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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 4191585, member: 72790&quot;]Considering the pandemonium and panic in the marketplace right now with the Corona virus,&nbsp; more of a potential than actual catastrophe, I can well image the same thing and worse, when a very deadly plague of unknown origin, actually started carrying away large segments of the population from servile workers in the fields to co-emperors in the purple. In addition to the material losses, I can well imagine the critical doubts sapping the morale of the people, causing them to question the value of everything from the coins in their purses to the efficacy of appealing to the gods. These plagues, as we know from the better documented bubonic of Fourteenth Century Europe, did not exist in a vacuum and did not just kill many people. They were initiators of considerable change, often unseen or understood until much later with retrospection. That we may have difficulty comprehending how these plagues affected their lives in ways not understood by them or us does not mean that they did not bring about seminal changes, and not always for the better, changes that we can see only dimly through a darkened mirror. That they were simply coincidental to a loss of confidence leading to a crisis of confidence and an unwillingness to resist forces that seemed beyond their control ought not to be established as more than a &quot;great perhaps&quot;. I find that economist and author Peter Temin does an excellent job in his &quot;The Roman Market Economy&quot;, of establishing cause and effect between periodic plagues, and barbarian assaults and economic changes, including rising wages from declining populations. He would be the last to establish this as more than a high degree of probability, but his data and conclusions seem to be more than simply persuasive.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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