Chapter V: Section II (2)

From the same source may we derive the propensity in the Carthaginian armies to pestilential disorders. Carthage was a colony of Tyre; and the Tyrians were in close alliance with the Jews, during the reigns of David and Solomon, and very probably afterwards; so that from them the distemper might be communicated in such a manner as to be almost endemic; and thus hardly an army could be sent out but what would have the infection with it, breaking out with violence now and then, as occasional causes tended to give life to the contagion. It is impossible, however, from the source just mentioned to trace the plague of Athens, or the first plague in Rome; but it is very natural to suppose that the violent one which raged in Rome, during the reign of Titus, came from Jerusalem. That city had sustained a most dreadful siege, and the obstinate and wretched inhabitants had endured such calamities as have scarcely been recorded in the history of nations. Among these calamities was a pestilence, which, in all probability, would be conveyed to Rome, and there occasion the destruction already mentioned.

But what seems to render this account of the origin of the plague more probable is, that the Jews are to this day accused of propagating the disease in those countries where it is most frequent. Baron de Tott is of opinion that the plague in Constantinople originates among the Jewish dealers in old clothes; for these avaricious dealers, purchasing the infected goods, sell them indiscriminately to every one who will buy, and that without the least care taken to remove the infection from them; by which means it is no wonder to find the plague, as well as other diseases, disseminated among them in great plenty. Dr. Russel informs us, that the Jews are most liable to the plague, the most fearful of it, and the most ready to fly from the infection. The Abbe Mariti agrees in the same accusation against this unfortunate people. “The Jews (says he) purchase at a low price the goods and wares which remain when most of the family are deceased, and then store them up; which, when the plague is over, they sell at a dear rate to those will buy, and thus propagate the pestilential poison: again it kindles, and presently causes new destruction. Thus this opprobrious nation, preferring gold to life, sell the plague to mussulmen, who purchase it without fear, and sleep with it, till, renewed of itself, it hurries them to the grave.” M. Volney, though he does not mention the Jews in such express terms as Mariti and Russel, yet agrees as to the mode of its propagation in Constantinople, and the reason of its continuance in that city. “It is certain (says he) that the plague originates in Constantinople, where it is perpetuated by the absurd negligence of the Turks, which is so great, that they publicly sell the effects of persons dead of the distemper. The ships which go to Alexandria never fail to carry furs and woolen clothes, purchased on these occasions, which they expose to sale in the bazar of the city, and thereby spread the contagion. The Greeks who deal in these goods are almost always the first victims.”

Thus the account we have of the origin of the plague at present is, that the city of Constantinople, having been long and deeply infected, the infection is stored up through the avarice of the Jewish merchants, who buy the goods and clothes of the infected. The stupidity of the Turks allows these goods to be sold in Constantinople, or exported freely to all parts to which their vessels sail, particularly to Alexandria; where the avarice of the Greeks prompts them to buy without examination or precaution, to the destruction of their own lives, and of multitudes of others. Egypt being the principal place of traffick, the plague is more frequent there than in other parts of the empire. Syria is comparatively free from it; which M. Volney supposes to be owing to the small number of vessels which come there directly from Constantinople.

In this way we may, in a pretty plausible manner, account for the origin of this distemper; viz. that it originally fell upon the Jews as a punishment for their iniquities; that from the Jews it has been at different times conveyed to other nations; and, by a mixture of those nations, has, at times, become general all over the world. At last it has, by the avarice of that people who first had been the occasion of its being introduced into the world, become permanent in Constantinople, whence it is still diffused among different nations in proportion to their dealings with that capital.

But it may now be said, ‘Allowing the positions contended for to be true in their utmost extent, how comes it to pass that the plague hath not been general in every age and in every country? Since the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews have been dispersed over all nations: if nothing then were wanting to produce a pestilence but Jews and old clothes, no age or country ought to have been free from it; nevertheless it is certain that violent plagues take place only at particular times, with long intervals between; and of late the pestilential disposition seems to have become much less frequent than formerly; the western parts of Europe, particularly Britain, having been free from it for a great number of years. There must therefore be some cause, different from what has yet been mentioned, by which the infection is occasionally roused from inactivity, and excited to spread desolation all around.’

That there are predisposing causes to epidemic disorders, especially to the plague, the most fatal of them all, is not denied. These prepare the body for receiving the infection, but they will not, without that infection, produce the disorder. Of these causes so many are to be found in the conduct of mankind themselves, that we scarcely need to look for them any where else. In looking over the histories of plagues, we find them in an especial manner connected with famines and wars. The former sometimes take place in consequence of the failure of crops through natural causes; but, considering the general fertility of the earth, we must certainly account it owing to bad management, in some respect or other, that every country hath not as much laid up within itself as would guard against the consequences of at least one or two bad crops. Yet we believe there is not, at present, a country upon earth in this predicament. If a crop fails any where, the inhabitants must import largely, or they must starve. This is the case even in the fertile regions of the East, where the earth produces in excessive abundance,[32] and there is little or nothing of any kind of provision exported to other countries. A remarkable instance of this occurred in the plague at Aleppo, a history of which is given by Dr. Russel. He tells us, that the winter of 1756 proved excessively cold, which was followed by a famine next year. This account is confirmed by Mr. Dawes, in a letter to the bishop of Carlisle.[33] He tells us, that in the course of the winter many perished through cold; that the inhabitants were reduced to such extremities, by the single failure of the crop in 1757, that women were known to eat their own children as soon as they expired in their arms with hunger; and that human creatures might be seen contending with dogs, and scratching for the same bone with them in a dunghill. A dreadful plague followed; which, the two succeeding years, swept off not fewer than sixty thousand in the city of Aleppo.

