likely cause of the plague, and emphasizes that it was a new type of threat to settled, agricultural societies. The impact of the plague has been heavily debated by historians for over three hundred years, with much of the recent discussion arguing that it was indeed devastating. So devastating, in fact, that the historian Walter Scheidel labels this period the "First Fall of Rome"
SOURCES:
The Fate of Rome, Harper
Escape from Rome, Scheidel
The Antonines, Grant
A brief note to my Patreon team. Firstly, thank you for supporting the channel, I cannot express how much that means to me, it’s because of you guys that I was able to buy the books which went into the research for this video
Secondly, I don’t feel it’s right to charge you guys this month for the video I did on roman health a few days ago, as the audio is…not great. So this one will be used in lieu of that. I have also ordered two new microphones which I’m extremely excited for so I’m hoping I have no recurring problems from here on out
You didn't take the border up to the Antonine wall ?
Oooh, Ebola cliff hanger. Now this is the kind of stuff that makes me eager for follow ups. Great video as always, love the variety of arguments and figures you cite that really outline the range of possibilities as well as the most likely middle path.
So the Justinian plague was in fact Ebola?
What a spoiler
Never heard the crisis described as the "first fall" so explicitly. It's a very interesting and complex way of putting things. I know you've talked about similar things before, but do you have any plans to make a video on the historiography of considering the 3rd century crisis as a fall of Rome?
Yeah I’m going to. I’m actually trying to get through a textbook on the third century at the moment to help prep for that
@@TheFallofRome Nice! Looking forward to that then. What's the textbook, if you don't mind me asking?
@@patrickbrown859 the Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine
It's nice to see more channels using the presentation style from Military History Visualised, it's a great way to separate the information into bite-sized chunks.
Nothing is more historically accurate and unbiased, in my opinion, than tax records. You know it's gotta be REAL bad if the state concedes to take less of your money.
The population of Rome estimates should be a video in itself. ( I'm definitely in the 100 million range. There were just way less people and development for millennia to come. )
ya mean the city or the entire empire? the city had about 1 million inhabitants while the empire had about 40 million at its peak. i dunno where the 100 mil figure is pointing at
@@AsiandOOd yeah definitely the entire empire. But almost every former Roman empire region had a decrease in development for a long time to come.
@@8bitorgy hold on i dont get it. ur saying rome had 100 million people before the antonine plague?
@@AsiandOOd I think there's a "ceiling" that ancient civilizations dealt with before modernized inoculations
@@8bitorgy the chinese were able to reach 400 million by the end of the qing dynasty. they had plagues and such for sure, but the abundance of food in the form of rice allowed the population to outpace the wheat based europeans by a long shot. every time china suffered through massive famines and wars, its population has always came back higher than before.
In ancient times, before the invention of print, there was another problerm, when a master, and a LOT of pupils died, logically a lot of knowledge could end lost. Surely the Antonine Plague killed a lot of skilled artisans, public servants and others that couldn't be so easy replaced.
Could bodies be discovered that still contain pathogens that could be used to identify the cause of this and other plagues from the Roman era?
Yes absolutely. The study of past infectious diseases is just getting started. But In some cases it’s going to be difficult because Romans often cremated their dead until the conversion to Christianity
Great video as usual.
It would be interesting to see a video about the effects of the Black Death on Yuan China, which is a fairly unknown topic with scant information at least online.
Perhaps you have access to higher quality and quantity information
As far as I know Yuan China is the only possible example of an empire falling due to plague
hes an expert on rome why would he detail China...
Oh that’s a good idea, I’ll have to add that to the list. I don’t know very much about the black death in China, but as far as I’m aware we don’t actually have that much information on it. I don’t remember where I read that but I recall coming across that tidbit about a year or two ago
Maybe more empires fell but so fast and so thorough we have no idea they existed, or how they broke down
Is it possible to research the health of general populace over the period of Roman history? Which phase of Roman history is healthier? And perhaps pinpoint which regions had "physiologically stronger" populations in ancient civilisations. Were healthy people generally found in rural areas?
there are several contemporary writings on this that i cant quite remember the source. one said that the northern peoples had strength and courage that made perfect warriors, while people in the south had cunning and shrewdness that created civilization. rome had both. generals usually preferred people from the rural areas as they were used to hardship and exercised frequently. and looking at the age of people who survived past childhood, i can assume that people in ancient rome were definitely fit, generally healthy (not a lot of pollution and no obesity). they also made significant strides in dental health as well. if i were to rank the health of romans by period, late republican to the late principate period were the best due to plenty of food and advancements in civilization that maintained a healthy population.
