The Mosquito

by Timothy C. Winegard

  Yet, the Huns were not the only marauders coveting the Eternal City. The crown jewel at the heart of the Western Empire faced a dual threat, from the Huns and from another posse of despoiling pillagers, the Vandals. As the Huns cemented their presence in eastern Europe, the Vandals, a large group of Germanic tribes from Poland and Bohemia, cut a swath clear across northern Europe through Gaul and Spain. In 429, led by the warrior-king Geiseric, 20,000 Vandals were shuttled across the Strait of Gibraltar to North Africa. They further crippled the Western Empire and broadened the dearth of food production by seizing the North African tax payments of grains, vegetables, olive oil, and slaves. When the Vandals laid siege to the Roman harbor city of Hippo (modern-day Annaba in the northeastern corner of Algeria), the local bishop, Augustine, pleaded for mercy and begged that the cathedral and the immense library, housing a remarkable collection of Greek and Roman books, including his own writings, be spared the torch. The death of Augustine’s piously Christian and venerated mother, Saint Monica, in 387 from malaria contracted in the Pontine Marshes inspired some of the finest passages of his autobiographical thirteen-volume masterpiece, Confessions.

  Like his beloved mother before him, the future Saint Augustine, second only to Paul of Tarsus in influencing and shaping Western Christianity, died of malaria in August of 430, soon after the Vandal siege of Hippo commenced. Shortly after his death, the Vandals reduced the city to rubble. The modern English word “vandal” meaning “deliberate destruction or defacement of property” perpetuates their reputation for “vandalism.” During the destruction of Hippo, however, the Vandals did not quite live up to our dictionary definition. Augustine’s cherished cathedral and library were granted clemency, standing immaculate amid the smoldering ruins. From North Africa the Vandals quickly secured Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, and the Balearic Islands. Although Rome was within Geiseric’s sight, Attila was the first to strike.

  Attila’s attempt to conquer Gaul was met with defeat near the Ardennes Forest in France/Belgium in June 451 by a coalition of Visigoths and Romans. He immediately turned his clattering Huns southward and commenced a swift invasion of northern Italy, despoiling town and country along the way. A small Roman shadow force, resembling the Spartans at Thermopylae, managed to stall the advancing Huns on the approaches to the Po River. Legions of mosquito reinforcements quickly entered the fray and secured a stalemate. Once more, the timely mediation of General Anopheles saved Rome.

  Taking a page out of Hannibal’s military aide-memoire, Attila also halted his emaciated troops at the Po, and entertained an audience with Pope Leo I. While it is a romantic bedtime story to tell of a pious Christian pope converting the barbarian Attila to forsake his intentions for Rome and retreat from Italy, this is stretching the bounds of poetic license. Like Brennus’s Gauls, Hannibal’s Carthaginians, and Alaric’s Visigoths before them, Attila’s ferocious Huns were steered and ultimately doomed by the mosquito. “The Huns,” recorded the Roman bishop Hydatius, “were victims of divine punishment, being visited with heaven-sent disasters: famine and some kind of disease. . . . Thus crushed, they made peace with the Romans and all returned to their homes.” Malaria rendered the Hun military impotent. Attila was also keenly aware of the malarial fate of Alaric and his Visigoths forty years earlier. To make matters worse, Hun stores were insufficient, food was in short supply, and living off the land had become increasingly fruitless. The Huns had ravaged the crops of northern Italy, North African imports had been hijacked by the Vandals, the Campagna was a quagmire, and Rome was in the grips of famine as drought stalked local agriculture.

  Attila’s reception of the pope’s entreaty was nothing more than a ruse to save face. Malarious mosquitoes had forced his hand. “The heartland of empire was a gauntlet of germs,” explains Kyle Harper. “The unsung savior of Italy in this affair was perhaps even malaria. Pasturing their horses in the watery lowlands where mosquitoes breed and transmit the deadly protozoan, the Huns were easy prey for malaria. All in all, it may have been wise for the king of the Huns to turn his cavalry back toward the high steppe beyond the Danube, cold and dry, where the Anopheles mosquito could not follow.” The mosquito successfully shielded Rome again, and forced Attila to abort his marauding mission. While Attila did not expire from malaria like Alexander or Alaric, his death two years later in 453 CE was just as inglorious. He died of complications triggered by acute alcoholism. Division and infighting quickly followed, and the temperamental tribal Huns abandoned their fragile unity and faded from history.