[32] Herodotus says, that in his time the province of Babylonia
produced commonly two hundred, and in plentiful years three hundred
fold.

[33] Philos. Transact. vol. liv.

It is probable that in this case the famine either produced the plague, or made it worse than it would have otherwise been; and it is not denied that the cold and bad season was the direct cause of the famine. But as little can it be denied, that had the people, or their governors, been so provident as to have laid up stores sufficient to supply the country for one year, this famine would not have been felt. As far, therefore, as the plague was connected with the famine, we must own that it was chargeable on the human race themselves; not the sins of this or that particular person, but a general deviation from the task assigned them by their Maker, viz. that of cultivating the ground; and, instead of this, spending their time in folly and trifling, to say no worse.

But famines are occasioned not only by natural causes, but by wars; in which mankind, acting in direct opposition to the laws of God and nature, destroy and lay waste the earth, taking every opportunity of reducing to extremity both those whom they call innocent and those whom they call guilty. Thus vast multitudes are reduced to want, to despair, and rendered a prey to grief, terror, and every depressing passion of the human mind; they are exposed to every inclemency of the weather; to the scorching heats of the day, and the chilling damps of the night; in short, to every thing that we can conceive capable of predisposing the body for the reception of diseases of the very worst kind. No wonder therefore that war and pestilence go hand in hand; and, by taking a review of the history of mankind, we shall see, that, always at those times when the nations have been most actively employed in the trade of butchering one another, then, or very soon after, they have been afflicted with pestilence. To begin with the great plague of 767 B. C. which coincides with the rise of the Assyrian empire: Till this time, though there had been numberless wars, yet they were carried on upon a much smaller scale than now, when great empires were to be set up, and when the most distant nations were to be assembled in order to gratify the pride and ambition of an individual. The Assyrians, we know, penetrated into Ethiopia; but how far east or how far west they went, we are not certainly informed. To their wars, however, we may with reason ascribe the desolations occasioned by this first plague. From Thucydides’s account of the plague at Athens, it seems plain that it was occasioned, or at least rendered more violent, by the wars of the Greeks with one another at that time. Had the Carthaginian army staid at home when they went to war with Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,[34] it is very probable that the pestilence would not have broke out among them. The like may be said of the plague which broke out among them in the time of Marcellus.[35] That in the time of Jugurtha, indeed, is said to have been occasioned by locusts; but, had not vast bodies of men been collected together for the purposes of war, the plague could never have committed such ravages. The plague in the time of Titus could not have been brought from Jerusalem, nor perhaps would it have existed there, had not Titus made war against that city; and so of others.

[34] See Sec. i. p. 10.

[35] Ibid. p. 12.

The plague which began in the reign of Justinian, as it was more violent than any recorded in history, so it was preceded by wars equally unexampled. The Romans had indeed for ages employed themselves in war; but, by their constant superiority to every adversary, their empire had become so amazingly extensive, that, whatever wars were carried on in the remote provinces, the great body of the empire always remained at peace; and this was the case even in their most violent civil wars. On the accession of Alexander Severus, about the year 232, they began to encounter enemies so numerous and formidable, that all their power proved insufficient to repel them. In the tenth year of Alexander’s reign, the Persians, having overthrown the ancient empire of the Parthians, turned their arms against the Romans, and, though frequently defeated at that time with great slaughter, renewed their incursions in the reign of Gordian, about the year 242, when they were in like manner defeated and obliged to retire. As these defeats, however, did not at all affect the strength of the Persian empire, the Romans still found them as formidable enemies as ever; while the Goths, Sarmatians, Franks, and other northern nations, harassed them in other parts. In the reign of Decius, who ascended the throne in 249, they became extremely formidable, insomuch that the emperor himself, with his whole army, was at last cut off by them. The consequence of this was, that the empire was instantly invaded in many different parts, and, though the barbarians were at times defeated, we never find that the empire regained its former tranquillity. The Persians and Scythians, taking advantage of the general confusion, invaded the provinces next them, while the finishing stroke seemed to be given to the Roman affairs by the defeat and captivity of Valerian by the Persians.

This disaster, as may well be imagined, produced an immediate invasion by numberless barbarians, while such multitudes of pretenders to the imperial crown were set up, each asserting his claim by force of arms, that the whole Roman territories were filled with bloodshed and slaughter. At this time Gallienus, the son of Valerian, was the _lawful_ emperor, if indeed we may apply the word to the domination of such a monster. His mode of government may be imagined from the following letter written to one of his officers in consequence of a victory gained over an usurper named _Ingenuus_. “I shall not be satisfied with your putting to death only such as have borne arms against me, and might have fallen in the field: you must in every city destroy all the males, old and young; spare none who have _wished_ ill to me, none who have spoken ill of me, the son of Valerian, the father and brother of princes. _Ingenuus_ emperor! Tear, kill, cut in pieces, without mercy: you understand me; do then as you know I would do, who have written to you with my own hand.” In consequence of this horrible order, not a single male child was left alive in some of the cities of Mœsia, where this inhuman tragedy was acted.

