Fifteen Eighty Four

The dramatic impact of the Coronavirus has highlighted how thankfully rare pandemics are in the modern world. The Roman empire, by contrast, suffered from regular bouts of contagion, among the most deadly of which were the Antonine and Justinianic plagues. How would the Romans have reacted to the risks posed by the arrival of a new disease such as Coronavirus?

1. State Aid
   Firstly, they would not have expected the state to be of any great help. To a large extent, Rome’s leaders saw any widespread disaster as a trivial distraction from the more serious matters of high politics. They had little abiding interest in the plight of ordinary people. That is not to say that the political leadership did nothing to help in emergencies, particularly during events such as earthquakes, but even then the focus was on the repair of damaged public buildings rather than delivering aid to the victims. In the case of disease, relief was also hampered by a lack of knowledge and resources. There was no understanding about how plague spread nor any means of curing it. The state was powerless to help.
2. Fatalism
   It was this lack of effective response which saw the Romans adopt a primarily fatalistic response towards disease. An acceptance of health risk was built in to the Roman mindset and occasional epidemics were seen as usual. Such acceptance seems to have created a wider societal resilience, which meant that disasters did not act as triggers for social change.
3. A Blame Game
   But that did not mean no active measures could be taken. A variety of homespun treatments and religious cures could be tried. Blame could also be ascribed. Most saw plagues as having been sent by the gods as a punishment for some form of offensive behaviour which meant that scapegoats could be identified. As the early Church Father, Tertullian, complained, “if there is an earthquake, famine, or pestilence, immediately the cry goes up, ‘Throw the Christians to the lions!’” Scapegoating, of course, allowed political leaders to absolve themselves of any blame. Blaming the gods also helped reinforce norms at a time when the impact of disaster might have led to calls for change.
4. Rhetoric
   Roman accounts of misfortune were coloured by a combination of a lack of hard evidence, political and social bias, and religious beliefs. They were often written to serve other purposes. Any calamity also generated widespread rumours and misinformation, not unlike the internet has about the Coronavirus. Such rumours could be interpreted as attempts to compensate for a lack of reliable information or, more probably, as attempts by those with political agendas to take advantage of the situation for their own ends.

Whether the Romans would have been hit hard by Coronavirus is hard to say. The comparatively small population of the Roman empire may have provided a kind of natural immunity. Almost nine out of ten people lived spread out in the countryside, providing an in-built social distancing. Huge cities like Rome would have suffered far more. Most Roman writers lived in the urban centres and so may well have exaggerated the impact on the empire as a whole. What we can know with greater certainty is that the fate of most victims would have gone unrecorded. As Pliny the Younger says of his own description of the fate of the victims of the eruption of Vesuvius, such details were “not important enough for history”.

Whether the Romans would have been hit hard by Coronavirus is hard to say. The comparatively small population of the Roman empire may have provided a kind of natural immunity. Almost nine out of ten people lived spread out in the countryside, providing an in-built social distancing. Huge cities like Rome would have suffered far more. Most Roman writers lived in the urban centres and so may well have exaggerated the impact on the empire as a whole. What we can know with greater certainty is that the fate of most victims would have gone unrecorded. As Pliny the Younger says of his own description of the fate of the victims of the eruption of Vesuvius, such details were “not important enough for history”.