01-27-2020, 12:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-27-2020, 05:39 PM by Nathan Ross.)
I've been meaning to read Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (2017) for a while. I greatly enjoyed his previous work on late Roman slavery, and this new one touches on several topics we've discussed in recent years on RAT. It's a rather controversial book though, to the extent that it's elicited a massively detailed three part 'response' from a group of scholars in the field, including Hugh Elton, challenging Harper's methods and findings.
Harper's essential premise is that the course of Rome history from the late second to the sixth century was directed as much by natural events as by human decisions; the 'fate of Rome' was 'equally decided by bacteria and viruses, volcanoes and solar cycles' that we only recently have developed the means to study and measure effectively. He expands this vividly and convincingly, with a nice balance of (what appears to be) hard data and evocative description.
For all its scale and complexity, Harper claims, the Roman empire was not a very healthy place. 'In an unintended conspiracy with nature,' he writes, 'the Romans created a disease ecology that unleashed the latent power of pathogen evolution.' (His supporting evidence goes some way to supporting Sean's point in this thread). 'A reasonable answer to the question, "What have the Romans ever done for us?", Harper suggests, 'might have been, "Got us sick".' However, the climate was apparently pretty good: the 1st-mid 2nd centuries fell into what Harper calls the Roman Climate Optimum, when overall warmth and greater humidity increased agricultural production.
This relatively happy situation ended with the Antonine Plague, which was discussed at length in this thread. Harper neatly disproves the idea that the disease (probably smallpox) was brought from Parthia by the returning troops of Lucius Verus, and mentions that 'most efforts to gauge mortality of the Antonine Plague have fallen somewhere between 10-20 percent' with highs of 'possibly up to 22-24 percent.' (p.115) The resurgence of population levels and overal prosperity after the plague, however, demonstrates Roman resilience. Harper goes on to describe the Severan era (long derided as an 'age of iron and rust', following Dio) as a kind of renaissance, and really the highpoint of Roman civilisation.
He then moves on to the Plague of Cyprian, which he suggest might have been influenza (quoting some convincingly grisly symptoms recorded during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918), or perhaps a filovirus, similar to Ebola. The effects, in any case, were drastic, and Harper suggests that the plague led directly to the crisis of the third century (which he has beginning only with the murder of Phillip 'the Arab' in AD249), and the rise in popularity of Christianity as a reaction to it all.
The fourth century, in Harper's analysis, was not only a recovery from the crisis but a return to a golden age. Prosperity was up, diseases were down, and everything seemed to be going well. I'm not so convinced by this myself - while the age of Constantine and after was certainly a great improvement, I suspect that a lot of what followed was a bit chimerical; there are plenty of fourth century references to reduced or ruined cities, abandoned farmland, rebellious provincials and usurpers to suggest that things might not have been so rosy after all.
But Harper sort of has to promote the fourth century as a strong and stable era as it supports his thesis: the climate was fine, and there were no plagues about, so all was well. The problem, of course, is that a strong stable fourth century makes the collapse in the fifth century all the more sudden and dramatic, and calls for some dramatic external forces. And this is where things get perhaps a bit controversial... In Harper's words, 'the barbarians are back'.
'After a period of doubt,' he says, 'many historians have begun to take seriously the narrative (about 'warlike nomads') that Ammianus presents.' I'm not sure so many have - although he cites Peter Heather. But the many other scholars on late antiquity who have devoted much time and effort over recent decades to debunking (rightly or wrongly) the notion that vast hordes of barbarians brought down the western empire are unlikely to be too impressed with the picture presented here!
'The Huns,' Harper says, 'were armed climate refugees on horseback'; he suggests that a massive drought in central Asia over the decades from AD 350 to 370 effectively drove the Huns out of their ancient homeland and sent them careering across Europe, to collide with the Goths and set off a domino-effect of barbarian invasions. The result was that 'Roman efflorescence wilted. The cities dwindled' - but hadn't that happened already?
After this, the sections on the Plague of Justinian and the massive climatic disasters of the mid sixth century appear fairly uncontroversial and well argued - although I don't know about the state of the surrounding scholarship on that (but I think his extension of the 'Late Antique Little Ice Age' to include this period has been questioned). Overall, the book is very readable and feels convincing (Harper has a flair for dramatic phrasing that reminded me at times of Tom Holland), although I felt the shadow of that massive critical backlash hanging over it as I read!
