ABSTRACT
To pursue the climate dimension further, we should look within the confines of the Empire at its zenith. The literature has tended to polarise between those who believe that climate change did affect Rome’s decline and those who contend such change either never occurred or else was inconsequential. The latter have judged the climate of the Mediterranean to be much the same today as it was in the time of Christ, and have therefore inferred, however illogically, that the climate regime ‘as a whole has remained unchanged since Greek and Roman times.’47
