The Plague Pt. 2

In a total antique PR disaster, the Justinianic Plague a.k.a. the bubonic plague a.k.a. the world's very first pandemic reduces the Roman Empire's population by about half and reverses some pretty ossified norms — sound familiar? We meet three Johns (and thanks to Theodora, lose one) along with an OG sea monster. 

Transcript

The Plague Pt. 2

Content Warning

A quick content warning: there is swearing. There are also some pretty heavy descriptions about the reality of the bubonic plague. Please, as always, take care of yourselves. Also, consider supporting the show. All you have to do is go to patreon.com/tandjpodcast or just subscribe on Apple podcasts. Even a couple of bucks a month is major to me, honestly.

Or, consider leaving a nice review. That really does so much to help people find T&J. And folks are finding it. I see you, Australia. So, thank you. And enjoy. 

Intro 

The core story of any epidemic is one of vectors. 
The chain of species that a virus — or a bacteria — moves through until it reaches us.  In the case of the 6th century bubonic plague, it all began with a teeny, tiny microscopic bacteria called … Yersinia pestis.
Which found a home inside of a rat flea … Xenopsylla cheopis. 
And while this rat flea is an excellent jumper, it is wingless. Therefore, it is dependent upon a rat host to move any distance whatsoever. 
And this particular flea’s preferred rat host was the black rat, whose scientific name is – adorably – Rattus Rattus. 
And when the Rattus Rattus comes into contact with people, that bacteria-infected flea can just — whoop! — hop over and feast on us. 

And once it did, we … were fucked.

Because the Yersinia pestis bacteria wreaks havoc on the human lymphatic system, which is responsible for protecting us from infection and maintaining a healthy balance of fluids in our bodies. Post-flea bite, the bacteria locates the nearest lymph node and begins to spread — using our lymphatic system as its very own, stealthy super-highway. 

The overpowering amount of Yersinia pestis bacteria in the body quickly causes many of the lymph nodes to turn black and swell — sometimes to the size of a really large pimple or an egg. Or even … an apple.
And these very swollen lymph nodes are known as ‘buboes.’ 
Which is a hilarious word for something so serious. 
‘Bubo’ comes from boubon, the Greek word for groin and gives the bubonic plague its name. 
Now, if you’re thinking, ‘Groin? Were the Greeks just a bunch of pervs?’
Not exactly. 
You see, we have lymph nodes in many places in our bodies, but they are most concentrated in our necks, our armpits, and … our groins.
Since our legs are the closest to our groins — and to the ground, where the fleas and rats were  — the groin was a very common location for the bubo to appear.

And as if a black, apple-sized swelling in your groin wasn’t bad enough, bubonic plague was capable of killing someone in about a week.
It could also spread from the lymphatic system to the lungs; graduating into an even more severe and lethal type of plague called pneumonic plague. 
And once it became pneumonic plague – that’s P-N-E-U, as in, pneumonia – the disease didn’t need rats or fleas to move around anymore. It was now human-to-human, becoming ultra-transmissible via droplets from coughing or simply breathing. 

In parts of the world where there are still bubonic plague outbreaks, like Madagascar …

(In French): Every year there are several hundred cases of plague in Madagascar. Many die of pulmonary plague when some survive bubonic plague [bubonique].

Peru  …

(In Spanish): Sufrimos tremenda crisis sanitaria la peste bubónica que Peru en mille dos cientos tres…  de la peste bubonica … 

And the United States …

(Anchor CBS Chicago): A case of bubonic plague has been identified in Oregon … 

The disease can be easily treated with antibiotics if caught early enough. But the later stage pneumonic plague, even today, can be fatal unless treated within 24 hours of symptoms.

We are no strangers to a pandemic. But for those unfortunate enough to be alive in the years between 541 and 548 AD … the period I’ll be focused on in this episode, they had neither the science, nor the precedent, for what was happening to them.

Because the bubonic plague or ‘the Justinianic Plague,’ as it soon became known, in a total, antique, PR disaster … was the world’s very first pandemic. 

What we are fairly certain of now is that a totally separate chain of events — events I presented at the top of the previous episode, The Plague Pt. 1, are what ultimately caused the bubonic plague five years later.
Because back then, the bacteria-carrying rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, was only active within a very narrow temperature range! We are talking about a nine degree window between 59 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit.  Or 15 to 20 degrees in Celsius.

This meant that for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, the flea remained locked in the higher altitudes and cooler climates of one of its best known homes: Ethiopia.

