Publisher Description
The Emperor Justinian reunified Rome’s fractured empire by defeating the Goths and Vandals who had separated Italy, Spain, and North Africa from imperial rule. At his capital in Constantinople, he built the world’s most beautiful building, married its most powerful empress, and wrote its most enduring legal code, seemingly restoring Rome’s fortunes for the next 500 years. Then, in the summer of 542, he encountered a flea. The ensuing outbreak of bubonic plague killed 5,000 people a day in Constantinople and nearly killed Justinian himself.
Weaving together evolutionary microbiology, economics, military strategy, ecology, and ancient and modern medicine, William Rosen offers a sweeping narrative of one of the great hinge moments in history, one that will appeal to readers of John Kelly’s The Great Mortality, John Barry’s The Great Influenza, and Jared Diamond’s Collapse.
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“This is a well written history of the Roman empire, centered in Constantinople, in late antiquity. Justinian is the last competent emperor, and his machinations make the term Byzantine understandable. This emperor rewrote Roman law, reunited the Western empire, using his brilliant general Balisarius, and took a great interest in the most bizarre religious hair splitting of the Aryan and related heresies. The inter-relations with Persia, various barbarians (Huns, Goths, Slavs, Franks etc) and even the Chinese are described in an engaging manner. Shot through this is the plague. The author has a pretty rigorous biological discussion of the bacteria, flea, rat and other hosts showing why the plague is so caprious. The unbelievable devastation caused by the plague sapped the strength of the reformed Roman empire and finished it off, opening the door for the rise of the modern Western state, although that would be many years off.”
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Jrobertus (4 out of 5 stars)
