Throughout history, epidemics and pandemics of plague and other diseases have caused widespread panic and social disorder even, in some instances, when the people of one region were aware of a pervasive infection elsewhere. In the case of the Plague of Justinian (541-542 CE and after), for example, the people of Constantinople were aware of plague in the Near East for at least two years before information technology arrived in the city but made no provision because they did not consider it their problem.
Once the affliction struck, the people felt overwhelmed every bit it seems every bit though they believed that what had happened to others elsewhere could not possibly happen to them. Since in that location was no concept of germ theory, no one understood the cause of these outbreaks or how they spread and so they were attributed to supernatural causes and the wrath of the gods or God.
Franciscan Monks Care for Victims of Leprosy
Unknown Writer (Public Domain)
The major epidemics and pandemics of the ancient and Medieval globe for which eyewitness accounts exist are:
Plague of Athens
Antonine Plague
Plague of Cyprian
Plague of Justinian
Roman Plague
Black Death
Of these, the first three may not have been plague merely smallpox or typhus. Even so, the eyewitnesses to the earliest epidemics referred to them every bit plagues – the Roman physician Galen (l. 130-210 CE), in fact, is credited with coining the discussion plague in defining the Antonine outbreak – and so they are normally considered in discussions forth the aforementioned lines as afterward events known to have been plague, especially in terms of people'southward reactions to the crises.
The responses differed piffling over the centuries &, in every instance, similar paradigms emerged.
These responses differed trivial over the centuries from the Plague of Athens (429-426 BCE) through the Blackness Death (1347-1352 CE) and, in every instance, similar paradigms emerged including drawing strength from, or rejecting, religion, distancing or becoming closer to others, and embracing either promise or despair. The ane major deviation betwixt earlier plagues and the Black Death, however, was the aftermath equally there was a shift in the religious and social paradigm following the plague of the 14th century CE which would eventually lead to the Renaissance movement.
Plague of Athens
The primary source for information on the Plague of Athens is the historian Thucydides (l. 460/455-399/398 BCE) who claims the disease entered Athens through the port of Piraeus and spread quickly through the city. Athens was engaged in the 2d Peloponnesian State of war (431-404 BCE) with Sparta at this time and the statesman Pericles (50. 495-429 BCE) had recently ordered a retreat behind the walls of the city, inadvertently providing an ideal environment for the disease to spread.
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As more and more people became infected, hopelessness amidst the populace rose with the death toll. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides writes:
The most terrifying aspect of the whole affliction was the despair which resulted when someone realized that he had the disease: people immediately lost hope, and and then through their attitude of mind were much more likely to allow themselves go and not hold out. ... If people were afraid and unwilling to become about to others, they died in isolation, and many houses lost all their occupants through the lack of anyone to care for them. Those who did go near to others died, especially those with any claim to virtue, who from a sense of award did not spare themselves in going to visit their friends. (Thucydides II.vii.iii-54; Grant, 78)
Plague in an Ancient Urban center
Los Angeles Canton Museum of Art (Public Domain)
Thucydides further reports that many came from the countryside into the city seeking assist only had nowhere to live and and so set up up huts shut together which only encouraged the outbreak to spread farther. Panic, besides as the overwhelming nature of the epidemic, led quickly to a breakdown in social custom and tradition as well as observance of law:
The sanctuaries in which people were camping were filled with corpses…the disaster was overpowering, and, as people did non know what would get of them, they tended to fail the sacred and the secular alike. All the funeral community which had previously been observed were thrown into defoliation and the expressionless were buried in any fashion possible…In other respects, also, the plague marked the beginning of a turn down to greater lawlessness in the city. People…thought information technology reasonable to concentrate on firsthand profit and pleasure, believing that their bodies and their possessions alike would exist brusk-lived. (Thucydides II.vii.3-54; Grant, 79)
The epidemic finally wore itself out – subsequently a death toll of 75,000-100,000 – and afterwards life resumed in Athens, more than or less, as it had earlier. This would be the paradigm of later regions struck past affliction only religion would assume a larger role beginning with the Antonine Plague.
Antonine Plague
The Antonine Plague (165 - c. 180/190 CE) is chronicled primarily by Galen but mentioned by Cassius Dio (fifty. c. 155 - c. 235 CE) and others. It struck the Roman Empire during the co-rule of Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180 CE) and Lucius Verus (r. 161-169 CE) and is and then-called afterwards Aurelius' family name, Antoninus. Conservative estimates place the death toll at 5 million though information technology could accept been equally high as 7-ten million and included both Aurelius and Verus. The disease, probably smallpox, was brought dorsum to Rome by soldiers candidature in the East, specifically those who had been engaged in the siege of the metropolis of Seleucia in the wintertime of 165-166 CE.
