War, invasion, civil unrest… or plague? Could a series of deadly pandemics have helped bring down the mighty Roman Empire?In the third episode of our Fall of Rome mini-series, Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Kyle Harper – author of The Fate of Rome – to explore how disease and climate change may have crippled this superpower of the ancient world. From the Antonine Plague of the 160s AD to the terrifying Cyprianic Plague that ravaged Carthage and beyond, this episode investigates how pandemics devastated populations, shattered economies, and reshaped imperial policy.Join us as we uncover the dark side of Roman history – a world of weeping sores, mass graves, and myths of divine vengeance – and ask the big question: Could nature have delivered the final blow to the Roman Empire?MORE:Lessons from the Antonine Plague:https://open.spotify.com/episode/1wsEtmlqkwqLbQlgZ8TW1LPlague of Athens:https://open.spotify.com/episode/1al8GluN7NBvuzXayHe74FPresented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on
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In the time of the Emperor Decius in 251 AD, there broke out a dreadful plague, and excessive destruction of a hateful disease invaded every house, carrying off day by day with abrupt attack numberless people. All were shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion, impiously exposing their own friends. There lay about meanwhile over the whole city no longer bodies, but the carcasses of many.
The words of Pontius of Carthage paint a chilling picture of the Cypriotic plague's devastating impact on the Roman city of Carthage. But Carthage, the ancient colony of the Phoenicians, was not its only victim.
For 15 relentless years, beginning in 249 AD, this Ebola-like contagion gripped the full breadth of the empire, draining it of life with an almost unprecedented ferocity, one of the first ever examples of a transcontinental pandemic.
And yet, despite the scale of this great pestilence, the plague of Cyprian and the many other diseases that perhaps quickened the empire's decline rarely get much time in the spotlight. That is, until now. This is the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and welcome to the third episode in our special Fall of Rome mini-series, where we ask a most intriguing and important question.
Did plague help destroy the Roman Empire? Last week, across our first two episodes, we delved into the turbulent forces and pressures that strained Rome from within, like civil wars, economic tension and the rise of Christianity. We also explored the impact of countless barbarian invasions from outside the empire, culminating in two brutal sackings of its eternal city.
These episodes are available now to hear. On Thursday, in our series finale, we'll be unpacking the lives of the last emperors, revealing the thoughts and actions of those in control when the sun finally set on Rome's western dominions. Today, however, we're moving on from the fateful choices of vainglorious emperors and the swirling hordes of Goths, Vandals and Huns to the wild forces of nature.
The Romans prided themselves on bending the natural world to their will. They braved tempestuous seas and traversed barren deserts to lay claim to vast swathes of the ancient Mediterranean. They imported king-like beasts from distant lands, to be slaughtered for the amusement of the masses by an enslaved class of hardened beast hunters. But Mother Nature always has her way in the end.
Rome's eventual fall was as much a triumph for bacteria and viruses, for droughts and floods, as it was the consequence of generals and barbarians.
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