An Grounbreaking Look at Disease and the “Fall” of Roman

With Pox Romana, Prof. Elliott (Indiana) makes a major contribution to the recent scholarly interest in looking at Roman history against the background of the contemporary environmental and climatic trends, as found, for example, in Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome (2017) and Michael Sage’s Rome in the Third Century (2024).

Elliott concentrates on the “Antonine Plague” that ravaged the empire in AD 165-180. Also called “The Plague of Galen,” after the great physician who documented it, estimates for deaths range from 15- to 30-percent of the empire’s 60 to 70 million inhabits.

After a Foreword outlining the recent history of the empire on the eve of the plague, Sage examines the background, onset, progress, and impact of the epidemic in eight chapters grouped into three Parts.

Part I, “Preexisting Conditions,” deals with the state of public hygiene in the imperial city and finds it lacking. Rather than the gleaming city of paintings and film, Rome – and its’ empire – was more like Dickensian London. Poor sanitation, over-crowded, deplorable housing, malaria and malnutrition reigned, with even the vaunted public baths known to be major sources of infection.

Part II, “Outbreak,” covers the onset and progress of the plague, probably smallpox, efforts to cope with it, its effects on public morale, and its effects on the political, diplomatic, and military strength of the empire.

Part III, “Casualties,” considers the consequences of the plague in the damage it inflicted on the empire, and the frequent return of plagues over the following generations.

Sage looks at how the plague affected different social classes, falling primarily on the urban poor. He often refers to the cause and effects of plagues on events in other parts of the world at the time, even as far as China, and even in other eras.

Sage touches on military matters quite often. Even the ancients knew that the plague had arrived with legions returning from the Parthian War of AD 161-165, and he outlines how the movements of the troops helped spread the disease. In addition, the plague seriously depleted the empire’s manpower. He argues that a manpower shortage was probably a reason that Commodus abandoned Marcus Aurelius’s attempt to add Marcomannia to the empire, Rome’s last major attempt at territorial expansion, and sees the influence of the plague as a factor in the empire’s increasing difficulty raising armies in later years.

Pox Romana is an outstanding book for those interested in Roman history, and more broadly those interested in the environmental and climatic effects on human society.

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Note: Pox Romana is also available in e-editions.

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