Pandemics in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4173561 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rebecca Flemming (University of Exeter, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 114 |
| Issue | S1 |
| Pages | S288-S312 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/726988 |
| OpenAlex | W4387039789 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 25 |
This essay outlines the kinds of evidence available (and not available) for studies of ancient Mediterranean pandemics, the scholarship on the subject so far, and some reflections on the relationship between the two. The focus is on the three largescale epidemic episodes that have attracted the most scholarly attention: the "Plague of Athens" in the fifth century BCE; the "Antonine Plague," which spread across the Roman Empire in the late second century CE; and the "Justinianic Plague," which first engulfed the Mediterranean in the sixth century CE. All present considerable evidential challenges. There are traditional resources and the rich remains of ancient medical writings, but we also now have at our disposal new archaeological and genetic evidence. The research questions on these pandemics must be expanded beyond asking what disease was implicated and what political and economic impact its Mediterranean outbreaks had, sometimes within quite a restricted geographical area. Interdisciplinary research will be required to answer these wider enquiries fully. All the salient disciplines need to be involved, with due attention to their methodologies, if the field is to move forward and make the most of its resources
Ancient history · Archaeology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Disease · Empire · Environmental ethics · Geography · Infectious disease (medical specialty · Mediterranean climate · Pandemic · Plague (disease · Political science · Politics · Salient · Scholarship · Subject (documents · Bacillus and Francisella bacterial research · History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research
The greatest health problem of the Middle Ages? Estimating the burden of disease in medieval England
Plague and the Athenian Imagination
Plague before the Pandemics
Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire
Plagued by doubt
The “Plague of Cyprian”
Pandemics and passages to late antiquity
The impact of the Antonine plague
A model of demographic and economic change in Roman Egypt after the Antonine plague
The ‘Justinianic Plague’
The Plague At Syracuse
Thucydides' Description of the Great Plague at Athens
Thucydides and the Plague of Athens
The New Environmental Fall of Rome
People, Plagues, and Prices in the Roman World
The Four Black Deaths
Epistemic Uncertainty, Subjective Probability, and Ancient History
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |