Ancient trash heaps reveal the Plague of Justinian’s economic toll | Hacker News Reader

Ancient trash heaps reveal the Plague of Justinian’s economic toll

arstechnica.com

119 pointsdiodorus74 comments

The more I learn about the Plague of Justinian the happier I am that our current plague is relatively "mild". I am also amazed how much of an impact these kinds of things can have on the world.

I wonder what the long term fallout of the current situation will be (will there be a large one?). Death tolls are nowhere near past plagues, but the lockdowns have had a large economic impact for some countries. It's an interesting thought experiment, what do people here think?

>Plague of Justinian: the bubonic plague's first-known visit to Europe, in 541 CE. The first wave of plague killed 20 percent of the population of Constantinople. Infection also devastated the trade port of Alexandria. Over the next 160 years, wave after wave of plague may have carried away up to half the population of the Byzantine Empire.

Imagine looking at a crowd and 1/5 to 1/2 of everyone is just gone.

It shrank the empire so much that after the war with Persia, the Levant was heavily depopulated.

...and it was that void that the army of Mohammed filled in the rise of Islam when they conquered the Levant, Egypt, Persia, Messopotamia, and the rest of North Africa in a short period.

Those plagues tremendously changed history.

Historyofbyzantium podcast is stellar, btw.

On a side note. Mike Duncan's been silent since april 7th. At least on revolutionspodcast.com.

The plague and it’s after effects is what basically of what some people call the Dark Ages and is a pretty clear line to demarcate late ancient to the Middle Ages.

What is it about that time period that made the plague so contagious? Lack of antibiotics? Not knowing how it spreads? I would think that it doesn't take a modern scientist to figure out not to let rats into the house, and this was possibly not that hard to achieve even with ancient materials. So what gives?

Keeping rodents out of places isn't really all that easy.

Keeping the fleas out of those places isn't easy either. As far as I know that's the most commonly accepted theory as to where this came from and how it spread.

Germ theory really seems obvious after it was hammered into our collective skulls a thousand times. Yes, it does take a modern person, though not a scientist, to figure out not to let rats into the house.

I think there were a number of factors. Widespread instability led to people clustering in densely packed cities, where you could live behind walls. This was obviously good if you want to avoid being sold into slavery by a roving gang of barbarians, obviously very bad if you want to avoid catching diseases from the ten neighbors you have in your tiny room.

Grain production and shipment was pretty centralized, and as it so happened, the disease turned up first in Alexandria, which was the biggest port of Egypt, which was the bread basket of the empire. So with the grain came the rats, then with the rats, the plague, and since Egypt produced a large portion of the grain eaten in the aforementioned overcrowded cities, y. pestis was delivered directly to all the places where it could do the most damage.

As other commentators have noted, it's really hard to keep rats out of something they want to be in. Even harder if you live in insanely crowded wooden tenement blocks, as most people did at the time. I also don't think it would have been particularly obvious that the plague was coming from the fleas - the buboes turn up on lymph nodes, not on the flea bites.

Worse still, it's also contagious through coughing. So even if they had somehow (and I think it would be impossible) kept the rats out, they would probably still be at risk.

The roman empire at this place was pretty dirty, nobody was bathing, dirt floors were the norm, and honestly, y. pestis is a really nasty disease. If you have it today, you're really likely to die. I don't know if it would have been technically possible to stop it given the technology of the day, even if you had all the requisite knowledge.

Keeping the rats/fleas out would likely be impossible short of literally burning most cities to the ground - and because of the disease essentially being delivered to all the major population centers, by the time anybody was aware, it would probably be too late anyway.

Wikipedia says that people who contract plague are 10% likely to die with treatment, and 70% likely without treatment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_(disease)

The catch is that treatment must be administered in time. It's a fast-moving disease. Those stats vary a lot depending on how late medical intervention is.

Thanks for the follow up. That is..shocking.

> If you have it today, you're really likely to die.

