Coronavirus is Scary. But The World's First Pandemic Might Have Killed 50 Million People.
Justinian I was a man with a mission. The son of Thracian peasants (modern-day Albania), he rose through the ranks due to a combination of merit and family connections to become Emperor of the Byzantine Empire in 527AD. He ordered the construction of the iconic Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople and wrote a Code of Law that’s considered a foundational document in Western legal tradition. But his greatest ambition was nothing less than reuniting the shattered remnants of the Roman Empire.
Back in the year 285AD, Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern branches to ease administrative burdens. But while the Western Roman Empire would fragment and fall before barbarian invasions, the eastern Byzantine Empire proved more robust.
Justinian’s forces at first seemed unstoppable in their reconquest of former Roman territories. Led by General Belisarius, they crushed the barbarian Vandals at Tricamarum in North Africa in 535AD, drove Goths out of Rome, and successfully defended the iconic city against a lengthy Goth siege. Meanwhile, Justinian bought peace with the neighboring Sassanid (neo-Persian) empire through generous tribute.
But Byzantium’s deadliest foe proved not to be Vandals, Goths, or Persians, but fleas born on the backs of Mediterranean black rats infesting grain-storage warehouses in Egypt. The rat-borne fleas then infected humans with yersinia pestis—better known as the bubonic plague, or Black Death.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/coronavirus-scary-worlds-first-pandemic-might-have-killed-50-million-people-128557
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