The Antonine Plague with Colin Elliott
Episode 86 - February 10, 2022
Colin Elliot (Indiana University) talks to Merle and Lee about the late second century CE Antonine Plague and the complicated ways to assess its impact in antiquity. He begins by offering the textbook background to the pandemic before turning to discussing the sources we have for the pandemic along with the problems each type of source has. Colin then turns to discuss how this pandemic exacerbated other existing changes to Roman society at the time and how to try to differentiate its effects. At the end, Colin talks to the hosts about the place of Covid in studying ancient pandemics and how his work might be useful for those who work on other pandemics in the premodern world.
Further Reading
- Elliott, C. P. (2020). ‘Disease Proxies and the Diagnosis of the Late Antonine Economy’. In K. Verboven (ed.), Complexity Economics: Building a New Approach to Ancient Economic History. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
- Elliott, C. P. (2016). ‘The Antonine Plague, Climate Change and Local Violence in Roman Egypt’. Past & Present 231.1.
- Harper, K. (2021). ‘Germs and Empire: The Agency of the Microscopic’. In In H. Flower (ed.), Empire and Religion in the Roman World. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
- McDonald, B. T. (2021). ‘The Antonine Crisis: Climate Change as a Trigger for Epidemiological and Economic Turmoil’. In P. Erdkamp, J. G. Manning, K. Verboven (eds), Climate Change and Ancient Societies in Europe and the Near East. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
- Littman, R. J. & Littman, M. L. (1973). ‘Galen and the Antonine Plague’. The American Journal of Philology 94.3.
Our Guest
Colin Elliot
Associate Professor of History, Indiana University