My understanding is that people treated immediately with antibiotics do pretty well.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/dispa...

I was running while listening...

The US president negotiating the terms of Germany's WW1 surrender/repayments was trying to get a fairer deal, and France's president was negotiating for German punishment. In the days long negotiations, the US president fell ill (possibly with Spanish Flu), and was much weaker/combative when he returned to the negotiating table. Maybe if the flu hadn't hit him, Germany would have gotten a fairer deal and not felt unfairly treated which was a cause of WW2.

Also India's rebellion from the British was during that time, the British suppressing the rebellion's and the added pressures from the flu ravaging their country helped move that process along.

I wonder if the same could be said about the George Floyd protests. Part of it was the timing of everyone being off work/unemployed and having the time to go protest.

That's an interesting story. Another component why the Versailles treaty was so harsh was that Germany had made a similarly harsh treaty with Russia before that, so the western powers gave Germany the same treatment that Germany gave Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk

Ultimately, the Ottoman empire received probably the most harsh treatment of all, although they were the only country out of the group of Germany, Austria-Hungary and them which managed to reclaim some of the lost territory and keep it up until today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_S%C3%A8vres

The treaty germany imposed on france in the war of '70 was no less harsh either.

Versailles really wasn't that harsh by the standards of the time, the germans just got good propaganda out of it, for some reason.

Although the issue is complex, a very dominant part of the "some reason" was that the German army never really experienced an unequivocal final military defeat (although it was clear to the high command that the war could no longer be won, this was far from obvious to the population) and remained in effective control of Germany, allowing them to consciously disseminate propaganda for their own ends as well as taking full advantage of the ensuing popular unrest after the end of the war.

To be more specific - at the time the armistice was signed, no Entente soldier had yet a foot on German soil. The front-line was still running through Belgium.

To the average German pundit, it was not at all clear that the war was lost.

Maybe. But at that time, the population of Germany was malnourished and short of food, fuel and other commodities. Civilian death rates began to increase.

So like our plague deniers today, some people probably deluded themselves into believing victory was near. But I’m sure most knew it wasn’t going well.

Given that the press was only allowed to publish positive propaganda about the state of the war effort, all of that could have be explained away as some temporary supply disruption.

Well Napoleon had pretty much stomped up and down on the Prussians and Austria during the Wars Of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. I think part of the harshness of the treaty that ended the Franco-Prussian wars was a bit of revenge for the Germans.

That was 1812, though (plus the hundred days). There wasn’t any big German military defeat since the Congress of Vienna system until WWII, a period of over a century.

Imagine the USA’s military ego, but instead of losing Vietnam in the 70s, you stomped France instead. The military arrogance was real.

> There wasn’t any big German military defeat

That’s because there wasn’t a Germany for at least half of that period. And while Germany may not have lost any nearby land wars, their colonial empire was a bit of a joke compared to the other European powers.

Parts of the "complex" is that there was a revolution going on, too. The monarchy was overthrown and the military command happily let the representants of the new democracy take responsibility of the "peace treaty". In the meaning of: "see, this is what democracy gives you. While the army is unbeaten in the field, those traitors give up to the enemy."

And in the Eastern front Germany occupied much territories that while the treaties was being negotiated they were left in control for time being over a large swathe of Russian/Ukrainian/Belorusian territories even though in-effect Germany was the loser of the conflict, is what I remember vaguely from a history I had read.

How much reparations had the french to pay in 1870?

5 billion franks, the equivalent of hundreds of billions in today's currency (the exact amount is difficult to calculate for obvious reasons). It was significant enough to promptly cause an asset bubble in Germany when the French paid it with surprising alacrity, which then contributed to the spectacular crash of 1873 and ushered in an economic depression that lasted two decades (though many other causes contributed to the latter, of course - it was a worldwide crisis).

1870: 1450 tons of gold

Versaille: ~46000 tons of gold

> 5 billion franks, the equivalent of hundreds of billions in today's currency

Due within 5 years too (france managed to pay it in advance as it included military occupation until the war indemnity was paid), as well as ceding a major industrial region.

