This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0016856479 Reproduction Date:
The Plague of Cyprian is the name given to a pandemic, probably of smallpox, that afflicted the Roman Empire from AD 250 onwards during the larger Crisis of the Third Century.[1] It was still raging in 270, when it claimed the life of emperor Claudius II Gothicus. The plague caused widespread manpower shortages in agriculture and the Roman army.[2] Its modern name commemorates St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, an early Christian writer who witnessed and described the plague.
In 250 to 266, at the height of the outbreak, 5,000 people a day were said to be dying in Rome. Cyprian's biographer, Pontius of Carthage, wrote of the plague at Carthage:
In Carthage the "Decian persecution", unleashed at the onset of the plague, sought out Christian scapegoats. Fifty years later, the North African convert to Christianity Arnobius defended his new religion from pagan allegations:
Cyprian drew moralizing analogies in his sermons to the Christian community and drew a word picture of the plague's symptoms in his essay De mortalitate ("On the Plague"):
The plague still raged in AD 270: in the account of the wars against Goths waged by Claudius Gothicus given in the Historia Augusta it is reported that "in the consulship of Antiochianus and Orfitus[6] the favour of heaven furthered Claudius' success. For a great multitude, the survivors of the barbarian tribes, who had gathered in Haemimontum[7] were so stricken with famine and pestilence that Claudius now scorned to conquer them further". And "during this same period the Scythians attempted to plunder in Crete and Cyprus as well, but everywhere their armies were likewise stricken with pestilence and so were defeated."
The severe devastation to the European population from the two plagues may indicate that people had no previous exposure—or immunity—to the cause. Historian William McNeill asserts that the earlier Antonine Plague (166–180) and the Plague of Cyprian (251–270) were the first transfers from animal hosts to humanity of two different diseases, one of smallpox and one of measles, although not necessarily in that order. The modern consensus, however, seems to favor the theory that both outbreaks were of smallpox.[8]
Many Roman authorities blamed the plague itself on the Christian community. Despite this, the threat of imminent death from the plague and the unwavering conviction among many of the Christian clergy in the face of it won more converts to the faith.[9]
Martin Luther, Anglicanism, Bible, Lutheranism, Protestantism
Theism, Atheism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity
Byzantine Empire, Roman Republic, Crisis of the Third Century, Pompeii, Tacitus
Diocletian, Severan dynasty, Gaul, Roman Britain, Hispania
Roman Empire, Latin, Gallienus, Goths, Milan
Rhine, Rome, Armenia, Gaul, Roman Empire
Roman Empire, Crisis of the Third Century, Razgrad, Bulgaria, Greek language