Trials of Justinian - VOL 4-6 - Politics Persians Plagues

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during the Hundred Years War to life this was a fascinating yet gruesome ordeal and here you can witness it firsthand if you sign up today using the code to Flashpoint history you'll be graciously helping out my channel plus you'll get 50 off your first three months and have access to some of the best podcasts and video documentaries out there so do yourself a favor hit that link below use the code and sign up for history hit today [Music] thank you foreign [Music] brought North Africa back into the empire the campaign confounded Expectations by completely destroying the vandals in such a short space of time the emperor was now in no doubt that it was his Destiny to restore the Western half of the Roman Empire the next Target was Italy the Aryan ostrogoths were ruling the Catholic Italians and all Justinian needed was an excuse to invade only a year after the African campaign the pretext arrived the situation in Ravenna was precarious theodoric the great had left the kingdom to his Roman educated daughter amalasantha as Regent for her young son athelaric she'd made a deal with Justinian for Safe Harbor should she need to flee but had so far clung to the reins of power amalasantha was not popular amongst the majority of Gothic Nobles who felt she was a poor influence on her son they had taken him away from the classroom to teach him more manly Pursuits like killing and drinking in October 534 this diet of debauchery overwhelmed the 18 year old Prince and he died his mother had seen this sad day coming and had considered retiring to Constantinople however the Allure of power proved too much and she attempted to continue ruling as a woman with no son and no husband she badly needed a male consort and turned to the last male relative of theodoric's house her cousin Theodor had like his cousin theodorhead was no worrier and had instead spent his time in Italy greedily gobbling up most of Tuscany so renowned were his Acquisitions of land that it was said of him that he considered it a misfortune to have a neighbor but with no one else to turn to amalasantha proposed that they share sovereignty the odor had would enjoy the power and Prestige of kingship but with none of the hassle of administration which she would keep for herself Theodor had readily agreed but had no love for his cousin and brought her enemies into his camp in April 535 he had her imprisoned and then soon after strangled to death Theodor had did not want war with Byzantium so it's slightly odd that he blundered into the same era that gallimer had made when he killed hilderic now Justinian had a legitimate reason to invade Italy seeing as how its legitimate ruler had just been murdered a malasantha's enemies presumably put pressure on the new king and there is even evidence that the Empress Theodora may have encouraged the murder though to explore all the possible motives takes us down a murky path whatever the true reason Justinian had exactly what he was looking for theoda had attempted to claim he was innocent of any wrongdoing in a letter which he gave to the respected senator liberius we've met liberius before because he served as praetorian prefect for theodoric and even before that for oduasa since we last saw him he was put in charge of Southern goal a very important role as it connected visigothic Spain to ostrogothic Italy liberius was a consummate Survivor highly thought of by every Master he served and his timing was Exquisite as he chose this moment to turn traitor informed Justinian's ambassadors what theoda had had actually done and was warmly welcomed in Constantinople as a result the emperor had been on high alert since news of atholaric's failing Health had reached him he was busily preparing for war and now gave the go-ahead Mundus the gapid prince led the army of alaricum into Dalmatia modern Croatia and occupied the city of Solona which gave the Army control of the land leading into Italy meanwhile belisarius was dispatched by Fleet to take control of Sicily there was Little Resistance from the small Gothic garrisons on the island until the fleet reached pinormous modern Palermo the Goths locked the gates and prepared to resist but belisarius with characteristic inventiveness pushed the fleet into the unguarded harbor the masts of the ships now actually Rose higher than the town walls he sent men up the masts where they could shoot down on the Goths defending the walls and soon the town capitulated news of the fall of Sicily seriously alarmed theodorhead and worse was to come when he heard that Justinian had sent gifts to the Frankish Kings encouraging them to encroach on Gothic land the gothic King met with Imperial ambassadors and entered serious negotiations to hand over Italy in exchange for a well-paid position in Constantinople belisarius received instructions that once the deal was struck he was to take over the country it seemed like Justinian was about to do one better than Africa and reclaim Italy without spilling any blood but it was not to be the Goths were not ready to meekly submit and an army had made its way from Ravenna down into Dalmatia although the battle which followed was inconclusive Mundus was killed and his army withdrew to seek further instructions soon after that a mutiny broke out amongst the Imperial troops in Africa which we will deal with in another episode however it forced belisarius to leave Sicily and head for Carthage the odor had suddenly recovered his nerve and arrested the Imperial ambassadors by the time belisarius returned to Sicily winter was setting in the chance to swiftly conquer Italy was gone the Goths were now preparing to protect the land that they had come to call home Justinian underestimated the task ahead of him the Swift victory over the Vandal spread over confidence at the same time that Imperial resources were stretched this was the eighth major Army that the empire was being asked to provide remember that a new Force had been created to protect Armenia and troops were needed in Africa to guard the province from the Moors elisarius had barely 8 000 men at his command less than half the number he'd led into Africa nevertheless when spring 536 arrived the general was ordered to invade he crossed the Straits of Messina and made his way up the peninsula once more there was Little Resistance to his Advance as the Goths hadn't concentrated forces in the south however with each town that was taken belisarius's Force shrank in size as each Outpost needed its own Garrison when the Army reached Naples the largest city in the South elisarius was facing a major problem the city walls were large and with such a small force it would be impossible to besiege them for long adding to his difficulties was the disposition of the Italian people in Africa the vandals had alienated the Roman populace in a way which the Goths hadn't the people of Naples had little incentive to help the Invaders particularly not the city's Jews who were well aware of Justinian's oppressive religious policies worse still when the neapolitans looked down over the battlements the site they were greeted with was not an encouraging one about half of belisarius's men were Barbarian mercenaries a large company of isorians along with some Huns and Moors the majority of regular troops were needed elsewhere and belisarius had to send a message into the city warning that he would not be able to prevent his troops from sacking it once they were in of course that seemed an empty threat at this point the byzantines badly needed a safe port to operate from if supplies and fresh troops were to be brought in but after 20 days of The Siege belisarius was ready to give up and risk advancing with an enemy City to his rear seems to happen to the great generals Lady Luck found him just in time [Music] after cutting the aqueducts to the city one of the isorian soldiers had been Amazed by the construction and gone exploring he stumbled upon an opening which led into the city it was too small for a man but belisarius seized on the opportunity he noisily attacked the other side of the city while his men widened the Gap that night 400 men crawled inside Naples killed the guards and the city was stormed as he'd warned though his troops began sacking the city and it took a couple of days to bring them under control the sight of pagan Huns looting churches was the worst kind of PR for the restoration of Imperial rule it was still a significant victory for belisarius and the gothic leadership was spooked into abandoning their King the odor had was killed and the general vitigis took his place the Apparently Unstoppable Imperial Army led vitages to conclude that he should abandon Rome and regroup in the North mundus's replacement in illyricum constantinianus had reoccupied silona and driven the gothic Army back to Ravenna vitiguese headed there as well where he married a malasantha's daughter matasantha in a bid for legitimacy he also paid off the Franks in gold and land to stop their advance The Retreat gave belisarius the chance to seize Rome he stayed in Naples until December in order to receive a Papal invitation which was clearly vital in securing the cooperation of the populace once the invitation arrived belisarius LED five thousand men North and entered the Eternal City for the first time in 60 years the Roman Empire included Rome the keys to the city were sent along with a captured Gothic Chieftain to Constantinople where they were displayed before Justinian although the campaign had been a success so far belisarius knew that he had taken things as far as he could the Goths could still field full armies while in order to hold what he had taken the Byzantine General had had to divide his forces into many small detachments all that the general could now do was hold the city and wait for Justinian to send more troops vitigies sent a force to attack Salona and keep the army of alaricum tied down and then gathered the majority of his men and made straight for Rome the gothic King had to leave Garrison spread around key towns too but probably had an army of fifteen thousand with which he planned to besiege the city belisarius spent the two months before the Goths arrived preparing he was able to bring grain up from Sicily and stored as much water and food as he could the aurelian wall still stood firmly around the city but had to be checked for any weak points and hastily repaired if 5 000 men were going to defend 12 miles of circuit walls they would need every inch covered and a moat was dug outside to further hamper attacks Rome was a city of perhaps 80 000 at this time once it became clear that they were in for a Siege those who could fled while a delegation asked belisarius to leave the general would not of course in PR terms the byzantines had reclaimed land for the Empire and Rome would now be defended as such strategically belisarius wasn't in a bad position either although he was badly outnumbered he held the far more pleasant situation of living inside warm buildings as opposed to Camping outside in the cold winter by mid-February the gothic Army reached the outskirts of the city belisarius had left a small Garrison guarding a watchtower on the anian river but upon seeing vitigi's Army the men fled without warning the next morning belisarius led a thousand Cavalry out to check the area and was surprised to be met by the gothic Vanguard Fierce