In the midst of this dreadful commotion, we find the pestilence contributing its share to the common work of desolation. In Alexandria in Egypt, says Dionysius, bishop of that place, “fury and discord raged to such a degree, that it was more easy to pass from the east to the remotest provinces of the west, than from one place of Alexandria to another. The inhabitants had no intercourse but by letters, which were with the utmost difficulty conveyed from one friend to another. The port resembled the shores of the Red Sea strewed with the carcases of the drowned Egyptians: the sea was dyed with blood, and the Nile choked up with dead bodies. The war was attended with a general famine, and the famine with a dreadful plague, which daily swept off great numbers of people, insomuch that there were then in Alexandria fewer inhabitants, from the age of fourteen to that of eighty, than there used to be from forty to seventy.” It was not in Egypt alone that this calamity prevailed. It raged with great violence in Greece, and at Rome itself; where, for some time, it carried off five thousand persons a day. Many terrible phenomena of nature took place at the same time. The sun was overcast with thick clouds, and great darkness took place for several days, attended with a violent earthquake, and loud claps of thunder, not in the air, but in the bowels of the earth, which opened in several places and swallowed up great numbers of people in their habitations. The sea, swelling beyond measure, broke in upon the continent, and drowned whole cities.[36]

[36] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi. pp. 433, 435.

At last the civil commotions were settled by the accession of Claudius to the empire in 268. He found the Roman force so exhausted, that, when marching against the Goths, he wrote to the senate in the following terms: “If I should not be attended with success, you will remember that I fight after the reign of Gallienus. The whole empire is quite spent and exhausted, partly by him, and partly by the many tyrants who, during his reign, usurped the sovereignty, and laid waste our provinces. We want even shields, swords and spears.” In this miserable plight, however, he gained a most extraordinary victory; three hundred thousand of the enemy being killed or taken. But, while Claudius thus carried on the work of death successfully against the barbarians, he was attacked from a quarter where he could make no resistance: a violent plague broke out in his army, and carried off himself and a vast number of his men.

The dreadful defeat given to the Goths did not long preserve the tranquillity of the empire. New invasions took place, and new massacres ensued. At last, on the accession of Dioclesian to the empire, it was thought proper, on account of the present emergences, to divide such wide-extended territories into four parts, to be governed by four emperors of equal authority. By the activity and valour of these, particularly of one of them, named Galerius, the northern barbarians were repressed, and the Persians reduced so low, that they were obliged to yield up a great part of their territories; and it is said that their country might even have been reduced to a Roman province, had the emperor so inclined. We know not whether, in his eastern expedition, the Roman army received any infection, nor do we hear of any plague breaking out in it; but we are told that Galerius himself died of an uncommon distemper; an ulcer, attended with mortifications, violent pains, and the production of an infinite number of vermin, which devoured and tormented him day and night. This distemper, however, seems rather to have been a cancer than a pestilential disorder, as he laboured under it for more than a year. After his death, dreadful wars continued, both by reason of the incursions of barbarians, and the contests of those who enjoyed, or wished to enjoy, the empire. The eastern parts, however, had for some time kept free from pestilential contagion; of which the christian writers say, that Maximin, who reigned there, had made his boast; and, being a heathen, ascribed it to the care he took of preserving the worship of the gods. But, if this was really the case, he soon found his gods unable to protect him; for, soon after the accession of Constantine the great, and his embracing christianity, the dominions of Maximin were afflicted with famine accompanied with pestilence, and that attended by symptoms of a most extraordinary nature; particularly ulcers about the eyes, which rendered multitudes of those who were infected with the distemper totally blind. The christians did not fail to ascribe this plague to the sins of Maximin; but it must be observed, that to his other sins he had added that of involving himself in a violent war, during which the pestilence broke out, and which probably was one of the causes of it. We may likewise observe, that if the sins of Maximin brought on the plague, the piety of Constantine could not keep it off; since we find that in the year 332, a considerable time after the death of Maximin, the territories of Constantine were ravaged by a dreadful plague, and the famine was so severe, that, at Antioch, wheat was sold at four hundred pieces of silver per bushel. The distemper which put an end to the life of Maximin himself was indeed so extraordinary, that we may reasonably excuse those who called it a judgment sent directly from heaven. His eyes and tongue are said to have putrefied; “an invisible fire was kindled in his bowels, which, being attended with unrelenting torments, reduced him in a few days to a perfect skeleton; his whole body was covered over with a kind of leprosy, and devoured by swarms of vermin; he could not be prevailed upon to take any nourishment, but greedily swallowed handfuls of earth, as if he had hoped by that means to assuage his pains, and allay the hunger with which he was tormented without intermission.”[37] All this, we are told, was the effect of poison, which he had swallowed in despair, after being defeated in battle; but the symptoms are unaccountable.

