ABSTRACT
The Roman Empire was the most powerful state encircling the Mediterranean, the mare nostrum, but after some two centuries of stability and prosperity after Augustus it was thrust into a prolonged crisis in the third century. The Eastern Empire was an unbroken continuation of the Roman state; Greek was the dominant language and the official dogma followed the orthodoxy of the ecumenical councils. Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Northern Africa were irrevocably lost to the Byzantine Empire, while the Sassanid state had been crushed. The Byzantine Empire held Asia Minor, the Balkans and some minor parts of Italy, the rest of which was held by the Lombards. It was precisely at that time that the last wave of the plague united the Mediterranean once more: from Syria to Egypt and North Africa it crossed over into Sicily and Italy and then returned via Greece to Constantinople and ran its full course back to Syria.