@@AsiandOOd just my two cents here: there were also loads of diseases that did not kill but merely incapacitate the victim, sometimes even staying present itself. Many lung diseases can damage/scar the lungs, parasites can take residence in liver or bowels and malaria will sap a person's strength
On one hand, people from rural areas were less likely to have been ravaged by these city swelling diseases, on the other hand, they might die quickly in an army because now they suddenly came into contact with diseases their immune system knew nothing about
Brilliant delivery.
3:12 I'm so civilized that I had to actually remind myself that "germs" means microbes and not G*rmans.
So the Antonine Plague was the POX ROMANA ???
Ba-dum TSS
Yet another benefit of me loving history is it makes it hard to actually complain about stuff. My problems are mundane compared to any other period I read on
Fascinating. Thanks bro.
Very good video and great animations.
Also wouldn't the Plague of Athens be the first recorded plague in settled societies?
With everything going on in the world I tried to avoid using the terms, because I don’t want to get flagged by RUclips, but the short answer is no. Disease outbreaks have existed since we started farming but those, and it includes Athens, are epidemics. The Antonine Plague appears to have been the first trans regional outbreak of anything that we know about, so, the first pandemic
Hi, just discovered your channel and I like your content. However, do you plan to finish the "Augustan Revolution" series soon?
Yes I do
@@TheFallofRome Great, I'll be on the lookout for that!
Fascinating stuff!
3:09
the Pox vs the Pax
Are there any new findings, that smallpox is only 2000-4000 years old? I thought the consensus was about 12000?
I was also wondering, too, according to Wikipedia, "The history of smallpox extends into pre-history, with the disease probably emerging in human populations about 10,000 BC.[1] The earliest credible evidence of smallpox is found in the Egyptian mummies of people who died some 3,000 years ago." The Britannica states, "Prior to that discovery, the disease had been thought by some scholars to have arisen among settled agricultural populations in Mesopotamia as early as the 5th millennium BCE and in the Nile River valley in the 3rd millennium BCE, though evidence for those events was lacking." It seems we are unsure at present.
@@WagesOfDestruction Yes, I read that too. In the german Wikipedia, of course :D. But still.
The ebola cliff hanger receives Two 👍 up! Lol
And feels like playing Original Rome Total War 1 now...
I am curious if any documentable evidence
survives of the Antonine outside the red areas of the shown map of the Roman Empire. If any outlying areas said anything of it around the same time? Very interesting
that, was awesome. Why can’t more youtuber history creators be like you, goshdurnit?! haha there are there are. Though not as many as I’d prefer, in theory.
Great video! You would be helped in your popularity if you added music in the background to your lectures. Something calming, soothing and appropriate to the time, like Age of Mythology music etc.
This would make the work more listenable, less anxiety inducing and relaxing
Do you really mean ebola? I can find no reference for this. Bubonic sound similar (they both have a "b")
Ebola is the closest match we have for the pathology of the plague of cyprian. A type of flu was thought to be the culprit at one point but that’s been ruled oht
@@TheFallofRome Probably not Ebola itself in that case, but rather a member of the broader group Ebola is also a part of.
If it originated in Africa near Egypt, I expect research should turn to Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea soon.
Ebola? That's quite the cliff hanger.
I had to play that twice to make sure I heard it correctly E-bola? Really?
Did this presenter do videos on Simple History?
Simple History does masterful presentation, but I have issues with some of their content.
Great Cliffhanger!
This comment is here to, as Captain Picard would say, engage.
The cause of Antonine Plague was VG
Does this really have to be so boring visually?
Cause? No, exacerbate? Certainly.
06:29 just like san Francisco and all those liberal cities.
Kek