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Lesser Known Byzantine Empire Facts

Khalid Elhassan September 11, 2020 35 min

Byzantine Empire - Constantinople — Procession of Emperor Manuel I Komenos in Constantinople. Imgur

25. A Byzantine Pandemic that Rivaled the Black Death

Mosaic of Emperor Justinian I and his retinue. Wikimedia

The Black Death, history’s most famous pandemic, was also its deadliest. However, Justinian’s Plague, 541 – 542 AD, gives it a run for its money in lethality and consequences. It was named after Emperor Justinian I, during whose reign it and the aforementioned Nika Riots occurred. Justinian actually came down with the plague named after him, but survived.

It is history’s first recorded pandemic, because it swept across three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Like the Black Death, Justinian’s Plague was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium. It was also transmitted by infected fleas, carried by black rats. Also like the Black Death, Justinian’s Plague struck with a devastating initial outbreak, followed by several recurrences in succeeding years. By the time the last recurrence ended, the plague had killed an estimated 25 million to 100 million people.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.