Quotulatiousness

November 22, 2021

Geiseric & The Kingdom of The Vandals

Filed under: Africa, Europe, History, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

History Time
Published 5 Sep 2017

A brief look at Geiseric and the Vandals

Further reading:-
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Walter Goffart, Barbarian & Romans
Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire
Andrew Merrills, The Vandals

Music:-
Morning Light – “Deep Thoughts” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tXOL…
Peter Gundry – “Víðbláinn” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnCML…
Kevin MacLeod – “Ossuary 2: Turn” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jZS…

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A new study may show that “Justinian’s plague” reached Britain before Constantinople

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Health, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Instapundit linked to a news release on a recent Cambridge study on the plague which devastated the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Justinian I, but which may have come through an as-yet undiscovered northern European path that reached the British Isles well before appearing within the Eastern Roman territories:

Illustration of the Hagia Sophia from European History: An outline of its development by George Burton Adams, 1899.
Wikimedia Commons

“Plague sceptics” are wrong to underestimate the devastating impact that bubonic plague had in the 6th–8th centuries CE, argues a new study based on ancient texts and recent genetic discoveries.

The same study suggests that bubonic plague may have reached England before its first recorded case in the Mediterranean via a currently unknown route, possibly involving the Baltic and Scandinavia.

The Justinianic Plague is the first known outbreak of bubonic plague in west Eurasian history and struck the Mediterranean world at a pivotal moment in its historical development, when the Emperor Justinian was trying to restore Roman imperial power.

For decades, historians have argued about the lethality of the disease; its social and economic impact; and the routes by which it spread. In 2019-20, several studies, widely publicised in the media, argued that historians had massively exaggerated the impact of the Justinianic Plague and described it as an “inconsequential pandemic”. In a subsequent piece of journalism, written just before COVID-19 took hold in the West, two researchers suggested that the Justinianic Plague was “not unlike our flu outbreaks”.

In a new study, published in Past & Present, Cambridge historian Professor Peter Sarris argues that these studies ignored or downplayed new genetic findings, offered misleading statistical analysis and misrepresented the evidence provided by ancient texts.

Sarris says: “Some historians remain deeply hostile to regarding external factors such as disease as having a major impact on the development of human society, and ‘plague scepticism’ has had a lot of attention in recent years.”

Sarris, a Fellow of Trinity College, is critical of the way that some studies have used search engines to calculate that only a small percentage of ancient literature discusses the plague and then crudely argue that this proves the disease was considered insignificant at the time.

Sarris says: “Witnessing the plague first-hand obliged the contemporary historian Procopius to break away from his vast military narrative to write a harrowing account of the arrival of the plague in Constantinople that would leave a deep impression on subsequent generations of Byzantine readers. That is far more telling than the number of plague-related words he wrote. Different authors, writing different types of text, concentrated on different themes, and their works must be read accordingly.”

History of Wine: Ancient Rome

Filed under: Europe, History, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

History of Wine
Published 20 Apr 2014

How was wine was made in Ancient Rome?
What did wine taste like in Ancient Rome?
Convivium and customs of drinking.
Wine Tasting.

QotD: Canadian values

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

During recent decades, our politicians have told us a sweet bedtime story about Canada being an exceptionally compassionate country, a world leader in multiculturalism and wonderfully generous to the poor countries. All of this expresses something called “Canadian values”. All lies.

Robert Fulford, quoted in “Canada takes a new look at ‘fable’ of its image”, New York Times, 2005-05-25. (Link updated thanks to MILNEWS.ca in the comments.)

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