fighting followed and the Goths recognized belisarius's horse directing their attacks toward him as belisarius returned to the city covered in dust and Gore the men on guard didn't recognize him and initially refused to let him in the Goths were in Hot Pursuit and the general had to risk launching a charge at his pursuers which drove them off before he could remove his helmet and get his men back inside procopius doesn't report what he said to the offending Guardsman but it's possible he commended their caution he can't have had long to remonstrate with them though as he hastily rushed around the wall to the city double checking every post and preparing his men for what was to come vitigies surrounded the city Rome had 14 Gates but the Goths set up only seven entrenched camps all to the north with one on the west of the Tiber where the Vatican now stands the Goths would have had men patrolling the South but to set up camp there would have left them exposed to Byzantine units in the south of the country taking them by surprise the capture of Naples was absolutely key in preventing the Goths from entirely suffocating Rome vitigies cut all 11 aqueducts although during The Siege this had little effect on the thirst of the populace who still had the Tiber and a number of Wells to draw from it did mean though that the city's corn Mill stopped turning balisarius quickly improvised he moored two boats in the Tiber with Mills on them two feet apart and suspended a water wheel between them the current turned the wheel the corn was made into flower and the citizens got their bread the Romans copied this ingenious design and soon set up enough to feed everyone the Goths tried to break the Mills by tossing trees and corpses into the water but belisarius stretched in an iron chain across the river which caught any debris after 18 days vitigis launched a concerted attack on the walls the main thrust focused on the solarian gate with large towers and battering rams the spectacle of the advancing war machines was terrifying but belisarius openly laughed in an attempt to keep his men's Spirits High in the event his laughter may have been genuine as the towers relied on men and oxen to pull them into place the Byzantine archers targeted both and soon the towers were rendered useless however attacks on the other side of the city were more successful at the porter Aurelia the old Mausoleum of Hadrian had been turned into a fortress and incorporated into the walls the gothic soldiers managed to climb up it but were eventually driven off when the byzantines hurled the marble statues off the roof multiple attacks failed that day as the walls proved too high and belisarius's men too organized as the Goths began to retreat belisarius ordered a general saute his Cavalry poured out of the gates slaying any procedures Within Reach and burning The Siege weapons to ashes that night the byzantines sang songs of Victory and stripped armor from the gothic dead but balisarius knew that things were only going to get tougher for all concerned he wrote once more to Justinian asking for reinforcements the emperor had already sent some under two generals who were wintering in Greece and now began to gather more belisarius also sent all the women children slaves and Servants of Rome down to Naples to relieve the pressure on provisions the remaining men in the city The Artisans and Tradesmen were drafted into the army and paid a small wage to encourage their loyalty vitigies settled in to starve his enemy out and the key for belisarius was vigilance every night he put different men in charge of those guarding the fortifications it was their duty to check that every man on watch was in his post and Report any who didn't show up musicians were ordered to play around the walls at night to keep everyone alert and attachments regularly patrolled the moat twice in a short period of time belisarius destroyed all the locks and keys of the gates and had new ones made nothing could be left to chance the general knew that he couldn't just sit inside the walls either he had to make the enemy suffer and he had to keep his soldiers busy the great advantage of the Imperial Army was as ever the skill of its cavalry belisarius ordered regular attacks on any isolated Goths and the Ferocious Moors and Huns were particularly effective in a rage over these attacks fittigies ordered the execution of the Roman Senators who were being held hostage in ravana he also seized control of portus which deprived the byzantines of easy communication by sea portus was a more valuable Port than Austria at this time because it had a Towpath where barges could be pulled by oxen where ostia required supplies to come up the river which depended on the Wind oats trying to reach belisarius would now have to put in a day away and run the gothic blockade [Music] by April though the General's Valerian and Martinez arrived with 1600 Cavalry recruited from amongst the Slavs and bulgars belisarius agreed to fight the Goths outside the walls now that the numbers were a little more even he launched attacks either side of the Tiber on the plane of Nero near the vatican-based camp the Cavalry was supported by an improvised infantry made of citizens servants and sailors most of whom didn't have proper armor and who were arrayed like a Phalanx in the rear guard meanwhile outside the solarian gate belisarius wanted to lead a cavalry-only assault he was persuaded by two of his slighted household guards principeius and tamatus to allow another volunteer Infantry Division to March behind them and provide cover for most of the day the byzantines drove the Goths back as had been the case with the vandals the Goths had no answer to the mounted Bowman with spear and shield the Goths relied on the charge something it's not easy to do when Huns are shooting arrows at your face on the plane of Nero the Goths were driven so far back that the inexperienced infantry began to plunder their camp in disarray the Goths rallied and charged down on the amateur troops causing chaos as they fled back to the city awareness of this reverse spread across the river and the Goths there mounted a charge which drove belisarius's men back as well the losses could have been catastrophic but the Infantry around principia santamatus held firmly and delayed the Goths long enough to save their Commander principeius and tomatoes paid for their loyalty with their lives and belisarius refused to countenance another attack outside the walls instead he returned to the hit and run tactics that could slowly wear the Goths down tightened his grip on the city he sent men further south where they could more effectively cut off supplies that had been sneaking in from capua or up the Tiber by June the city was suffering from disease and a shortage of food a black market in sausages made from mules had sprung up the atmosphere was tense and panicked even the people of Rome were asking belisarius if they could die fighting in open battle rather than Starving in their empty homes belisarius refused though and maintained an unflagging public enthusiasm and insisted that supplies and soldiers were on their way from Constantinople even when we know from procopius that the general was far from certain of such things of course life was no better for the Goths living in tents in the Italian summer might be bearable but imagine having to dig your own toilets and living next to them for months on end as time went by troops had to forage further and further away and while their comrades were off Gathering food belisarius would spot the weakness in the line and launch his hands at you the ground of the camps trodden daily underfoot quickly turned the mud and disease spread amongst the ranks of the Goths it wasn't until November that the extra reinforcements finally arrived at Naples five thousand troops including 1800 more Cavalry under the command of John a nephew of our favorite old rebel vitalian the new Force moved up the coast along the Via apia and belisarius launched raiding parties on the gothic camps to prevent vitiguese from blocking their arrival belisarius had walled up the flaminian gate at the start of the siege but now removed the bricks a thousand Horsemen attacked the gothic Camp the next morning drawing them near to the city and then once they had passed the gate a Detachment raced out and surprised them causing heavy losses at the sight of this and the arrival of the reinforcements vitigies sued for peace he would offer Sicily he would offer Naples anything to get the byzantines to end the war balisarius deferred to Justinian and a truce was called while the peace offer was sent to Constantinople although if true belisarius gave a beautifully sarcastic offer that he was very happy for the Goths to occupy the former Roman province of Britain the three-month truce was a disaster for the Goths ships arrived from Naples and brought freshmen and supplies into the city belisarius probably had an army of around 10 000 to call on at this point and he sent John North to fall on the region of piscinum if the Goths tried to break the truce vertigies found it hard to watch his enemy grow stronger while he waited interminably for a message to Traverse the empire the gothic King attempted the same trick belisarius had used at Naples but his men's tools were found in one of the aqueducts giving up on the truce he launched assaults on the Porter pinciana and across the Tiber but both came to nothing meanwhile news reached Jon that the truce was off and his force of 2000 cut off piscenum disrupting supplies coming south [Music] however Jon disobeyed his orders which included the instruction to leave no enemy fortifications in his rear he bypassed two Gothic strongholds before the citizens of arimanum which was only 33 miles from Ravenna opened their gates to him matasantha whose sympathies lay with her dead mother and not her new husband opened negotiations with John which seriously alarmed vitikis in mid-march 538 the king burned his camps and headed north one year and nine days after it began the siege was over belisarius refused to miss an opportunity he waited until half of the gothic Army was over the milvian bridge and then launched a general attack many Goths were cut down or swept into the river the rest of the gothic Army was allowed to limp North and the gates of Rome were opened once more foreign the Epic Siege was a personal Triumph for belisarius his intelligence will and bravery were noted by those serving unto him and a less sensitive Commander might well have alienated the Roman population it's tempting to assume that the general would have received a good press no matter what given that the historian we rely on was in his pay however procopius pulls few punches making it clear that it was other men who saved the general during the open battle and criticizing him harshly in the secret history belisarius's good qualities cannot be ignored though and presents us with a very familiar story for the Roman Empire one man just can't run everything Augustus needed a gripper thyoclesian needed maximian Justinian needed belisarius without such a competent and loyal Commander the reconquest might well have already failed [Music] for the citizens of Rome The Siege was no Triumph if either the Goths or the byzantines were destined to emerge triumphant and strengthened from this war then perhaps the aqueducts would have been repaired as it was they never were a thousand years of