[37] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi.

After the death of Constantine, the empire being again parted, civil dissensions took place; the northern barbarians and Persians renewed their incursions, and at length the battle of Mursa, between the emperor Constantius and an usurper named Magnentius, destroyed such numbers that the empire no more recovered its former strength. From this time therefore the wars with the barbarians became more and more violent; and, though frequently overcome, the advantage was ultimately on their side. In 361, the first year of the emperor Julian, the pestilence again made its appearance. It was accompanied by many other grievous calamities: Dreadful earthquakes were felt in every province; most of the cities in Palestine, Libya, Sicily and Greece, were overturned. Libanius writes, that not one city in Libya was left standing, and but one in Greece; that Nice was utterly ruined, and Constantinople greatly damaged. The sea, in several places, broke in upon the land, and destroyed whole cities with their inhabitants. At Alexandria, the sea, retiring during an earthquake, returned again with such violence, that it drowned several towns and villages in the neighbourhood. The earthquakes were followed by a famine, and the famine by a pestilence. It was observed by the christian writers, that the famine seemed to follow Julian from place to place: and no wonder that it did so; for he not only had always a large army along with him, which consumed great quantities of provision, but, attempting to remedy the evil by fixing the prices of provisions, he rendered it much worse, as the dealers in corn were thereby tempted to convey it to other places.[38] Indeed this emperor seems to have been inclined to produce famines wherever he went; for, on his entering the territories of the Persians, with whom he was at war, he wasted the country to such a degree, that he could neither subsist nor return; while the enemy, imitating his example, destroyed all before him. The consequence was, that, by the time Julian was killed, the famine raged in the Roman camp to such a degree, that not a single person could have escaped, had not the enemy mercifully granted them peace.

[38] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi.

Notwithstanding this dismal situation, we hear of no plague invading the camp of the Romans at that time. The wars, however, continued with great violence; and, in the time of Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, became worse than ever. The dreadful state of the empire in the time of Gratian is thus described by St. Jerom: “The whole country, from Constantinople to the Julian Alps, has been swimming these twenty years in Roman blood. Scythia, Thrace, Macedon, Dardania, Dacia, Thessaly, Achaia, both Epiruses, Dalmatia, both Pannonias, are filled with Goths, Sarmatians, Quadians, Alans, Huns, Vandals, Marcomans, &c. whose avarice nothing has escaped, whose cruelty has been felt by persons of all ranks, ages and conditions.” “What evils, (says Gregory Nazianzen) have we not seen or heard of! Whole countries have been destroyed with fire and sword; many thousand persons of all ranks and ages have been inhumanly massacred; the rivers are still dyed with blood, and the ground covered with heaps of dead bodies.”

In the midst of so great calamities, the pestilence, as an evil of inferior nature, might in many cases pass unnoticed by the historians of the times; nevertheless, even during that distracted period, we find some accounts of it. In 384 we are told of a famine and plague at Antioch; and, in 407, of one in Palestine, said to be occasioned by multitudes of grasshoppers, which even obscured the sun, and turned day into night. After having done incredible mischief, they were thrown by the wind partly into the Red Sea, and partly into the Mediterranean; whence being again cast ashore by the waves, they putrefied, and occasioned a pestilence. Two years after, when Rome had been first besieged by Alaric the Goth, the city was reduced to such straits, that human flesh was publicly sold, and some mothers are said to have devoured their children. This terrible famine was occasioned by the uncultivated state of the country, which had lain waste for several years, by reason of the wars, and the ports of Africa being blocked up by Heraclianus lest an usurper should become emperor; and thus this loyal admiral, for fear that the people should have a bad governor, determined rather that there should be no people to be governed. Notwithstanding this terrible famine, however, we hear of no pestilential disorder taking place; not even after the taking of the city by Alaric, when bloodshed and massacre were added to the other calamities.

All this time the empire, by the incursions of barbarians, by usurpations, civil wars, and the general licentiousness of the people, had been in a situation not to be described. The invasion of the Hunns, a new and more formidable enemy than they had ever experienced, now completed the ruin of the Romans. The whole western part of the empire became one continued scene of carnage and desolation. The common epithet bestowed upon Attila, the king of these barbarians, was, “The _Scourge_ of GOD, the _Destroyer_ of _Armies_.” As a specimen of his behaviour, we shall select the account of his taking of Aquileia in 452. That city, “being well fortified, and defended by the flower of the Roman troops, held out, in spite of his utmost efforts, for three months; at the end of which it was taken by assault, pillaged for several days together, and laid in ashes; not a single house being left standing, nor one person alive that fell into the enemy’s hands. The cities of Trevigio, Verona, Mantua, Cremona, Brescia and Bergamo, underwent the same fate; the barbarians raging every where with such fury as can hardly be expressed or conceived, and putting all to the sword, without distinction of sex, age, or condition.”[39]

[39] Univ. Hist. vol. xvi.