  While Attila’s campaign in Italy pinned down Roman legions, the Vandals were prowling the Mediterranean Sea, raiding ports and pirating trade. Vandal activity in the Mediterranean was so abundant and fierce that the Old English name for the sea was Wendelsae (Sea of Vandals). Given the dual threat from the Huns and the Vandals, Rome recalled its garrisons from Britain. Sensing an opportunity, the Angles from Denmark and the Saxons from northwestern Germany teamed up as the Anglo-Saxons and invaded Britain in the 440s, seizing territory from, and replacing the culture of, the indigenous Celtic peoples and the vestiges of Roman occupation.

  Following Attila’s mosquito-riddled retreat from Italy, the Romans could now concentrate exclusively on the Vandal threat amassing in North Africa and on the Mediterranean islands troublingly close to home. Political bungling and subversion among the Roman elite forced Geiseric’s hand. In May 455, two years after the death of Attila, he landed in Italy with a Vandal force and marched on Rome. Pope Leo I, as he had done previously with Attila, beseeched Geiseric not to destroy the ancient city and slaughter its inhabitants, instead offering up loot as a conciliation prize. The gates of Rome were thrown open for Geiseric and his men.

  While the Vandals honored their word, over the course of two weeks they gathered all the slaves and treasure they could find, including any precious metals adorning buildings or statues. When the mosquito began to eat away at the Vandal ranks, however, they quickly took their leave and returned to Carthage. The Vandal sack of Rome was not nearly as sadistic as legend would have us believe, simply because they did not overstay their malarial welcome. Like the disintegration and scattering of the Huns following the death of Attila, Vandal dominance in the Mediterranean region eroded after the passing of Geiseric in 477. Their residual and fragmented pockets were absorbed into the tartan collection of local populations.

  The fall of the Western Roman Empire was a gradual decay, as it had been in decline since the third century. Over the final decades, however, Rome ultimately buckled under the weight and social pressures of endemic malaria, epidemics, famine, depopulation, war, and the scourge of sequential destabilizing invaders. Zoology professor J. L. Cloudsley-Thompson summarizes, “It would be mistaken to overstress an epidemic theory for the Roman decline, but bubonic plague and malaria clearly played an important part and, for the reasons given, it would appear that the role of malaria was the more significant.” Philip Norrie, senior lecturer of medicine at the University of New South Wales, adds that the Roman Empire “ended in 476 in the grips of a falciparum malaria epidemic.” The mosquito’s continuous attrition unquestionably escorted Rome’s gradual corrosion and ultimate collapse.

  By the time the invading Ostrogoths carved out a kingdom in Italy in the 490s, there had not been a Western Roman emperor for nearly twenty years, and, as events unfolded, there never would be again. The Ostrogoths successfully sacked Rome in 546 during the twenty-year Gothic War of 535–554 between the Ostrogoths and their allies, and the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire under the brilliant leadership of Emperor Justinian. The war was the final bid to salvage some of the lost territory of the west and resurrect a single unified Roman Empire. It was not to be. A tidal wave of disease thwarted Justinian’s dream of resuscitating the empire.

  Beginning in 541, an unprecedented pandemic of bubonic plague, known as the Plague of Justinian, tore through the Byzantine Empire. Thought to have originated in India, the plague swiftly ma
de call at every major port on the Mediterranean Sea and plunged northward into Europe, reaching Britain within three years. It is recorded as one of the deadliest epidemics in history, killing between 30 and 50 million people, or roughly 15% of the world’s entire population. In Constantinople, half the population was wiped out in less than two years. This was not lost on contemporary commentators, who described the contagion as being global in nature and scope. Procopius, secretary to the brilliant and malaria-embattled Byzantine general Belisarius, shrewdly recognized that “during these times there was a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated . . . it embraced the whole world, and blighted the lives of all men.” The only other epidemic in documented human history that approaches this calamity is a second serving of bubonic plague in the mid-fourteenth century known as the Black Death.

