The Fall of the Roman Empire

"First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me." - Steve Martin

When people today discuss the threat of Bird Flu, they often site the Spanish Influenza of 1918 (20-100 million killed) as an example of a pandemic. But today I learned of another much older example while looking up reasons for the Fall of the Roman Empire on Wikipedia.

Starting in 165 A.D. the Roman Empire suffered a severe and protracted pandemic, either of smallpox or measles, brought home by Roman troops fighting in the Near East. The epidemic claimed the lives of two Roman emperors — Lucius Verus (d. 169) and his co-regent Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (d 180). This pandemic was named the Antonine Plague, because no one, not even the emperor Aurelius Antoninus, was safe from it.

The disease broke out again nine years later, according to the Roman historian Dio Cassius, and caused up to 2,000 deaths a day at Rome, one quarter of those infected. Total deaths have been estimated at five million.[1] Disease killed as much as one-third to one-half of the Roman Empire, and decimated the Roman army.[2] According to the 5th century Spanish writer, Paulus Orosius, many towns and villages in the Italian peninsula and the European provinces lost all their inhabitants.

The pandemic had drastic social and political effects throughout the Roman Empire. A plague weakened Roman army was unable to hold back the advance of Germanic peoples across the Danube in 169. Over the next few centuries the German tribes grew stronger in central Europe while the Roman Legion grew weaker. The death of so many citizens started a chain of events leading to the economic ruin of Rome. There were expensive civil wars in the chaos after the plagues and fewer citizens to collect taxes from. To pay the military, coins were minted with less silver and gold content resulting in inflation. A smaller Army busy with civil wars meant the roads were no longer guarded. Merchants could no longer safely travel to distant parts of the Empire for profits (and taxes).

Eventually the Roman Empire could not afford to support its large Army. Roman swords and armor grew older and shabbier, the soldiers fewer and fewer, until eventually the Germans were better equipped and more numerous than the Romans. In 406 and 410 the German Vandals and Goths were able to sack the city of Rome - a city that had been undefeated for 800 years.

Bottom Line

The Health of a nation can depend on the health of its people (and its military). While the death of millions might not result in an invasion of Goths, it can mean fields not farmed (less food), fewer police (more crime), fewer health care professions (more disease and death), and so on. Look at any natural disaster (like Katrina) and you'll find stories of looting and overwhelmed hospitals. Now multiply that by 10,000 and you can imagine a pandemic.