Every one must own that this was a very effectual method of preventing the plague in those cities. It did not, however, prevent that, or some other diseases, from destroying such numbers of the tyrant’s troops, that he was for that time prevented from taking Rome itself. From this time, to the total extinction of the western empire, we do not hear of any remarkable infection taking place. The barbarians still continued their wars with one another, while the emperors of Constantinople were likewise at continual variance with the Persians. At last, in the year 532, they concluded what they called a _perpetual_ or _eternal_ peace, which lasted _eight years_! Other treaties and truces were concluded; notwithstanding which, the war was almost continual in the east; while, by the second conquest of Italy, and the invasion of the Gothic territories, new desolations overspread the west. Thus, for a great number of ages, mankind had been preparing themselves for the dreadful pestilence which was about to ensue. Whatever infection could be communicated to the air by multitudes of carcases rotting above ground had been done in an ample manner. Whatever debility could be communicated to the human frame by famine, exposure to the inclemency of weather, by fatigue, terror, grief, and every thing that can render life miserable, had also been communicated by the most powerful means. There only wanted _something_ to begin the calamity; and this, whatever it was, took place in the fifteenth year of Justinian. Mr. Gibbon ascribes the origin of it to locusts; and its universality, to the general mixture of all nations, and the unrestrained intercourse they had with one another. “No restraints (says he) were imposed on the frequent intercourse of the Roman provinces. From Persia to France the nations were mingled by wars and emigrations; and the pestilential odour, which lurks for years in a bale of cotton, was imported, by the abuse of trade, into the most distant regions. Procopius relates, that it spread always from the sea-coast to the inland countries: the most sequestered islands and mountains were successively visited; the places which had escaped the fury of its first passage, were alone exposed to the contagion of the ensuing year. In time, its malignity was abated and dispersed; the disease alternately languished and revived; but it was not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two years, that mankind recovered their health, or the air resumed its pure and salubrious qualities.”

Thus Mr. Gibbon endeavours to explain the causes of this plague from an alteration in the salubrity of the atmosphere, without taking into consideration the dreadful commotions among mankind, above related. But, now that we have noticed two very general infections, one in 767 B. C. the other 1300 years after, we find them both preceded and accompanied by wars uncommonly violent and destructive. The great plague in the time of Justinian is said by Mr. Gibbon to have continued only fifty-two years; but this we must understand of its first and most violent attack; for it appears, from the testimonies produced in the former section, that pestilential disorders, even very violent ones, continued at intervals for several centuries. Thus, from the year 541 to 593, the space of fifty-two years is included; nevertheless, in the time of Phocas, who began to reign ten years after, the same calamity continued; as did also violent wars with the Persians and other barbarians.

The year 622 is remarkable for the flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, from which time we may date the rise of the empire of the Saracens; a people who, for desolation and destruction, were perhaps never equalled except by the Hunns and Moguls. In 630 the impostor himself died, after having just united the Arabs or Saracens, and fitted them for the work in which they were to be employed. Their first exploit was, to fall upon the empire of Persia, now weakened by its endless wars with the Romans. This was conquered in two years; after which they broke into Palestine, and conquered the provinces bordering upon Syria. In 634 they reduced Syria itself and Egypt. In 636 they took and plundered Jerusalem. In 642 they conquered the African provinces, and reduced some of the islands in the Levant. With unabated fury they proceeded to the east and west; laying siege, in 668, to Constantinople itself, where they received their first check by the shipwreck of their fleet, and the defeat of their army. Thus, in the space of 38 years, the immense tract of country from the eastern part of Persia to the confines of the Mediterranean Sea, with the northern coasts of Africa, the whole including a space scarce inferior to the empire of Alexander the Great, was reduced under subjection to a race of savage barbarians, who knew only how to plunder, destroy, and reduce other nations to slavery.

In this manner were the eastern parts of the world prepared for a new infection, supposing the old one to have been entirely gone off. The Saracens pursued their good fortune, ravaged and conquered from India to Spain, and from Spain were proceeding northward through France, to extend their conquests to the other countries of Europe. But here, in 728, their fury was stopped by Charles Martel, the father of Pepin, and grandfather of Charles the Great. After a most obstinate and bloody battle, which lasted seven days, and in which the barbarians lost three hundred and seventy-five thousand men,[40] they were driven beyond the Pyrennean mountains, and never after durst enter France. Thus was one fury stopped, only to give place to another. Charles, as ambitious and as cruel as the Saracens, having in vain attempted the conquest of Spain, reduced Italy and Germany; and, having dreadfully massacred the Saxons, and almost exterminated the Hunns, set up the German Empire, and was crowned emperor of the West in 800.

[40] M. Millot places this account among the “exaggerations which
ought not to have a place in history;” but, as we have no evidence
for or against the fact, it was thought proper to let it remain as
related by the historians of those times. It is certain that in those
days mankind assembled for the purposes of bloodshed and slaughter in
prodigious numbers; the destruction was commonly in proportion to the
numbers assembled. The account is not more incredible than that of
Tamerlane’s filling up the harbour of Smyrna by causing each of his
soldiers to throw a stone into it. Such an army could have spared the
number in question.