Although Galen is the principal source, he focuses about exclusively on the treatment of the illness rather than its effects. Thucydides wrote in order to "give a statement of what [the plague] was like, which people can study in instance it should e'er attack again" (Grant, 77) but Galen, equally a dr., recorded his treatments in the same fashion he did for any other curative measures.
Portrait of 7 Notable Greek Physicians & Botanists
Lewenstein (Public Domain)
There was niggling to be done for many of Galen's patients, even though he continued to care for any who came to him, considering he did not understand how to deal with the affliction itself and could merely apply himself to the symptoms, many of which he lists in particular.
Cassius Dio describes the outbreak as "the greatest plague I know of" and cites ii,000 people dying daily from it (Parkin & Pomeroy, 54). He does non, however, give details of how people reacted to the affliction. Galen's notes are more informative on this equally he recorded his patients' histories which give evidence of the loftier levels of anxiety and depression in the populace. Scholar Susan Mattern comments:
Galen recognized emotional states as factors in illness. Some problems were for Galen purely emotional in origin [while others were exacerbated by one's emotional state]. Anxiety is, along with anger, the emotion Galen mentions most often as a cause of disease. Anger and anxiety could crusade or exacerbate [problems]; along with diet, temperament, lifestyle, and ecology factors, they could contribute to whatsoever number of feverish illnesses; anxiety in particular could trigger a sometimes-fatal syndrome of indisposition, fever, and wasting. (479)
The people, naturally, were experiencing high levels of feet over the plague forth with frustration over how information technology could be stopped – or at least treated – and anger at what was happening. These negative feelings were compounded past the economic effects of the plague as and so many people died that taxation revenues decreased and the authorities struggled to maintain itself while crops went unharvested, decreasing the supply of food while causing an increase in prices for what was bachelor.
Christians cared for the sick & their backbone in the face of widespread affliction & death drew more than converts to Christianity.
Although it is not specifically recorded, acrimony was also directed toward the gods. Roman religion was country-sponsored and operated on the concept of quid pro quo ("this for that"): the people worshiped and sacrificed to the gods and the gods took care of the people; in this case, the gods had clearly failed to live upwardly to their side of the bargain.
Aurelius blamed the Christians for angering the gods past refusing to participate in religious rituals then initiated persecutions against them. Christians responded by caring for the sick and dying, showing no fright of expiry because their organized religion assured them unconditionally of an eternal life beyond their present existence. Their courage in the face up of widespread illness and decease drew more converts to Christianity, weakening the land religion, which in plow weakened the state itself. This epitome would repeat itself during Cyprian's plague.
Plague of Cyprian
The Plague of Cyprian (250-266 CE) is so-called from the Christian cleric who recorded it. St. Cyprian (d. 258 CE), in his work On the Mortality, describes the symptoms of the plague, people'southward reactions to information technology, and encourages Christians non to fear because expiry is only a transition from the present world of sin and hurting to everlasting life in paradise. Cyprian gives the symptoms in item at the same time he encourages his boyfriend Christians to see the disease as an opportunity to live their faith fully:
What greatness of soul it is to fight with the powers of the heed unshaken against and then many attacks of devastation and death, what sublimity to stand erect amidst the ruins of the human race and not to lie prostrate with those who have no promise in God, and to rejoice rather and cover the gift of the occasion, which, while we are firmly expressing our faith, and having endured sufferings, are advancing to Christ by the narrow mode of Christ. (Chapter 14)
The epidemic proved difficult to deal with considering it struck during the period now known equally the Crisis of the Third Century (235-284 CE) when Rome had become destabilized, large territories had broken away to form their own polities, and strong leadership was lacking. During this era, the so-called billet emperors were elevated by the military and deposed but equally apace when it seemed they had not lived up to their initial hope and this contributed to the instability.
Icon of St. Cyprian
Unknown Artist (Public Domain)
Throughout this crisis, the Christian customs again causeless the responsibleness of treat the ill and dying – farther encouraging conversion and back up for the religion – and, further, since so many of the pagan clergy died, it was left to Christian clerics such as Cyprian to translate and write of the outbreak in Christian terms. As with the Antonine Plague, it seemed as though the traditional gods of Rome had failed the people but, this time, no emperor had the fourth dimension or resources to devote to a persecution and Christianity spread further than before.
