Cold climates favored pandemics during the Roman Empire

The Roman Empire marks a turning point in the history of diseases with the arrival of the first documented pandemics in human history.

Between the year 165 and 180, it was first what historians call the Antonine plague.

Nearly a century later, it would be that of Cyprian (from 251 to 266).

Both are surely plague in name only, as it is difficult from the comments of the time to distinguish this disease from typhus, smallpox, or even the flu.

The first pandemic which we are sure was caused by the plague began in the 540s. It is known as the Plague of Justinian, and will last more than two centuries, until 766. Work published in the journal

reconstruct the Roman climate over 800 years.

From the last two centuries of the Roman Republic (from 200 to 27 BC), until more than a century after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. However, researchers note that the periods cooler and drier coincide…

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