While the nations were thus deluging the earth with blood, the pestilence made its appearance in the east, attended with extraordinary phenomena.[41] Some of these are taken notice of by the Arabian historians, and others are mentioned by them, concerning which the Greek histories are silent. In 636, particularly, we hear of violent storms of hail throughout the Arabian Peninsula, and of Syria being ravaged by epidemic distempers. It would seem, indeed, that the plague, during the whole of these horrible periods, had never been extinguished; for in 671 they tell us that a celebrated Arab, named _Ziyad_, died of the plague; though neither Greek nor Arabian historians take notice of any remarkable pestilence as raging at that time. We are told that this man was attended by no fewer than _an hundred and fifty_ physicians.[42] “But, _as the decree was sealed_, and _the thing determined_, they found it impossible to save him.” This distemper was attended with such an excruciating pain in his right hand, that the unhappy patient had recourse to a _cadi_, or judge, to inform him whether he might lawfully cut it off. The judge determined that it was absolutely unlawful to do so; notwithstanding which, Ziyad resolved to proceed: but his heart failed him when he saw the instruments and cauterising irons to be employed in the operation; for in those times of barbarity and ignorance they knew no other method of stopping blood but by a hot iron; and therefore some of the physicians in ancient times, when a limb was to be cut off, ordered the incision to be made down to the bone with a red hot razor. But, to return to our subject: In Syria and Mesopotamia swarms of locusts infected the earth about the year 679; but, as it seems extremely probable that the plague was never out of the eastern regions, we cannot expect to hear much of it, unless when extremely violent. That in the time of Constantine Copronymus seems to have extended over Arabia, as we are told that the Khalif Yezid, who was cotemporary with Copronymus, died of the plague. We are also told, that the earthquakes which afflicted the territories of the Greek emperors extended themselves to the countries about the Caspian Sea. In those ages indeed the phenomena of nature appear to have been so extraordinary, that we can scarcely account them any other than miraculous. Some of these have been described in the former section, on the authority of the Greek historians: the Arabians make mention of others similar. They tell us, also, that once or twice it rained black stones, and that some of these were so inflammable, that an Arab having attempted to make a fire with one of them in his tent, it burst out into such a violent flame as consumed the tent altogether.[43] This rain may be accounted for from the explosion of a volcano; but how shall we account for the sun himself losing his light? a phenomenon acknowledged even by Mr. Gibbon; though that author huddles things together in such a manner as seems totally inconsistent with the regular chain of events. He tells us, that the dreadful plague, which broke out in the time of Justinian, was preceded by comets, and most violent earthquakes; and that these comets were attended with an extraordinary paleness of the sun. This may be; but the word _paleness_ cannot apply to the _darkness_ which lasted from the fourth of August to the first of October, and to which he seems to allude, though it happened long after the time of Justinian; neither can it be applied to what I am now about to relate, viz. that in the year 782, a little after sunrise, the solar light was lost without an eclipse, and the darkness continued till noon. It is impossible to read the histories of those times without remembering the words of our Saviour, that there should be signs in the sun and in the moon, distress and perplexity of nations, the sea and waves roaring, men’s hearts failing them for fear, &c. But, however the God of nature might thus intimate to mankind his displeasure with their proceedings, it is certain they made no alteration in their conduct. The Saracens, having conquered immense tracts of country, engaged in civil wars among themselves; the western nations, after having tried in vain to destroy each other, at last united in a romantic design of conquering Palestine from the Infidels; while the Turks, leaving their habitations about Mount Caucasus, where, like the vultures of Prometheus, they had for ages remained unseen and unknown, precipitated themselves upon the Greeks and Saracens, and lastly, as if all hell had broke loose at once, the Moguls, from the most easterly part of Asia, poured destruction upon the countries to the west, even as far as Russia and Poland.

[41] See Sec. i.

[42] Modern Univ. Hist. Arabia.

[43] That such accounts are not to be looked upon as entirely
fabulous, may be gathered from what is related by Mr. Thomson in
his travels through Palestine, viz. that on the brink of the lake
Asphaltites he found numbers of “small _black pebbles_, which are
soon set on fire by being held in the flame of a candle, and yield a
smoke intolerably stinking and offensive; but have this remarkable
property, that by burning they lose nothing of their weight, nor
suffer any diminution in their bulk. They are capable of taking as
fine a polish as black marble, and are likewise said to be met with
of considerable size in the neighbouring mountains.”

All these events took place in a few centuries. In 844 the Turks quitted Mount Caucasus, and settled in Armenia Major. In 1030 they fell upon the Saracen empire, now divided among innumerable chieftains continually at war with each other. Among these was one called the Sultan of Persia, and another of Babylon. The former being worsted, called in the Turks to his assistance. They sent him an auxiliary army of only _three thousand_ men; and from this slender beginning has arisen the vast empire of the Ottoman Porte. The three thousand men were commanded by a general called by the Greeks _Tangrolipix_, and by the Asiatics _Togrul Beg_. Being a man of ability, the Sultan of Persia, by his assistance, got the better of his adversary; but, refusing to let the Turks depart, Tangrolipix with his army withdrew to the desert of Carbonitis, where, being joined by numbers of discontented Persians, he began to invade the territories of the Saracens. The Sultan of Persia sent against him an army of twenty thousand men, whom Tangrolipix surprised and defeated, acquiring at the same time an immense booty. The fame of his victory, and his wealth, procured him bands of robbers, thieves, and blackguards, from all the neighbouring countries; so that he soon found himself at the head of fifty thousand. Against such a formidable force the Sultan of Persia marched in person; but happening to lose his life in the engagement by a fall from his horse, his men threw down their arms and acknowledged Tangrolipix to be Sultan of Persia.

