After this period to about that of 134 B.C., Scipio Æmilianus, called the Numantine, organized his army, and having established admirable rules of hygiene and semeiotics, whereby he preserved his former strength and health, began to devastate the plains of Numantia, of Vacca, and Palestine. The want of water which was experienced in the latter place (Palestine) forced them to make wells to obtain drinkable water, but unfortunately the water thus obtained proved to be of a character productive of a malignant epizootic, which destroyed their horses and other beasts of burthen: the pestilence among their cattle increasing, obliged them to change their quarters to the plains of Numantia in order to winter there.
Anno 130 B.C. The famous Numantines, so much dreaded by the Romans on account of their valorous resistance, were not less feared by the Greeks, than the horrible pestilence which prevailed in Numantia. The Greek, Appianus Alexandrinus, speaks of them with admiration and dread. The Numantine people, who had hitherto resisted the corrupted condition of the air, ultimately suffered such exhaustion for want of food, their stores having been consumed, that after having subsisted on dressed skins of animals for several days, they fell into the frightful necessity of becoming anthropophagi, so that from feeding on the bodies of those who fell defending their country, pestilence arose, which hastened the downfall of their city.
Anno 126 B.C. Epidemic pestilence prevailed with great mortality in Africa. Orosius, Justin, and Livy, who have described it, attribute this pestilence to the stench arising from the putrid carcases of dead locusts, which were brought over by a strong east wind in such multitudes that they devoured every green thing, even to the bark of trees; they were subsequently driven by a south wind into the Mediterranean, and being again washed on shore in the warm season of the year, putrefied, and produced this awful pestilence, which destroyed 800,000 in Numidia alone. On the sea-coast of Carthage 200,000 perished. Of such terrible visitations by insects, which to this day exist in the East at particular seasons, carrying destruction in their course, Lord Carnarvon gives a description in his ‘History of Portugal and Gallicia.’ It will convey a pretty good idea of their destructiveness and of the distressing consequences. Speaking of natural exhibitions, of which he was an eye-witness in Africa, he writes thus: “A fall of locusts is beyond description the most awful imaginable—a most dreadful scourge, which is considered in eastern and northern countries the most unfailing manifestation of the wrath of God. Travelling along the western coast of Africa, I once beheld this terrible infliction. These creatures fell in thousands and tens of thousands around us and upon us along the sands on which we were riding, and on the sea that was beating at our feet; yet we were removed from their most oppressive influence; for, a few hundred yards to our right, darkening the air, the great innumerable host came on, slowly and steadily advancing in a direct line and in a mighty moving column. The fall of locusts from this central column was so great, that when a cow directly under the line of flight, attempting ineffectually to graze in the field, approached her mouth to the grass, there rose immediately so dense a swarm, that her head was for the moment almost concealed from sight, and as she moved along, bewildered by this worse than Egyptian plague, clouds of locusts rose up from under her feet, visible even at a distance, as clouds of dust when set in motion by the wind on a stormy day. At the extremity of the field I saw the husbandmen bending over their staffs, and gazing with hopeless eyes upon that host of death which swept like a destroying angel over the land, and consigned to ruin all the prospects of the year; for wherever that column winged its flight, beneath its withering influence the golden glories of the harvest perished, and the leafy honours of the forest disappeared. There stood those ruined men silent and motionless, overwhelmed with the magnitude of their calamity, yet conscious of their utter inability to control it, while further on, where some woodland lay in the immediate line of the advancing column, heath set on fire, and trees kindling into a blaze, testified the general horror of a visitation which the ill-fated inhabitants endeavoured to avert by such a frightful remedy. They believed that the smoke arising from the burning forest, ascending into the air, would impede the direct march of the column, throw it into confusion, and drive the locusts out to sea, and thus deliver the country from their desolating presence.”
During the civil wars which were excited by Sylla and Marius, the Roman armies lost 10,000 men by plague in the year 89 B.C.
Anno 60 B.C. Spain, according to the opinion of several ancient and modern writers, both foreign and national, was one of the countries most subjected to the frightful disease of leprosy. Sauvages has asserted that there were no lepers in France, save those that came from Spain and America. Senertus states that in Spain and Africa elephantiasis (leprosy) is more frequent than in any other part of the world. Dr. Casal coincides in this opinion, as may be seen in his ‘Natural and Medical History of the Principality of the Asturias;’ and, finally, the Academic Memoirs of Seville speak of its existence in those countries, as owing to their communication with the Arabs and Jews, without denying, however, that the prevalence of the disease may have been influenced by the peculiar constitution of Spain. Accordingly its dry and burning temperature has contributed considerably, as it would appear, to locate this terrible disease, especially in the kingdom of Andalusia, and in the principality of the Asturias. The use of pork and other salted provisions, so commonly employed as articles of diet in ancient Spain, is supposed to have acted powerfully in perpetuating the disease, inasmuch as the opinions of Ubilis and other physicians go to show that these sorts of aliment are powerful generators of the malady. The first appearance of leprosy in Spain coincides with its introduction into Italy, after having been prevalent in the army of Pompey the Great about sixty years, more or less, before the coming of Christ. The sons of the celebrated general proceeded with the army of their father from Italy to Spain, to stem the invasion of Cæsar, and this was in all probability the cause of its first introduction into that country,—at least, it is so considered by some writers.
