Did Climate Change Bring Plagues to the Roman Empire?
Volcanic eruptions may have created a perfect storm for diseases to spread across the Empire
The fall of the Roman Empire is one of world history's most discussed and interesting events. Scholars debate the exact reasoning and timing of this incredibly influential empire’s downfall. Most notably, the Empire experienced a series of plagues that wreaked havoc on its population. These plagues are often linked to the weakening of the Empire’s reign and are cited as the first pandemics. Rome had created a vast transportation network that allowed viruses to spread more easily. However, climate scientists have recently added their own data to potentially explain these deadly diseases.
In this article, I will discuss some recent findings about climate variations during the Roman Empire's existence and how they may be linked to a series of plagues.
Climate has its natural variability that occurs without human interference, ranging across mechanisms such as the energy output from the Sun, Earth’s orbital variations, volcanic eruptions, and internal variability that comes with the inherent chaos of climate.
We’ll examine how we know what the climate was like during the peak of the Roman Empire and, more importantly, how its…