The outbreak is estimated as costing 5,000 lives daily while information technology raged, further weakening the Roman Empire while empowering the Christians. More artisans, farmers, and soldiers were lost in this epidemic than in the Antonine Plague but an even worse onslaught would come up with Justinian's Plague.
Plague of Justinian
The Plague of Justinian is the first documented instance of bubonic plague. The cause was identified only in 1894 CE as the bacterium Yersinia pestis which was carried past the fleas of rodents, mainly rats, transported along with appurtenances through trade routes and by the supply trains of troops. It is named after the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565 CE) who ruled from Constantinople at this time and recorded by the historian Procopius (50. 500-565 CE) who wrote on his reign.
Three Doctors Attend a Man with the Plague
Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (CC BY-NC-SA)
This plague is thought to have originated in People's republic of china (as the earlier two were besides) and traveled via the Silk Road to the West. It is thought to have outset struck the Near East – peculiarly Persia (Iran) - earlier coming to Constantinople and would eventually accept fifty million lives. Procopius attributes the outbreak to supernatural causes, specifically God's anger toward Justinian I for his unjust and incompetent reign, and, in his History of the Wars, claims many victims were get-go visited by a vision:
Apparitions of supernatural beings in human guise of every clarification were seen by many persons, and those who encountered them thought that they were struck by the human they had met in this or that part of the body, every bit it havened, and immediately upon seeing this bogeyman they were seized besides by the affliction. ... Just in the case of some the pestilence did non come on in this way, only they saw a vision in a dream and seemed to suffer the very same thing at the easily of the animal who stood over them, or else to hear a vocalism foretelling to them that they were written down in the number of those who were to die. But with the majority it came near that they were seized by the disease without becoming enlightened of what was coming either through a waking vision or a dream. (II.xxii.11-17; Lewis, 470-471)
This plague also encouraged Christian devotion since the organized religion was well-established by this time. Even so, it appears the new-plant zeal of many only lasted as long as the pestilence raged. Procopius reports:
At that fourth dimension, too, those of the population who had formerly been members of the factions laid bated their mutual enmity ... those who in times by used to take delight in devoting themselves to pursuits both shameful and base, shook off the unrighteousness of their daily lives and practiced the duties of religion with diligence ... but then all, so to speak, beingness thoroughly terrified by the things which were happening, and supposing that they would die immediately, did, equally was natural, learn respectability for a flavor by sheer necessity. Therefore every bit soon as they were rid of the illness and were saved, and already supposed that they were in security, since the expletive had moved on to other peoples, then they turned sharply virtually and reverted again to their baseness of hearts ... birthday surpassing themselves in villainy and in lawlessness of every sort. (II.xxiii.15-19; Lewis, 476)
The only effective mensurate was what is known today every bit social distancing and quarantine of the sick but, according to Procopius, this was done voluntarily by individuals as Justinian I was besides preoccupied with his own interests to assume responsibility for taking care of his people. The plague severely weakened the Byzantine Empire in the same way before outbreaks had damaged their respective regions just, unlike the epidemics of the past, there is no suggestion of a widespread loss of religious faith.
Near East & Roman Plague
Having exhausted the people of the Byzantine Empire, the plague returned to the Most E and raged almost continuously betwixt 562-749 CE. Unfortunately, few eyewitness accounts take survived and later histories of the plague are incomplete. Scholars usually focus on the most famous outbreak, the Plague of Sheroe (627-628 CE), which killed the Sassanian male monarch Kavad II (birth name, Sheroe, r. 628 CE) and contributed to the fall of the Sassanian Empire.
Pope Gregory the Bang-up decreed the affliction was a penalization from God for humanity'due south sins & people needed to apologize & prove contrition.
Amend documentation exists for the Roman Plague of 590 CE. Religion again played a cardinal part in attempting to resist this plague only, since records of it come but from Christian clerics, there may accept been other measures taken which were non recorded or accept been lost. Equally with Justinian'due south plague, this outbreak was a combination of the iii lethal types: bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic.
There is trivial written on this epidemic – even the death toll is unknown – outside of Christian commentary which reports that the pope Gregory the Dandy (l. 540-604 CE) decreed the illness was a punishment from God for humanity'due south sins and people needed to repent and bear witness contrition. Accordingly, penitential processions wound their manner through the streets of Rome to the shrine of the Virgin Mary begging for intercession and mercy. These processions spread the plague further merely, as no one understood germ theory, they were credited with ending the disease once it had run its grade in the same way that people initially placed their hopes in religious rituals during the Black Death.
