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How serious is the plague in Justinian? Why did it affect the historical development of Europe?
Justinian plague refers to the plague outbreak that occurred in the Mediterranean world from 54 1 to 542, and it was also the first plague outbreak. At that time, the reigning emperor of Byzantium was Justinian, so it was called Justinian plague to distinguish the Black Death. This disaster directly accelerated the demise of the Byzantine Empire.

We don't know the details of the disaster. Only calligraphy and paintings, travel notes and the like handed down at that time have clues. At that time, the plague was strange and terrible. For example, two people who are talking fall dead without warning. Even when people buy things, they feel that they are not far from death. The poor vagrants who slept on the streets all day were the first to be threatened with death, although the Byzantine Empire was very powerful at that time. However, before this sudden plague came, there was no reasonable immunotherapy plan for backwardness, so when the plague came, the whole country, whether high-ranking officials or ordinary people, fell into an unknown panic and the social economy was in sharp turmoil.

In some descriptions of calligraphy and painting, we even see that because there are too many deaths, some bodies can't be disposed of at all, and they are piled up in the street, smelling of corpses everywhere. According to the data, Emperor Justinian was infected with the plague at that time, so Justinian had to spend a lot of money to send workers to dig holes and bury the bodies together. Yes, no matter how high or low, men, women and children, they are buried together. You know, in the feudal society before, nobles all had their own graves and coffins, so they could be seen at that time.

The epidemic lasted for half a century, and Justinian, who originally wanted to expand, also lost his fighting spirit, which directly led to the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire and the sharp decline of the population, which directly affected the development of the whole of Europe. Economic and military forces will stagnate for many years or even regress. It can be seen how serious the Justinian plague was, but it easily destroyed the future of an empire in an underdeveloped era.