So, when the volcanic winter set in and temperatures uniformly dropped, the Xenopsylla cheopis flea could now survive beyond the mountains of Ethiopia. It could move.

And move it did. Down to a region where its preferred host, Rattus Rattus, excelled: the Nile River Valley. And the Nile River Valley was the trade route from which massive quantities of Egyptian grain – among other goods  – were loaded onto ships in the port of Alexandria that would feed Rome's citizens across the Empire. 

What the rats with the fleas carrying the bacteria did was turn those ships into ticking pandemic time bombs. 

I’m Christine Laskowski and this is T&J, a limited series podcast devoted to sixth century Byzantium and the greatest recorded love story on earth – that between Empress Theodora and her husband, the Emperor Justinian. This is Episode 10 and the conclusion of my two-part series on: ‘The Plague.’ 

Part I. Eavesdropping on John the Cappadocian 

The earliest recorded use of the verb  ‘eavesdrop’ as in, to listen in on someone, can be found in a 1606 Elizabethan comedy titled, The Gentleman Usher.  

Written by the playwright George Chapman — who, while he was no Shakespeare — did leave his mark on the English language; introducing the word ‘eavesdrop’ in this very line, uttered by the son of a duke. 

Medice: Gods my life! Strozza hath eavesdropped here and overheard us.

In those days, the eaves were the structures along the edge of the roof where the rain fell from. And eavesdroppers were the people who lurked beneath the eaves — or even dangled from them — so they could spy. 

If you’re wondering where all of this is going … in the year 541, right as reports of bubonic plague were coming out of Egypt, Empress Theodora, the T in our T&J, made a choice. She was going to finally rid herself of her husband’s money-savvy scapegoat, a.k.a Justinian’s Chief Finance Minister: John, John the Cappadocian. 

Who, as Procopius noted in Wars:

Procopius: The Empress Theodora hated above all others.

In 541 AD, Theodora orchestrates John the Cappadocian’s downfall. And, as you may have already surmised, she uses eavesdropping to do it. 

John Lydus: John the Cappadocian lived riotously, bathing together with adolescents who were bloomless and not yet masculine-looking because of the smoothness of their body and with licentious harlots, and gratifying his lust both by doing and by submitting, becoming pallid as a result of both vices.

What you just heard was an excerpt taken from a book titled, On Powers, Or: The Magistracies of the Roman State. Dated to 550 AD, the same year as Procopius’ Secret History, On Powers is a work by a fellow civil servant of Procopius’ named John Lydus. 

In his book, John Lydus does offer some valuable information about Justinian’s administration. However, it’s mostly, from what I could gather, about the origin of Roman customs and names for things.

Like, how the Romans call accountants rationales because accounts are called rationes, but the Greeks renamed them catholici as a reference to their vigilance. Stuff like that.

Which is why it is so wild when John Lydus goes on a tear about John the Cappadocian the man, who, I was impressed to learn, was way more Berlin than I’d ever thought possible. Frugal as hell. And loved a sex club.

So much so, he even converts a bathhouse in the upper floors of his mansion … into one. 

At least, that’s according to John Lydus.

John Lydus: After he had been worn out [from sexual intercourse], he used to taste of both the delicacies and drinks offered him by other catamites. So many and so frothy were they as to cause him to vomit when his mouth no longer could contain them but, in the manner of a torrent, belched out what he had eaten and imposed no small danger on his flatterers, who, because of the lacquer of the tessellated tiles, used to slip away.

Gross. John the Cappadocian’s rapacious hunger for food, wine and the flesh, while clearly hyperbolized, does serve a purpose — it makes him immoderate and unrespectactable in all the ways one could be in late, antique Rome … But was any of it true?

Well, it must be noted that John the Cappadocian is the only main, male character of high rank we’ve come across so far in the T&J era who is presented as engaging in homosexual acts.

By this time, homosexuality between males was a criminal act with harsher consequences than ever before. Compared to his predecessors, the Emperor Justinian’s own ‘Christianizing’ legislation meant having your genitals cut off and then being paraded through the streets for public ridicule.

Yet, as scholar John Boswell, in his seminal work Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, observed: 'There is no indication that any church official suggested or supported Justinian’s action against gay people. On the contrary, the only persons known by name to have been punished for homosexual acts were prominent bishops.'

Roman clergy did not have much to say about “homosexual affairs,” as they were referred to in Greek before T&J introduced anti-gay legislation in the 6th century.

