History ASMR | The Decline of Ancient Rome from... Mosquitoes? (Whisper)

And that's what I'm going to do. Fascinating new research that might overturn some long accepted historical facts and transforming the story of the past that you might have thought that you knew. So this book is not a comprehensive. Now we have a lot to choose from. So we have Caesar, Battle of Rio Central. I won't go right into that but I do. When he comes across an interesting conversation that he can't at that moment address. Now we have Caesar, Constantine, China. You know what? Let's do China because let's do China. So page 59. And as you guys can see a family affair. Oh boy. Okay page 59. Not even close. Here we go. They were actually just a little teaser of Stonehenge have actually been. Okay so this is interesting. Maybe it was 59. Okay where did they come from? So possibly from Rome. Oh okay. So this isn't legion and soldiers but DNA tests. These tests suggest that these villagers in a far corner of the Gansu province in China found that had European aspects to their genes. It's plain European characteristic. And yeah that's true. I suppose I don't often see Asians with curly hair. You know what? Let's uh sorry for uh sorry for being so scatterbrained. Let's we found our mark. We found something purely about Rome because Nick um you've been super patient. And I want to I want to show you that I appreciate that and do something specifically. I would hate for you to he's been waiting for so you've been waiting for like weeks now. So I really apologize. I just um I've been across so many other interesting stuff that I knew probably once I got into Rome. Once I entered the gates of the city. I wouldn't want to leave because there's so much to explore. Okay I think maybe the book sounds better than the ear to ear talking. So you guys let me I just switched it over. So up till now you've been listening to the ear to ear talking. Now we have book sounds which I personally really really like. So the Roman sickness how how the humble mosquito helped to bring down an empire. Countless thousands of words have been written about the reasons for the fall of Rome. But a decisive medical factor has now been acknowledged. And this uh well before I elaborate on this let's get into the article. By the beginning of the 5th century AD the Roman was on its knees. It had already been around for like seven eight hundred years. So that's a pretty big long empire. Its borders were Huns, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Goths, Saxons. Descent even had created certainly not a family. This was a long lasting rift of the empire creating bitter eastern orthodox. There was also corruption and civil wars that uh that left the empire poorly defended against supposedly inferior enemy sources. It's too dramatic a word to the process of the empire's decay. And many complex factors indeed played their part. When the last western emperor was deposed in AD 476 it was the culmination of a long slow decline. And of course I forget the author but the uh the decline I think it's called the the Fallen Decline. It was a huge very popular historical series written in the 19th maybe the maybe the 20th century. So uh there's been entire volumes thousands and thousands of pages honestly about this. Actually now I'm curious I'm gonna find out what it was called. Fall of what was it? Maybe I'll go to shopping the history and there it is. The history looks like a six volume series and each volume looks 500 pages. History of the decline and fall of the roman empire. So given that's who it was. So my point is that this of course as they um realistically stated. I appreciate this I already like this book the absolute fall process but sickness was no doubt. A key player. So in the asian and german invader of quite a time the Anopheles Muskinets effect meant the romans they had no effective way to combat it. One writer had even identified in 40 BC the soldier and agriculturist Lucius Junius wrote and neither should there be any marshland. The adjoining was off a painful stench. In hot weather it's insects armed with annoying annoying stings which attack us intent from which are often contract diseases whose cause are even beyond the understanding of physicians. But the notion that mosquitoes were responsible for them in AD 476 467. I'm just like sorry. The aristocratic letter writer Suetonius Apollinaris falling victim to a disease which struck from the pestilential. The romans were certainly aware that some parts of the country were more dangerous than a wealthy romans often withdrew to the country hills. I just sorry I had to. But the the notion itself was airborne was a misconception that persisted well and I'll go back to this relief I promise. Malaria actually means okay let's uh I just want to show you this is called the dance of death. The anointed are to a burial in the graveyard. Now DNA in the bone of dead romans is shedding light on why some of them actually died. Here are a little relief hopefully I'll zoom in on it. The dots show modern populations that have more than one genes. Wow one okay that's pretty significant. Advance of the mosquito researchers have identified certain genes that confer resistance to malaria and measured their presence in Africa and European. Testing actually shows that gene that started in Africa red and the Mediterranean variants are yellow. His is now well established in European populations indicating that a strain of malaria from Africa plasmodium falciparum must have crossed the Mediterranean. The European gene variant yellow offers only protection against milder forms of the disease and in southern Europe fits with the possibility that a virulent African malaria attacked the Mediterranean in ancient times. Weakening population but gradually rise to the resistant gene be dangerous because of the pools of warm stagnant water where the malaria carrying mosquitoes laid their eggs. By moving to higher ground people could protect themselves from being bitten in the heads from infection. So though the Romans were aware of malaria no comment or observe any increase in deaths. In the last two centuries of the Republic and physicians relate how most adult high fever only weak and formal diseases are even resistant to further attacks. Population even developed some genetic which Italians still carry today. Well so any Italian Americans are probably really okay. Latino seven a British professor WHS Jones the amazing notion that malaria was responsible for bringing down his argument was based showing that Italians in the lower ends of Italy were no young soldiers they were recruiting. Wow that's really interesting. So by the middle of the fifth century A.D. most of the Roman army was actually German closest to the Roman professor Jones reckon that the deaths increased from the second century onward and that a depleted and weakened population could not spare healthy men to fight. He suggested that the disease was introduced by Italy by the soldiers of the Carthaginian Emperor Hannibal during the second Punic War. Wow. So Carthage is right there just a stone's throw from this perspective away from Sicily in Italy. But the way that the plague evidence though suggests that Professor Jones may have actually been right. After all the sudden arrival in Europe of a strain of malaria against the Romans had no immunity against which the Romans had no immunity would have debilitated what had the debilitating effects he describes plasmodium