public baths and fountains came to an end the harbors were damaged the streets were empty men had been killed or reduced to begary for the Italians who stood between two armies at War things were only going to get worse foreign [Music] attempt to restore Italy to the Empire The Diplomatic games failed to deliver a bloodless coup and so belisarius invaded from Sicily after capturing Naples and then Rome he bedded down for a year-long Siege by Spring 538 the gothic King vitigies was retreating north towards Ravenna belisarius's subcommander John the nephew of vitalian had taken the town of arimanum 33 miles south of Ravenna and now belisarius faced a dilemma Jon was deep in Gothic held territory having disobeyed the command not to leave enemy settlements to his rear belisarius was concerned that vitigies might capture John and the 2000 Cavalry under his command would be lost as we know from his campaign so far the highly trained Byzantine Cavalry were the crucial weapon in any conflict a Detachment was sent ahead and made contact with John telling him to leave a reminim and return South but John refused we've explored some of the reasons why belisaria struggled to command the Loyalty of his subordinates and in this case there were personality issues as clearly John was bold and Headstrong whatever other reasons there might be matter less than the fact that vitigies made straight for the city and put it under siege belisarius had already moved up the west coast to subdue the towns north of Rome when the news reached him the situation quickly became confused when more troops arrived from Constantinople Justinian had heeded his generals letters asking for reinforcements however a certain paranoia had crept into the emperor's mind procopius claims that it was fueled by Theodora who saw in the Brilliance of belisarius a potential challenge to the throne reports had reached Justinian that when belisarius had entered Syracuse in Sicily he had thrown gold coins to the cheering crowds which was his right as consul for the year Justinian's thinly veiled response came in a law issued soon after which stated that from now on consuls could only scatter Silva the newly arrived troops 7 000 in all were commanded by Nazis the 60 year old Imperial Chamberlain last seen handing out bribes to the blues just before the Nika Rebellion turned into a massacre the choice of a highly trusted eunuch rather than any other General can be seen as a deliberate attempt to keep an eye on belisarius Nazis had also read carefully the instructions from Justinian which were issued to the commanders in Italy the note ordered them to obey belisarius so far as it was in the interests of our state narcis a master of Palace Intrigue read between the lines with disastrous consequences belisarius marched East and met the new Army at Furman on the west coast of Italy about a hundred miles south of arimanum although Jon's situation was perilous belisarius argued that they should not march to relieve him his predicament was due to insubordination and to move north would allow the Goths to surround the Imperial Army Nazis though was a friend of John's and argued that surely belisarius wouldn't let Petty Disobedience stand in the way of doing the right thing it wasn't just John who was in danger but valuable troops and the poor citizens of arimanum John could be punished later if he had done anything wrong but the right thing to do was to rescue the city belisarius relented and agreed to relieve The Siege his plan was to ensure that the Goths would be scared away rather than stand and fight and with typical Mastery of the conditions the plan was a complete success belisarius LED his men through the mountains while another approached the Goths more directly giving vitigies the impression of being surrounded when the fleet also arrived the next morning the Goths abandoned their camp and made headlong for Ravenna when a gaunt looking John emerged from our immunom he offered his sincere thanks to Nazis a deliberate snub dissension now frustrated belisarius the geography of Italy meant that the Goths couldn't be defeated in open battle as the vandals had been the apennine mountains which run down the center of the country meant there were dozens of Gothic strongholds that needed to be taken one by one belisarius favored a cautious approach and although Nazis and John cooperated openly they quickly pursued their own policies the fact that Nazis controlled the Imperial pay which Justinian had dispatched with him meant he was able to maintain the Loyalty of the army that had traveled with him the next moves went smoothly John overwhelmed the town of Imola while belisarius began besieging the town of urbain which was well positioned on a hill once more the General's legendary luck appeared when the town's spring ran dry forcing the Goths inside to surrender by Winter though the divided forces hadn't made the progress which belisarius would have liked and were divided across the north of the country another wrinkle had come in the form of the bishop of Milan who during the siege of Rome had asked belisarius to send a Garrison to take the city from Gothic hands with wittigies in Retreat belisarius had sent a thousand men North feeling he must respond to an Italian request for Imperial support once the troops arrived in the area known as liguria several other towns requested garrisons and the Thousand men divided up to oblige them by now only 300 soldiers held Milan the largest city in the north of the country and vitigis's nephew had been Gathering forces for a Siege he was reinforced by ten thousand Burgundian troops theoderbert the nearest King of the Franks had sent the ten thousand to Aid the Goths if you'll recall he'd already taken Justinian's money in exchange for not helping the Goths and played off The Invasion claiming that the burgundians were not under his control by now though they very much were belisarius sent two of his commanders to camp on the Southern Bank of the poe River once they saw the size of the army besieging Milan they wrote to their General requesting reinforcements the nearest army was under the command of John who refused to move without Nazi's approval so letters were sent to Nazis who agreed but by the time all of this had taken place Milan was done for euras the nephew of vitages sensibly secured the capitulation of the Imperial soldiers who were spared their lives in exchange for abandoning the city so it was the Milanese the Italian subjects of goth and Byzantine Who Bore the worst ravages of War the city was sacked and destroyed the male inhabitants slaughtered and the women and children sold into slavery or given to the burgundians it was a disaster for everyone involved including the Goths who lost the wealthiest and most populous city under their control and by now it wasn't just the Milanese who were miserable the north of the country was a war zone and was Rife with feminine disease the marches and counter-marches of armies had picked the land clean of supplies the Imperial troops in towns could be supplied by sea but for the Italians on their ruined Farms there was no Aid procopius reports that people lived off acorns grass or even human flesh and while he may be exaggerating it's certain that thousands were dying of starvation and that lands were not being cultivated as a result by March of 539 news of Milan's destruction reached Justinian including a letter from the Furious belisarius who had no doubt where the blame lay Nazis was duly recalled and a new letter issued stating in unambiguous language who was in charge in Italy it's worth noting of course that had belisarius refused to send troops to Milan the whole situation could have been avoided he had essentially made the same mistake that John had by entering a remnant before Milan fell vitiguese was feeling increasingly desperate Imperial troops were embedded in towns across the North and although he still had an army and held Ravenna he was convinced that any day belisarius would appear outside the gates and his days would be over having already sought help from the Franks the gothic King looked around for some other Ally who could distract the byzantines any attempts to contact the tribes along the Danube failed because of Justinian's convert and pay policy it left the king only one option he wrote to the Persians he sent a letter with two very well-bribed priests who could cross Imperial territory without suspicion they presented the letter at the court of kusro in tessavon suggesting that now was the ideal time for an invasion of the empire the king's words did not fall on deaf ears and we will return to see what kusro has been up to in a moment but once Justinian got wind of what was happening he quickly determined that it was time for peace in Italy belisarius spent the whole of 539 methodically besieging the gothic strongholds on the route to Ravenna the gothic armies couldn't March South as Imperial troops blocked every past and Crossing and with no shame at all theoderber the Frankish King decided to betray the Goths and go plundering in Italy he'd already backed down on his word to Justinian so why not burn all your Bridges the Franks drove both euras and the Imperial armies from liguria almost comically at one point the gothic Cavalry just ran through the Byzantine Camp as they raced back to Ravenna the Franks however weren't laughing as they Advanced into a country ravaged by famine finding that the country could not support the Army and suffering from dysentery the Franks returned home by Spring of 540 the final Gothic strongholds had fallen and wittigies had done little to help them his fears had at last come true as belisarius led the Imperial Army North and placed Ravenna Under Siege there was no hope left for the king who entered into negotiations to surrender however at this moment Imperial ambassadors arrived with instructions from Justinian the Persians were preparing for war and belisarius was needed in the east peace was to be made with the Goths on lenient terms the Goths would keep Italy north of the Po River and the byzantines would take the rest half of the gothic Royal treasure would be handed over to the emperor belisarius was Furious he had spent five years now in Italy and was one Siege away from Total victory he had eaten mule sausages on the walls of Rome in the freezing cold to bring Italy back into the Empire and dealt with insubordination and crying Italians pleading with him only now to stop short vitigies signed the treaty and when the ambassadors brought it before belisarius he refused to do the same he demanded that the ambassador's right to Justinian and get an order from the emperor directly instructing him to sign it the general knew that this delay would lengthen The Siege and vitigies now began to doubt whether the peace treaty was real with supplies running low the king Hit Upon a new idea that might preserve Gothic Independence what if the system of rule pre-476 was resumed what if a new Western Emperor was crowned and the Goths could simply be his army defending Italy belisarius was a respected man and known for his honorable dealings if he would become emperor then the Goths would bow to him the secret proposals were taken to belisarius who instantly agreed he had no intention of betraying Justinian but he simply saw his chance to take Ravenna quickly and return home as the man who had conquered the Goths and the Vandals belisarius sent John and