Rejecting Catastrophe: The Case of the Justinianic Plague*

Abstract

Recent research has increasingly argued that the Justinianic Plague was an unparallelled demographic catastrophe which killed half the population of the Mediterranean world and led to the end of Antiquity. This article re-examines the evidence and reconsiders whether this interpretation is justified. It builds upon an array of interdisciplinary research that includes literary and non-literary primary sources, archaeological excavations, DNA research, disaster studies and resilience frameworks. Each type of primary source material is critically reassessed and contextualized in light of current research. By drawing upon this interdisciplinary foundation, the article demonstrates that the evidence for the catastrophic maximalist interpretation of plague is weak, ambiguous and should be rejected. The article also makes use of the Third Pandemic as a comparative case study, and considers how the metanarratives of plague in contemporary society influence research on the subject. It concludes that the Justinianic Plague had an overall limited effect on late antique society. Although on some occasions the plague might have caused high mortality in specific places, leaving strong impressions on contemporaries, it neither caused widespread demographic decline nor kept Mediterranean populations low. Any direct mid- or long-term effects of plague were minor at most.

The rise and fall of viticulture in the Late Antique Negev Highlands reconstructed from archaeobotanical and ceramic data

“…Indeed, the most ardent plague minimalists concede that "the plague was geographically vast and caused high mortality in some cases. On a number of occasions, it had a devastating short-term effect" (108). Similarly, in the most comprehensive critical review of the evidence for, and effects of, Justinianic plague, the authors accept that "[s]ome regions may have suffered higher mortality at certain times-such as Constantinople during the first outbreak" (100).…”

Fates of Romes

“…A quantitative approach to literary sources, papyrological, epigraphic and numismatic evidence, as well as land occupation (on the basis of pollen analysis), shows no trace of collapse after 541 C.E. 24 The existence of multiple burials from late antique British and Bavarian cemeteries is not proof of hasty burial in an epidemic context: it was simply a form of cultural practice established well before the outbreak of the plague. The existence of a plague epidemic is made certain by DNA analyses from England, France, Germany and Spain.…”

Modeling the Justinianic Plague: Comparing hypothesized transmission routes

“…that plague killed half the empire's population, although the relevant statement is often presented without context [4,12,54]. Regardless, for the purposes of this paper we estimated the mortality of the first outbreak in Constantinople as about half the city's population (i.e.…”

“…This narrative often associates plague with the fall of Rome, the end of Antiquity, and the beginning of the Middle Ages. In contrast, others argue that such estimates of plague mortality are exaggerated [9][10][11][12]. Recent work has pointed to a series of proxy measuresranging from contemporary inscriptions to pollen in lakebed sediments-that show no evidence for a major demographic change in the period [13].…”

“…Although the main assumption in scholarship is that rats and fleas are the primary reservoirs and vectors contributing to spillover in humans, there is very little evidence for enough rats in the premodern Mediterranean to sustain a pandemic (cf. references in [12,20,21]). While pneumonic plague and human ectoparasites (i.e.…”