EnvironmentEurope
The Antonine Plague
The Silk Road carries more than silk
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The physician Galen described the symptoms, our best source. The plague is among the earliest examples that connection has a price: the same network that brought silk and spices brought diseases to populations with no resistance. The pattern repeated with the Justinianic plague, the Black Death, and with the smallpox that devastated the Americas.
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A disease, probably smallpox, spread along the trade routes from the east and killed perhaps one in ten in the Roman empire. The army was weakened, tax revenue failed, and the empire never quite returned to what it had been.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org