Plague of Cyprian
The Plague of Cyprian was a pandemic that afflicted the Roman Empire from about AD 249 to 262,[1][2] or 251/2 to 270.[3] The plague is thought to have caused widespread manpower shortages for food production and the Roman army, severely weakening the empire during the Crisis of the Third Century.[2][4][5] Its modern name commemorates St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, an early Christian writer who witnessed and described the plague.[2] The agent of the plague is highly speculative because of sparse sourcing, but suspects have included smallpox, measles, and viral haemorrhagic fever (filoviruses) like the Ebola virus.[1][2]
Epidemiology[edit]
The severe devastation to the European population from the two plagues may indicate that the population had no previous exposure or immunity to the plague's cause. The historian William Hardy McNeill asserts that both the earlier Antonine Plague (166–180) and the Plague of Cyprian (251–270) were the first transfers from animal hosts to humanity of two different diseases, one of smallpox and one of measles, but not necessarily in that order. Dionysios Stathakopoulos asserts that both outbreaks were of smallpox.[16]
According to the historian Kyle Harper, the symptoms attributed by ancient sources to the Plague of Cyprian better match a viral disease causing a hemorrhagic fever, such as Ebola, rather than smallpox. (Conversely, Harper believes that the Antonine Plague was caused by smallpox.)[1][2][15]
Legacy[edit]
According to Harper, the plague nearly saw the end of the Roman Empire, and in the period between AD 248 and 268, "the history of Rome is a confusing tangle of violent failures. The structural integrity of the imperial machine burst apart. The frontier system crumbled. The collapse of legitimacy invited one usurper after another to try for the throne. The empire fragmented and only the dramatic success of later emperors in putting the pieces back together prevented this moment from being the final act of Roman imperial history."[2]
Both the threat of imminent death from the plague and the unwavering conviction among many of the Christian clergy in the face of it won many converts to that religion.[17]