One interesting thing I picked up from (I believe) the Third Reich Trilogy by Richard Evans was that while the repayments were harsh, enough international loans were made to Germany and unpaid once war broke out that the balance of cash flow was actually in Germany's favor.

Reading that, it really struck me that perhaps we were still internalizing Nazi propaganda. Or at least that we seek simple narratives to explain everything even if they do a fairly poor job of covering the details.

Yup. My understanding was the US was financially supporting Germany so the reparations wouldn’t crush the entire economy.

From what I’ve gathered, Germany’s “we’re not paying any more reparations” was more a political move that got Germans on the side of the govt than anything else.

I'm confused. You have to pay me 100 bucks, but no worries, I'll loan you 80 bucks over 20 years to help your finances. You'll have to give me 240 bucks.

I'm not that familiar with the details, but it would be more like:

- You owe me $1B in reparations, with $10M payable each year for 100 years

- You can only come up with $8M this year, so I loan you $2M

- You then borrow from someone else to pay me back

Kind of like a rolling credit that is more about cashflow than debt level. Countries like the US were worried that Germany would just run out of cash at some point.

Russia did not have to pay any reparations to germany, so the statement of similar harshness is blatantly false.

Russia ceded an immense chunk of its most prized territorial posessions, leading to 11 countries declaring independence and defaulted on almost all of its international obligations. In fact, the harshness of the terms proposed by the German army was such that the German negotiators were shocked at first. The harshness of the treaty was also explicitly cited by the Allied Powers in response to German complaints about the Treaty of Versailles.

>and defaulted on almost all of its international obligations.

That had to do more with the regime change than the treaty though.

Russia’s situation was equivalent of lighting your house on fire (Ie sending in Lenin) and stripping the furniture before it burned down.

Defeat for Russia was utterly complete. The country was thrown into chaos and the aristocracy crushed and either slaughtered or exiled. Postwar, allied troops sort of intervened, but the result was pretty horrific.

I wager that the French were less concerned with whatever happened in Russia, and much more with what happened in France:

>Most of the war's major battles occurred in France and the French countryside was heavily scarred in the fighting. Furthermore, in 1918 during the German retreat, German troops devastated France's most industrialized region in the north-east (Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin). Extensive looting took place as German forces removed whatever material they could use and destroyed the rest. Hundreds of mines were destroyed along with railways, bridges, and entire villages. Prime Minister of France Georges Clemenceau was determined, for these reasons, that any just peace required Germany to pay reparations for the damage it had caused. [0, emphasis mine]

Germany went above and beyond what was necessary for military purposes to cause damages to French industry. It is really not hard to see how "they destroyed our factory, they should pay to rebuild it" would have been a common train of thought.

If say, Japan had occupied part of the continental US in WWII and once it started to retreat its troops, it set California ablaze and reduced it to rubbles --- how many Americans would think "the Japanese should pay for the rebuilding of California" vs "Sure California was set ablaze, but don't you think making them pay back would be a little harsh on them?"? how many Californians?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#Backgr...

>Maybe if the flu hadn't hit him, Germany would have gotten a fairer deal and not felt unfairly treated which was a cause of WW2.

That's on interesting take. The feeling in France is that Germany got off far too easy because of US intervention.

You’re saying the French today wished there was an even more punitive treaty than Versailles was?

I doubt that today it's a big topic of discussion, but pre-WW2 it certainly was. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles#France

Remember that the years of fighting on the Western Front had been on French (and Belgian) territory, not German. Their economic capacity had been injured and they wanted to be made whole.

The truth is that both sides were left wrecked economically by the war, and therefore both sides felt that they had gotten a raw deal at Versailles. Many inside France believed that Germany had been rewarded for losing the war and France had been punished for winning it.

Of course, the situation only deteriorated when Germany began failing to make its payments almost immediately leading to the crisis in the Ruhr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Ruhr

> I wonder what the long term fallout of the current situation will be (will there be a large one?).