other rebellious commanders away to Garrus and other towns and then LED his men into Ravenna in May of 540. became a respected prisoner as gallimer had done and there was no looting or killing the Goths were assured of their safety and property and many of the nobles were encouraged to return to their Estates it's not clear at what point the Goths realized that they had been duped by the summer of 540 belisarius set sail for Constantinople with vitiguese the entire Gothic Royal Treasury and a host of noble prisoners it's interesting to note that when theodoric took Ravenna from odoassa he too used a phony offer of joint rule to be allowed into the palace you know what they say about those who don't heed the lessons of History however when belisarius arrived in Constantinople he received no Triumph Justinian's reception was decidedly cold and the people couldn't help but assume that the emperor was jealous of his General who to them had reconquered the old home Province and brought home wealth and captives the reality was more complicated and the debate over the Rights and Wrongs of the first Gothic War as it should ominously be called has raged ever since it would be easy to take belisarius's side in this matter a heroic soldier who succeeded every time he was allowed Undisputed command the general was understandably outraged to spend five years in Italy and be denied Victory when he had his boot on vitages throat the Goths were there for the taking and after all the frustrations which Nazis and John had caused him it's no wonder that belisarius took the view that he was the man on the ground and that Justinian's order to make peace was an unnecessary precaution to give the Goths time to recover would have seemed foolish no one would think that the piece was permanent Justinian struck no one as a man willing to settle for three quarters of Italy so the Goths would almost certainly have spent their peace time readying for war and probably making a new deal with the Franks Frankish ambassadors had arrived at Ravenna during The Siege and belisarius had worked hard to make sure that the Goths would not renew their alliance with their neighbors through trickery the general had taken the capital the king the cash and proven his loyalty to Justinian By ignoring silly thoughts of becoming Western Emperor and instead reporting for Duty asking nothing more than a friendly pat on the back and perhaps a few screams of adulation in the Hippodrome fair enough right well let's look at things from Justinian's perspective it seems clear that the emperor initially underestimated the number of men it would take to conquer Italy leaving belisarius to sweat it out in Rome suggests a misunderstanding of how easy the conquest would be but Justin Ian swiftly sent reinforcements and once narcy's extra 7000 appeared the byzantines had a force almost as large as they'd taken to Africa the gothic and Vandal armies were essentially amateur forces at least in comparison to the professional Imperial soldiers and their Mercenaries the rapid victories which the byzantines had won in both countries were Testament to their superiority the only Power that could seriously threaten the empire were the Persians whose own Cavalry was stronger than the men Justinian could muster the emperor was no fool and after spending a fortune to secure the Eternal peace he was not about to endanger his Eastern front by pushing on in Italy he knew he needed belisarius back East immediately and could crush the Goths again in a few years as we've already discussed I doubt the Goths would have become docile friends to the Empire but they would certainly have gratefully accepted peace in the short term by betraying them belisarius guaranteed that war would continue Italy was not yet pacified north of the Po River the Goths were free and sure enough when they realized that they would not soon be calling belisarius imperator they elected a new king and continued the fight for a man with a reputation for honor it was seen by the Goths as a shocking Act of treachery there were still Goths living across the whole of Italy and though the Imperial troops Left Behind could contain them without a commander of belisarius's skill and patience they were not going to find it easy belisarius however good his intentions had actually dealt the Empire a double blow by staying in Italy to complete the conquest kusro had no one who could match the force mustering in the east while the capture of Ravenna would lead to more war in an already ruined Italy the failure of the first Italian campaign is a case study of poor communication between Sovereign and general the fortune that had favored the African campaign was gone and the failure to finish off the Goths or leave them in peace was to cost the empire in ways it's hard to calculate Justinian could hardly doubt his General's loyalty though given that he returned home after refusing the title of emperor however his Disobedience caused a break in the friendly relations they had once enjoyed Justinian would never quite trust belisarius as he had done once the mere offer of the Imperial title also made Justinian uncomfortable he was still an upstart after all and memories of Nika probably lived vividly in his mind reports had come in from Africa you'll recall but belisarius had wanted to make himself King and now the title Emperor is being thrown around for a man sitting on a throne hundreds of miles from his conquests it's easy to imagine how fears like this could grow [Music] from one Throne to another then we move to tessaphon in modern Iraq where we last left the King of Kings kusro counting his coins after Justinian coughed up 11 000 pounds of gold to secure an eternal peace [Music] as we've covered on the podcast so far the Persian Empire had been rocked by various defeats at the hands of the half the lights or white Huns on its northern border kusro's father cavad had begun a series of reforms to make the Persian State stronger and kusro spent the first decade of his Reign continuing deepening or completing these ideas many of these reforms bear a resemblance to the changes Diocletian had to make in the wake of Roman military defeats in the third century the Persian army was divided into four main centers of power complete with a Chancery to help organize and pay these forces new tribal groups were recruited to serve whose loyalty would lie with the King rather than their local nobility the nobility who had for so long dominated Persian politics were targeted to reduce their local autonomy and to ensure that tax revenue reached the center smaller land holders were favored for positions in the bureaucracy and the army and not to ignore the influence Christianity was having in the Borderlands of his Empire kusro encouraged the office of the protector of the poor from the ranks of the zoroastrian priesthood from now on the protector would offer the kind of social welfare you would expect from Bishops in Byzantium after suppressing his Rivals for power kusro also began to style himself as an enlightened monarch he tolerated nestorian Christianity within the Empire welcomed the philosophers of Athens albeit briefly to the Persian Court the translation of works of medicine philosophy and music were widely encouraged and law codification followed on the heels of Justinian's efforts even chess was imported from India during kusro's time in power the decade which followed the Eternal peace led to a certain jealousy though on the part of the king of kings he was working hard to shore up his Empire building a series of defensive walls in each corner of his realm meanwhile Justinian was off conquering new provinces and constructing huge buildings to celebrate them Persian ambassadors were present during belisarius's Triumph in the Hippodrome and reported to Justinian afterwards the kusro felt he was entitled to a share of the Vandal spoils seeing as how the conquest was only possible because of the Eternal peace Justinian didn't laugh at this suggestion either making sure to send his neighbor a gift s were not enough though kusro was still paying tribute to the hefta lights a wound to the pride of any great monarch and as he eyed the uncertainly defended Byzantine Frontier he had fond memories of all the loot his father had brought home from the previous war so when vitages envoys arrived suggesting that the byzantines were vulnerable to an attack the king of kings was more than ready to listen kusro's inbox had been filling up with pretext to break the piece for some time the lakhmed and gasanid Arabs were quarreling over territory in the desert while there was serious unrest in Armenia as you'll recall the country of Armenia was occupied by both the byzantines and the Persians on the Byzantine side the new Army of Armenia had to be fed and paid for which many Armenians came to resent there was also General outcry when Justinian insisted that his newly published law code should apply to the Armenians this meant outlawing Armenian marriage customs and feudal Arrangements which inevitably led to Rebellion sitas belisarius's contemporary was sent to deal with the situation and was killed in the fighting which followed he was replaced by Boozies who we know from the Battle of Dara and although he got a hold of the situation some Armenian Nobles slipped across the line and went to kusro begging him to do something about the meddling byzantines the King of Kings had heard enough he gathered a large army and prepared to attack as soon as spring 540 began this was the same time of course that belisarius was refusing to do as ordered and hoping to starve vitigies into submission this meant that the byzantines were without their best troops and general when kusro came knocking [Music] we saw the Persian king kusro amass his army on the borders of Syria and prepare for war the king had a list of justifications for breaking the Eternal peace but his prime motivation for the campaign was Cash the byzantines had left themselves open to attack after getting bogged down in the Italian campaign and kusro saw some low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking as soon as spring 540 arrived kusro's massive Army crossed the border avoiding Dara and made their way down the Euphrates to the city of Surah The Garrison atsuro resisted the Persian attack and sent their Bishop out to plead with the great king once these discussions were over the Persians took advantage of The Bishop's return to the city burst through the gates and sacked it revealing to all his desire for loot kusro sent word to the bishop of nearby sergiopolis candidas asking him to Ransom the 12 000 captives he'd taken for 200 pounds of gold candidas didn't have that kind of money and so the king made him a deal if he put in writing what he owed and agreed to pay it within a year then all would be well if he didn't pay it then he would owe double next year and must resign his bishopric having suitably blackmailed a man who was bound by his office to make an honorable deal the Persians moved on the next came to hieropolis whose defenses were sturdier than suros kusro again offered a deal for two thousand pounds of silver he would not set up a Siege or ravage the surrounding area the citizens agreed emptied their wallets and the Persians moved on the next city they approached was Veria spelled beroia modern Aleppo where the king demanded double what hieropolis had paid the city could only match it though and