[HN Gopher] Ancient trash heaps reveal the Plague of Justinian's...
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Ancient trash heaps reveal the Plague of Justinian's economic toll
Author : diodorus
Score : 77 points
Date : 2020-07-29 17:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| Avicebron wrote:
| 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.
| codpiece wrote:
| Another great podcast is 12 Byzantine Rulers. I've listened to
| it multiple times.
|
| https://12byzantinerulers.com
| st-isidore wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation! What perspective do the hosts
| take in their representation of history?
| Avicebron wrote:
| 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.
| travmatt wrote:
| He does a good job of showing a broad swath of the
| Byzantine empire, not just the intrigue among royals.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| Coming from someone whose goto history podcast is Dan Carlin's
| Hardcore History, I appreciate you for the suggestion!
| frandroid wrote:
| 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/
| pfdietz wrote:
| 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
| rorykoehler wrote:
| 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.
| pfdietz wrote:
| This book is fun, although I'm not really convinced of his
| theory.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1177_B.C.:_The_Year_Civilizati.
| ..
| lps41 wrote:
| 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
| torusenthusiast wrote:
| 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?
| ngold wrote:
| >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.
| foobarian wrote:
| 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?
| vondur wrote:
| 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.
| koheripbal wrote:
| 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.
| jvm_ wrote:
| 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.
| Bayart wrote:
| >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.
| xref wrote:
| You're saying the French today wished there was an even
| more punitive treaty than Versailles was?
| est31 wrote:
| 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
| john_miller wrote:
| Russia did not have to pay any reparations to germany, so
| the statement of similar harshness is blatantly false.
| keldaris wrote:
| 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.
| masklinn wrote:
| 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.
| keldaris wrote:
| 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.
| vondur wrote:
| 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.
| vkou wrote:
| 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.
| john_miller wrote:
| How much reparations had the french to pay in 1870?
| keldaris wrote:
| 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).
| ZinniaZirconium wrote:
| Yup. That silly chroma virus. It turns you a different color.
|
| My recycle bin is getting more use than ever since I've been
| eating a lot of canned food and bottled drinks. Unlike the
| article says though I don't have food delivered. I carry my own
| takeout like a mule.
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