I'm thinking that the rest of our lives will basically be dealing with the fallout of these last six months in one way or another.

You meant to say dealing with

- indirect consequences such as a very late recovery of economy, social habits changed for ever,

- or literally keep dealing with this pandemic (resurfacing again and again),

- or direct consequences such has ravaging other parts of body in an unseen manner which would become seen later?

Of course there could be and would be all of these but anything that would be very pronounced kind of a single major consequence?

I would say all of these and more.

I remember thinking when coronavirus was a new thing that it was an almost perfect mix of harmless and deadly, harmless enough that most people would carry it asymptomatically, deadly enough that it would reliably kill the vulnerable.

I figured that something like bubonic plague, which is absolutely lethal in comparison, wouldn't get very far against modern surveillance tactics and medical practices.

Since then, my estimations of our ability to deal with pandemics has taken a few hard knocks. It seems to me that even a comparatively nasty disease, with correspondingly obvious symptoms would probably be able to reach pandemic status, just because so many countries are a chaotic mess.

Obviously, even with a South Korea level competent response, I guess it's possible to have a disease that stays asymptomatic but remains contagious, then kills a large number of carriers after some length of time. Doesn't seem likely though - contagion more or less involves some kind of symptom (sneezing, coughing, etc) and it's hard to imagine a body developing a really high viral load or bacterial population without becoming feverish.

  something like bubonic plague, which is absolutely lethal in comparison, wouldn't get very far against modern surveillance tactics and medical practices.

This is probably true given the drastic measures used for ebola, MERS outbreaks. If the mortality rate of covid was 50% you wouldn't hear people bitching about masks, hoaxes, fake science, etc.

> Doesn't seem likely though - contagion more or less involves some kind of symptom (sneezing, coughing, etc) and it's hard to imagine a body developing a really high viral load or bacterial population without becoming feverish.

AFAIU, the profile depends on the class of virus, though obviously not all hosts behave similarly. Evolutionary strategies differ.

From the MIT COVID-19 page (https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/COVID-19):

> evidence indicates that people who are infected with 2019-nCoV may be at their most contagious in the 48–72 hours before symptoms are noticeable. In addition, it is now estimated that up to 25 percent of infected individuals remain asymptomatic and may unwittingly infect others.

Knowing what we know now about significant aerosol transmission from merely speaking, it should be obvious now that coughing or sneezing isn't a prerequisite for highly contagious respiratory viruses. It should have been obvious before as we already knew that viral host reservoirs often remain asymptomatic. Bats, for example, are common reservoirs for respiratory viruses because a) they roost in dense groups, b) have strong selective pressure for consistently high function (flight is exhausting), and c) they've evolved immune systems that can handle a high viral load (a consequence of (a) and (b)), so don't often exhibit symptoms. I would presume many bird species make good reservoirs for similar reasons, though birds aren't mammals, which might complicate jumping to humans.

IIRC, a friend of mine, who had been researching rhinoviruses for several years at the time, explained to me that the coughing and sneezing fits from some types of cold viruses are caused by viral fragments rather than primary infection, in such cases symptoms peak at the tail-end of infection as fragments build up, and the fits might even be incidental/accidental from an evolutionary perspective. Some human cold viruses are specialized to infect children, who usually exhibit no symptoms or, at worst, a runny nose (again, latter might be incidental). Asymptomatic respiratory infections run rampant among children.

That's pretty scary. An interesting thought experiment: given a disease that was asymptomatic but after some time, deadly, do you think it would be possible to contain given current technology/social situation?

An interesting aside: I just looked it up, and it turns out that quarantine predated the germ theory of disease by many centuries. It's interesting that people can come up with effective strategies for defence against something that they both have no treatment for, and no real understanding of.

