Plague and the decline of the Roman Empire (TRIH ep 217)
165 · Resource
Hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook welcome Professor Kyle Harper (University of Oklahoma) to discuss his book The Fate of Rome and the central argument that climate and infectious disease were decisive forces in the transformation of the Roman world. Harper explains how urbanization, connectivity and animal reservoirs created ecological conditions for repeated pandemics—the Antonine Plague, the Plague of Cyprian and the Justinianic Plague—and how those crises interacted with political, f...
On these timelines: The Rest Is History (podcast), Resources: Combined
Around 165
- Reign of Marcus Aurelius (161)
- Destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (70)
- Reign of Trajan (98)
- Sassanid Empire (224)
- Eruption of Mount Vesuvius (79)
- Cai Lun invents paper (105)
- Colosseum opens in Rome (80)
- Galen (129)
- Teotihuacán at its peak (100)
- Hadrian's Wall built (122)