Quote:
Originally Posted by Kansas Bear
3. The Antonine Plague around 165 CE.
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I agree with most of your other assertions, but the Antonine Plague did not play a decisive role in the empire's downfall. The worst thing it did was deprive the empire of Marcus Aurelius.
The period of military anarchy in the third century was most damaging to the empire. Furthermore, we are presented with a historiographical problem insofar as you will be hard pressed to detect what damage was due to the Antonine Plague after the immense wreckage of the period from 235-284. Our sources on the period are relatively sparse and it is almost impossible to pinpoint the population fluctuations associated with a plague when it is followed by a period of upheaval.
If anything, the plague of Justinian was the most responsible for the collapse of the Roman state and its transformation into the Byzantine Empire proper.