Anno 49 B.C. The continued heavy rains and tempestuous seasons, the like of which had never been seen by the oldest inhabitants, caused frightful inundations of the rivers Cinca and Segre. Epidemic pestilence, peculiar to an atmosphere surcharged with moisture and poisonous exhalations, appeared immediately after. The shepherds were obliged to withdraw their flocks in order to save them from the waters, which, together with the increased price of corn and of other food amongst the neighbouring populace, multiplied the misfortunes of the army of Julius Cæsar, who had not only to combat against the bravery of the Pompeians, but also against the trials of famine and pestilence. Their distress would have been greater and more lamentable, had not some of the neighbouring tribes, who had recently become their allies, succoured them with the necessaries of life, which were sent in under the escort of 500 Ilecaones, a tribe who occupied the banks of the Ebro.
In the time of Mark Antony, anno 30 B.C., a pestilence of so general a character prevailed, that it seems to have spread over the whole world. Dion Cassius mentions this pestilence, which continued for five years, destroying vast numbers of the inhabitants of Jerusalem: it was also very destructive at Rome and in Palestine. The celebrated triumvir died about this period of the pestilence, as mentioned by Nuestro Alonso of Freylas in his ‘History of Pestilences.’
The next account of epidemic pestilence we have, is given by Tacitus, who relates that in the East, in Asia Minor, fourteen years after the commencement of the Christian era, pestilence prevailed; a severe earthquake about this time was experienced; a comet is also mentioned as having been seen, whose tail, it is said, with one fell swoop hurled down a dozen cities at once. Another pestilence is recorded by Suetonius as having raged with great mortality at Babylon: it caused a multitude of Jews to remove to Seleucia. This year was marked by great famine, in fulfilment of the prophecy of Agabus (Acts xi. 28). During the reign of Claudius Cæsar, at this period, pestilence was rife in Greece and Italy.
Pliny and Tacitus both give an account of those periods of mortality from the year of our Lord 40 to 53 and 54, when most of the officers of Rome died of pestilential disease: “ex omnium magistratuum genere plerique mortem obierunt.” It was during the year 40 that the great eruption of Etna occurred, which frightened Caligula from Sicily. Dire famine was also experienced, which, with pestilence, extended from Italy almost to India. Babylon was almost depopulated about this period.—A.D. 88, pestilence carried off 30,000 of the people of Rome. Tacitus gives an affecting account of the ravages of this plague. The houses were filled with dead bodies, and the streets with funerals; neither age, sex, nor condition were exempted from it; slaves and plebeians were suddenly carried off by it amidst the lamentations of their wives and their children, who were also seized with the disease while administering to the sick and mourning over the lifeless bodies of the dead. Pliny, Orosius, and other writers describe this pestilential period as exceedingly fatal. Earthquakes, eruptions of volcanoes emitting sulphureous vapours, inundations, tempestuous seasons, and other awful commotions of nature, characterized this period all over the inhabited globe. In June, a comet appeared; on the 1st of November following, a tremendous ebullition of burning lava issued from the crater of Vesuvius, deluging the country, and Herculaneum and Pompeii sunk in a moment: these cities, with their inhabitants, were buried in one universal mass. Thunder and lightning pierced the heavens, and the ashes and smoke from the burning gulf discharged into the air were wafted to Rome, Syria, and Africa, the inhabitants whereof trembled lest the world should be destroyed or turned into chaos; the fish in the neighbouring seas were killed. These calamities were preceded by a long drought in Italy during the summer; and in the autumn of A.D. 80 a terrible pestilence broke out in Rome, and destroyed for some time 10,000 citizens daily. Eight years after, A.D. 88, an epidemic pestilence appeared in the north of England, and continued for some time; in 92, it carried off 150,000 persons in Scotland.
Philo, the Jewish philosopher, gives a description of a ‘loimic’ pestilence which occurred during that century, and appositely conveys the mode of diffusion and the circumstances of the confluent small-pox. He says, “The clouds of dust suddenly falling on men and cattle produced over the whole skin a severe and intractable ulceration; the body immediately became tumid with efflorescences (ἐξανθήσεσιν) or purulent phlyctenæ, which appeared like blisters excited by a secret fire beneath. Men necessarily undergoing much pain and universal soreness from ulceration and inflammation (φλογώσεως) suffered not less in body than in mind by the severe affliction, for a continuous ulcer was observable from head to foot.” These observations of Philo are intended as a comment on Exodus, ch. ix. v. 9: it shall be “a boil breaking forth with blains.” He finishes by observing, that it should rank among pestilential diseases (ἐν τοῖς λοιμώδεσι νόσοις), or as the infliction of a tainted atmosphere (πληγὴ ἀπ’ ἀέρος καὶ οὐρανοῦ). From a passage in Dion Cassius’ Roman History, it would appear that some mode of inoculation had been attempted in the reign of Domitian, A.D. 92, and revived in that of Commodus.