But it's certainly an interesting and engaging contribution to the discussion, and as I suspect that environmental issues are on the minds of many these days, it's a timely one too.
Harper's essential premise is that the course of Rome history from the late second to the sixth century was directed as much by natural events as by human decisions; the 'fate of Rome' was 'equally decided by bacteria and viruses, volcanoes and solar cycles' that we only recently have developed the means to study and measure effectively. He expands this vividly and convincingly, with a nice balance of (what appears to be) hard data and evocative description.
For all its scale and complexity, Harper claims, the Roman empire was not a very healthy place. 'In an unintended conspiracy with nature,' he writes, 'the Romans created a disease ecology that unleashed the latent power of pathogen evolution.' (His supporting evidence goes some way to supporting Sean's point in this thread). 'A reasonable answer to the question, "What have the Romans ever done for us?", Harper suggests, 'might have been, "Got us sick".' However, the climate was apparently pretty good: the 1st-mid 2nd centuries fell into what Harper calls the Roman Climate Optimum, when overall warmth and greater humidity increased agricultural production.
This relatively happy situation ended with the Antonine Plague, which was discussed at length in this thread. Harper neatly disproves the idea that the disease (probably smallpox) was brought from Parthia by the returning troops of Lucius Verus, and mentions that 'most efforts to gauge mortality of the Antonine Plague have fallen somewhere between 10-20 percent' with highs of 'possibly up to 22-24 percent.' (p.115) The resurgence of population levels and overal prosperity after the plague, however, demonstrates Roman resilience. Harper goes on to describe the Severan era (long derided as an 'age of iron and rust', following Dio) as a kind of renaissance, and really the highpoint of Roman civilisation.
He then moves on to the Plague of Cyprian, which he suggest might have been influenza (quoting some convincingly grisly symptoms recorded during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918), or perhaps a filovirus, similar to Ebola. The effects, in any case, were drastic, and Harper suggests that the plague led directly to the crisis of the third century (which he has beginning only with the murder of Phillip 'the Arab' in AD249), and the rise in popularity of Christianity as a reaction to it all.
The fourth century, in Harper's analysis, was not only a recovery from the crisis but a return to a golden age. Prosperity was up, diseases were down, and everything seemed to be going well. I'm not so convinced by this myself - while the age of Constantine and after was certainly a great improvement, I suspect that a lot of what followed was a bit chimerical; there are plenty of fourth century references to reduced or ruined cities, abandoned farmland, rebellious provincials and usurpers to suggest that things might not have been so rosy after all.
But Harper sort of has to promote the fourth century as a strong and stable era as it supports his thesis: the climate was fine, and there were no plagues about, so all was well. The problem, of course, is that a strong stable fourth century makes the collapse in the fifth century all the more sudden and dramatic, and calls for some dramatic external forces. And this is where things get perhaps a bit controversial... In Harper's words, 'the barbarians are back'.
'After a period of doubt,' he says, 'many historians have begun to take seriously the narrative (about 'warlike nomads') that Ammianus presents.' I'm not sure so many have - although he cites Peter Heather. But the many other scholars on late antiquity who have devoted much time and effort over recent decades to debunking (rightly or wrongly) the notion that vast hordes of barbarians brought down the western empire are unlikely to be too impressed with the picture presented here!
'The Huns,' Harper says, 'were armed climate refugees on horseback'; he suggests that a massive drought in central Asia over the decades from AD 350 to 370 effectively drove the Huns out of their ancient homeland and sent them careering across Europe, to collide with the Goths and set off a domino-effect of barbarian invasions. The result was that 'Roman efflorescence wilted. The cities dwindled' - but hadn't that happened already?
After this, the sections on the Plague of Justinian and the massive climatic disasters of the mid sixth century appear fairly uncontroversial and well argued - although I don't know about the state of the surrounding scholarship on that (but I think his extension of the 'Late Antique Little Ice Age' to include this period has been questioned). Overall, the book is very readable and feels convincing (Harper has a flair for dramatic phrasing that reminded me at times of Tom Holland), although I felt the shadow of that massive critical backlash hanging over it as I read!
But it's certainly an interesting and engaging contribution to the discussion, and as I suspect that environmental issues are on the minds of many these days, it's a timely one too.
Nathan Ross
