By the middle of the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian had spread his Byzantine Empire around the rim of the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, laying the groundwork for what he hoped would be a long-lived dynasty. His dreams were shattered when disease-bearing mice from lower Egypt reached the harbor town of Pelusium in AD 540. From there, the devastating disease spread to Alexandria and, by ship, to Constantinople, Justinian’s capital, before surging throughout his empire. By the time Justinian’s plague had run its course in AD 590, it had killed as many as 100 million people — half the population of Europe — brought trade to a near halt, destroyed … Continue reading Thomas H. Maugh II