And while Boswell notes that such a move could have been rooted in Justinian’s own homophobia or could have been a convenient means of getting rid of people T&J no longer wanted around … This move would conflate homosexuality with Christian immorality in a manner that was both novel at the time and still continues today. 

John the Cappadocian’s fiscal policies … we know, were hardly popular. The man was despised. 

What we can say for certain is that like many powerful, prurient men prone to excess — allegedly — John the Cappadocian was also the father of a daughter. Because, of course he was.

Her name was Euphemia. And Euphemia is portrayed as a sweet, virginal, naive daddy’s girl, who wanted for nothing and who certainly never slipped on her dad’s vomit-covered floors after one of his alleged gangbangs.

Having a man with a reputation like that for a father is bad enough! But poor Euphemia … she would soon be tricked by two women way more worldly than she into luring her bad dad into a trap that would ultimately ruin Euphemia’s life. 

Because if Theodora was going to successfully rid herself of John the Cappadocian forever, she needed incontrovertible proof that he’d done something truly unforgivable, like, I don’t know … plotting to overthrow her husband, the emperor, for example.

And to do that … why, Theodora would need a bait-and-switch and an eavesdropper. But who was both capable and available?
Antonina and the eunuch general Narses … who, due to each of their respective conflicts with the General Belisarius, now off in the east battling the Persian incursion, Antonina and Narses both just so happened to be in Constantinople in 541.

Antonina, by this time, had been frozen out by her husband, who’d had enough of his cuckholded himbo reputation. And Narses? He’d been recalled to the capital after he and Belisarius had butted heads in Italy. Now, Antonina and Narses are not a duo I’d have put together, but unlike Adobe Premiere and basic Mandarin … ‘ousting a foe using a treason plot’ — is not something you’ll find on my resume.

Theodora’s resume, however, was primed for such a skill… Because her bestie and the eunuch, they are just what the plotter ordered …


Part II. Eavesdropping on John the Cappadocian Cont. 

Under Theodora’s direction, Antonina first proceeds to cultivate a very close and very artificial friendship with John the Cappadocian’s daughter, Euphemia. 
But either Antonina was a gifted manipulator or her mark was really gullible or Procopius was, truly, never ever around women. Because according to his account in Wars, Antonina only needed ‘several days,’ to tactically lob a bold complaint against Justinian onto the soft, green grass that her trust and bonhomie had built.

Here’s Procopius.

Procopius: Antonina pretended to lament the fate which was upon her, saying that although Belisarius had made the Roman empire broader than it had been before, and though he had brought two captive kings and so great an amount of wealth to Byzantium, he found Justinian ungrateful.

Euphemia’s response?

Euphemia: And yet, dearest friend, it is you and Belisarius who are to blame for this, given that you are not willing to use the power that you currently have at your disposal!

To which Antonina replies.

Antonina: But we are not able, my daughter, to attempt a rebellion in the armies unless someone inside the administration joins us in the task. Now, if your father were willing, then we could easily put it into motion and accomplish all that God wants. 

Euphemia is so eager to help her brand new, suspiciously decades’ older female friend! So, she runs and tells her dad everything. And John the Cappadocian is absolutely game to meet up with Antonina, in private, to discuss next steps for this coup.

They arrange to meet in May, under the cover of night, inside Antonina and Belisarius’ weekend estate in the suburbs on the other side of the Sea of Marmara. Which, in my mind, is the Hamptons of Constantinople. Must be nice. 

It is in the Hamptons of Constantinople that Narses, our badass Byzantine general moonlighting in the moonlight as Number 1 eavesdropper, enters the fray.

Because Narses and his team are waiting and listening behind a wall. And once they hear all that they need to hear, they rush out to arrest John the Cappadocian for treason. Only, John the Cappadocian had brought with him to this meeting a very important accessory, one that men of his stature never left home without: his very own private entourage of personal bodyguards. A brawl ensues. John the Cappadocian escapes but is quickly found. 

T&J apply their retribution formula albeit … like my martinis … with a twist. 

They take away his wealth and his position, but rather than throw John the Cappadocian into one of Theodora’s infamous oubliettes for several years, they have him forcibly ordained as a priest, and then exiled, eventually, to Egypt.

John’s long term replacement as Finance Minister winds up being a man named Peter Barsymes. And Peter was, as Theodora had probably long suspected, just as good at the job and being hated for it minus … the ick. 

