See parts 1 and 2 of my reaction here – https://youtu.be/W0nJ0Wlsx8w
See the original video here – https://youtu.be/aN1imOXR4b4
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Apologies, I have no idea why the video is cut off at the beginning, it wasn't like that when I edited, and I'm out of town so I can't go back and fix it!
"sorry i don't have a location for you Sofie" Dude's talking like she is in the witness protection program.
This plague, together with the volcanic erruptions happening during his reign, doomed in my mind the reconquest, because just as Justinian extended the borders the population collapsed.
From what I understand historians used to underestimate the plague of Justinian, because our written records primarily dealt with what was happening in Egypt and Constantinople, but archaeoligical finds of mass graves all over Europe and determining that it was Bubonic Plague has made people reassess the Justinian Plague.
It seemingly took until the reign of Charlemagne a good 200 years later for the kingdoms of Europe to be able to really project power again.
You know Extra History also has a series on Khosrau, the Persian King, maybe one day you can react to that series and see the other perspective of these events that overlap with both series
I still feel Justinian should’ve bit his ego and his dream and just should’ve focused on Persians rather the Rome
Reminds me of Napoleon and a mustache man invading Russia
One thing. Antioch is not in modern day Syria. It is in Turkey
I think you’d love the Unbiased History of Rome by Dovahhatty
Justinian is such an amazing historical figure, one of my personal favorites
Thank you for your great commentary to these videos. I only have one addition to make. Antiochia lays in modern day Turkey at the border to Syria. It was hit hard by the latest earthquakes.
Such a fantastic series, so glad I was able to find this through you!
The description of the Plague is heartwrenching, humanity has come far
When will you do part 8 of the the Christian denomination video by usefulcharts?
Antioch wouldn't be in Syria, it would in modern day turkey
The problem with killing off people just for treason they might commit in the future is that, indeed, you risk creating enemies where there were none and would never have been.
Ive said it once and ill say it again. Theodora is such a badass :3
Honastly, Khosrau II. is one of my favorite historical figures.
His series is one of my favorite Extra History series.
Another amazing video
Antioch is in modern day Turkey not Syria
THE EMPIRE WILL RISE AGAIN! 🦅
The period from 536 to 545 may have been the worst time to be alive. The Plague of Justinian didn't just ravage the Romans, it struck the Persians and Chinese hard too. And we've found that in those ten years there were a series of gigantic eruptions that cooled the world from 1.5 – 2.5°C which lead to persistent worldwide famine. Plague, famine, war and economic collapse across the board, and summers that were as cold as winter, it's little wonder people thought the world was ending.
I just realised… Justinian's reing ends just 60 years before the early muslim conquest. The troubles brewing down south are the early steps to the Muslim rise. The wars between Kusrau and Justinian and those that continues after both of their death are the very same that weakened both empires enough for the muslim to rise
I don't know why people are so surprised by the idea of killing threats to your rule. Look at criminal gang organisations today. They'll murder their friends if they thought they were plotting against them.
If I remember correctly another reason why Belisarius was sacked because he and other generals opposed Theodora chosen heir candidate(the weak-willed nephew of Justinian). That's why Theodora and Justinian decided to make example out of him.
I don't believe Extra History's description of Plague is all that exaggerated, all the symptoms they described are actual symptoms of the plague. Symptoms of plague also differ based on the location of the infection. Bubonic plague infects the lymph nodes, septicemic plague infects the blood, and pneumonic plague infects the lungs. They're all caused by the same bacteria, and which versions someone gets is almost entirely down to how they got infected. Hope that clears some things up.
I'm amazed Justinian survived the plague. Considering the lack of medical knowledge and the indiscriminate way the plague killed a population, Justinian was quite lucky to say the least.
Theodora is one of the many women that validate the following quote,
“Behind every great man, lies an even greater woman.”
One of the things about the plague of Justinian is that it would up coming and going for every decade so the empire would end up suffering it for two whole centuries with the last outbreak of it being in the seven hundreds and it effectively wiped out the population growth that so the empire through the chaos of the migration period.
Spectrum made list of the worst Roman emperors to the best Roman emperors it’s interesting I hope you give it a watch
Theodora's treatment of Belisarius is not completely unreasonable (though I do question her motive behind the decision to confiscate his personal treasury–like, give him some degree of luxury/leeway, if only to show you actually trust him), he can be very loyal (and he is) but he's not the only guy in his army.
There is a case of something like this in Ancient China. The ruling dynasty was about to crown a 7 year old as Emperor, the generals of the army didn't like it, and so one day, while the army was marching on a campaign, they went to their commander, and put on him a golden dragon robe, the symbol of an Emperor. As in, just having it in your possession is punishable by death.
