On this topic (and for looking at the causality direction) I think the book “In the Shadow of the Sword” by Tom Holland is quite informative. The book covers the “late antiquity” period, a lot of it involves the origins of islam and a lot of the (Eastern) romans having trouble with it all. From my memory their were either one or two devastating plagues in the Roman empire, which massively depopulated its cities. The non-urban populations (eg. the horse riding nomads) were barely effected by the plague (they were said to be immune, but it was probably just transmission opportunities). The book argues this was an important factor in the Roman Empires defeat by the new Islamic empires, a large fraction of the legionnaires the romans should have had had never been born because their parents had died of plague twenty years earlier. (The were a lot of other factors going on too, but this one stood out in this discussion.) I think that the Persians had the same problem when it was their turn to fight the same arabs, a fraction of their troops had never been born.
I’ve actually written about this subject before, and I agree that the first plague pandemic could have been significant: perhaps killing around 8% of the global population in the four years from 541 to 544. However, it’s also worth noting that our evidence for this decline is rather scant; we know that the death toll was very high in Constantinople but not much about what happened outside the capital, mostly because nobody was there to write it down. So it’s also entirely conceivable that the death toll was much lower than this. The controversy about this continues to this day in the literature, as far as I know.
The hypothesis that the bubonic plague was responsible is interesting, but by itself doesn’t explain the more granular data which suggests the slowdown starts around 200 BC and we already see close to no growth in global population from e.g. 200 AD to 500 AD. HYDE doesn’t have this, but the McEvedy and Jones dataset does.
It’s possible, and perhaps even likely, that the explanation is not monocasual. In this case, the first plague pandemic could have been one of the many factors that dragged population growth down throughout the first millennium.
On this topic (and for looking at the causality direction) I think the book “In the Shadow of the Sword” by Tom Holland is quite informative.
Man, he has time to do such important academic work, at his age, between one Spider-Man movie and another? Talk about a polymath!
(I’m sorry)
From my memory their were either one or two devastating plagues in the Roman empire, which massively depopulated its cities. The non-urban populations (eg. the horse riding nomads) were barely effected by the plague (they were said to be immune, but it was probably just transmission opportunities).
Never underestimate the benefits of living mostly outdoors or in tents with plenty of ventilation. But yeah, I mentioned the Antonine plague but I think I remember there being more. These were pretty destructive events so obviously they’d leave a mark.
On this topic (and for looking at the causality direction) I think the book “In the Shadow of the Sword” by Tom Holland is quite informative. The book covers the “late antiquity” period, a lot of it involves the origins of islam and a lot of the (Eastern) romans having trouble with it all. From my memory their were either one or two devastating plagues in the Roman empire, which massively depopulated its cities. The non-urban populations (eg. the horse riding nomads) were barely effected by the plague (they were said to be immune, but it was probably just transmission opportunities). The book argues this was an important factor in the Roman Empires defeat by the new Islamic empires, a large fraction of the legionnaires the romans should have had had never been born because their parents had died of plague twenty years earlier. (The were a lot of other factors going on too, but this one stood out in this discussion.) I think that the Persians had the same problem when it was their turn to fight the same arabs, a fraction of their troops had never been born.
I’ve actually written about this subject before, and I agree that the first plague pandemic could have been significant: perhaps killing around 8% of the global population in the four years from 541 to 544. However, it’s also worth noting that our evidence for this decline is rather scant; we know that the death toll was very high in Constantinople but not much about what happened outside the capital, mostly because nobody was there to write it down. So it’s also entirely conceivable that the death toll was much lower than this. The controversy about this continues to this day in the literature, as far as I know.
The hypothesis that the bubonic plague was responsible is interesting, but by itself doesn’t explain the more granular data which suggests the slowdown starts around 200 BC and we already see close to no growth in global population from e.g. 200 AD to 500 AD. HYDE doesn’t have this, but the McEvedy and Jones dataset does.
It’s possible, and perhaps even likely, that the explanation is not monocasual. In this case, the first plague pandemic could have been one of the many factors that dragged population growth down throughout the first millennium.
Man, he has time to do such important academic work, at his age, between one Spider-Man movie and another? Talk about a polymath!
(I’m sorry)
Never underestimate the benefits of living mostly outdoors or in tents with plenty of ventilation. But yeah, I mentioned the Antonine plague but I think I remember there being more. These were pretty destructive events so obviously they’d leave a mark.