Given how many decks of cards were stacked against him, this was no mean feat. The Byzantine Empire under his reign had to survive the great famine of 536, followed by the original "black death" of 541 (never to be repeated until the more famous one of 1347), followed by the major war with the Persians which ended with securing Christian provinces at the cost of a major annual tribute, followed by the massive earthquake of 557, followed by Attila in 559 (who daily greeted his wives after a hard day's pillage with, "Hi huns, I'm home," but I digress). And we think we have it bad?
The great collapse of civilization wasn’t the Fall of Rome...The great collapse was the enlightenment, during which time the average lifespan (at least of someone who survived infancy) plunged, and the great festivals and community celebrations were replaced by unrelenting drudgery.
Methinks you are conflating the Enlightenment with the Industrial Revolution. Factories turned work into drudgery, and created urban squalor with its concomitant illnesses--including tuberculosis, but especially syphilis, which can be blamed on Romanticism, where feelings were more important than facts, instead of the Enlightenment. The American Golden Age, which is still with us but may soon be lost, is the result of industrialization meeting with engineering to end factory squalor and agricultural famine, creating the greatest prosperity the world has ever known.
Sorry my outline didn’t get removed...
I’m largely including the early phases of the Industrial Revolution as a part of the Enlightenment, although actually, the IR saw steady improvement in life expectancy, which was 26 in France in 1760-1790, rising to 41 in 1845 to 49 in 1910.
(I know a lot of people use 1800 as the end of the Enlightenment, but I do tend to see Napoleon as a product of Enlightenment even if signals its self-defeat.)