(This allowed Theodora to take control of the government and possibly stop a coup. Emperor Justinian took to the streets to rally the people when the plague first hit… and then came down with plague himself.By all accounts, the city’s reeked of decaying corpses for a long, long time.

Constantinople ran out of room to bury all the plague victims and ended up walling them up inside the towers of the city walls.

So even though it’s the same disease, here are the top three reasons why Justinian’s Plague was so much nastier than the Black Death… (“I’m not dead yet!”) When I first started researching Theodora’s story, I came across a reference to a plague that had hit the Byzantine Empire during Emperor Justinian’s reign, even afflicting the emperor himself. I’ve loved plague (reading about it, not having it) since I was in high school, grossing my friends out with accounts of rupturing buboes and thoroughly enjoying the Monty Python rendition of plague. Why Justinian’s Plague Was Nastier than the Black Deathįirst, before I confuse anyone, Justinian’s Plague and the Black Death were actually the same disease: bubonic plague.

I will secretly admit to having an equally morbid obsession about the Plague as well! Without further ado please welcome Stephanie Thornton to The Lit Bitch: In addition to reading and reviewing this exotic and intoxicating novel about Empress Theodora, the author Stephanie Thornton wrote an engrossing guest post about the Plague!

The secret history byzantium