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Epidemics: what can we learn from Ancient Rome?

2020-04-10T00:36:43.055Z


History proves that conspiracy theories are counterproductive, nor did the gods send the plague, nor did it cause the fall of the Empire.


The plague was sealed inside a golden urn in a temple in Babylon. A Roman soldier looting the temple opened that urn and the infection traveled to the West with the army in its retreat. That was the origin of the great Antonine plague (c. 165-180 AD) according to the story of a Latin author.

Epidemics were by no means unknown to the ancient world. It is estimated that a serious outbreak occurred somewhere in the Mediterranean area every 10 to 20 years. Two of those outbreaks were especially severe: the Antonine plague and another outbreak that occurred some 70 years later (c. 251-266 AD), according to the description of the Christian author Cipriano. Some modern commentators claim that these two outbreaks caused the fall of the Roman Empire. Faced with the coronavirus, it is worth asking if there is anything we can learn from the experience of the Romans.

Returning to the Antonine plague, the historian Amiano wrote that it had "contaminated everything from infestation and death from the borders of Persia to the Rhine". It is impossible for us to identify the disease with certainty. With some knowledge, we could conjecture that we speak of smallpox, but our problem lies in the exceptionally bookish culture of the ancients. Centuries earlier, a plague struck the city of Athens during the Peloponnesian Wars, while the Athenians crowded behind its walls (430-426 BC). Thucydides, who survived that outbreak, described it in great detail, but not in terms that allow us to have a reliable modern diagnosis (current medical opinion is on typhoid fever). Thucydides established a literary model, and from then on it would become a fashion for every classical historian to include a scene with the plague. That encouraged exaggeration. Few authors want the topic they are talking about to be considered unimportant or secondary. All subsequent descriptions of the epidemics were based on Thucydides' account. Galen, the great doctor of antiquity, faced the terrifying vital reality of the Antonine plague in Rome and interpreted and described it through the prism of Thucydides.

The various responses to the disease, such as going to the temples, were not only not effective, but used to spread it

The ancients had a vague idea of ​​the spread of infection from one person to another: the army had brought the plague upon returning from Babylon, but a much more common explanation was that of a miasma present in the air in certain places. During an outbreak, Emperor Commodus (180-192 AD) retired to Laurentum, a place considered immune thanks to the fragrant fragrance of the laurel groves that gave the city its name. Ultimately, the cause of the epidemic was almost always the wrath of the gods at the vice or evil of the human being, something that could be the sacrilege of desecrating an urn in a temple.

The various responses of the Romans to the disease were not helpful and used to spread the disease. Since the cause was divine, they turned to the gods for protection. "Phoebus [Apollo], untouched god, deliver us from the nebulous arrival of the plague": everywhere they had this spell written on the door lintels. According to Luciano, a Greek satirical author of the time, the oracle had been extended by a religious charlatan. Luciano claimed that his results went in the opposite direction, because he encouraged people to live carelessly and abandon any precaution. In the case of those who could afford it, the answer was flight. When the Antonine plague reached the city of Aquilea, the emperors Marco Aurelio and Lucio Vero rushed to Rome with their great entourage. Lucio Vero died on the way.

According to Cipriano, when people began to die in large numbers in Alexandria during the next great outbreak, the Christians "cuddled up to them, hugged them, washed them and wrapped them in their shrouds", while the pagans "threw those affected to the street before they had died. " To pass on the fact that as many Christians as pagans died, Cipriano rejoiced that the former ascended to heaven while the latter were dragged away to eternal torture. In Rome, during the Antonine plague, the pagan Galen assisted assiduously many victims. Supposedly effective treatments that he himself records include the intake of vinegar and mustard or Armenian soil, drinking milk from the city of Stabia or the urine of a child.

The cause was not always divine. The most unique conspiracy theories flourished. During the outbreak of Comfortable on the throne, a knowledgeable and knowledgeable observer like Senator and historian Dion Cassius - who would sit on the council of two emperors - claimed that 2,000 people were frequently killed daily in the city of Rome and many more throughout the Empire. These unfortunates, he believed, "perished at the hands of criminals who impregnated tiny needles with deadly substances and received payment for infecting people." The identity and motivation of the person who paid it is not revealed, but the reader could assume that it was the wicked Emperor himself and Comfortable.

There is a wide debate on the effects of Antonine Plague and its successor. Some academics claim mortality rates of up to 25% or even 50% of the population, and certain fragments of isolated information are cited as evidence: that Marco Aurelio recruited slaves, gladiators, bandits and barbarians for his wars in the north , that the number of people paying taxes in a small region of Egypt fell, that a mine in the Balkans ceased production ..., but the examples are not very evident. Instead of raising taxes for his war, Marco Aurelio liquidated the treasures stored in the palace, and there could be a similar concern behind his unorthodox recruitment. In Egypt, or anywhere else, an epidemic could have been cited as justification for not paying taxes. And the effects were not permanent either: the experiment to fill the ranks of the army was not repeated again; the number of taxpayers in Egypt increased again over time; the Balkan mine reopened 10 years later. Above all, it must be remembered that, after the second plague reported by Cyprian, the Roman Empire of the West lasted another century, and that of the East, more than a millennium.

In the face of the coronavirus, there is no practical measure that we can learn from the experience of the Romans: drinking urine is not helpful. But there are useful lessons about things to avoid: not blaming the outbreak on others, on groups outside of ours, just as the Romans did with the Persians and with the soldiers; not to give in to the theories of implausible and crazy conspiracies, such as that there are governments that want to secretly assassinate large segments of the population. Perhaps most significant of all is a message of hope: the plague did not bring about the fall of Rome.

Harry Sidebottom is a specialist in classical history and author of the novel series The Warrior of Rome and The Throne of the Caesars.

Translation by Julio Hermoso.

Source: elparis

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