541 was a horrible, no good, very bad year for John the Cappadocian and his daughter Euphemia, but it might not necessarily have been the worst year of their lives. Because in the springtime of 542, after the opening of the Mediterranean navigation season, those Alexandrian ships carrying the bubonic plague arrived in Constantinople … 

Part III. The Plague of Justinian

In late antiquity, natural disasters were widely interpreted to be punishments meted out by God.  And culpability, across the Roman Empire, tended to fall into one of two buckets. 

Either God was fed up with the emperor and his methods of ruling. Or, God was fed up with the empire's subjects due to all of their sinning.

Yet, in his account of the very first pandemic in Wars, Procopius opts for neither bucket. He is openly and presciently circumspect. 

Procopius: During these years there was a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated. Now, in the case of all other scourges sent from Heaven some explanation of a cause might be given by daring men, such as the many theories propounded by those who are clever in these matters … But for this calamity it is quite impossible either to express in words or to conceive in thought any explanation, except indeed to refer it to God.

Procopius doesn’t mention the plague in the Secret History, his self-ascribed venue for correcting the record, save for a single instance. When Justinian’s reign is likened to a plague-on-the-Roman-body-politic only … worse.  

Procopius: And he took no thought to preserve what was established, but he was always wishing to make innovations in everything, and, to put it all in a word, this man was an arch-destroyer of well-established institutions. Now, the plague, which was described by me in the previous narrative, though it fell upon the entire world … Justinian, however, not one living person of the entire Roman world, had the fortune to escape. (Damn, Procopius. Got any aloe for that burn?) 

‘The previous narrative’ Procopius is referring to, was his lengthy and harrowing eye-witness account of the bubonic plague in Wars.

At its peak, Procopius tells us that the bubonic plague gripped the Roman capital city for four months. We know that by the following year, it would reach war-ravaged Italy, Frankish Gaul. And then spread as far west as Ireland and the British Isles. 

If Procopius’ numbers are to be believed, the bubonic plague reduced the urban population of Constantinople by about half. And death rates of that range elsewhere are not that far-fetched.

When it first arrived in Constantinople, demons were said to be spreading the sickness.

As such, many sought protection in churches, monasteries, and shrines. Others wore amulets with magical prayers stuffed inside. And since demons were believed to hate the particular jingle-jangle of copper, copper bells were often placed above doorways.

But it made. no. difference. Nothing worked.

Some were rumored to have returned to paganism and belief in the old gods for help. Others simply locked themselves in their homes and tried their best to tend to their own while ignoring the rattle of death and panic outside. Even when friends and neighbors pounded on their front doors, begging for help, paranoia typically took over. Sure, it could be a friend. But how could you be sure it wasn’t a demon, with the sickness, posing as a friend.

Truly, the accounts read like a zombie apocalypse. Which, in all fairness, it was. 
Victims were covered in black pustules and vomited blood. Some fell into comas. Others became delirious, running off screaming in terror that they were being chased by phantoms. 

Many struggled to eat food… And with no one to care for them, died of neglect. Or perished when their buboes turned gangrenous. Pregnant women were particularly vulnerable. 

The circumstances in the countryside were no less The Last of Us or Walking Dead or 28 Days Later, either.

In a separate account from a monophysite clergyman named John of Ephesus, he recalls such experiences during his overland journey across Palestine and Syria.

John of Ephesus: When they were obliged to go out, the one who went out, either to accompany or to bury the dead, wrote on a tablet these words that he hung on his arm: “I am so-and-so, son of so-and-so, and of such-and-such neighborhood; if I die, for God’s sake, and to show his mercy and goodness, let them know at my house, and let my people come to bury me.”

Some settlements were left without any inhabitants at all. In one city along the Egyptian border, John of Ephesus found only eight people still alive: seven men and a ten-year-old boy.

Those who still could, availed themselves of the valuables inside vacant houses. Roads were desolate, fields of fruit and wheat were left to rot, herds of livestock roamed aimlessly or simply returned to the wild.

And then, of course, there were the corpses. And there were so, so, so many corpses.

The sheer necessity of their disposal reversed some pretty ossified status quos.  The circus factions put their rivalries aside. Justinian coordinated with the Church to sign-off on speedier burials. And once that was no longer possible, they organized the creation of mass graves. Guild or no guild, those still healthy enough to do the labor involved with disposing of the bodies were paid in gold. These tasks involved collecting the dead and digging the giant pits in which it had become necessary to deposit them.

Now, these pits were designed to hold 70,000 corpses. And when those quickly filled up, the city of Constantinople resorted to opening up the towers in its fortification walls and just … began dumping the bodies inside them. 

