Mulhall 2021 Confronting Pandemic in Late Antiquity The Medical Response to the Justinianic Plague (original) (raw)

2021, Confronting Pandemic in Late Antiquity: The Medical Response to the Justinianic Plague

From the sixth to the eighth centuries, the Roman world suffered the first known pandemic caused by Yersinia pestis, the bacterial agent of bubonic plague. Despite the pandemic's horrors, scholarly consensus has maintained that medical authors took no notice of the Justinianic Pandemic. This article introduces the first evidence that physicians at the time of the Justinianic Pandemic described the illness that raged around them. Through a close analysis of the language used by contemporary historians to describe the symptoms of the pandemic, it is possible to uncover discussions of the pandemic in medical literature that have remained hidden in plain sight. Specifically, this article argues that the sixth-and seventh-century physicians John of Alexandria, Stephanus of Athens, and Paul of Aegina not only describe the illness of the pandemic, but also develop sophisticated ways of diagnosing the illness, understanding it physiologically, and treating it. In so doing, these authors go beyond medical precedent to construct innovative responses to an unprecedented pandemic. The Justinianic Plague, the first historically recorded plague pandemic, first struck the Roman Empire at the port city of Pelusium in ad 541. From there the disease spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, recurring in successive outbreaks for over two centuries. 1 The Justinianic Plague is widely This article grows out of research conducted as part of the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean (MHAAM). An early version of this article was presented at the École française de Rome as part of the 2019 conference "Les maladies infectieuses dans l'antiquité: Sources écrites et archives bio-archéologiques." This article is deeply indebted to the generous suggestions and comments of many readers. I would like in particular to thank Michael McCormick, whose direction on this project has been invaluable, Julia Judge-Mulhall, Kyle Harper, Lee Mordechai, Merle Eisenberg, and the two anonymous referees for the Journal of Late Antiquity. I would also like to acknowledge my debt to Dumbarton Oaks, which supported my research on this project through the William R. Tyler Fellowship. 1 For some of the most recent surveys and general studies of the Justinianic Plague, see Stathako