Thursday, March 19, 2020

'The Inseparable Symptom of the Plague'

“Contagion is the inseparable symptom of the plague; which, by mutual respiration, is transfused from the infected persons to the lungs and stomach of those who approach them.”

Gibbon describes the Justinian plague of the sixth century, the first documented pandemic in history. It probably started in Egypt or Ethiopia, around 541, and spread to central and south Asia, North Africa and Arabia, and Europe as far north as Denmark and west to Ireland. Eight centuries later the same bacterium, Yersinia pestis, was responsible for the Black Death (1347–1351).

Gibbon’s principal source is the Byzantine historian Procopius, who is not always reliable. He reported that the plague killed as many as 10,000 people a day in Constantinople. Modern historians place the total closer to half that number. The bubonic plague made recurrent appearances throughout the Mediterranean for the next two centuries. Gibbon reports a stubborn residue of ignorance, fear and bluster that echoes our own recent experience:

“While philosophers believe and tremble, it is singular, that the existence of a real danger should have been denied by a people most prone to vain and imaginary terrors. Yet the fellow-citizens of Procopius were satisfied, by some short and partial experience, that the infection could not be gained by the closest conversation: and this persuasion might support the assiduity of friends or physicians in the care of the sick, whom inhuman prudence would have condemned to solitude and despair. But the fatal security, like the predestination of the Turks, must have aided the progress of the contagion; and those salutary precautions to which Europe is indebted for her safety, were unknown to the government of Justinian.”

The Emperor Justinian imposed no restrictions on travel among the Roman provinces. Trade and war spread the plague, Gibbon reports, “and the pestilential odor which lurks for years in a bale of cotton was imported, by the abuse of trade, into the most distant regions.” The true number of deaths will never be known:

“The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine, afflicted the subjects of Justinian; and his reign is disgraced by the visible decrease of the human species, which has never been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe.”

[All quotations are from Chap. XLIII of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.]

4 comments:

rgfrim said...

Armed by the volumes of empty time the lockdown affords us ( my wife and I are both in the “red zone”) I turned to my unread Dickens. “ Why, there’s ‘Little Dorrit’ “, I observed, “ beckoning to me from the shelf, not so little at 897 pages.” I took it down and must report that the first chapter presents two characters quarantined in Marseilles as a precaution against plague. Separately, Dickens of all novelists knows how to kick off a narrative. The opening sentence of “Little Dorrit” reads: “Thirty years about, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.” [actual punctuation]

Donald B said...

I have long enjoyed reading your blog; and a few weeks ago, inspired by your example, I began my own. Coincidentally, I have been rereading Gibbon lately and so was happy to see this post about him. He is one of my favorite authors. One theme to your blog is the pleasure of rereading, and I can attest that I get more out of Gibbon's immortal work each time I dip into it. Thanks!

Faze said...

I'm doing "Dombey and Son". What a craftsman! Brilliant characterizations, bold metaphors, reportorial detail. A well-balanced plot that creaks slowly to life like "Howl's Moving Castle", and then sweeps all before it.

rgfrim said...

CORRECTION: The sentence quoted in my comment should read “ Thirty years AGO, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.” Sorry: I got burned by spellcheck