The new sultan instantly thought of destroying other sultans and potentates; for which purpose he opened a passage for his countrymen from Armenia to Persia. The Sultan of Babylon was the first victim; after which Tangrolipix turned his arms unsuccessfully against the Arabians, but afterwards more successfully against the Greek emperors. The first invasion by the Turks took place in 1041; and in four hundred and twelve years they became absolute masters of the empire. Though unsuccessful at first against the Saracens, they prevailed greatly afterwards, and, by the time of the crusades, we find them masters of Palestine, as well as several other countries formerly conquered by the Arabs. From the time of their first invasion, in 1041, we may say, the war never ceased; and there is the greatest reason to suppose that the Greek empire would have been overthrown in a very short time, had not the crusaders checked their progress. The immense numbers with whom the barbarians had now to contend (amounting to no fewer than seven hundred thousand) threatened with destruction the newly erected empire of the Turks; and had it not been for the want of unanimity among the crusaders themselves, and the jealousy of the emperors of Constantinople, they certainly would have overthrown it. But, as matters went, all their labour was lost; and they only increased the general carnage and desolation to an extreme degree. The first crusade was planned in 1093, published in 1095, and in March 1096 the first army set out. In 1097 they began their conquests, but soon found it very difficult to keep them. The Turks being at home, and united, had many advantages over foreign invaders; which the latter endeavoured to counteract by drawing continual supplies of fresh men from Europe. Thus, for several centuries, the western part of Asia was rendered a scene of bloodshed and desolation. When they had contended for something more than _two hundred_ years, Jenghiz Khan, the Mogul, seems to have formed the _noble_ design of destroying the whole human race at once, excepting only his own immediate followers. His plan was, to _exterminate_ man, woman and child wherever he went, and to plant the countries with his own people. It is impossible to do justice to his exploits. Voltaire, speaking of the irruption of the Moguls, says, that the people fled every where before them, like wild beasts roused from their dens by other beasts more savage than themselves. In the Universal History we are told, that he is supposed to have destroyed _fourteen millions and an half_ of his fellow creatures. He died in 1227, and left successors worthy of himself. Some of these proceeded eastward, and some westward. The latter, under the conduct of a _monster_ named _Hula-ku_, overthrew, in the year 1256, the remains of the Saracen empire, by the taking of Bagdad. The miserable Khalif, coming forth to meet his conqueror, was trampled under his horse’s feet, then sewed up in a sack, dragged through the streets, and thrown into the river. The Moguls who proceeded eastward invaded China. The Chinese resisted with innumerable multitudes, and battles were fought to which those of the present age are mere skirmishes. The soldiers, overcome with thirst, drank blood instead of water; hundreds of thousands fell on both sides, while human blood ran in streams for five or six miles. At last the fury of the Moguls was stopped by the ocean; for, having attempted the conquest of Japan, their fleet was wrecked, and an hundred thousand perished. Like other great empires, also, pretenders to the sovereignty started up, and the whole was parcelled out into a number of little states, which, of course, ceased to be formidable.

The decline of the Mogul empire did not restore peace to the world. The Turks continued their ravages; the western nations continued their crusades. England, which became a kingdom in 800, had been ravaged and conquered by the Danes and Normans, and likewise distressed by civil wars. At last, having emerged from its own difficulties, it began to inflict upon other nations the miseries itself had endured. Wales and Scotland became objects of the ambition of Edward I, who had already signalized his valour in the crusade. The Welsh were totally subjugated, and the Scots overthrown in the very bloody battle of Falkirk, where almost the whole force of the country was destroyed. The Scots, however, were never totally subdued. Robert Bruce retaliated on the English in the battle of Bannock-burn, where two hundred thousand English were defeated by thirty thousand Scots. But Robert was not contented with asserting the liberty of his country. Jealous of his brother Edward, he sent him with an army to conquer Ireland. We shall not doubt of his valour, or of the miseries he inflicted, or was willing to inflict, upon the people among whom he came. In destroying them he destroyed his own army. They were reduced to the most dreadful straits by famine, insomuch that they were obliged to feed upon the most loathsome matters, their own excrements not excepted.