after paying up barrier was sacked anyway for either lacking the necessary funds or withholding them now at this point I hope you're wondering where the hell is the Byzantine Army the actual regiments of the army of the East were not gathered in one place most of the time they had thousands of miles of border to Garrison including Egypt way down south and had not been brought together under a Central Command in a strange move belisarius had never been replaced as Magister militant for the east with the Eternal peace in place I suppose the Assumption was that he could take time off to go conquering and would be able to make it back in time should he be needed in Mesopotamia well we all know how that turned out as at this stage belisarius was still sitting in a tent outside the gates of Ravenna so overall command of the army of the East fell to Boozies the man whose brother was killed by the Persians who had fought at the Battle of Dara and was now in charge of the army of Armenia by the time khusro moved on from Surah boozes was at hieropolis with the forces he'd been able to gather procopius merely reports that he left the city with a Garrison and took the rest of his army out into the countryside with the plan being to fall on the besieging Persians from behind as we shall see though Boozies never did get involved in the fighting instead he left the Persians to march from City to City while he remained at a safe distance what are we to make of this seeming cowardice it's interesting to note that procopius is full of numbers when it comes to Byzantine victories but is oddly silent on the size of the Persian army which invaded Syria from this Omission Ann Busey's decision to back away slowly I think we can assume that the Persian host was particularly large even an invasion force of say 40 or 50 000 might have been enough to make any attempt at fighting them a suicide mission the army of Armenia was not even half that size and Boozies would have had men spread out across the East garrisoning its cities okay you say maybe Boozies has his excuses but what was Justinian doing about all this well the emperor was of course anxious to defend the East and aside from cursing belisarius under his breath he sent his cousin germanus with a few hundred men to take charge of the defense of Antioch the Empire's third largest city was the most likely Target of the Persian Invasion and someone needed to take stock of the situation the city had still not fully recovered from the devastating earthquake of 526 and according to procopius germanus concluded that the wars were not strong enough to withstand a Siege the best the general could do was to ask the bishop of Veria to negotiate with kusro and try to bribe or persuade him not to sack the city the king claimed that he was amenable to being paid off and asked for a thousand pounds of gold however Justinian had sent word to germanus that no money was to be handed over it seems like the emperor didn't want the wealth of his City's disappearing piecemeal while the Persians roamed around he presumably wanted to force them to negotiate with him for an overall sum as he had paid to secure the Eternal peace but sitting in the palace a thousand miles away the lack of instant communication left Justinian playing catch-up just as he had done with ravana with the Persian army set to arrive at Antioch in mere days this was the worst time to play hardball jumana soon abandoned the city as well with procopius reporting that there was no point in the general staying after he had warned the citizens of Antioch that their walls would not hold however another source tells a different story and reports that germana spent his last days in Antioch buying silver off fleeing citizens now this might seem like a rather odd character assassination at first but being the emperor's cousin it's entirely possible that germanus had access to enough gold to offer a deal to the many wealthy citizens who were fleeing Antioch at the news of the Persian invasion gold would be lighter and easier to carry than silver which most movable wealth would be made of so citizens who are interested could sell their precious items to germanus who would be able to load them onto boats headed for Constantinople while making a tidy profit if true the incident Paints germanus in a terrible light because not only was he profiteering during war but he then abandoned the city despite the imminent arrival of 6 000 reinforcements from the neighboring province after belisarius's great labors in defending Rome it's hard not to look askance at germanus as he slinked off to the safety of cilicia by June the Persians arrived at Antioch looking for their money the reinforcements had arrived at just the wrong moment the citizens of Antioch might have been able to raise considerable sums themselves but the new arrivals gave them a false sense of confidence the Persians set up a Siege quickly overwhelmed the defenses and took possession of the guard towers chrisrow had deliberately left one gate out of the city open to encourage the residents to flee and make his job easier just as the king hoped it was the Byzantine troops who were first out the door once they knew the city was about to fall when they were gone the Persians stormed in and it was left to the blues and greens the young men of the Hippodrome to mount what resistance they could but against professional soldiers it was only delaying the inevitable the sack of the city cost thousands of lives and once it was firmly in the king's hands he ordered it stripped of all its wealth and destroyed anything that could be taken was including all the gold silver and even marble from the city's Cathedral Church once the king's wagons were full the city was burnt and leveled dealing a devastating blow to Syria and to Justinian's reputation of course the emperor was aghast at the news he dispatched ambassadors to kusro immediately to try and persuade the king to go home kusro asked for 5 000 pounds of gold and another 500 every year after that and while this offer made its way back to Constantinople Castro headed down to antioch's Port where he enjoyed a nice bath in the Mediterranean this was a deliberate reenactment of conquerors of old who had come from Mesopotamia to wash their weapons in the Great Sea the Persians then headed to apamir where the citizens just opened the gates and let the Persians take any movable wealth they desired The Story Goes that kushrow hosted a chariot race in the city's Hippodrome and insisted that the green Rider should win just so he could stick it to the well-known blue partisan Justinian more protection money was taken from nearby chalkis before the Army moved North to Odessa Odessa was already a well-fortified city and Boozies had been active making sure it was well garrisoned to the point where the king knew it would be fruitless to besiege it he did however accept another 200 pounds of gold not to pillage the surrounding Countryside while pausing near Odessa Justinian's envoys finally caught up with the King and ratified the agreement that had been proposed back at Antioch the agreement stipulated that the king should return home without approaching any more cities and although kusro agreed to the terms he let his army extort more money from the cities of Karai and Constantia before making an attempt to capture Dara the Byzantine successfully countermined an attempt to dig under its walls but the damage was done Justinian was Furious that the agreement had been broken and peace negotiations were called off even as the king's Army crossed back into Persian territory war in the East so expensively ended a decade before would now resume all across the frontier putting tremendous strain on the Empire's resources [Music] the invasion of 540 was a humiliation for Justinian who the citizens of the East rightly felt he had abandoned to pursue conquests in the West one chronicler hysterically claims that there was not a farmer or a taxpayer left at the treasury and while that's an absurd exaggeration it sums up the bitter feelings at the time during the sack of varia we hear the alarming story that part of the Garrison deserted to the Persians claiming that they hadn't been paid in five years quite what Justinian thought of germanis's behavior we don't know but he was not given another military command for many years Antioch of course was a smoldering ruin Justinian claimed that he would rebuild the city on a grander scale as he always did but the archaeological evidence suggests that this was not so thirty thousand citizens were taken prisoner and led across the border back to Persia in a sort of humorous PostScript to their torment kusro had his men take down the dimensions of Antioch before he destroyed it he then built a new city near tessaphon based on those plans and housed the antiochians in a city made to look just like their own in the most hilarious translation I've found the king named his City kusros better than Antioch yeah that'll show him [Music] the campaign was a huge success for the King of Kings though in tessaphon he had a mural painted in his throne room of the sack of Antioch some say in a deliberate attempt to outdo Justinian's celebratory mosaics of the Vandal campaign the damage to the Empire's Prestige was felt immediately as the king of lasika seeing which way the wind was blowing decided to switch his country's Allegiance back to the Persians you'll recall that lasika is the country to the north of Armenia on the coast of the Black Sea the switch of Allegiance from Persia to Byzantium had been the cause of the war which had broken out at the start of Justinian's reign that war had left the byzantines in control of the City of Petra on the Black Sea Coast from which their Garrison operated and controlled all trade coming into the country the custom duties charged by the Imperial administrators were seen by the byzantines as a fair price to help pay for their presence but was a much resented Levy from the last perspective with Antioch burning to the ground goober's decided it was time to give kusro a call and get himself a better deal this was a tempting offer for the Persians as it would give them access to the Black Sea and direct communication with the tribes in the North by either method they could harass the byzantines and even contemplate attacking Constantinople if they ever needed to by the next summer 541 alas Embassy guided a Persian army through the thick forests and Hill passes of the country to Petra where after a brief Siege The Garrison capitulated and the Persians took control at this point though Messengers reached kussrow telling him that belisarius had finally reached the east the general had returned to Constantinople too late to do anything about the invasion of Syria but once spring 541 arrived he headed east with his buckleri and the gothic Cavalry taken from Italy and prepared to invade Persian territory the general was joined by the gasanid Arabs led by their philag harith and a council of war was held to determine where to invade as master of soldiers belisarius could have dictated terms but it seems his experience in Italy had pushed him to look for consensus rather than let malcontents Fester amongst his ranks however once again the General's inability to control his subordinates nearly cost him dear leading the Army out from Dara belisarius set up camp nine kilometers outside nisbus trying to lure the city's Garrison into a battle