Black Death
The Black Death is the nigh famous outbreak in history. Although modernistic-24-hour interval accounts of the illness routinely focus on Europe, it also devastated the Nearly Due east between 1346 - c. 1360 CE. This outbreak was too a combination of all three types of plague and was referred to as "the pestilence" by those who lived through it; the term Black Death did non exist prior to 1800 CE and was coined in reference to the black buboes – growths – which appeared on the peel in the groin, armpits, and around the ears as the result of bloated lymph nodes. The affliction claimed the lives of an estimated thirty meg people in Europe and possibly as many as 50 million or more worldwide. Regarding people's reactions, historian Barbara Tuchman cites the writer Agnolo di Tura of Sienna, who lived through the pandemic:
Father abased child, wife husband, 1 brother another for this plague seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And and then they died. And no ane could exist found to bury the expressionless for money or friendship. And I…buried my v children with my own easily and and then did many others likewise. (96)
Tuchman continues:
There were many to echo his business relationship of inhumanity and few to residue it, for the plague was non the kind of calamity that inspired mutual help. Its loathsomeness and deadliness did not herd people together in common distress, but only prompted their desire to escape each other. (96)
Further, countries or nationalities which were not yet infected, seized on the misfortune of others, planning invasions when their neighbors were at their weakest instead of offer aid. Every bit Tuchman observes, however, "Before they could move, the barbarous mortality savage upon them too, scattering some in decease and the remainder in panic to spread the infection" (97). The plague spread so quickly, and killed so many people, that burial rites and mortuary rituals were abandoned and people sought whatever means seemed best to either survive or bask the piddling time they had left.
Spread of the Blackness Death
Flappiefh (CC By-SA)
The Italian writer and poet Giovanni Boccaccio (l. 1313-1375 CE), author of The Decameron which recounts the tales of a grouping of x trying to escape the plague past seclusion, describes in his introduction the principal ways in which people reacted to the pestilence:
There were some people who idea that living moderately and fugitive any backlog might help a great deal in resisting this disease, and then they gathered in small groups and lived entirely apart from anybody else. They close themselves upwards in those houses where there were no ill people and where 1 could live well past eating the most delicate of foods and drinking the finest of wines, assuasive no one to speak about or listen to anything said well-nigh the sick and expressionless outside…Others thought the opposite: they believed that drinking excessively, enjoying life, going most singing and celebrating, satisfying in every fashion the appetites as all-time 1 could, laughing, and making low-cal of everything that happened was the best medicine for such a illness…Many others adopted a middle class between the 2 attitudes just described: They did not shut themselves up, but went around conveying in their hands flowers, or sweetness-smelling herbs, or diverse kinds of spices and they would often put these things to their noses, believing that such smells were wonderful means of purifying the brain, for all the air seemed infected with the stench of expressionless bodies, sickness, and medicines. (vii-eight)
However people chose to react in their own lives, the communal response was a crisis of religion since it seemed God – who was thought to take sent the plague – refused to answer to any pleas to alleviate or end it. People blamed the devil for the outbreak as well every bit marginalized groups like the Jews – who lived apart from Christians in their own communities, were therefore not equally susceptible to infection, and then were suspected of causing it – but, God was held chiefly responsible.
People saw the priests, physicians, and caregivers – who placed themselves in danger for the sake of others – dying daily and lost faith in a God who would take those he had seemingly chosen to help the most in the crisis. This turning from faith would somewhen focus people on the human experience rather than the divine plan and would find expression in the Renaissance. Unlike the urban center of Athens later on the plague centuries earlier, the world did not resume its one-time land just was transformed by survivors into something new.
Conclusion
Every witness to these outbreaks describes the experience as the worst event of their lives or the terminate of the globe – every bit information technology must have seemed, of course – and nonetheless afterwards people adapted to the loss and connected on. The world these people had known was completely contradistinct just they persevered and managed to build a new i for themselves. As the American poet Theodore Roethke (l. 1908-1863 CE) puts it, "In a dark time, the eye begins to see" and the people who survived the Black Decease saw the possibility of a new way of living and understanding the world and each other.
Each new reality created past these plagues, all the same harsh the experience, offered survivors the opportunity to alter their mode of thinking and living and comprehend some new prototype. In the plagues of Rome, this was a transition from the traditional organized religion of the state to the new religion of Christianity while, with the Black Death, it was a shift away from that faith, which had past that time become institutionalized, to a newly discovered humanistic view of the world. In every instance, however, survivors were left with a pick as to the kind of world they wished to live in subsequently the crunch: to continue on with their prior understanding or to encompass a new one.
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