And right as it seemed like it could not possibly get any worse for T&J, Justinian wakes up in his gilded chamber one morning to find that he, too, has developed a bubo. [Gasp!] In his boubon. 
What goes down while Justinian’s life hangs in the balance? Find out. Once we return from a short break. 

What you’ll be hearing is a 1914 recording by Solomon Hailama and the Toots Paka’s Hawaiians of a song titled, ‘Tomi! Tomi!’

Instrumental Break. 

Tomi! Tomi!  – Toots Paka’s Hawaiians (1914) 

Part IV. Theodora Goes Ballistic on Belisarius

While certainly terrified for the love of her life’s life and what his death would mean for her own outcome, Theodora, being an adamantine boss b must’ve been quietly congratulating herself on disposing of the treasonous, odious John the Cappadocian when she did.

She could not risk disloyalty or usurpers while Justinian was ill with the plague — a circumstance historians believe she’d tried to keep from being made public. T&J, and their greater-than-the-sum-of-their-parts imperial unit, was far too vulnerable. 

But word does get out. And Belisarius, we know, was back in Mesopotamia, dealing with yet another Persian incursion LMAO, when the news of the Emperor’s bubo reaches him.

Apparently, Belisarius and this other general are like, ‘Dude, if Justinian dies and that woman gets to force another one like him on us … we gotta stop her.’

When the empress receives a report about this exchange from some of her eavesdroppers in the army, Theodora, now regent, goes … ballistic.  

Like, Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest … ballistic.

Joan Crawford: Don’t fuck with me, fellas! It ain't my first time at the rodeo.  

Theodora summons the two generals back to Constantinople. We learn from Procopius in the Secret History that she throws the other general, a man named Bouzes, into one of her infamous oubliettes for exactly two years and four months. 

Procopius: Now, there was a suite of rooms in the Palace, below the ground level, a secure and a veritable labyrinth … where she usually kept in confinement those who had given offense. So, Bouzes was hurled into this pit, and in that palace he, a man sprung from a line of consuls, remained, forever unaware of time … Thereafter, he always suffered from weak sight and his whole body was sickly. 

Belisarius, on the other hand, his punishment could not be so straightforward. Belisarius was still the husband of Antonina as well as the father of their only biological child together, their daughter, Joannina. Who, Theodora had some pretty big plans for. As we’ll soon learn.

What Theodora opts to do instead …  is ruin him.

According to Procopius, Theodora seizes all of Belisarius’ property, fires his private entourage of personal bodyguards, and bars any members of his former staff from visiting him.

Procopius: And he went about, a sorry and incredible sight, Belisarius a private citizen in Byzantium, practically alone, always pensive and gloomy, and dreading a death by violence. 

Lo, how the mighty had fallen!

Remember, Antonina had been the spouse on the outside. The cougar wife; the atrocious mother to a brood of bastard children and an incestuous lover to their adopted one, Theodosius. Who, by this point, was dead of dysentery. She’d also had the temerity to go with her husband on his military campaigns and lead convoys sometimes!

But thanks to that recent solid she’d done disposing of John the Cappadocian … Antonina and the Empress were good. So good Theodora’s punishment was, in fact, engineered to give the general some pretty compelling reasons to take his wife back.


It is unclear how long his ruination and isolation goes on for, exactly, but one day, Belisarius is at home having what sounds like a massive panic attack, when a message arrives from …

Theodora: You know, noble Sir, how you have treated us. But I, for my part, since I am greatly indebted to your wife, have decided to dismiss all these charges against you, giving to her the gift of your life. For the future, then, you may be confident concerning both your life and your property; and we shall know concerning your attitude toward her from your future behavior. 

And was Belisarius a manly man about it? Not by Procopius’ standards!

Procopius: When Belisiarius had read this, [...] he straightaway arose and fell on his face before the feet of his wife. And clasping both her knees with either hand and constantly shifting his tongue from one of the woman’s ankles to the other, he kept calling her the cause of his life and his salvation, and promising thenceforth to be, not her husband, but her faithful slave. 

Antonina, by taking her groveling husband back, restores him to imperial favor. Sort of. Belisarius is not given his old job, but instead made … the Count of the Sacred Stables. Kinda in the same way that I am the Marchioness of a Brita Water Filter. It means something … only if you want it to.

Most of his wealth is returned. Sort of. You see, Belisarius’ only daughter and heir, Joannina, had been strategically yenta’ed to Theodora’s grandson, Anastasius. Which meant Belisarius’ wealth was actively being channeled to T&J’s  family, anyway.

