Product Description

In the middle of the sixth century, the world's smallest organism collided with the world's mightiest empire. With the death of twenty-five million people, the Roman Empire, under her last great emperor, Justinian, was decimated. Before Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that carries bubonic plague, was finished, both the Roman and Persian empires were easy pickings for the armies of Muhammad on their conquering march out of Arabia. In its wake, the plague - history's first pandemic - marked the transition from the age of Mediterranean empires to the age of European nation-states - from antiquity to the medieval world. Justinian's Flea is the story of that collision, a narrative history that weaves together evolutionary microbiology, architecture, military history, geography, rat and flea ecology, jurisprudence, theology, epidemiology, and the economics of the silk trade.The climax of Justinian's Flea - the summer of 542, when Constantinople witnessed the death of 5,000 of its citizens every day - is revealed through the experiences of the remarkable individuals whose lives are a window onto a remarkable age: Justinian himself, of course, but also his general Belisarius, the greatest soldier between Caesar and Saladin, whose conquests marked the end of imperial rule in Italy and Africa; his architect, Anthemius, the mathematician-engineer who built Constantinople's Hagia Sophia (and whose brother, Alexander, was the great physician of the plague years); Tribonian, the jurist who created the Justinianic Code, the source of Europe's tradition of Civil Law; and, finally, his empress Theodora, the one-time prostitute who became co-ruler of the empire, the most politically powerful woman in European history until Elizabeth I.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #758146 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Guardian
`Impressive study of the Bubonic plague and its impact on history...eccentric and erudite...a massively ambitious work'

Sunday Times - Rev'd Mary Beard
`he conves the significance and excitement of Justinian's
achievements'

The Times: Rev'd Iain Finlayson
'assertively modern in language and attitude...'

Customer Reviews

Journalistic-Historical Report on Justinian's Reign and the Plague That Attacked Europe and the Middle East
Justinian's Flea tells you about the decay of the Roman Empire, its gradual drift towards its eastern limits, the rise of Justinian, Justinian's accomplishments in expanding the empire and developing culture, the rise of the Persian Empire, the Bubonic Plague that ravaged the Roman and Persian empires, and the challenges that the expansion of Islam brought for the Roman and Persian empires. Mr. Rosen uses that information to argue that independent European nations developed sooner than they might have otherwise due to the combined effects of the plague and Islamic military expansion.

Most people know about the Black Death (caused by Bubonic Plague) that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages. But fewer people know that the earlier sixth century version was even more deadly. The sixth century Bubonic Plague also returned in 15 to 20 year cycles, wiping out vast segments of the young people. While the overall loss of life was about one-third of the population from the first incidence alone, the effect on sailors and those who lived in close communities (such as monasteries) was even more dramatic . . . affecting commerce and learning for some time to come.

Mr. Rosen draws generously on the latest scientific research provide a meticulous account of how the plague came to have such wide effects. I thought that it was fascinating and provided many new thoughts about the disease risks of having temperatures fluctuate more than usual.

That material, however, doesn't occur until the second half of the book. Unless you always wanted to know more about the fall of the Roman Empire and Justinian, you may get more information than you planned on for that aspect of the book. That was certainly true in my case having studied Roman history and Justinian in detail before. However, I felt rewarded by Mr. Rosen's style of using examples from the last few decades to bring the ancient examples to life.

Mr. Rosen's main thesis isn't totally persuasive. Although Justinian's reign brought the Roman Empire to new heights of accomplishment, most emperors who preceded and followed him weren't worth much. No matter how strong a nation is, poor leadership will soon sap its strength. Consider how much the Vietnam war economically weakened the United States in the
1960s. Look at how much the invasion of Iraq has driven up oil prices. The Roman Empire was continually under attack from various groups of invaders. That would have continued. Military success under Justinian mainly depended on guile and genius . . . rather than having much force to spread around. Clearly, the plague made the empire weaker than it would have been. But it might well have reached that level just a few generations later anyway, especially since Justinian didn't do a very good job of providing for leadership continuity.

I also think that in comparing the Roman Empire to the Chinese empire Mr. Rosen is too quick to make the two as being similar without considering all of the cultural forces in favor of preserving unity and heritage in the Chinese civilization.

Historians are fond of saying that each generation needs to rewrite history to make it understandable based on its own experiences. I think that Justinian's Flea makes that case more profoundly . . . because rapid advances in science often mean that we can see history more accurately now than prior generations could. That's certainly the case for the sixth century plague.

If you just want to read about the plague, start on page 163 and stop on page 268.

Mr. Rosen isn't a traditional historian. He writes in too interesting a way to have come from that guild. I hope you'll enjoy his efforts as much as I did.

A pleasure to read
A most interesting point in history, beautifully detailed and superbly researched; if rather light on the intricasies of the political and demographic situation surrounding the fall of the Western Empire, with which it was so intertwined. Considering the profuse details which cast, to me at least, a vast light into the sad, slow submerging of the system Justininian thought he had built as a bastion against exterior and interior enemies, this is a but a personal interest being given. There are limits to what can be included without clogging a book in details of course, suffice to say that I found it a fascinating and highly informative book which was engrossing from cover to cover.

Very good attempt, but does have flaws
The blurb inside the front cover says that Rosen used to be head of a publishing house, and this is his first book. Implication: he's not a professional historian. Looking at his notes at the back, his historical sources seem to be based largely around just a few works; Gibbon looms large, plus some of the other usual suspects like A. H. M. Jones and J. B. Bury. On the medical aspects of the plague, Google seems to have been his friend here.

Despite what on the face of it might seem the work of an amateur, this is actually quite a good, wide-ranging work, well written in spite of some occasionally odd usage of metaphor and digressions. It's not just about the plague but also considers the events of the couple of centuries leading up to Justinian, and within the reign of Justinian itself has such diversions as chapters about the construction of Hagia Sophia and the codification of law in the Institutes.

There are flaws however, often sins of omission rather than commission, for example as I recall off the top of my head:

- In discussing the Visigoths and their relationship to Rome, Rosen makes no mention whatsoever of the battle of the Frigidus in 394, which can be considered one of those turning points of history. The Visigoth army helped Theodosius defeat the usurper Eugenius, ensuring the continuation of Christian Rome, and Catholic at that, and the loss of 10,000 Visigoths, half their army, in the service of Rome, for little reward and still no homeland, certainly sowed the seeds of bitterness leading to the events of the early 5th century with Alaric and the sieges of Rome. To omit mention of this seems shockingly poor.

- When discussing the collapse of the first dome of Justinian's Hagia Sophia, Rosen does not mention that it was first weakened by an earthquake and then collapsed after a second quake. He seems to imply as a result that it simply collapsed of its own accord.

- In his biological discussion, he thinks that "metazoans" comprises all multicellular life - this is not the case, but rather corresponds roughly to what we call "animals".

Looming in the background are two theses, that
a) Rome and China went along parallel paths until the plague came to Rome, and
b) the plague is responsible for the creation of mediaeval Europe (by assisting in the permanent breakup of the West, and conquest of the East, Africa & Spain by the Arabs).

These theses seem somewhat debateable. Is Rosen implying that without the plague there might still today be some sort of gigantic political superpower covering Europe, North Africa and the Near East to match modern China? Seems unlikely to me. The ultimate causes of the lasting fragmentation of Rome were as much political, religious, military and 'racial' as medical.

Despite the flaws, this is a book worth reading.