Why Rome Actually Fell: Plagues, Slavery, & Ice Age — Kyle Harper

Today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Kyle Harper, who is a professor and provost emeritus at the University of Oklahoma and the author of some really interesting books, The Fate of Rome, Plagues Upon the Earth, Slavery in the Late Roman World, an upcoming one called The Last Animal. The reason I wanted to have you on is because I don't think I've encountered that many other authors who can connect, biology, economics, history, climate into explaining some of the big things that have happened through human history in the way you can. The most recent reason I I wanted to have you on is I

Yeah.

And so this is not, like, some small little nudge you can see. Like, the overwhelming I mean, other than the hyper exponential growth in human population, the overwhelming, not just one, but the overwhelming two major features in human population going back the last ten thousand years is this one bacteria. Yeah. Right? One of the things you discuss in the book is that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a result of this one particular event. Well,

I mean, my the period that I normally work on is sort of from the high Roman Empire, so like the the glory days of the Pax Romana in the first or second century, which is usually where I start, through what we call the the late antique or early medieval period, so the sixth or seventh century. And the beginning of this period, Rome dominates this Mediterranean empire. It's what you think of when you think of, ancient Rome. It's the largest city in the world. It's it's the center of this huge network. And then by the end of this period, the city of Rome has, you know, we don't know, 50 to a hun

think you're discussing the book the possibility that the death rate might have been close to or even over sixty percent, wherever the Black Death. So this is not just like this is like literally the most significant thing. Yeah.

It's it's mind blowing. And I mean, I, you know, in the black the case of the Black Death in the fourteenth century, it's pretty clear. It kills fifty, sixty percent of the population in entire regions. Yeah. And we don't necessarily think that it killed 60% of the whole continent, although that's actually not impossible. Right. But even the fact that it's killing fifty percent of the people in cities, in provinces, in countries is just beyond the damage that other plagues do.

Right. And do you think that we're not for this this, like, sixty percent mortality event plus with the fact that I think we haven't even discussed yet this super severe cold snap. Do you think that the Roman Empire might have otherwise just kept going? Because you discussed, like, there's been there were these two previous other big pandemics. Yeah. The empire still survives. The the I think Volgerrand had this quote that the, the the Roman Empire fell for longer than most empires have lasted. So do do you think, like, you know, it'd be similar to China, maybe there were maybe a dynasty colla

I mean, that's that's a great comparison. Right? And not just sort of, like, decline and fall of dynasties, but also, like, geographic changes in the configuration that parts get added and parts get get cleaved off, but you still kind of think of it as fundamental continuity in the core. Like, that to me is a very, very plausible counterfactual. Like, Justinian, the the emperor in the May, he reigns from the May to the May. He's he's on a path of success. He's retaken Africa. He's mostly retaken Italy when the the plague hits. Like, to me, a very plausible counterfactual is that a more or less

Okay. So one of the things I foun