Ancient Rome Was Teetering. Then a Volcano Erupted 6,000 Miles Away. [View all]

[Zorro]

Scientists have linked historical political instability to a number of volcanic events, the latest involving an eruption in the Aleutian Islands.

Chaos and conflict roiled the Mediterranean in the first century B.C. Against a backdrop of famine, disease and the assassinations of Julius Caesar and other political leaders, the Roman Republic collapsed, and the Roman Empire rose in its place. Tumultuous social unrest no doubt contributed to that transition — politics can unhinge a society. But so can something arguably more powerful.

Scientists on Monday announced evidence that a volcanic eruption in the remote Aleutian Islands, 6,000 miles away from the Italian peninsula, contributed to the demise of the Roman Republic. That eruption — and others before it and since — played a role in changing the course of history.

In recent years, geoscientists, historians and archaeologists have joined forces to investigate the societal impacts of large volcanic eruptions. They rely on an amalgam of records — including ice cores, historical chronicles and climate modeling — to pinpoint how volcanism affected civilizations ranging from the Roman Republic to Ptolemaic Egypt to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

There’s nuance to this kind of work, said Joseph Manning, a historian at Yale University who has studied the falls of Egyptian dynasties. “It’s not ‘a volcano erupts and a society goes to hell.’” But the challenge is worth it, he said. “We hope in the end that we get better history out of it, but also a better understanding of what’s happening to the Earth right now.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/science/rome-caesar-volcano.html