217. Plague and the decline of the Roman Empire
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2024
- Tom and Dominic are joined by friend of the show Kyle Harper to discuss how pandemics and disease played a far greater role in the decline of the Roman Empire than previously understood.
On the show Kyle, Dominic, and Tom discuss life expectancy, how the Roman Empire was ‘bad for people’s health', the Antonine Plague, and more.
Listen to our previous episodes with Kyle:146. Disease vs. the rise of civilisation147. Disease, the New World and modern pandemics
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SO EXCITED. The most fun history podcast to listen to. The banter is unparalleled!
“As a result, much of what we think we know about ancient Rome’s statistical life expectancy comes from life expectancies in comparable societies. Those tell us that as many as one-third of infants died before the age of one, and half of children before age 10. After that age your chances got significantly better. If you made it to 60, you’d probably live to be 70.
Taken altogether, life span in ancient Rome probably wasn’t much different from today. It may have been slightly less “because you don’t have this invasive medicine at end of life that prolongs life a little bit, but not dramatically different”, Scheidel says. “You can have extremely low average life expectancy, because of, say, pregnant women, and children who die, and still have people to live to 80 and 90 at the same time. They are just less numerous at the end of the day because all of this attrition kicks in.”There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel, a leading scholar of ancient Roman demography. “The life span of humans - opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct - hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell.”
Yes it's certainly not the case that people got "old" at 30
love Kyle's feature here, his work is incredibly interesting and he is a very well spoken guest with awesome takes so its quite refreshing to hear his voice again. Amazing pod guys:)
Dan Carlin brought me here. You are both delightful, as is Kyle. Such fun! Totally subbed.
Fascinating subject. Great guest. Well done gentlemen.
Yall deserve more views
Fire pod boys
Tom is a star. And all thanks to Philomena Cunk.
Fascinating. Thank you.
A major trade route that opened up during the Pax Romana was the Indian Ocean trade. Not a coincidence pandemics started to break out in the Empire.
The plague explains a lot. Couple that with years such as 536 AD and you've got chaos and occupation.
What about the Krakatoa eruption in 536? That would have impacted food supply and the spread of disease along with the starvation.
Yeah... COVID 19 did NOT come from a weapons lab in Wu Han. Preach that party line fellahs.
I had always heard that the Antonine plague was most likely smallpox. Galen most likely thought so. I guess there were varying descriptions and nothing that was scientifically a clincher.😊
well yes the roman empire was a huge taxation apparatus that reduced the caloric intake of it subjects, and thus their health. it was certainly true in britain
Grain allows more humans to survive and procreate, but in poorer health. Look at the problem our overweight carbohydrate eating population had with COVID.
26:38 it was a famine full stop not a potato famine
plague
woo
Average age life was 50 plus he is rubbish
l can confirm these are all English words.
Lots of porn bots live here lol
True. Report button only works in large numbers
@@chrisS19019 Something must have worked, I don't see any of them now!