You see, once Justinian had fully recovered from the bubonic plague – whoohoo! – they were all ready to be one big happy family. Theodora even has the young, engaged couple living together. Now, was she just being a hip, open-minded grandma? Or was she intentionally wrecking Joannina’s marriage prospects with anyone else?

Theodora’s true motives notwithstanding, Joannina and Anastasius’ wedding would have to wait … until a time when both of Joannina's now-reconciled parents could attend.  | Beach Boys-type ‘I Get Around’? Belisarius moving around
I’ll give you a one word hint as to why, and it rhymes with Bitaly.

Part V. Bar-bar-barbarians At the Gate! 

Ravaged by warfare, famine, and now plague, the two decades between 535 and 555 AD in Italy were not anywhere I’d ever want to be.

Goth or Roman, noble or poor. No one was secure. Italy was enervation station.

The city of Rome had been captured by the Romans, then besieged by Goths, then abandoned and reoccupied by the Romans, and consistently starved and blockaded throughout. Neopolitans could tell a similar story. And both would be counted as lucky! 

Some cities, like Tivoli, had their entire populations put to death. Others, like the northern Gothic capital of Pavia, had all of its women and children murdered and then thrown into a river. Not even by the Romans, but by those sneaky fucking Franks!

By 543 AD, the Goths were technically the losers, but to borrow the words of Byzantine historian Peter Sarris: 'As with Africa, imperial control of the peninsula proved to be remarkably fragile.'

With Rome so weak, from the Persian incursion and then the plague, what the Goths really needed at that moment — and what the Goths got — was something we all need: a hero.

And they got that hero in Totila.

The Po River, Italy’s longest, flows from west to east. Originating near the French Alps, the Po moves in a near-perfectly lateral line until it spills into the Adriatic Sea at a delta south of Venice.

And the Po, as I touched on in the previous episode, had evolved into a natural boundary. Cinching off the last, remaining Gothic-controlled territory to the north. 

Right as the bubonic plague was terrorizing Constantinople and much of the southern Empire, another series of Gothic kings had been murdered. And Totila, one of these Gothic kings’ nephews, decides he is up for it.

Only he ends up doing so much more.

One of the facets of the T&J era I find so compelling, are the number of ‘Fuck this’ moments there are.

Flee the rioting capital in a boat? Fuck this.
Stick to a stupid treaty of eternal peace? Fuck this. Leave John in Rimini? Fuck this. 
I have also noticed ‘Fuck this’ moments also really seem to pick up around plague time. 
In the spring of 542, Totila’s ‘fuck this’ moment occurs when he rallies an army of 5,000 men and leads them … south … across the Po River. 

Because Totila’s like, accept this weak-ass Roman hegemony? Fuck. This. 

And in 542, we know, Justinian. Was. Busy.  

Justinian had also failed to appoint a single commander-in-chief in Italy after Belisarius and Antonina left. Which is why, after five years — five years! Belisarius and Antonina were sent back. To re-re-claim Italy.

What had taken the Romans about a decade to accomplish, took Totila … a year. Apart from Ravenna, Rome, and a number of towns on the coast, the bulk of Italy was once again in Gothic hands. 

How did Totila do it? 

Social revolution. 

Here’s Byzantine historian Robert Browning: 'Since the beginning of Theodoric’s reign, there had been a continuous, if occasionally somewhat uneasy, cooperation between the wealthy senatorial class and the Gothic leaders, both of whom were equally interested in maintaining the system of large estates with tenants tied to the soil. Now, the senators had abandoned the Goths to take the side of the victorious emperor; and the old Gothic nobility were either dead or discredited. The basis for the old class collaboration was ended.'

The merchants, the urban middle classes, the peasants, and even the enslaved — that’s who was available and that’s who Totlia appealed to.

He was basically like, ‘There is more than enough land on this beautiful boot for everyone to live in peace and prosperity. Come and fight for me, and we shall win!’

And the people of Italy, they believed him! Because at least according to one legal secretary we know, Totila was:

Procopius: Gifted with remarkable judgment, energetic in the extreme, and held in high esteem among the Goths.

Totila was also totally putting his radical, proto-Marxism into practice. He staffed the complex machine of administration with Romans of humble origin. He divided the great estates among their tenants, sweeping aside rentsand burdensome corvées. As if that were impressive enough, Totila? He freed the slaves. 

We will return to Totila’s story in the next episode. But for now, I need to pull a T&J and summon us back to Constantinople. Because, those Constantinopolitans, had finally caught – wink wink – a lucky break. But before we dive into that: a sea shanty performed by John Goss and the Cathedral Male Voice Quartet titled ‘The Rio Grande.’ 

