The Plague of Cyprian was a terrible event, no question. How terrible is uncertain. But it seems to me that one cannot understand the middle years of the Roman Empire without discussing the Plague of Cyprian and its consequences. It probably killed two Roman Emperors.

Yet, chances are good you’ve never heard of it. Lucky for you that you follow my blog (click here to join if you aren’t a subscriber yet) so that you can learn about it. I hope that, given the world events of the past three years, you need little convincing that disease epidemics are important historical events.

The Plague of Cyprian was no exception. Beginning in 249 and becoming empire-wide by 251, it struck the Roman Empire in waves and lasted until 270 or so. That means that for most of a generation, Roman citizens were vulnerable to a deadly, contagious disease they had no knowledge of how to prevent.

The Plague of Cyprian Symptoms

The Plague of Cyprian takes its name from a man named Cyprian. He was a Christian bishop in the North African city of Carthage when the epidemic struck the Roman Empire. His letters are the best surviving description of the plague’s symptoms.

Those symptoms were not pretty. Cyprian describes them in a letter meant to bolster the courage of the Christians of Carthage in the face of persecution. He writes the following.

That now, the bowels, loosened into a stream, dissipate the strength of the body, that the fire taken up from the marrow boils up into wounds of the throat, that the intestines are shaken by constant vomiting, that the eyes burn with the force of blood, that the feet or other members of the body are amputated by the rottenness of the diseased infection, that either the gait is crippled through loss and weakness of the body, damaged by weariness, or the ears are made deaf, or the eyes are made blind.

Wow. Any one of those sound like a gruesome way to die.

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What Was the Plague of Cyprian?

It’s a good question. With only one literary source that describes the symptoms in detail, it’s tough to be certain.

It seems the plague first appeared in Egypt, spreading across the empire from North Africa. But that doesn’t offer much evidence of what the disease actually was. Over time, four explanations seem the most popular. One is smallpox. The Antonine Plague that struck the Roman Empire about a century prior was probably smallpox. Thus, the Plague of Cyprian would be a recurrence of the Antonine Plague.

Other popular explanations are measles, bubonic plague, or some type of viral hemorrhagic fever—yellow fever or Ebola. Bubonic plague, recall, was one of the plagues that struck Europe in the 1340s and became known as the Black Death. The plague that struck the Byzantine Empire and Persian Empire in 540 was most likely bubonic plague as well, making this a popular option.

Well, we don’t know for sure. One source I looked up for this blog post concluded that Ebola was the best fit for the symptoms described by Cyprian of Carthage and the scraps of evidence we have from other sources. Ebola remains a threat today. From time to time we read of outbreaks in African nations in recent years.

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The Plague of Cyprian Death Toll

We don’t know the numbers for certain. But it seems they were large. An author named Dionysius of Alexandria gave us an interesting comparison for this plague. He wrote that fewer people aged fourteen to eighty lived after the plague than people aged forty to seventy before it.

If the Plague of Cyprian really was Ebola, however, then the numbers are terrifying. A mortality rate between forty percent and seventy percent of those infected could result. Think of the consequences of that over two decades.

Cyprian himself was a victim of the plague that bears his name, but in a roundabout way. As one might imagine, Roman authorities needed someone to blame for this deadly killer they could do nothing to prevent. One tempting solution—blame the Christians!

Cyprian fled Carthage to escape persecution but returned by 251 to hold together the Christian community he was bishop over. Exile followed in 257 when Cyprian would not renounce his faith. The next year he returned to Carthage and Roman authorities cut off his head. Cyprian later gained sainthood for his martyrdom.

Impact on the Roman Empire

The Plague of Cyprian couldn’t have come at a worse time for Rome. The middle decades of the 200s are sometimes called “The Crisis of the 3rd Century” or some similar title. Emperors came and went with distressing rapidity. Inflation in the currency damaged the Roman economy. The gap between rich and poor yawned unimaginably wide. A revived Persian Empire loomed to the east while Germanic tribes appeared on the northern borders.

The Plague of Cyprian piled on top of all these other things. In some ways, it’s a wonder the Roman Empire survived the 200s, but it did. The story of why, however, is a story for another day.

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