In the tenth year of Justinian’s reign, the sun lost its brightness and shone like the moon, as though perpetually eclipsed. From that moment, humanity knew no relief from war, famine, or pestilence. The plague followed soon after, spreading across the whole world without regard for age, rank, or place, bringing mankind to the edge of annihilation.
-Procopius on the Years following 536AD
From the summit of the Palatium Magnum, Justinian the Great looked out upon the city as the greatest temple to the one true God was completed. The Hagia Sophia stood as the summit of Roman achievement, a monument so grand that Justinian himself proclaimed to have surpassed Solomon. The agents of hell had tried and failed to destroy Justinian. He had endured the Nika Riots. Attila, the Scourge of God, had arrived and been driven back to distant lands. And now on the evening of victory over the Goths and Vandals, Justinian raised monuments across the empire to reclaim the ancient heartlands of Rome. To Justinian, it appeared as though Heaven itself had broken into the material world.
Then came the year 536. The sun lost its brightness and for an entire year it gave forth no warmth or heat, and neither spring nor summer ever arrived. Crops failed in the fields, harvests died on the vine, and famine spread across Rome. Even when the sun returned in the following years, its light remained dimmed, and the earth lingered forever in cold.
In his reflections, the historian Procopius remarked that from this moment onward mankind was never to be free of war, pestilence, or death. As hunger stalked the empire, the conditions for a far deadlier hell to break loose.
In 541, a mysterious disease appeared, starting in Egypt and quickly spreading through the Roman world. It wasn’t long before it reached Constantinople. This new death spared neither island nor mountain, rich or poor. Neither young nor old. This disease was described simply as an apparition that visited those marked for death. And then, the sickness came. First, a fever, then painful swellings rose in the armpits, ears and neck. Some fell into deep comas others seized by violent delirium, fleeing their homes in terror, crying out that the unseen apparition had come.
Blackened flesh spread across limbs. Carbuncles formed within the swellings. Some vomited blood other suffered as the black pustules would explode. As the population became overwhelmed with death, corpses lay unburied in the streets. Tombs were forced open to make room for more. Physicians were helpless. Treatments that saved some killed others. Many who were expected to die recovered, while those thought safe were smit without warning. And in the terror, mankind came to accept that there was no human reasoning in this pandemonium—only the terrible hand of God.
Wave after wave of death buckled the empire until nearly forty percent of the Roman population was lost. This Black Death broke Rome, the same Rome whose walls of Constantinople rebuffed Attila; whose armies crushed Persians, Goths and Vandals; whose lordship regaled as the heir of Caesar and Augustus. And Justinian the Great, whose monuments of glory now stood as an irony to fate, like Job before him, was brought low. Justinian’s dream of a restored Rome did not die in battle…it froze in the darkened years following 536AD. The long winter and the plague bled Constantinople, emptying her cities and hollowing out the economies. The Imperial state collapsed along with the Legions. What Justinian had nearly reclaimed through blood and steel was forever lost. While the old wolf of Rome endured it was permanently diminished. The Mediterranean world irreparably fractured. Between the darkened winter skies and diseased mass graves, the last true vision of a reunited Roman world quietly came to an end.
Sources:
Lost to the West; Lars Brownworth
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease and the End of an Empire; Kyle Harper
An infographic of the seven times the city of Rome was sacked. Across more than 1,900 years (390 BCE–1527 CE), the sacks of Rome reveal not a single moment of collapse, but a recurring pattern of vulnerability shaped by shifting political systems, military power, and imperial overstretch. From the Republican era through the Western and Eastern Roman Empires and into the early modern period, Rome’s fortunes rose and fell with the structures meant to protect it.
For the second day of @falloutocweek 's Fallout OC Week I decided to attempt some virtual photography, especially since I've been getting into it thanks for BG3.
For this prompt, I've decided to use my Sosu, Justinian, and Preston, discussing some plans of attack 💪
