THE BUBONIC PLAGUE. 63 



therefore no doubt that the plague has been known for more 

 than two thousand years. 



The next authentic account of the plague is that of the epi- 

 demic of the sixth century. The disease at this time was first 

 recognized in Lower Egypt, from which country it extended into 

 Europe by two routes. It was brought from the north coast of 

 Africa, and it also extended through Palestine and Syria, and by 

 this way into Europe. This disease became pandemic and spread, 

 according to the chroniclers of the time, to the "ends of the 

 habitable world." It prevailed in an active form for about sixty 

 years, showing great virulence in certain localities. According 

 to Warnefrid, " it depopulated towns, turned the country into a 

 desert, and made the habitations of men to become the haunts of 

 wild beasts." Hirsch says : " It is impossible to decide whether 

 this outbreak of plague in the second half of the sixth century 

 was the first general diffusion of the disease on European soil, or 

 whether it had been epidemic there before, and if so, to what ex- 

 tent. What is certain is that this outbreak gave it firm hold in 

 Europe, and that it kept its dominion there for more than a 

 thousand years." 



It is an interesting fact that this pandemic occurred during the 

 reign of Justinian the Great, the most illustrious emperor of the 

 Eastern Roman Empire. This man, who did so great a service to 

 the world in the codification of the Roman laws, seems to have 

 been both wise and unwise. He is said to have been so filled 

 with Christian ardor that he forcibly baptized more than seventy 

 thousand pagans in Asia Minor alone ; and yet he was a pagan by 

 birth, and there is reason for believing that he died a pagan. He 

 is known as the great legislator, and yet he oppressed the people 

 to the verge of starvation by the imposition of unjust taxation, 

 and by granting monopolistic privileges to a few. On one side 

 he instituted just reforms and on the other he fell into reckless 

 and extravagant expenditures. He built the great cathedral of 

 St. Sophia, now a Turkish mosque and one of the architectural 

 wonders of the world, with a treasury filled with the sighs and 

 tears of his overtaxed subjects. I mention these facts in order to 

 show that the spread of the plague occurred at a time when the 

 masses of the people were oppressed by wrong and broken by 

 burdens too heavy to carry. 



From the time of Justinian on, for more than ten centuries, as 

 has been stated, the plague raged, sometimes with more, some- 

 times with less, severity, in Europe. The historians of the time 

 generally content themselves with a statement of its most violent 

 outbursts and an enumeration of its victims. The numbers given 

 must, in many instances at least, be gross exaggerations. It is 

 possible, also, that other diseases, especially smallpox, were in- 