There's some debate as to whether the commander actually wanted this to happen or not, but either way, having this robe forced on him was his Rubicon moment. He had no choice but to march the army back to the capital, depose the child Emperor, and set up the Song Dynasty.
Theodora might be worried about that happening, not because Belisarius is disloyal but because he's too popular. What would happen if his generals forced a purple robe (metaphorically or literally) on him?
Communist Pol Pot killed around 30% of the cambodian population in only 4 years. That is around 90 million people dying in the US in only one presidential term and not because of only disease.
14:10 The terrible, dreadful Justinianic Plague that we now know to be the world's first major outbreak of the Black Death (Bubonic Plague). The death toll (as percentage of the world's population at the time) was probably every bit as bad as the one of the 14th century. Yeesh. The description of the symptoms provided by Procopius are really probably modelled on the comments of Thucydides about the great plague of Athens in the 5th century BC (which apparently may have been typhoid or hemorrhagic fever, not Bubonic infection).
Quick important note on the plague and procopius. Our historian actually breaks his style when dealing with catastrophe. This is a man who was so loyal to his Greek historiographic style he wrote them in attic Greek and called monks "those greatest among the Christians called monks", suddenly refers to god as an acting force of history. Something he rejected in any other context. He basically stopped arguing in his tradition and his role as historian, and started arguing as a Christian and person. A break in historiography one could argue would continue and expand into the end of ancient historiography and the beginning of medieval church histories and chronicles
Extra History has always respected the danger of disease. Just looking at the art is a reminder that Pestilence can be a more feared rider than War.
It should be noted that although Antioch is in the historical region of Syria and is home to many Orthodox Churches, it is actually in Modern-day Turkey
You should do their series on Khosrou as a follow up to this one
Fantastic stuff as always, Chris!
It's a very very minor thing but I wanted to point out a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment there. Dan the narrator name-dropped "Palestine" as the region where much of the conflict between Justinian and Khosrau was happening. I want to just get ahead of things and point out that this has nothing to do with modern politics (very relevant to me personally as I'm a local watching and writing this from Tel Aviv), and Palestine was simply the name the Romans called this entire region after a certain point in time.
I also waited to write this comment until I'd finished watching the entire reaction in order to avoid a potential VTH-ism
Khozrau's episodes are a MUST WATCH! His own story is amazing and Justinian's Humiliation is there FULL FORCE!
You should do the series about Khosrau the Great next, as it is connected to the story of Justinian!
Great work, as always!
Two other shorter Extra History series to check out, related to this massive one on Justinian:
1) Early Christian Schisms, on some of the major disagreements going on within the faith at this time.
2) Khosrau, focusing on Justinian’s Sassanid Persian enemy to the east.
the fact that Justinian's reign had the Plague of Justinian and the late antiquity ice age, added to everything which happened during that time it's one of the most interesting periods of history to read about for me.
That plus his cameo on the divine comedy makes him one of my favourite historical figures
Everyone in his reign is an amazing chatacter, Justinian, Belisarius, Theodora, Antonina (Belisarius' wife and Theodora's friend who was part of the reason why a Pope was kicked off) Just fascinating
Petition for vlogging through history to talk about the philippine American war day 17
Is there any prospect of you reacting to the Blackadder series? I know there might be copyright issues but I’d love to see it if it’s possible
Loving this. So glad you made the Abigail Adam’s example instead of a certain other First Lady. But there are others like Eleanor Roosevelt Betty Ford Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton
21:12 the saying behind every great man is a great waman, comes to mind.
is this where the city of the dead came from? why does that sound so familiar where does this come from?
7:45 to be fair, I’d rather run into a trap and be captured than burn to death 😅
Belisarius is one of the most loyal historical characters I know. Even after many cases of recalling him from the command because of suspicion that he wants to take power and even after confiscating all his riches from conquests he still remained loyal.
Just to clear up the record a little…
With every plague outbrake you get outbrakes of other illnesses and in the Christian East they lumped all the illnesses togather as obe root spiritual cause. You would see symptoms of disentary, anthrex, Jundice and rabies discribed by the contemporaries. It wasn't always just the plague.
There is a neet little story of Justinian getting people to pray to the Christian God to prove he was more powerful than the pagen gods. It hasn't been mentioned but theres a huge Christian rift happening here and those that followed the Nicen way prayed and were mostly spared while those following the other splinters were dying in greater numbers.
This is as well shortly after a church hearing on weither women had souls and a lot of the church leaders who were against the idea of women having souls die in the plague. So you have men saying "see this proves we were on the right side of God. (This might be a spolier because Theodora was not the right type of Christian here and her people get rounded up for spreading the plague)