falciparum still the world's deadliest infection killing around three million is usually associated with the tropical climate and is most widespread between Rome and North Africa could have to the mosquitoes being transported across the Mediterranean on board merchant ships just like my rat population in Europe in the medieval time of the plague the Eastern Europe or Western Asia even and a much more much less profound example would be all these lizards hopping on cargo ships to Florida and South Florida in Greece and they're these uh not quite the iguanas that you would see in the keys but they're like probably as big as this book with their so they're uh you know significant wearer's earrings yeah it's no doubt something that could have happened so there is recent archaeological evidence the recent uncovering of a late Roman cemetery at a villa in Lugano 70 miles north of Rome provides tantalizing evidence of a catastrophic outbreak of malaria there dated to about 450 AD in a graveyard site along the villa were found the skeletons of 47 infants most of them premature stillbirths or newborn the archaeologists decided that the bodies had been within days or weeks of each other indicating a major and here we have a little insert old disease looks like the deadly disease the deadly microbe without any tiny insect to uh transmit carries the parasite in its salivary glands and infects the blood here the over here the 47 remains infant remains were found in a cemetery analysis of the burial earth suggests that the bodies had been interred interred with one month 450 AD it actually looks like it's quite at least i don't know at least 10 feet below the community apparently been devastated by an epidemic so the villa was set near the marshes along the Tiber river a typically burial zone so honeysuckle bees seeds found in the grave told the archaeologists that it may have been dug in the summer that's so interesting that they could use a little evidence like that and sure lock their way through uh inclusion and the summer is the only season when malaria strikes of even the best preserved bone was difficult but one was found to contain a plasmodium falciparum this little guy right here miscarriages one symptom of this type of malaria when pregnant women are infected it had taken the to prove that a net wording a new form of malaria would have taken the rural community by surprise instead of throwing off the fever and chills they had come to expect adult sufferers would die with an out of the onset symptoms that's so brutal others would be sufficiently weakened to succumb to other diseases such as influenza or tuberculosis the infection can also be also appear to be gastric with symptoms they're the way fatalities but there's no clear account to cut this scientifically jeez you would think they would kind of abbreviate that to i've read it farther south through heavily farmed like yeah through heavily farmed like what the mosquitoes were infiltrated in agricultural the disease could well have delivered a decisive blow at first the burials were ones and twos but at the highest level up to seven infants were found in a single indicating an epidemic then it worsened rapidly the burials were hastily arranged well one child was laid to rest on a terra cotta roof tile wow that's amazing you know that really if you're if you're still watching nick you know obviously that wasn't super insightful into the i think you you were interested in a topic about the daily life of ancient roman what it was like to live back then so i certainly am too and i hope this will suffice until i get to a in-depth episode about what it was like in ancient rome and just as a just as a little teaser again we of course have the establishing uh tens of thousands of roman legionnaires captured by the carthenians yeah it's just fascinating that you know like i'm curious about uh just the impact on the world really had because they were so far and um there is in fact a little yeah there's just so much interesting information in this book maybe i just need to go through not read every single word of every article but i for sure will oh this is the crusades right here we'll definitely be doing more episodes just so you know so i hope this will suffice for now oh and here's anne frank wow look that's where she was hidden in the attic that would actually be really really interesting the frank's plan that's so interesting sorry i didn't mean to tease you that much wow yeah so i'll stop it there for now and maybe next time we'll explore i'll make a quicker run through these and uh some topics maybe i'll give you a little teaser right now so china has long been society for centuries impenetrable to outsiders and aloof from that existed beyond its walls border but new discoveries show that europeans actually visited china as far back as the bronze and even made their homes a body of a 3 000 year old church and man church and man conditions i guess it was climactic for him in the taklamakan desert i guess in mongolia his facial features are neither chinese nor and he lies thousands of miles away from his appearance oh yeah wow that's damn that's fascinating all right guys well um as always i seriously sincerely and gratefully uh i don't know i just thank you so much for watching patreon supporters on my paypal finmo and bitcoin you guys are awesome and um yeah i hope you guys are enjoying i'm only i'm only part of this team you guys are are um informing me you guys are helping me understand which directions to take you guys are helping me pick topics and it's really a blast you guys on the live chats um so i look forward to uh to many more all right guys we'll uh we'll get some rest wake up tomorrow ready to tackle the day you guys must recognize that our ancestors had it way worse than we do in fact they were able to get through so much tragedy and disaster and those genes are inside of you so just remember that when you're having a rough go of it and uh you want to give up and uh you know life is overwhelming it's full of suffering but it's also full of redemption and meaning relationships with friends and family and new there's so many new people out there that truly the same from the same gene pool as us guys i don't care if i'm from florida and you're from the center of china we all carry many more genes that are similar than different and um i'd like to think that if we get to know each other on average you'd find that we all have a lot more in common with where we want to go with our lives than different come from different cultures that we can't look at those different has a way to view the same object from a different anger stand this complex amazing fascinating meaningful world that we live together you know the greatest things in history have happened from i think from people that have had the privilege and the leisure of being protected barriers of a society so that they don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from or where to get clean water and that all happens from cooperation so just keep that in mind next time you uh you come across a stranger and recognize that cooperation is the wisest way to play the long-term game that's going to lead to our flourishing as a species be the best you can be guys and look for that little ray of optimism in the world as i know believe you can be that little ray to someone when you give them a bright smile as you pass them on the street hope you have a great night and even better bye guys