  Emperor Justinian’s cultural donations still resonate today through the resplendent buildings he constructed in Constantinople, including the imposing Hagia Sophia. His uniform rewriting of Roman law has also survived as the basis of codified civil law in most Western nations. Although his rule was not as popular during his own reign as it has become in modern times, his devotion to the arts, theology, and academia fostered the blossoming of Byzantine culture, and he is marked as one of the most visionary leaders of the late-antiquity period and is often praised as “the last Roman.” The so-called Classical World—that of the Greek and Roman civilizations—had come to an abrupt halt. As William H. McNeill notes, the Justinian Plague led to “the perceptible shift away from the Mediterranean as the preeminent center of European civilization and the increase in the importance of more northerly lands.” As such, the heart of Western civilization continued its westward migration to France, Spain, and eventually found an enduring residence in Britain.

  For Rome, the mosquito ultimately proved to be a double-edged sword. Initially, she safeguarded Rome from the military genius of Hannibal and his conquering Carthaginians, encouraging and emboldening the construction of empire and the widespread dissemination of Roman cultural, scientific, political, and academic advancements, securing the enduring legacy of the Roman era. Over time, however, while she continued to defend Rome against foreign plunderers, including the Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals, from her headquarters in the Pontine Marshes, she was also busy piercing the heart of Rome itself.

  For the Romans, shaking hands with the devil and striking a Faustian bargain with the mosquito proved to be an unpredictable alliance and a dangerous deal, one that ultimately ended in ruin. “I have never seen so bad of an appearance,” wrote the author of the two-part tragic play Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in 1787, “as they are usually described in Rome.” In his play, Goethe mentions both the contaminating pollution and the potential bounty of the Pontine Marshes: “A marsh extends along the mountain chain, / That poisons what so far I’ve been achieving; / Were I that noisome pool to drain, / ’Twould be the highest, last achieving. / Thus space to many millions I will give / Where, though not safe, yet free and active they may live.” Outside the pages of Faust, the mosquitoes of the Pontine Marshes flourished and were fickle allies to Rome, vacillating between friend and enemy. The mosquito scratched away the strength of Roman society, underpinning the collapse of one of the mightiest, vastest, and most influential empires in history. In the process, she also left her permanent and undying mark on human spirituality and the global religious order.

  The rise and fall of the Roman Empire corresponded with the advent and proliferation of Christianity. This new faith, which began as a splinter camp or “Jesus Movement” within Judaism in the first century, broke away from its parental convictions, due in part to the treatment of, and rituals surrounding, what we now know to be mosquito-borne diseases, and the debate over the divinity and role of healers. After a rocky and violent start, Christianity soon found a home in the minds and ministries of populations across Europe and the Near East as a remedial religion, permanently realigning the balance of power around our planet.

  Mostly, however, in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe turned inward upon itself. The dictatorial feudalism of monarchies, lordships, and the papacy reigned supreme. Christianity reversed course from a healing faith and became fatalistic, loaded and burdened with fire and brimstone and sweeping spiritual and economic corruption. A recoiling European population bunkered down during the Dark Ages as progress, academia, and the knowledge of the ancients vanished from the collective memory. While Europe was blinded by disease and religious and cultural instability, another spiritual and political order flowered and flourished in the Middle East. The appearance of Islam in Mecca and Medina in the early seventh century spawned an inspired cultural and intellectual renaissance across the Middle East. As Europe slid into an intellectual abyss, education and advancement thrived across the maturing Muslim expanse. Inevitably, these two spiritual superpowers would vie for territorial and economic hegemony amid clouds of secular mosquitoes, igniting the clash of civilizations, the Crusades.

