Confronting Pandemic in Late Antiquity: The Medical Response to the Justinianic Plague

Abstract:From the sixth to the eighth centuries, the Roman world suffered the first known pandemic caused by Yersinia pestis, the bacterial agent of bubonic plague. Despite the pandemic's horrors, scholarly consensus has maintained that medical authors took no notice of the Justinianic Pandemic. This article introduces the first evidence that physicians at the time of the Justinianic Pandemic described the illness that raged around them. Through a close analysis of the language used by contemporary historians to describe the symptoms of the pandemic, it is possible to uncover discussions of the pandemic in medical literature that have remained hidden in plain sight. Specifically, this article argues that the sixth- and seventh-century physicians John of Alexandria, Stephanus of Athens, and Paul of Aegina not only describe the illness of the pandemic, but also develop sophisticated ways of diagnosing the illness, understanding it physiologically, and treating it. In so doing, these authors go beyond medical precedent to construct innovative responses to an unprecedented pandemic.