Episode 27 - The Walking Dead
发布时间 2013-05-27 19:07:17 来源
摘要
The Plague arrives at Pelusium and spreads to Alexandria where it rages for four months. By Spring 542 the Egyptians have to begin sending out the grain fleets. They export the Plague with them and Constantinople endures a nightmare summer of death. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Hello everyone, and welcome to the history of Byzantium. Episode 27. The Walking Dead For those of you who don't check how long an episode is before you begin listening, I feel on a bound to tell you that for this installment I've thrown aside the history of Rome target of half an hour and let things run a little longer.
大家好，欢迎收听拜占庭历史第27集“行尸走肉”。如果你在开始收听之前没有查看节目时长，那么我必须告诉你，在这一集中我放弃了半小时的罗马史目标，让节目运行了更长一些。
One day around October 541 at the port city of Palusium, a sailor developed a headache. Soon after he added pains in his leg and back and a fever to his list of symptoms. The following day his shipmates began to make similar complaints. The day after that the first man had a painful swelling in his groin. While one of his friends became confused, his speech slurred, his eyes, bloodshot. By the end of the week some of them had blackened skin, while others were bedridden and delirious. Two weeks after the headache first appeared, everyone on that ship was dead.
在公元541年大约的某一天，在港口城市帕卢西姆，一名水手头疼了。不久，他又加入了腿和背部的疼痛以及发烧等症状。第二天，他的船员开始发出类似的抱怨。第三天，第一位患者在腹股沟处出现了疼痛的肿胀。其中一位朋友变得困惑，说话含混，眼睛充血。一周结束时，有些人的皮肤变黑，而其他人则卧床不起，神志不清。头疼首次出现两周后，船上所有人都死了。
And now it was the shocked dock workers who were complaining of headaches and fever, then the shop owners they traded with became ill, then their families. Soon the whole of Palusium was in turmoil as person after person became infected and died. The disease was a common feature of life in the ancient world. As sad as death was, it was something everyone had experienced and everyone expected. Even outbreaks of serious illness that crippled whole towns were not unheard of, but they usually didn't last long. The death toll reached neighbouring Alexandria, it's unlikely that anyone was overly concerned.
现在，受到震惊的码头工人开始抱怨头痛和发热，随后与之交易的商家也生病了，连他们的家人也不幸感染了。很快，整个帕卢西姆陷入了混乱，一个接一个的人感染并死亡。这种疾病在古代世界是很常见的。虽然死亡是令人悲哀的，但每个人都经历过，也都有所预期。即使是致使整个城镇瘫痪的严重疾病爆发，也不是什么奇怪的事情，但通常不会持续很久。死亡人数逐渐扩散至邻近的亚历山大港，但似乎没有人会过度担忧。
But once the docks of the second city of the empire were overrun with dead sailors, people began to realise that this disease was something new. The distinctive feature of the outbreak were the bubones, bubos in English, large dark swellings which would appear around the groin or armpit and which no one seems to have seen before, or have any record of. More alarming even than these unsightly growths was the speed at which the disease spread and killed. For four months of the Egyptian winter, the disease just kept on killing in Alexandria.
但当帝国第二大城市的码头上堆满了死亡的水手时，人们开始意识到这种疾病是新出现的。这次爆发的显著特征是痈疽，英文中称为bubos，是一种在腹股沟或腋窝周围出现的大块黑色肿胀，似乎以前没有人看到或有任何记录。让人更加担心的是这种疾病的传播和致死速度。在埃及的四个月冬天里，疾病一直在亚历山大城里造成死亡。
Corpse is lairotting on corners in court yards and in churches with no one to bury them. The streets became putrid with piles of the dead, so thick with flies, so slippery under foot with blood and melted flesh that it was impossible to clear them. The people were panicking, those who were ill were staggering around the streets, collapsing in public, their mouths wide open, their hands stretched out upward. Those who were able fled, while those who remained lived in constant fear that they would be next.
尸体在街角、庭院和教堂里烂漫着，却没有人去埋葬它们。街道上有成堆的死尸，飞蝇满天，血和腐肉溶化成一片，脚下滑稽得难以踏实。人们惊慌失措，病人摇晃着步履在街上游荡，倒在公众场合，嘴巴大张，双手伸向天空。有能力的人逃走了，留下的人则时刻生活在恐惧之中，担心自己会成为下一个受害者。
To add to the horror came humiliation. Alexandria was home to the Roman world's finest medical schools. The best physicians in the city were helpless in the face of the disease. They had no clue what was causing the illness or how to treat it. Even more frustratingly, they couldn't even predict the severity of the disease. Those with a mild fever were told to get on with their work only to die suddenly the following day. While those who were doctor confidently pronounced were not long for this world would struggle on for weeks before recovering. Egypt was alone during this time.
