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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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I don't recall one in the final days of the Roman empire, there was one that contributed to the crisis of the third century, and the was the plague of Justinian in the west that contributed to a major weakening of the Eastern Roman empire, but I personally haven't heard about many plagues during the late 5th century. I'm not an expert though, so this could very easily just be me not knowing.
so I got curious, and turns out there was a plague and it's also linked to climate change https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-roman-empires-worst-plagues-were-linked-to-climate-change/
Interesting stuff, though the article doesn't mention a plague during the fall of the western Roman empire, which was the area I was talking about specifically. They had plenty of plagues in other times though, and they were absolutely linked with climate change, as poor harvests and famines allow disease to spread much easier, people have weaker immune systems from lack of nutrition and they move around more as their farmland is not growing anything and they have to farm elsewhere.
Yup, there's actually a really fun podcast on the fall of Rome that goes into a lot of social, environmental, and economic issues that came together https://wondery.com/shows/the-fall-of-rome-podcast/
There is also old but interesting book about social history of Rome by Geza Alfoldy, Hungarian historian who at first claim he's not using marxist methods, but the book is really full of it.
neat!
I recently started listening to it lol, I'm up to episode 4 I think, I tend to drift in and out when I listen to podcasts and its very thorough so I have to keep re-listening to episodes multiple times so I can understand it. I don't mind though.
Oh yeah I now what you mean. :)