Talk:Plague of Justinian/Archive 1

Archive 1

tag

Removed the "disputed" tag, added, apparently as a joke, by anon. User:217.225.130.152 a non-entity otherwise unheard from. --Wetman 11:31, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

bubonic plague?

It's not proven, whether this was the bubonic plague or not. see Black Death for this matter. and it is not proven either, if the death toll was as high as it is claimed here. -musschrott

Please see bubonic plague - for information on the disease and historic epidemics/pandemics. As with most historic events, we can't "prove" anything, but we can evaluate and discuss. It is true current scientists hold differing opinions (see bubonic plague alternatives as well as the written references). A general scholarly consensus says the Plague of Justinian was bubonic plague while the Black Death spread more rapidly due to the shifting of the disease from the bubonic to the pneumonic variety, with some septicemic plague as well. The Third Pandemic is considered to be a combination of the three plague varieties. Numbers are always an estimate (at best) from a historic source. I think the original author was quite clear about that and I left the concept in when I did my recent edit. WBardwin 06:22, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Tell us more about this concensus. Is it a concensus among historians, or epidemiologists?? After all, historians are not scientists. Why not cite this and allow for controversy on this point. Unless there's been a serious study done on the cause of the plague (has there?) which turned up some concrete physical evidence (ie the pressence of plague bacteria found in the bodies of people known to have died in the Plague of Justinian... has there??) then I don't think this is a verifiable fact. Certainly not enough to be stated so concretely in the article. If the concensus is merely based on written records of the symptoms, then this is merely a theory--and a fairly weak one. So I think it's fair to ask for explaination as to just why it is believed to have been plague as opposed to something else. We must be careful when taking an authoritative tone in an article to state theory rather than fact. Also, I'm fairly sure I remember traditional theories regarding the evolution of Bubonic Plague tracing it to Central Asia at a later time period. Thus, if the Plague of Justinian was in fact Bubonic Plague, then wouldn't that contradict conventional theories of the origins of the disease?? It's these kinds of questions that demand further detail on the basis of the claim that it's bubonic plague. Anyone else know more? Links? Thelastemperor 01:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

At least some of the deaths from Justinian's Plague may have been from typhoid fever as well as Yellow Plague (Yellow Fever noticably different from bubonic from its jaundice tinge). Granted that bubonic sufferers, if they had time, would have been sufficiently weakened to catch typhoid fever in addition to their other woes. How this would abet Yellow Fever is not known to me, but some victims were definitely Jaundiced. The Yellow Fever spread north to Wales, Ireland, etc. Apparently they suffered no Black Plague there at that time.67.8.201.227 02:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

My admittedly partial understanding: The evidence that this particular "plague" (pandemic) was caused by "plague" (Yersinia pestis) comes not only from reported symptoms but also from zoology, specifically the especially effective transport by, and transfer to humans from, Chinese black rats. These were the standard stowaway of the day (but have been displaced by Norwegian rats, who are not quite as "friendly" to the bugs). Jmacwiki (talk) 22:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It looks like there is new evidence from DNA testing that this plague was indeed caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis: Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague However, I am hesitant to alter the page since I don't fully understand the science behind it. In any case, this article should somehow be added to the page but I'm hoping someone with a better understanding will do so. --Robin McNally (talk) 11:12, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

deaths?

10,000 people a day? Really? Wasn't the city's population only about 500,000 at this point? -Dmz5 19:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh I missed the note about this later in the article. I'm going to rearrange it a little bit so it's clearer.--Dmz5 19:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

BE *and* ERE, and two questions

I have modified the empire's name in the opening line: "ERE or BE". This is not related to the controversy about the proper name for Justinian's empire (there is plenty of that at the Byzantine_Empire page). Rather, this is one of the few articles in which both names have appropriate uses. (a) Justinian's reconquest had the (very temporary) effect of reuniting the Eastern & Western parts of the RE, and a strategic project of this breadth only makes sense from the perspective that the two regions were "supposed" to be united. (b) However, the adjective "Byzantine" is used in several places, and "Eastern Roman" would be a stylistically poor replacement. (Arguably, "Roman" might be the right replacement, but that gets back to the whole BE naming controversy. ;-) Jmacwiki (talk) 03:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Fraction of population?

100 million deaths worldwide is a LOT (even now!). Does anyone know what fraction of the global population this represented? My guess: At least 20%, which might make it the largest catastrophe in the history of our species. Jmacwiki (talk) 03:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's world population page, it would be much more even than that —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.115.193 (talk) 22:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Insert or point to map?

