Friday, May 03, 2013

Rosen, Justinian's Flea (2007)

William Rosen.
Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe.
New York: Viking Penguin, 2007.
The paperback edition is titled: Justinian's Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire (2008).

Book information: Book Website; Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Paul Freedman, "HIST 210: The Early Middle Ages, 284–1000" (YouTube playlist), Open Yale Courses, Fall 2011.

Some Book Reviews:
  • Ian Pindar, "Round the world on a rat," The Guardian, 04 May 2007.
  • Raymond J. Dattwyler, Book Review, The New England Journal of Medicine, volume 357, pages 1354-1355, September 27, 2007.
  • Eamon Duffy, "‘The First Great Pandemic in History’," The New York Review of Books, 29 May 2008.
    This is not a review of Rosen's book but of another and more focused book published about a year before Rosen's: Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750. Lester K. Little, editor. Cambridge University Press, 2006 [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com].

Some Wikipedia Articles:
The book's title perhaps misleadingly suggests that the book is narrowly focusd on a plague episode during the reign of Justinian; instead, the book is a very quick survey of the Late Antiquity period, from the third to the seventh centuries, with the Plague of Justinian presented as one of several major turing points in the transition from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages.

[Prologue, 540] : Pelusium; History of Alexandria: Roman era; Plague of Justinian.

[Ch One, 286-470] : Crisis of the Third Century (235-284); Dominate (284-476); Diocletian (r. 284-305); Tetrarchy (293-313); Constantine (r. 306-337); Constantine the Great and Christianity; Constantinople; Byzantine Empire.

[Ch Two, 337-518] : Decline of the Roman Empire; Western Roman Empire (285-480); Fall of the Western Roman Empire; ---- Migration Period; Goths; Visigoths; Ostrogoths; ---- Cassiodorus (c.485–c.585); Jordanes (6th century) author of Getica, a history of the Gothic people; Ulfilas (c.310-383) Arian Christian bishop and missionary to the Goths; ---- Constantinian dynasty (r.293-363); Julian (r.361-363); Battle of Samarra (363); Ammianus Marcellinus (320s-390s) author of Res Gestae, available as The Later Roman Empire: A.D. 354-378, Walter Hamilton, translator, Penguin Classics, 1986 [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com]; Valens (r.364-378); Battle of Adrianople (378); Theodosius I (r.379-395), last single emperor of both western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire; ---- Honorius (r.395-423) western Roman Emperor; Stilicho (c.359–408) considered along with Aetius the last great western Roman generals; Alaric I (r.395–410) king of the Visigoths; Sack of Rome (410) by the Visigoths; Galla Placidia regent 421 or 423-437 for her son the western Emperor Valentinian III (r.425-455) who, like Honorius to Stilicho, kills his best general Aetius (c.396–454) who is credited with preventing further collapse of the western empire from the 430s to 454. Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy; ---- Huns; Attila (d.453); Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (451) Hun incursion into Gaul halted and reversed; ---- Ricimer (c.405-472); Odoacer, King of Ostrogoths 476-493; Theodoric Strabo (d.481); Ostrogothic Kingdom (493-553), successor to the extinguished Western Roman Empire; Theoderic the Great (454-526) King of Ostrogothic Kingdom 493-526; ---- Theodosius II (r.408-450); Marcian (r.450-457); Leo I (r.457-474); Zeno (r.474-475 and 476-491); Anastasius (r.491-518); ---- State church of the Roman Empire.

[Ch Three, 518-530] : Boethius (c.480-524); ---- Byzantine Empire under the Justinian dynasty; Byzantine Empire; Justin I (r.518-527); Justinian I (r.527-565); Theodora (c.500-548); ---- Belisarius (c.500-565); Battle of Dara (530).

[Ch Four, 530-537] : Chariot racing: Byzantine era; Hippodrome of Constantinople; Horses of Saint Mark; Nika riots (532); Mundus (d.536); Hagia Sophia; Isidore of Miletus; Anthemius of Tralles.

[Ch Five, 533-537] : John the Cappadocian (6th century); Tribonian (c.485–547); Corpus Juris Civilis also called the Code of Justinian; Novellae Constitutiones also called Justinian's Novels; English translations of these works: Annotated Justinian Code by Fred H. Blume; Justinian's Novels by Fred H. Blume.

[Ch Six, 533-540] : Vandals led by Genseric (c.389-477) conquer the Roman province of Africa in the 420s and 430s; ---- Belisarius (c.500-565); Antonina (c.484–after 565); Vandalic War (533-534) in which the Romans conquer Africa; Amalasuntha (c.495–534/535); Gothic War (535–554) in which the Romans conquer the Ostrogothic Kingdom (and temporarily retake Italy); Mundus (d.536); Narses (478-573).

[Ch Seven] : Bacteria: Yersinia pestis; Flea: Xenopsylla cheopis also called the Oriental rat flea.

[Ch Eight] : Rat: Rattus rattus also called the Black rat; Disease: Bubonic plague; Pneumonic plague; Septicemic plague; Epidemiology: Epidemiology; Pandemic; Disease Dynamics: Mathematical modelling of infectious disease.

[Ch Nine, 540-542] : Plague of Justinian; Extreme weather events of 535–536, suggested as creating environmental conditions conducive to the spread of plague vectors; Procopius (c.500–c.565).

[Ch Ten, 523-545] : Sassanid Empire; Khosrau I (r.531–579); Ctesiphon.

[Ch Eleven, 545-664] : Franks; Merovingian dynasty (5th-8th centuries); Clovis (c.466–511); Gregory of Tours (c.538–594) author of History of the Franks, Lewis Thorpe, translator, Penguin Classics, 1974 [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com]. ---- End of Roman rule in Britain (383-410); Anglo-Saxon England (400-1066); Bede (672/673–735) aka the Venerable Bede; Bede documented episodes of plague in the British Isles during the Seventh Century in: Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (731) Ecclesiastical History of the English People: (1) Leo Sherley-Price, translator, D. H. Farmer, editor, Penguin Classics, 1990 [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com]; (2) Judith McClure and Roger Collins, translators, Oxford University Press, 2009 [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com].

[Ch Twelve, 548-558] : Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy.

[Ch Thirteen, 559-565] : Silk Road.

[Epilogue, 636] : Maurice (r.582-602); Phocas (r.602-610); Heraclius (r.610-641); ---- Muslim conquests; Arab conquest of Roman Syria: 634–638; Battle of Yarmouk (636); Khalid ibn al-Walid (592–642) aka the Sword of Allah.


Bibliographical Note (pages 347-349):
Other Books and Articles
on the same period and topics as Rosen's book, mostly published after Rosen wrote his book:
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