Instrumental Break. 

‘The Rio Grande’  – John Goss and the Cathedral Male Voice Quartet (1922) 

Part VI. Porphyrius: Or, The Whale 

2023 was a landmark year for orcas around the Strait of Gibraltar.

NAT: ‘Oh my God. Fuck. Are they gonna get the rudder?’
NAT: ‘We lost both rudders.’ 
NAT: Boom! ‘Yeah, Oh my God.’

A female orca named White Gladis, like many of us stuck at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, had taught herself a brand new skill! No, it wasn’t sourdough; it was how to remove a boat’s rutters. The prevailing theory is that White Gladis then shared her technique with other orcas, who still appear to be having a good time with it.

Why am I bringing up modern orca tormentors in an episode about the Justinianic plague? It’s because we have so much in common with those damn Byzantines, it’s scary.

There is no consensus as to the exact origin of how Porphyrius acquired his name. 

Was it a reference to his skin color? in Greek, Porphyra, was the word for a rich, dark purple, like wine. Or perhaps the name was a reference to the imperial purple? As a sign of respect?

Or maybe, just maybe, the name was an homage to Porphyrius Calliopas, the Lebron James of the chariot racing world? Or possibly, after Porphyrion, the war-waging giant of Greek mythology?

Whatever his name’s true genesis — Porphyrius — we know, was a whale.

And not just any whale. Porphyrius was a motherfucking legend. A living, blow-hole breathing OG-sea monster, who served as inspiration for Moby Dick! The 1851 American literary classic by Herman Melville.

Herman Melville (Ishmael): According to all human reasoning, Procopius’s sea monster, that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale.

Procopius’ description in Wars of the whale’s size, long lifespan, and behavior does align with sperm whales; the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas are also known habitats for the species. However, sperm whales rarely ever travel as far north as the Bosporus. Whereas orcas, or killer whales, do. 

But Porphyrius, our T&J era whale, would have had to have been one exceptionally large orca in order to match Procopius’ description in Wars, which was of a whale approximately 45 feet long and 15 feet wide. Or, for my metric brethren, about 15 meters long and a little over 4 ½ meters wide.

Whether or not Porphyrius was this gargantuan orca or a rogue, ne’er-do-well sperm whale ... It does not alter the core fact that Porphyrius terrorized the people of Constantinople off-and-on for half a century: sinking boats, terrifying passengers, driving them off-course and even carrying them great distances away. Porphyrius loomed large as this bizarre, bad omen hallmark of Justinian’s reign.

As if there hadn’t been enough to be terrorized by!

Now, we don’t know the exact dates of Porphyrius’ whale terrorism, but Wars was published in 553, so Porphyrius’ reign of terror had certainly ended by then. And boy, oh boy, did it end. 

Here’s Procopius.

Procopius: It happened that while a deep calm prevailed over the sea, a very large number of dolphins gathered close to the mouth … And suddenly, they saw the whale and fled wherever each one could ... Meanwhile, the whale succeeded in capturing some of them, which he swallowed forthwith. And then, either still impelled by hunger or by a contentious spirit, the whale continued the pursuit no less than before, until, without noticing it, it had itself come very close to the land. There, it ran upon some very deep mud, and, though it struggled and exerted itself to the utmost to get out of it as quickly as possible, the whale still was utterly unable to escape from this shoal, but sank still deeper in the mud.

Cinematic as hell right?

The sea monster gets cocky, gets greedy … and gets stuck. Whereupon it becomes open season on Porphyrius, The Whale. In a scenario straight outta Captain Ahab’s leviathan murder fantasies.

Procopius: Now, when this was reported among all the people who dwelt round about, they straightway rushed upon the whale, and though they hacked at it most persistently with axes on all sides, even so they did not kill it, but they dragged it up with some heavy ropes. And they placed it on wagons and … Then after forming several groups and dividing it accordingly, some ate the flesh immediately, while others decided to cure [their portions]. 

So much then, for Porphyrius.  

Conclusion 

As we arrive at this episode’s conclusion, we must revisit Antonina … who, now, in her early fifties, is having a ‘Fuck this’ moment in Ravenna of her very own.

Belisarius, had had to raise all 4,000 of his own troops, which was a pittance, and had been given no money to give the Roman troops already there … their back pay.