Being now arrived at the beginning of the fourteenth century, we see that, from Ireland to China, mankind had involved themselves in one general work of destruction. Besides the wars, famines had been so frequent, that the eating of one another seemed to be but a common affair. Indeed the history of mankind would tempt one to believe that they thought themselves brought into the world for no other purpose but to destroy each other. As far back as the year 409, in the time of the wars of the Vandals in Spain, a dreadful famine took place, which, in 410, reduced many to the necessity of feeding upon human flesh; parents devoured their children, and the wild beasts, being deprived of the dead bodies which they used to feed upon, but which were at this time devoured by the living, fell upon the latter, and thus increased the general destruction. Such of the Romans as fled into strong holds and fortresses, were in the end obliged to feed upon one another. To these calamities the pestilence was added, which did not fail to rage in its usual manner. Famine and pestilence had also ravaged the city of Rome when besieged by the Goths under Vitiges, and under Totila. In this last siege the unhappy citizens were reduced to such straits, that they consumed even the grass which grew near the walls, and were at last obliged to feed on their own excrements. We do not indeed hear, at this time, of any particular instances of people feeding upon one another; though, in such dreadful emergences, it is scarcely to be doubted that some would have recourse to this terrible expedient in order to allay their hunger. But in the famines which took place during the ravages of the Saracens, Turks and Moguls, nothing seems to have been more common. In 1066 a most grievous famine took place at Alexandria in Egypt, and throughout the whole country. Three bushels and a half of flour were sold at eighty dinars, a dog at five, and a cat at three. The Visir, having waited on the Khalif, left his horse at the palace gate; but, before he returned, the animal had been carried off and eaten. Three men were hanged for this theft, and their bodies ordered to be exposed upon gibbets; but next day they were found picked to the bones, their flesh having been all cut off and devoured the preceding night. Bodies of men and women were boiled, and their flesh publicly sold. A violent plague followed, which swept away the greatest part of the inhabitants. As the hellish Moguls spread desolation wherever they advanced, so their retreats were equally formidable. In 1243, having advanced as far as Aleppo in Syria, they found themselves obliged to retreat, and that for a very odd reason, viz. that their horses were not well shod. This, however, did not hinder them from destroying every thing the earth produced, and stripping every man, nay, every woman, they met, even of their clothes. The consequence was, a terrible famine, so that people were fain to sell their children for small pieces of bread.

Such was the conduct of men, from one end of the earth to the other, during the interval, if any interval there was, between the plague in the time of Justinian and that of 1346. The pestilence, which had continually raged in one place or other, now overspread the whole world. At what time it began to decline we know not; and, indeed, as the same desolations and massacres continued, if these had any share in its production, it ought scarcely to have declined at all. That there was all this time little or no interval, appears from what Dr. Rush says, vol. iii. p. 165, that between the years 1006 and 1680, that is, in a period of 674 years, the plague was _fifty-two_ times epidemic all over Europe. Supposing the intervals between every general infection then to have been equal, and the plague to have lasted only one year at a time, it must have recurred once in twelve years. But the intervals were not equal; for the Doctor tells us that it prevailed _fourteen_ times in the fourteenth century; which gives an interval of less than seven years; and if the pestilence so frequently overspread the whole continent, we may be very sure that it never was out of particular places of it. The Doctor adds, “The state of Europe in this long period is well known.” We shall also consider that of Asia.

The empire of the Moguls, which had fallen into decay, revived under Tamerlane; who, following the example of Jenghiz Khan, had the epithet of the _destroying prince_ bestowed upon him by the Indians, on account of his behaviour in their country. Building his captives into walls with stones and lime, pounding them by thousands in large mortars, was his common practice; while the Turks, proceeding westward, wasted every thing with fire and sword; the christians all the while continuing their mad crusades, and when driven from one place endeavouring to establish themselves in another. At last the Turks and Tartars, or Moguls, or rather their emperors, happening to quarrel, the battle of Angora, in Galatia, decided (at the expense of some hundred thousand lives) the dispute in favour of Tamerlane; but, as his empire ended with his life, the Turks soon recovered from the blow they had received; and, by the taking of Constantinople in 1453, put an end to the terrible commotions which had prevailed in the east for so many ages. The crusades had also for some time been discontinued, and the world hath since that time been comparatively in a state of peace.

But, by so much intercourse with the Asiatics, especially with the countries particularly subject to the plague, all Europe had been so deeply infected, that the distemper could not but prevail for a long time, even though it had not been kept up by the almost continual wars of the Europeans with one another, which was too much the case. Dr. Sydenham informs us that before his time the plague commonly visited England once in forty years; but by this we must understand a very violent infection; for Dr. Rush tells us that plagues prevailed in London _every year_ from 1593 to 1611, and from 1636 to 1649. The author of the Journal of the Plague Year (1665) mentions a visitation in 1656; and Mr. Carey, in the beginning of his account of the plague of London in 1665, says, that the plague was _almost continually_ among the diseases enumerated in their bills of mortality; so that we may fairly conclude it to have been _endemic_ in that city. Now let us see how England had employed itself. Its kings, as well as many of their subjects, had gone to the holy wars, as they called them, and, by continuing in that devoted country where most probably the pestilence first originated, it is impossible to suppose that some of them did not receive the contagion. Having caught the pestilence in the _holy war_, they came home to diffuse it among their countrymen, and to keep it up by _profane wars_, I suppose, both foreign and domestic. Henry VII put an end to a very long and bloody contest between the houses of York and Lancaster; but he brought the pestilence along with him, which raged violently during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A most violent war, for half a century, on the continent of Europe, and civil wars in England, would still continue to keep the infection alive from 1600 to 1648, when a general peace was concluded; and from the subsequent state of tranquillity, probably, after the violent attack in 1665, it seems to have languished and died in England, as a plant in a soil not natural to it.