One of the advantages in living in an age of cultural fluorescence, when there is an abundance of wealth and clever minds, is that research gets done and mysteries get solved. One of those mysteries that got solved in my lifetime, was the question of “what caused the collapse of the Roman Empire"?
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire by Kyle Harper (2017)
If you are like me, you were taught that Rome collapsed because of social decay and barbarian invasions. Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, written in 1776, framed the narrative for how we viewed Rome’s collapse for over 200 years. Harper’s book, written in the age of climate change and pandemic diseases, completely reevaluates what happened to Rome and is chillingly relevant to our world today.
Consider this, in AD 150 the Roman project was at its peak. The population of the Mediterranean basin and Europe is believed to have been around 75 million people. Five hundred years later by 650 AD that population had declined by 50% and Rome had collapsed.
The old story was that this was the result of social decay, warfare, and governmental collapse. Harper, using new studies and data tells a completely different story.
One of changing climate and multiple pandemics.
Starting in 150 AD the weather in the Roman world started getting worse, going from warmer to colder. It got progressively worse for the next 500 years causing multiple droughts, falling agricultural output, and famines.
This climate change was a disaster in and of itself, but it didn’t happen by itself. One of the points that Harper makes is that the Romans created a world where a pandemic could happen.
Cities with dense populations connected by highly trafficked trade links bringing in goods and people from all over the world made the Mediterranean a vast petri dish waiting for something deadly to fall into (sound familiar?). In 165 AD something did.
Starting in 165 AD the Antonine plague is estimated to have killed 7,000,000 in the first years that it hit the empire (165–180 AD) killing as many as 40% in many of the major cities.
After 165 AD plague was always happening in the Roman world and some of the “flareups” had fatality rates of up to 50% in places.
Harper’s point, is that while Rome may have had problems with governance. Overshadowing everything was an increasingly hostile climate making it difficult to feed the population and, vicious plagues that depleted the pool of manpower available to do anything.
The parallels to the world we are facing today are obvious and compelling.