  CHAPTER 5

  Unrepentant Mosquitoes: A Crisis of Faiths and the Crusades

  The emergence of the Christian faith was gradual. Two centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus, his converts were still a persecuted, scattered minority, viewed as a disloyal threat within the Roman Empire. The Romans were a diverse and malleable collective and were remarkably willing to assimilate a wide range of both peoples and practices into their system of beliefs and culture. Christianity, however, proved difficult to digest, and its disciples were slaughtered in creative ways. They were dressed in animal skins and torn to shreds by dogs, some were fastened to poles and set alight after dark, usually in groups, to enhance the fiery spectacle, while others suffered a standard crucifixion. However, the persecution of Christians not only failed to suppress the faith, but it also tempted the curiosity of eventual converts and, on a larger scale, undermined social stability in Rome and across an embattled empire hounded by disease and besieged by near-constant invasion.

  During this “Crisis of the Third Century,” Christianity saw a strengthening and development across Roman regions. This surge corresponds with the devastation wrought by the Plagues of Antonine and Cyprian, discussed earlier, and the broader dissemination of endemic malaria across Rome and realm. Christians were persecuted during both plagues. Their rejection of Roman polytheistic gods in favor of the monotheistic Yahweh or Jehovah was scapegoated as the cause. These two savage epidemics set against the dispiriting backdrop of endemic malaria, however, also brought a multitude of new converts who viewed the faith as a “healing” religion. After all, it was said that Jesus had performed miracle treatments, made the lame walk, made the blind see, cured leprosy, and brought Lazarus back from death itself. It was believed that these healing powers were transferred to the apostles and the subsequent disciples.

  Within the cultural upheaval of the Crisis of the Third Century, and the ensuing foreign raids staved off by the mosquitoes of the Pontine Marshes during the Era of Migrations, chronic malarial infection was one of the challenges to the religious and social status quo and, as Sonia Shah writes, “shattered all the old certainties.” The bane of malaria would have reinforced the shortfalls of traditional Roman spirituality, medicine, and mythology. Amulets, abracadabra, and offerings to Febris failed in the face of this newfound hope offered by therapeutic Christian rituals and philanthropic nursing practices.

  While I would never be so historically reckless as to suggest that the mosquito single-handedly converted the masses to Christianity, malaria was, however, one of many factors that aided in its eventual dominion over the European expanse. “Christianity, unlike paganism, preached care of the sick as a recognized religious duty. Those who were nursed back to health felt gratitude and commitment to the faith, and this served to strengthen Christian churches at a time when other institutions were failing,” explains Irwin W. Sherman, professor emeritus of biology and infectious disease
at the University of California. “The capacity of Christian doctrine to cope with the psychic shock of epidemic disease made it attractive for the populations of the Roman Empire. Paganism, on the other hand, was less effective in dealing with the randomness of death. In time, the Romans came to accept the Christian view.” The mosquito was one of the top dealers in “psychic shock” across the Roman Empire, and Christianity offered comfort, care, and perhaps even salvation, to its converts.

  Early Christian communities regarded the nursing of the sick as an obligation of faith and established the first true hospitals. This concern, along with other charitable Christian practices, reinforced a strong sense of community and belonging, and a greater network for those in need. When Christians traveled for trade or business, they found a warm welcome among local congregations. By the year 300, the Christian diaspora in the city of Rome was caring for over 1,500 widows and orphans. During the unimpeded violence, famine, plagues, and rampant malaria spanning the third to fifth centuries, Christianity attracted followers as a remedial religion.

  Microbiology professor David Clark sums up the connection between malaria and the diffusion of Christianity, cautioning, “Although modern-day Christianity dislikes admitting it, these early Christians practiced what can only be described as a form of magic. Spells were written on papyrus sheets, which were then folded into long strips and worn as amulets. . . . Similar spells were found down to the eleventh century, often containing magical formulas from the medieval Jewish cabala, mixed with more orthodox Christian terminology. These spells illustrate the great importance of malaria and magic among the Christians. . . . They also confirm that early Christianity was in many ways a healing cult.”