Posted on 07/15/2018 4:42:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Could an ancient children's burial ground contain clues about how one of the world's greatest empires came to an end? Andrew Thompson explores the theory that malaria was the silent killer responsible for the fall of Rome.
Today in the west, most people have forgotten how deadly malaria used to be, although there were serious malarial epidemics in many parts of Italy as recently as the 1950s. But each year, mainly in Africa, it still kills over two million people, most of them children. While there are several mentions of a disease sounding very similar to malaria in historical documents from Roman times, there has never been any hard evidence of its presence.
But last year, for the first time, a British scientist proved conclusively that the most dangerous type of malaria was a killer in imperial Rome. The scientist relied on the latest DNA techniques that are revolutionising the understanding of the role of disease in ancient times. The malarial DNA from a Roman site, dating from around AD 450, is the oldest definite evidence of malaria in history. The finding of malaria was a remarkable and complicated piece of detective work, which spanned the last ten years...
David Soren is the American archaeologist behind the new theory that malaria played a key part. He is an expert on Roman antiquity, having dug at several sites in the Mediterranean area. Ten years ago he was invited to a beautiful hill town called Lugnano (just north of Rome) by local archaeologists. They wanted Soren to help them excavate the remains of a Roman villa outside the town.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
The plague during Justinians reign greatly damaged Byzantium.
That was a big one. The plague of 541-542 killed maybe 1/4th of the empire. And back then those plagues kept recurring in waves for decades.
Justinian though still had some big military victories in Italy in the 540s and 550s, and Maurice had successful campaigns in the Balkans in the 590s.
The big military reverses didn’t occur until the early 600s, against Persia (although successfully repulsed by Heraclius), and the Muslim onslaught in the middle of the century.
A non-plague factor in the loss of Egypt and Syria was the Monophysite religious conflict, which alienated them from Constantinople.
I live in Freetown, Sierra Leone and tell people about DDT and Rachel Carson as many times as I can. I keep hoping some bright entrepreneur will start up a company making DDT and save Africa.
I lived in East Texas and I can remember those trucks. The spray was so cool on hot days.
Fall of Rome... those are not the reasons, particularly not that 1963 thing, someone linked that to me the other day. These are the most important ones:
Smallpox has no known non-human reservoir, and over 99% of the human population has been vacc'ed against it -- yet it keeps coming back. Malaria would be a good one to eliminate worldwide, but an effectice vaccine for it is pretty new.
Been watching your posts for a long time and it's obvious you have a love for the topics and are also well-schooled in them - always enjoy hearing from you - even when it's to tell me I may be more than a tiny bit wrong....;-]
Happy FReeping
Heh... thanks for the kind remarks. I generally mean well, that doesn’t always come across in this medium.
Yeah - some folks hate to be “corrected”...doesn’t mean we aren’t wrong ..... can’t please everyone so ... keep doing what keeps you happy - might be a song in that with a few word rearrangements.....
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