Your initial estimation was probably right - the press just likes to emphasise the negative. We've already had more deadly and more obvious versions of Covid-19 in the form of SARS and MERS, and for the most part western countries just quietly stopped them using testing and contact tracing without most people even noticing. If Covid-19 was similar, there's every reason to believe that it would've ended the same way since pretty much everywhere put those same measures into place early on. You just didn't hear about it much because early on it wasn't of interest to the press, and later it made for an easier narrative to claim that countries inexplicably did nothing.

I think the fallout in certain religious communities, especially American Protestant Evangelicalism, will be very interesting. Before you dismiss the group as irrelevant to mainstream American life and the current COVID-19 pandemic and the present U.S. political situation, consider that:

  - the voter turnout for this group may be proportionately large in the 2020 November election

  - components of this group form a large part of U.S. president Trump's most loyal base

  - this group is a key contributor to Trump having been elected for his present term

  - components have been increasingly anti-science for several decades, prone to believe in conspiracy theories instead

  - components of this group are among the least likely to consider seriously the established/being-established scientific causes, countermeasures, treatments, and prevention measures for COVID-19

If I were a sociologist the intersection between this community, COVID-19, and the hopefully-soon-to-end Trump presidency would be my study area for the next 5 or 10 years. I am Evangelical myself (though pro-science, evolution-friendly, I'm not too proud to be a monkey).

American Protestant Evangelicalism is at an interesting crossroads and is deeply divided. Old-style denominations (large formal groupings of individual churches with legal-entity centralized management) are losing ground to "Independent Network Charismatic" (INC) Christianity [1], of which the "New Apostolic Reformation" (NAR) is a big part [2]. The INC and NAR are decentralized and personality-focused, with individual "leaders" promoting their own organizations but aligning themselves with other "leaders" on project-by-project basis. These INC/NAR leaders raise a lot of money, have huge followings extending deep also into a lot of the Pentecostal/Charismatic older denominations, believe God talks directly to them and as a result espouse new "doctrines" and methods to their followers. (Leadership in older denominations on the other hand general rely primarily on the established Bible text as the basis for belief and teaching ... NAR is fast-and-loose with biblical text.)

The NAR also believe it's their mandate to "dominate society", the "seven mountains" or spheres of human activity ... e.g., "government", "business", "science/technology", "entertainment", "family", ... a few others. Traditional Evangelicals have diverse views but most do not believe in Christian domination of society. Many view the NAR folks as heretics and dangerous (as do I).

This is getting long ... but a Trump loss in 2020 November will drive a lot of NAR adherents to believe they're being persecuted at large. They'll feel the U.S. is losing its "special status" as a uniquely "Christian nation". They don't understand how much worse things can be than they presently are, e.g., Plague-of-Justinian-type calamity is outside the realm of their imagination, so loss of this election and some economic setbacks will feel real large to them ... with unknowable reaction.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Network-Christianity-Independent... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTj5IKzmlYE (a bit esoteric)

And yet Christianity is shrinking as education improves. Having been raised in that evangelical cult I hope its end comes sooner than later. It spreads the worst kind of thinking (blind trust in authority) and indoctrinates the young with destructive superstitions (hell, faith healing, etc).

there is no doubt covid-19 is a mild pandemic compared to spanish flu and certainly plagues like the Justinian plague. Note spanish flu consensus prior to the outbreak of covid19 was 20% mortality. After march 2000, a few thousand edits put it at 2%, which I am more inclined to believe the 20% side of it.

covid19 is somewhere between .5 and 1% (probably). the flu pandemic of 1957 was around .67%. so we literally went through this not long ago, people didnt freak out and destroy their economies for decades like we are trying to do now.

That 0.67% was the CFR, not the IFR.

1. In-person gathering professions will be severely weakened. We should lose around 1/3 of restaurants, concerts will be gone for 18+ months, musicians and many others will have their livelihoods set-back.

2. Internet will be strengthened, anything remote-friendly will be enhanced relative to the before-times.

3. People will handshake MUCH less, hug much less, and generally be less chummy/close. I don't think we can just abandon 18 months of social distancing, it'll be "baked into" us somehow.