however two of his sub-commanders camped much closer to the city and fell prey to a surprise attack belisari is quickly Advanced to drive back the Persians but the chance to inflict a heavy defeat was gone the Army moved on and did succeed in destroying the fort of cisarana and taking slaves while harith led a raiding party into Assyria however harith's men slipped away from their Byzantine minders and kept the captured loot for themselves while belisarius's Army began to suffer from exhaustion in the blistering Summer Sun once disease began to spread belisarius gave up the attempt to penetrate any further and was then summoned to return to Constantinople for the winter in the secret history procopius shed some light ore throws some muck on the General's withdrawal from Persian territory he claims that belisarius's real motive was to meet up with his wife antonina who he had just heard was having an affair not just any Affair either apparently it was with a young man named theodosius who belisarius had adopted before leaving for Africa to make things even seedier antonina's own son from a previous relationship was apparently the one who blew the whistle it's difficult to know which of the various subplots of family drama are really true or just exaggerations from the toxic pen of prokopius but we do know that belisarius's love for antonina could not be shaken and he endeavored not to go on campaign without her again back in Constantinople and Nina had certainly been busy stirring up trouble with her good friend the Empress Theodora Theodora was active in pursuing her personal enemies and by 5 41 it was the greedy praetorian prefect John the cappadocian who was firmly in her sights hey John's Ambitions was so great that he agreed to a meeting where antonina proposed overthrowing Justinian and putting belisarius on the throne John readily agreed while hidden Witnesses listened in with horror that's the story anyway Justinian either took pity on or was lenient to the man who had funded all his dreams and simply confiscated his property and forced him into the service of the church John held out hope of returning to office and although the Ampro would continue to protect his former favorite he would never be recalled back on the Eastern Front procopius claims that had belisarius not turned back his army could have marched on tessaphon sacked it and freed the former residence of Antioch but even if belisarius's Army were not ill and overheated this seems like a tall tale we saw in Italy that belisarius was a cautious field commander who didn't want to leave enemy units to his rear so it would have been deeply out of character for the general to attempt to besiege a heavily fortified City when he knew full well but kusro's Army would soon return the next spring the King of Kings looked West again this time at Palestine having despoiled Syria of its riches he now imagined sacking Jerusalem and returning with even more loot to glorify his realm first though he returned to sergiopolis where the unfortunate Bishop candidas was forced into captivity because he could not pay for the promise he'd made to Ransom captives [Music] belisarius returned from the capital and gathered up the army of the East to face the great king the Persians again outnumbered the byzantines and if the two sides had faced off it would doubtless have been the greatest challenge that belisarius would ever face but kusro didn't invade instead he demolished this small settlement of kalanicum and returned home [Music] prokopius tries to claim that it was the Diplomatic Genius of belisarius that sent a shiver Up The King's spine but in reality it was a far far more real threat than the reputation of any general Bubonic plague had reached the armies in the east thank you one day around October 541 Port City of palusium a sailor developed a headache soon after he added pains in his leg and back and a fever to his list of symptoms the following day his Shipmates began to make similar complaints the day after that the first man had a painful swelling in his groin while one of his friends became confused his speech slurred his eyes bloodshot by the end of the week some of them had blackened skin While others were bedridden and Delirious two weeks after the headache first appeared everyone on that ship was dead and now it was the shocked Dock Workers who were complaining of headaches and fever then the shop owners they traded with became ill than their families soon the whole of palusium was in turmoil as person after person became infected and died disease was a common feature of life in the ancient world as sad as death was it was something everyone had experienced and everyone expected even outbreaks of serious illness that crippled whole towns were not unheard of but they usually didn't last long pelusium is in Egypt near to the modern Suez Canal so even when news of a horrifying death toll reached neighboring Alexandria it's unlikely that anyone was overly concerned but once the docks of the Second City of the empire were overrun with dead Sailors people began to realize that this disease was something new the distinctive feature of the outbreak were the bubones bubos in English large dark swellings which would appear around the groin or armpit and which no one seems to have seen before or have any record of more alarming even than these unsightly growths was the speed at which the disease spread and killed for four months of the Egyptian winter the disease just kept on killing in Alexandria corpses lay rotting on Corners in Courtyards and in churches with no one to bury them the streets became putrid with piles of the dead so thick with flies so slippery underfoot with blood and melted flesh that it was impossible to clear them the people were panicking those who were ill were staggering around the streets collapsing in public their mouths wide open their hands stretched out upward those who were able fled while those who remained lived in constant fear that they would be next to add to the horror came humiliation Alexandria was home to the Roman world's finest medical schools the best physicians in the city were helpless in the face of the disease they had no clue what was causing the illness or how to treat it even more frustratingly they couldn't even predict the severity of the disease those with a mild fever were told to get on with their work only to die suddenly the following day while those who were doctor confidently pronounced were not long for this world would struggle on for weeks before recovering Egypt was alone during this time as you know ships didn't regularly sail during winter and although a few apocalyptic warnings would have filtered along land routes it's unlikely that anyone further north knew what had really happened by Spring 542 the worst ravages of the plague were over and the Egyptians had to try and return to normal life for the majority of them that meant Gathering grain loading it onto ships and sending it to the rest of the empire little did they know that they were about to export disease and death along with their food so by March and April 542 the plague began to spread across the empire by boat the disease first appeared in Gaza then the rubble of Antioch and finally Constantinople some ships never arrived the whole crew dying on board leaving the boat to meander across the sea Inland the Caravan routes took it to Jerusalem and Damascus to Myra and sikkyon in Anatolia nowhere seemed safe when the bubos appeared it was already too late to run in the capital procopius was once more fortunate or in this case perhaps not to be an eyewitness to history unfolding he gives us the best account of the symptoms of the disease victims were first gripped by a sudden fever in fact the color of the skin nor creators higher temperature is about illness would normally generate doctors and friends were initially unconcerned by this apparently languid fever but some time later that day or the next but definitely within a week bubonic swelling appeared sometimes growing as large as melons and causing great discomfort as well as the groin or the armpit the swelling would occasionally appear in the thighs or behind the ears up to this point everyone seemed to suffer similarly but once the bubos arrived different paths would emerge some would enter a coma-like state sleeping for long periods and occasionally forgetting who the people were around them While others couldn't sleep and began to hallucinate or seem Delirious crying out in Terror or running into the streets those tending to the sick were exhausted and of course those who had no one to look after them passed away for a third group the bubonic swelling became mortified and the victim died in agony some lost all sense of feeling before the end if you broke out in Black pustules you wouldn't survive the day if you vomited blood you wouldn't survive the day in the words of author William Rosen for four months Constantinople was a window onto hell as usual the visitation began at the Docks before working its way into every quarter of the city the poor died first then the blues and greens forced to put aside their differences to deal with their fallen comrades then The Artisans Tradesmen and Guild members then the Senators many in Imperial Service died trabonian disappears from the historical record at this point and it's tempting to assume he was one of its victims [Music] death stalked the streets thousands were dying every day and citizens were afraid to leave their homes without wearing a tag to identify themselves in case they never returned those in pain or suffering hallucinations would throw themselves off buildings to escape their torment one particularly foul smelling home was avoided by passers-by until someone went in and found 20 rotting corpses inside a city the size of Constantinople was used to around 30 people dying every day within a couple of weeks the regular burial sites were overloaded with the Dead some bodies were tossed into the sea but this soup of decomposing flesh that this created was no solution Christians demanded a proper burial anyway Justinian ordered massive pits to be dug across the Golden Horn in the suburb of sikai however as the nightmare summer dragged on even this became full with the unfortunate gravediggers having to pack bodies in tightly and push down on them to make room for more the men eventually turned to the guard towers along the walls surrounding sikai and began piling bodies in them when the wind blew South the stench covered the whole city the streets were now empty no business of any kind was undertaken the butcher shops the markets the bakeries all ceased to be used famine now followed pestilence and it was considered great Fortune to have enough bread to feed what remained of your family an earthquake hit in August which only intensified the feeling that these were the end times all Court functions ceased and no one was seen in official dress particularly once the disease decided to prove its egalitarian nature once and for all and infected Justinian the emperor was one of the lucky ones left in a coma-like state for weeks he wasn't short of attendance to care for him Theodora was left in effective control of the government by August the plague had died down to a manageable level trusting procopius's estimates of the Dead is difficult but many scholars do assume that at least 200 000 people if not more died during that outbreak this in a city that had