So, in 548, Antonina leaves her husband behind, and the then-newly-minted-could-have-been-nicer imperial mosaics of T&J in Ravenna, and sets sail for Constantinople where she will beg, beg the Empress Theodora to give them more: more men, more money, more weapons, more horses. More all of it. 

But once she gets there, Antonina discovers that the Empress cannot give them anymore anything to fight this war. The Empress cannot help her at all. Because the Empress …  was dead. 

[Record Scratch]

I know. I know! I’d have made more out of this major event in this episode, but Procopius, in his disdain, abstains from giving us any details about Theodora’s death whatsoever other than: 

Procopius: She had fallen sick.

The only other source of information we have comes from an African chronicler named Victor of Tonnena, who happened to be in Constantinople at the time. He reported that when she died, at around age 50, Theodora’s body was riddled with kanker, or cancer.

But as historian and T&J podcast guest, Jared Secord, pointed out in my bonus episode on Health and Medicine, ‘riddled with cancer’ was a very common way for men in those days to describe the deaths of women they did not like. How Theodora actually died … remains a mystery.   

What is not a mystery, but is actually, quite telling is what certain people in her milieu do afterward. 

Antonina and Belisarius immediately call off the engagement between their daughter and Theodora’s grandson. Cousin Germanus, remember him? He finally gets married! In a move I certainly did not see coming, his betrothed is the King Theodoric’s own granddaughter, the Gothic princess, Matasuntha. Although he dies soon afterward. It was exciting for a minute, though!

But from then on, Justinian, until his own death, save for a few important developments … lacks the sort of driving fire Theodora alone appears to have provided.

I will get into how her absence affects Justinian in more detail in our final episode, but this is the greatest recorded love story on earth so, tl;dr: her death affected him a lot.

The bubonic plague would spread to the Persian Empire by the early 550s — a turn I’m sure Justinian and the Roman authorities thanked their lucky stars for. Rome’s armistice with Persia had finally been achieved in 545. All King Khusro wanted was 144,000 gold solidi and the physician that had helped cure Justinian of the plague. To which Justinian went:

Justinian: Fine.

Crucially, in the decades ahead, the settled and urbanized, highly-connected population of the Roman Empire was way more susceptible to the plague  –  and its repeat flare-ups – than Rome’s more dispersed, and often nomadic, ‘barbarian’ opponents.

In short, the pandemic hurt Rome more, and thus, the balance of power began to tilt.

Next episode, we’re going to watch that tilt in action as we wrap up the Gothic slog thanks to the badass eunuch general Narses. When we finally delve into the role of Byzantine eunuchs and the phenomenon of eunuchs more broadly. Who were they? Why were they? Stay tuned.  

Outro/Wrap

Research, scripting, narration, and editing for this episode were all done by me, Christine Laskowski.

Scoring and musical arrangements for T&J were also written and performed by me in collaboration with the inoculated Jack Butler. The T&J logo was designed by Meredith Montgomery. 

Procopius of Caesarea was voiced by Michael de la Bedoyere. Medice the son of a Duke by Patrick Faurot, John Lydus by Michael Falcon-Taylor. Antonina by Andrea Augustin and Euphemia by Clara Janning. John of Ephesus was voiced by Michael Yates Crowley. Justinian by Oliver Sachgau. And Herman Melville by Tom Urbanik.

Special thanks to Roger Pearse whose blog detailing the works of John Lydus proved invaluable. Additional sources for this episode are available in the show notes.

If you liked what you’ve heard, spread the word and leave a nice note in the review section wherever you’re getting your podcasts. Follow and donate on Patreon – that’s patreon.com/tandjpodcast. It really helps me keep the show going while giving you access to all upcoming T&J episodes in addition to other objectively delectable perks. 

Now, enjoy the outro because I wrote it just for you. 

Plague!
Sober science
Ne’er do well
Overnight it’s bespredel
Plague! Plague!

Cede your prayers
The apparatus
Blackest death
It’s Rattus Rattus
Plague! Plague!

Sound the siren
Guard your groin
Discard the body
Take the coin
Plague! Plague!

Ectopic exit
Even the horses
Watch your step
It’s corpses corpses
Plague! Plague!

Amulets
No priest, no lector
Can protect youF
rom this vector

There are six people left in this town
The goats the sheep they are all running wild now

There are five people left in this village
Nothing of value remains to pillage

There are four people left in this quarter
The crops in the fields they’ve all since rotted

There are three people left in this city
They vomit blood, it is misery

There are two people left in this house
My baby brother and the mouse

There’s now one person left in this street
And it’s me. And it’s me. And it’s —
Plague! Plague!