4. Mask wearing will become a regular sight forever...I know if I'm sick in future, I'll probably mask up...I never masked up EVER until March 2020.

5. The USA may come to a reckoning and deal with its healthcare, environmental pollution, chronic health problems...or maybe the US will slowly incrementally change and it still won't ever be enough.

6. Personal vehicles will become King once more...mass transit is going to take a MAJOR hit here.

7. A few hundred small, non-elite universities will die out, many of them can NOT afford to stay open and justify MUCH higher costs for a much lower value of "information into head". The pandemic will have pulled up the wool from our eyes on this issue: most education is overpriced.

8. I and many others will experience a lot of depression/loneliness, though I personally do cope with it better than I used to.

Plenty of Resturarants open in NYC right now. I'd say the outdoor dining has given them a strong presence relative to other things than ever before. Hopefully the outdoor dining becomes permanent.

Knowing shitty US politics, it might, but transit should not take a hit. [1] I hope the bigger wave in Florida than was in New York helps fix the message here---Florida is hardly a capital of public transit!

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hy...

>>The more I learn about the Plague of Justinian the happier I am that our current plague is relatively "mild".

Worst case, AFAIK, is that 2% of the world's population dies with Covid. Say, 5% with no meds and a lot of them are infirm and old people. Hardly crippling, once you realize that it is happening.

>>I am also amazed how much of an impact these kinds of things can have on the world.

When one 1/2 or 1/3 is dying or risks dying, finances, manpower and willingness go away. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/apr/15/historys-deadl...

I'm currently listening to the "The History of Byzantium" podcast. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys deep dives into history as much as I do.

Thanks for the recommendation! What perspective do the hosts take in their representation of history?

It's similar to "The history of Rome" podcast if you are familiar. From what I gather, the host offers a quasi-linear narrative of the history of the Byzantine empire, with small asides that focus on clarifying important aspects of daily/military/religious/bureaucratic life. It can be somewhat dense in the presentation of a lot of names, places, and religious concepts. But I find it very rewarding.

EDIT: If you are asking who the host follows, it is the Byzantine (Christian) perspective, with generous asides given to explaining the myriad of cultures surrounding Constantinople and how they shape the emerging empire.

He does a good job of showing a broad swath of the Byzantine empire, not just the intrigue among royals.

Coming from someone whose goto history podcast is Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, I appreciate you for the suggestion!

If you're not already listening to the Revolutions Podcast, treat yourself... (You can skip the American and maybe British "revolution", and start at the French Revolution if you're not sure this is for you)

https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/

The Russian Revolution episodes are truly fascinating. The 1905 section feels particularly relevant to recent American history.

I'm still working my way through Mexico! :) I'm glad he's taking a break so I can hopefully catch up before he gets back...

Another great podcast is 12 Byzantine Rulers. I've listened to it multiple times.

https://12byzantinerulers.com

I recently fished reading Lost to the West by Lars Brownworth. Excellent detailed history of the Byzantine empire and it's impacts on Europe.

On a similar note:

The period leading up to the Black Death in Europe was a warmer climate than usual, allowing agriculture to expand and populations to explode. Deforestation was widespread as agriculture expanded.

There is a theory that the immense depopulation caused by the Black Death also allowed significant reforestation to occur in Europe, which in turn led to increased carbon capture from the atmosphere, and perhaps helped cause the Little Ice Age that began in the 1500’s.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4755328.stm

There’s a similar theory based on reforestation of land that was previously cultivated by the Mayans after their population collapse.

The little ice age helped the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in China.

At least we have adequate records about that time. Unlike, say, the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

The youtube algo is strong. This is the second time I've seen this topic mentioned today after watching a youtube recommended video about it earlier this week.

This book is fun, although I'm not really convinced of his theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1177_B.C.:_The_Year_Civilizati...

One of the author's hour long lectures on youtube

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-ysocX4

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