This article addresses the subject of the first well-attested outbreak of bubonic plague in the history of the Mediterranean world – the so-called ‘Justinianic Plague’ of the sixth century. The African origin of the disease is examined and contextualized, whilst recent revisionist arguments in relation to the scale of the depopulation caused by the plague are responded to with reference to the numismatic, legal, and papyrological sources. The numismatic evidence in particular points to a major crisis in imperial finances for which large-scale depopulation would be the most likely cause. The legal and papyrological sources record how both landowners and the imperial authorities responded to this situation.
Egypt and the political economy of empire egypt within empireThe centrality of Egypt to the wider political economy of the Eastern Roman Empire in the early sixth century cannot be overstated. 1 On one level, the significance of the region can be gauged in straightforwardly demographic terms. The cultural and administrative focal point of Egypt in late antiquity was the city of Alexandria, which, with Constantinople and Antioch, was one of the great metropoleis of the eastern Mediterranean, with a population of perhaps some 200,000-300,000. 2 The lands of the Nile Valley beyond Alexandria may have supported a further five million souls, up to one third of whom, it has been estimated, may have lived in urban centres, a density of population which was not to be seen again in the Mediterranean world until the early modern period. 3 While such figures can never be anything more than rough estimates, to suggest that perhaps one-quarter of the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire in about 500 lived in Egypt would not be wildly misleading. 4 The demographic contribution of Egypt to the Eastern Roman Empire was as nothing, however, in comparison to its economic significance. Egypt was the economic powerhouse of the late antique Mediterranean. 5 On a recent analysis, it has been postulated that the 'gross provincial product' of
This viewpoint is meant as a contribution to debate over the nature and significance of the ‘Justinianic Plague’, which struck Western Eurasia between the sixth and eighth centuries Ce, and the methodological challenges posed by attempting to reconcile historical evidence with that derived from the realm of the Natural Sciences. In recent years, major advances have been made in our genetic understanding of the Justinianic Plague. Yet growing scientific interest in the disease has coincided with a concerted effort amongst some historians to seek to downplay its historical importance. This article surveys our current state of historical and scientific understanding with respect to the sixth-century pandemic, responds to the recent attempts to argue that the disease had only a minimal impact on the societies that it struck, and considers how historians should respond to the burgeoning scientific evidence in order to take study of the plague forward. For co-operation between geneticists, environmental scientists, archaeologists and historians, it argues, offers the chance to transform our understanding of how, when and where the plague spread and to assess its impact across the Afro-Eurasian world as a whole, and not just on the Mediterranean, for which we have our best written sources.
The reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527–65) stands out in late Roman and medieval history. Justinian re-conquered far-flung territories from the barbarians, overhauled the Empire's administrative framework and codified for posterity the inherited tradition of Roman law. This work represents a modern study in English of the social and economic history of the Eastern Roman Empire in the reign of the Emperor Justinian. Drawing upon papyrological, numismatic, legal, literary and archaeological evidence, the study seeks to reconstruct the emergent nature of relations between landowners and peasants, and aristocrats and emperors in the late antique Eastern Empire. It provides a social and economic context in which to situate the Emperor Justinian's mid-sixth-century reform programme, and questions the implications of the Eastern Empire's pattern of social and economic development under Justinian for its subsequent, post-Justinianic history.
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