Details
Rent Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe
Author:
Narrator: Barrett Whitener
Format: Unabridged-CD, Unabridged-MP3
Publisher: Ingram Pub Services
Published: May 2007
Genre: History - Ancient
Retail Price: $37.99
Discs: 10
Synopsis
The Emperor Justinian reunified Rome's fractured empire by defeating the Goths and Vandals who had separated Italy, Spain, and North Africa from imperial rule. At his capital in Constantinople he built the world's most beautiful building, married its most powerful empress, and wrote its most enduring legal code, seemingly restoring Rome's fortunes for the next five hundred years. Them in the summer of 542, he encountered a flea. The ensuing outbreak of bubonic plague killed five thousand people a day in Constantinople and nearly killed Justinian himself.
Reviews
Terrific work. Great insight for me into a time that is shadowy, but important and intriguing--and very well written.