stood half a million strong out in the provinces the toll varied from place to place one of our sources is a Syrian scholar called evagrius whose personal story is deeply tragic although he survived the plague he would lose his wife his daughter his grandson other relatives and many servants as the plague returned in later waves he confirms similar symptoms that procopius describes adding sore throats and diarrhea for good measure and pointing out that even those who caught the plague and survived would often have lisps or muscular Tremors for the rest of their days more information comes from a monophysite clergyman who we know as John of Ephesus he had to journey to Constantinople during this time and describes empty Villages and Imperial staging posts littered with Corpses as Harvest Time approached he saw empty Fields with grain white and erect but no one to reap them while flocks of sheep and other animals were living wild off the land he also hears stories of more personal tragedies of weddings abandoned on the day itself when either bride or groom had died in addition to the horror and the grief there also came a psychological and spiritual torment many victims claimed they had seen a ghostly Apparition touch them just before they fell ill while out on the coast as one port town after another succumbed to the disease men began to describe demonic Visions out on the waves boats with headless oarsmen glowing like fire moving around the Mediterranean to deliver God's vengeance during the height of the plague a story comes to us from a city on the edge of Palestine where apparently some demons in the form of angels appeared to the terrified inhabitants telling them they would only be spared if they worshiped a bronze Idol it's fair to say that for most people in the Empire this apocalyptic event was assumed to be the work of God when John saw the bodies being squeezed into the pits at sikai he calls forth the image of the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God from the book of Jeremiah and assumes that as with the flood good Christians should be building their metaphorical arcs in order to survive temporarily this may have worked as according to procopius local brigands and near do Wells changed the habits of a lifetime for fear of being struck down visiting Church regularly and being kind to those around them until the disease passed when they returned to their old ways by March 543 Justinian was back on his feet issuing a law which declared that the epidemic was over and calling it God's education [Music] William Rosen points out we are very lucky to have procopius whose training and preference was for the Hellenistic historical approach to writing which means that he notes events as he saw them rather than putting them through a starkly Christian lens if the plague was God's Wrath then it seemed that God was angry at everyone the disease took no account of gender race age class location or even season if agrius notes with frustration how some were spared even when they tried to contract the disease to end their misery through these sources we also hear that cattle dogs mice even snakes were not immune to the plague why even rats swollen with bubos or to be seen infected and dying the plague was a devastating blow to the Byzantine Empire just as it was to all the nations whom it touched estimates of the total number of dead are hard to come by but it's assumed that most towns cities or Army Camps that became infected would lose a third of their people the plague was not over either every year it would break out in a new location in 543 it reached Africa Italy illyricum Gaul and the border with Persia and other historian comments that the world seemed returned to its primordial silence for no voices Rose in the fields no whistling was heard of shepherds the following year it made its way to Spain Britain and Ireland with reports coming in from places as far afield as Scandinavia and the Yemen whether it was an island or a Hilltop Community the plague seemed to find those places which it hadn't already struck and it would return to the same cities a few decades later and hit them again Constantinople would suffer a recurrence in 558 573 and 599. the same goes for Antioch amida nisbus Rome thessalonica and so on for two centuries until 747 when the last recorded outbreak took place in Naples to put it another way by the year 600 the Mediterranean population was probably only 60 percent of what it had been in 500. the demographic growth which had helped the byzantines see off the Germans and the ice Orient that had filled the treasury of Anastasia and allowed for the reconquests under Justinian were wiped out in a year or two the chance for the Roman Empire to reform itself in anything like its former strength was now gone the Byzantine world did not collapse though despite the death and the accompanying dislocation life would go on we will explore the political Fallout in detail but for the rest of this episode I want to try and answer the question of what on Earth happened here I should start by acknowledging that there is no academic consensus on what the plague was its Origins its makeup or even if all those who reportedly died of plague from 540 to 740 were suffering from the same disease even with DNA evidence from 6th Century skeletons confirming the mainstream Theory we still lack sufficient proof to be set we are fairly confident though that the bacteria responsible for the plague goes by the name of yasinia pestis have been living on the earth for Millions upon millions of years they were here well before we were and have had a long time to adapt the new environments that the arrival of mammals provided bacteria spend their days adapting and reproducing that is their raison d'etra they have the ability to rewrite their genetic code by borrowing copying or adapting themselves to find a better means of surviving spreading and multiplying for yesinia its preferred home for a long time was the digestive system of the rodent marmots squirrels and rats the process was slow but steady as yesinia passed out of one animal through its waist and then managed to find a new host however there's an inefficiency to that process that I'm sure you can imagine and your sinia dreamed of a better way the answer came with the flea the tiny blood-sucking insect many of whom live on the backs of rodents although their aim is to extract blood the process is something of a two-way street here then came yesinia's chance who knows how many times over how many years it took for yarcinia to adapt to living temporarily in a flee's gut a quite different environment to that of a mammal before working out a way of being pumped back into another animal's bloodstream the process was utterly ingenious once absorbed by the flea yesinia would make a protein which would turn off the fleas natural defenses and prevent itself from adhering to the flee's stomach it would then make a sort of glue out of blood this biofilm would Clump together sealing off the fleece stomach from the blood it was taking in the flea realizing it wasn't getting fed would now bite frantically at anything it could desperate to gather more life-giving blood as it sucked voraciously at its new Target the blood already in its foregut would be forced out infecting the unfortunate mammal with yasinia pestis this Ultra cunning transportation system gave yesinia exactly what it was looking for fleas you see are themselves very adaptive to their rodent hosts some species of Flea have learned to give birth at the same time as their carriers do so that their children can move to New Homes the fleas can also of course jump from one rodent to another latch on and begin feeding so now Yesenia could spread itself more efficiently around a group of mammals infecting replicating and adapting but it was at this point that yesinia pestis got greedy this is also the moment when we introduce the particular species responsible for the plague the flea was xenopsilociopsis the Oriental rat flea its host was ratus rattus the black rat the black rat arrived in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire and its population density is What attracted it to yasinia pestis rats live in large groups falling over one another to breed and get access to food and female rats deliver litters of up to 20 pups five to seven times a year yesinia was staring at a gold mine of fresh blood streams to replicate Within and was not satisfied even with the fleas transporting them around you see zenopsilla chiopsis has little reason to leave the rat its living on fleas have short lives and so several generations of flea can live happily on the back of one rat despite its amazing adaptability yasinia could not effectively survive in every bloodstream some rats had Hardy immune systems and if they detected and killed yasinia they would remember it develop an immunity and possibly pass it on to their offspring yesinia wanted a way to force the fleas to find new rats who had no immunity the solution to this problem was quite simple yesinia would just kill the rat again over Untold years or centuries of adapting yessinia developed the necessary toxins and proteins that could attack the rat's immune system and kill it the flea would be forced to jump to a new host and spread yasinia far and wide amongst the colony of rats the balance has to be right of course yasinia needs time to reproduce before the rat begins to die so the bacteria learned to keep its poisons less poisonous at mammal body temperature the rat could therefore live with the disease for a week without showing any symptoms until the bacteria reproduced sufficiently to raise body temperature and then the lights would go out now this new deadly strain of yasinia presented a major problem what if it was too successful and killed all the rats in its search for the most efficient reproduction method yesinia was reaching the point where it might have undermined itself thousands of fleas living on hundreds of rats injecting hundreds of thousands of bacterial cells is for the most part a stable ecosystem because as you remember a good number of rats will be immune to yosinium either through a strong immune system or acquired immunity after infection the problem for yessinia's survival only arises when there aren't enough of these resistant rats in a particular group for any rat colony there will be a Tipping Point if for some reason 80 of one group of rats became infected and die then suddenly you've got a lot of manically hungry fleas looking for something to feed on naturally they look for the nearest warm-blooded mammal to bite and who do rats normally live next to humans of course horses dogs camels whatever will get bitten too but we are rats constant companions this is because rats are so omnivorous that they Feast on human garbage they'll eat any sort of vegetable matter from seeds nuts leaves and fruit to less obvious fare like paper soap beeswax along with animal food and all sorts of items that humans gladly pile up day after day so if the rat population crashes and fleas Feast on the neighboring humans instead then yasinia pestis will enter the human bloodstream all the mechanisms and adaptions made for the rat's body now go out the window the human body is of course much larger and yasinia had no instructions to find a balance with this new system it only cared about the rat so when yasinia arrived in palusium it began to attack and Destroy