It would be really nice to insert, or at least link to, a map of Justinian's holdings as of 540. Can anyone find one, and do this? Or at least the usual map of 565? (That one is present at Byzantine_Empire.) Jmacwiki (talk) 03:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Impact on reconstructing the WRE (renovatio imperii)

The wording on this point is challenged with a note on "dubious - discuss". Specifically, the wording is, "could have credibly reformed the Western Roman Empire".

I believe the intended point of the text is not that conquering all of the former WRE - especially including Britain - was credible; only that conquering western North Africa, Italy, and either Iberia or Gaul (or both) might constitute a reasonable definition of a re-formed WRE (albeit as part of the reunited Roman empire).

Achieving that much, in the absence of this plague, seems entirely credible to me. (Justinian reconquered western NA and Italy, despite this plague.) Is there a strong contrary argument?

If not, any thoughts on improving the wording? Jmacwiki (talk) 02:55, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Arrogance of some Wikipedians

Having stumbled on this page, I notice a couple dozen comments like "citation needed" and "dubious - discuss". I don't know who put them there, but this seems to me to be the work of yet another Wikipedian who doesn't actually write articles, but just criticises them. If you don't like what's written in the article, then do the work yourself and improve it. I'm not going to say what I really think of contributors like this, but please don't just drop these heavy handed comments everywhere in someone else's work. Roll up your sleeves and rewrite the damn thing -- or STFU. Schildewaert (talk) 13:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

So you just drop an attack on other editors here without doing anything yourself? Without even knowing if any of them were placed there by editors who searched for but didn't find sources, but decided not to delete first without giving other editors a chance to find some? What kind of example are you setting? Dougweller (talk) 14:59, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It was indeed just one editor, and they put most of them before the punctuation, which is incorrect. This was in April, and someone tagged the article in July so I've removed almost all the tags. Dougweller (talk) 15:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Don't do that, unless you have reasons they're inappropriate (which you don't give here, apart from not liking their placement). People need to know if and where the article is questionable.  — LlywelynII 22:48, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

In my edit summary I did point out that some were already sourced. Eg:

"Procopius recorded that, at its peak, the plague was killing 10,000 people in Constantinople every day, but the accuracy of this figure is in question and the true number will probably never be known; what is known is that there was no room to bury the dead, and bodies were left stacked in the open."

Isn't that sourced? Then there's:

"The long-term effects on European and Christian history were enormous. Justinian's imperial gambit was ultimately unsuccessful. The troops, overextended, could not hold on. When the plague subsided, they retook Italy, but could not move further north. The eastern empire held Italy for the remainder of Justinian's life, but the empire quickly lost all territory except the southern part after he died. Italy was ravaged by war and fragmented for centuries as the Lombard tribes invaded the north."

Is that an appropriate use of citation tags? I'd say no. Here:

"Nevertheless it is possible that there has been a tendency to exaggerate the differential effects. British sources are more likely to report natural disasters than Saxon ones in this era."

I removed the first two and left the last, the important one.

Could I ask about this: " A genetic study of the bacterium causing bubonic plague based on samples taken from the remains of 14th-century plague victims in London and a survey of other samples[clarification needed] suggests[how?] that the Plague of Justinian and others from antiquity arose from either now-extinct strains of Yersinia pestis genetically distinct from the 14th-century strain or came from pathogens entirely unrelated to bubonic plague." I'm not clear what we need to know, and why we need to know it, about the samples or how the study suggests ... - isn't that all in the sources? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:20, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Aw, you're sweet. I was just speaking generally against Schild's attitude ("shaddup and lemme alone, y'#!$@ editors") and not against your particular edits, which – as you noted – I didn't bother leafing through the history to check one-by-one. And, as you now note here, you had excellent reasons for each one and (more importantly) left the important {{fact}} tags alone. Good show.

As for my particular edit, sorry if I was unclear. It may very well be included in the source, but (mho) the article's gloss should be clarified – how can a study of 14th-century victims "and others" (from where? 3rd-dynasty Egypt? 20th-century India?) possibly identify the 6th-century disease that we're talking about? They don't seem to have actually studied the actual victims from the actual disease under discussion; by rights, the whole thing should be removed as off-topic.

That said, I'm sure (since it's here) that the authors had some rationale for extrapolating their results. It may even be a valid one, but it's not currently on display. Hence, the need for clarification on those two points. (Yeah, Schild would tell me to go do it myself, but I've got a dozen other windows open so... {{Inline cleanup tags}})  — LlywelynII 09:45, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Only a dozen? lol (I've about 250 but only maybe half are Wikipedia related). Life's too short - we try our best but we can't fix it all! Dougweller (talk) 12:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)