its strange new environment the outer proteins of yasinia pestis are designed to prevent the body from destroying it in part by blocking the signals which would alert the body to attack and in part by blocking the phagocytes a type of white blood cell which would normally absorb such an intruder once in yosinia would begin replicating as fast as it could which would often leave the area of the flea bite to turn necrotic or leave the tissue withered at this point the body does recognize that something is wrong and conveys the bacteria to the lymphatic system where our blood circulates and diseases are normally attacked however this is where yesinia wants to be taken it now has access to the whole body and continues to spread and replicate our immune system tries to drag the disease to one of the regional lymph nodes garrisons of white blood cells where most diseases are slowly absorbed a battle is fierce and the node becomes engorged with blood and cellular debris which create the grossly swollen bubos as you may have figured out by now the lymph nodes can be found in the groin the armpit and other areas where the swelling appeared the reason swelling of the groin was most common is simple the tiny fleas looking for somewhere to bite would first come upon the legs and so the infection would be drained toward the nearest lymph node around the crotch the bubonic edomers would press on the nerve endings of its victims causing tremendous pain as the body struggles to replace deoxygenated blood with oxygenated the muscles surrounding the human voice box become more acidic which was the cause of much temporary or permanent speech problems for those who survived we've now reached the stage where the divergences which procopius observed begin for those who were destined to survive their battle would now rage leaving them exhausted and sleepy until their body won and often the swollen bubo would explode in a shower of pus for others the bubonic edema might turn septic and like a snake shedding its skin the tissue would collapse often causing shock and death as the body heats up from battle yasinia begins to release its toxins two of its most deadly weapons interfere with the body's ability to clot blood and form platelets this attack on the blood leads to the gangrene or blackened extremities chiefly toes and fingers which 700 years later in yosinia's most famous appearance on the world stage would lead to the nickname the Black Death if they spread further across the body giving the appearance of lentil-like blisters as prokopius identified then death would follow swiftly if the plague became septicemic then victims would die vomiting blood from internal hemorrhages another of yasinia's deadly toxins are a collection of fatty acids known as lipid a once embedded they cause overproduction of an enzyme which releases tumor necrosis factor which can kill cells again the result is shock sometimes fatal the most fatal results though come from the third option if yasinia reached the highway into the lungs then the victim would start to produce sputum when the sputum accumulates blood the infection moves from being bubonic to pneumonic this meant that a victim's saliva drops were infectious and could contaminate someone being talked to within a two meter range mortality rates for pneumonic plague are 100 percent although Bubonic plague is what killed most people with a guess being that forty percent of those infected would die pneumonic plague leads to guaranteed fatality victims of the plague were unknowingly breathing a death sentence onto the loved ones who gathered around them the tiny particles would be absorbed Slowly by the unwitting victim who might then spend the best part of a month thinking themselves immune before suddenly Yesenia had replicated enough to attack within the Byzantine Empire and Beyond I assume you can now build up a picture of how the disease spread the diet of rattus rattus requires a good deal of water so the rats were big fans of anywhere that was damp and had lots of food the Nile Valley palusium and Alexandria were all ideal homes for the rat Constantinople Antioch and any other major city with a good source of water would do just as well many diseases might flare up dramatically in one city but having killed off so many potential hosts they would burn themselves out and given the ancient world's slow traveling Speed Most diseases would never make it all the way to a neighboring province this is why the plague attacking the Byzantine Empire is what turned the outbreak into a pandemic once yesinia had killed off all the susceptible Egyptians it could find it may well have died out before the very slow Caravan routes carried it out towards Libya or in the other direction towards Palestine but fortunately for yesinia the Roman fleet was as good as any flea the ships which set off from Alexandria in Spring 542 carried rat flea and bacteria on ships filled to the brim with grain a moving Food Hall to keep the rats alive and ready to spread their disease to the Rats of the capital and its people to add another gross thought to the legion's conjured up already the piles of dead bodies only provided a fresh source of food for the rats who could then go on providing incubation for more plague once it reached new Shores yessinia was able to spread slowly inland one by one towns would be visited and yesinia burst to life again feasting on untested victims areas which avoided the plague in the early years would be found sometime later and major cities like Constantinople and Antioch would be Revisited multiple times usually with 15 or 20-year gaps so that a whole generation of children would have grown up with no acquired immunity to the disease round and round yasinia would go always capable of killing thousands so long as new humans arrived who could be infected initially kusro was able to continue the war with Byzantium and Retreat whenever the plague broke out in a nearby town the Persians had limited trade between the Empire's two designated cities like nisbus this kept the sassanids away from the plague temporarily but once it broke through Mesopotamia with the Tigris and Euphrates providing a wonderful home for rats who was devastated one chronicler notes that all was famine Madness and fury the few areas to avoid large-scale destruction were those where rats would not want to live mainly mountainous Highland or desert wherever water and human garbage were hard to come by we will explore this as we go on but once more I'm sure you can see the significance of a plague which repeatedly decimated those living in cities while the Arabs out in the desert or the bulgars of the step were far less affected we've seen what the disease did we've seen what it was doing on the inside we've looked at how it spread but what about the question why now was this simply the moment when yasinia had developed the ability to kill rats in large numbers or were other factors at play the question is still open as to where exactly the deadly strain of yesinia learned its trade in his excellent book Justinian's flea William Rosen puts together fairly convincing conjecture about the origins of the plague he points out that xenopsilociopsis the flea in question prefers a dry warm environment of around 20 to 25 degrees Centigrade or 68 to 77 Fahrenheit as with several other diseases Rosen assumes that yasinia originated around the mouth of the Nile where many of the Great African Lakes are this would have provided a comfortable home for rat flea and bacteria but kept it away from any large-scale human settlements the question is how did it get all the way up the Nile to Egypt and then why jump to the human population at that moment the flea would not enjoy the hotter temperatures of the desert environment of Egypt which would have normally prevented any Journey that far north what it would need to make such a jump would be several years of lower average temperatures like the sort that might occur if the sun gave forth its light without brightness and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse for the beams it shed were not clear [Music] those were the words of procopius who says that between 536 and 538 Summers were colder because something was blocking the Sun the two most likely explanations for a dust Veil that could cover the whole earth for two years would be a comet or meteor strike or a huge volcanic explosion through dendo chronology or the study of tree rings we have evidence suggesting that during this period a very real drop in temperature occurred could it have been enough to entice rats and fleas North toward palusium could the lower temperatures in fact encourage an explosion in the rat population as the colonies of Egypt reveled in the cooler conditions an explosion in susceptible Rats of course would be just what yesinia was looking for and as it began a great cull of the unsuspecting rodents the flea would have been forced to look elsewhere for something to bite and landed on the ankles of that sailor in the harbor of palusium it's a good theory one that it's very hard to prove but which fits the fact sufficiently to offer us an educated guess about the origins of the plague in David Keys's book catastrophe he argues for an explosion of the Sumatran volcano Krakatoa as the source of the Dust Veil he may well be right but personally I'm attracted by the idea that a body from Beyond the heavens struck the Earth that it was something extraterrestrial that ended up causing the plague which would devastate the Roman Empire the Empire would never recover the strength it had in Justinian's early years and the Eastern provinces as you know were destined to be conquered by the Arabs but what if none of that was meant to be what if the volcanic explosion had never happened or the comet had missed the Earth would Justinian have crushed the remaining Goths seen off the Persians and gone on to conquer Spain and leave a Roman Empire that would fight on for centuries more it's fun to speculate the final word on the plague is its name the Black Death is such a catchy title and is both more recent and more devastating that it tends to hog the headlines when it comes to Human pandemics our plague unfairly or not has conventionally been called the justinianic plague or the plague of Justinian [Music] named for the Roman Emperor who strived so hard to be great and was so horrifically surprised by this turn of events the plague certainly defines the emperor more than any other man and there's a real irony that for all his law books and the cities and Army detachments and the like which he named after himself that it's yasinia pesties that will be known by his name to Future Generations [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Flash Point History

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Keywords: plague of justinian, plague, bubonic, pandemic, infectious, bacteria, virus, viral, History of Byzantium, podcast, robin, pierson, Byzantium Podcast, byzantine, history, roman, roman history, eastern, eastern roman history, documentary, biography, justinian, theodora, battle, Hagia, sophia, art, persian, rise of justinian, emperor, audiocast, history of the roman empire, empire, the history of rome, audio, byzantium, renovatio, imperii, Great, persia, khosrow, belisarius, general, italian, campaign, rome, antioch, sack

Id: TIWPCg_dags

Length: 118min 28sec (7108 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 28 2022