更可怕的是，居民还遭受着羞辱。亚历山大城是罗马世界最好的医学院所在地，但城中最好的医生们却束手无策。他们不知道什么原因导致了这种疾病，也不知道如何治疗它。更让人沮丧的是，他们甚至无法预测这种疾病的严重程度。有些人只是轻微发烧，还被告知要继续工作，但第二天就突然死去了。而那些医生自信地预测病情严重的人，却会在多周的折磨后才恢复健康。这段时间，埃及无人帮助。
As you know ships didn't regularly sail during winter, and although a few apocalyptic warnings would have filtered along land routes, it's unlikely that anyone further north knew what had really happened. By spring 542 the worst ravages of the plague were over, and the Egyptians had to try and return to normal life. For the majority of them that meant gathering grain, loading it onto ships and sending it to the rest of the empire. Little did they know that they were about to export disease and death along with their food. So by March and April 542 the plague began to spread across the empire.
你知道，船只在冬季不常常规航行，尽管有一些灾难性的警告消息可能已经通过陆路传递，但更北方的人并不知道真正发生了什么。到542年春季，瘟疫最糟糕的破坏已经结束，埃及人必须尝试恢复正常的生活。对于他们大多数人来说，这意味着收集谷物，把它装上船，然后发送到帝国其余地区。他们不知道自己即将随着食物一起输出疾病和死亡。所以到了542年3月和4月，瘟疫开始在帝国中蔓延。
By boat the disease first appeared in Gaza, then the rubble of Antioch and finally Constantinople. Some ships never arrived, the whole crew dying on board leaving the boat to Meander across the sea. Inland the caravan routes took it to Jerusalem and Damascus, to Meira and Sikion in Anatolia, nowhere seemed safe. When the buboes appeared it was already too late to run.
疾病最初是通过船只传至加沙，然后传至安条克和君士坦丁堡的废墟。有些船只从未到达，整个船员死在船上，使船只漂浮在海上。陆地上的商队路线将其带到了耶路撒冷和大马士革、安纳托利亚的梅伊拉和锡基安，似乎没有安全之处。当淋巴结肿大时，已经为时已晚。
In the capital Procopius was once more fortunate, or in this case perhaps not, to be an eyewitness to history unfolding. He gives us the best account of the symptoms of the disease. Victims were first gripped by a sudden fever. It fact the color of the skin, nor creators higher temperature is about illness would normally generate. Doctors and friends were initially unconcerned by this apparently languid fever. But sometime later that day, or the next, but definitely within a week, bubonic swelling appeared. Sometimes growing as large as melons and causing great discomfort. As well as the groin or the armpit the swelling would occasionally appear in the thighs or behind the ears.
在首都，普罗科比乌斯又一次获得幸运，或者在这种情况下可能不是这样，成为历史发展的目击者。他给我们提供了最好的疾病症状描述。受害者首先被突如其来的发热所抓住。实际上，皮肤的颜色，也不像疾病通常产生的高温一样。医生和朋友最初对这种看似慢性的发热并不担心。但是在当天晚些时候，或者在下一周内，肿块就会出现，有时会像西瓜一样大，引起巨大的不适感。除了腹股沟或腋窝外，肿胀有时还会出现在大腿或耳后。
Up to this point everyone seemed to suffer similarly. But once the buboes arrived, different paths would emerge. Some would enter a coma-like state, sleeping for long periods and occasionally forgetting who the people were around them. While others couldn't sleep and began to hallucinate or seem delirious, crying out in terror or running into the streets. Those tending to the sick were exhausted and of course those who had no one to look after them passed away. For a third group, the bubonic swelling became mortified and the victim died in agony. Some lost all sense of feeling before the end.
到目前为止，每个人似乎都同样遭受着痛苦。但是一旦肿痛出现，不同的道路将浮现。有些人会进入类似昏迷的状态，长时间睡眠，偶尔会忘记周围的人是谁。而其他人却无法入睡，开始出现幻觉或看起来神志不清，惊恐地呼喊或跑向街道。照顾病人的人们精疲力尽，当然那些没有人照顾的人会死去。对于第三组人来说，淋巴肿胀变得坏死，受害者在极度痛苦中死亡。有些人在临死前失去了所有感觉。
If you broke out in black postules, you wouldn't survive the day. If you vomited blood, you wouldn't survive the day. In the words of author William Rosen, for four months, Constantinople was a window onto hell. As usual the visitation began at the docks before working its way into every quarter of the city. The poor died first. Then the blues and greens forced to put aside their differences to deal with their fallen comrades. Then the artisans, tradesmen and guild members. Then the senators. Many an imperial service died. Trebonian disappears from the historical record at this point and it's tempting to assume he was one of its victims.
如果你突然长出黑色的脓疱，你就无法活到下一天。如果你呕吐血液，你就无法活到下一天。用作者威廉·罗森的话说，四个月里，君士坦丁堡是通往地狱的窗口。惯例上，这种疫情始于码头，然后蔓延到城市的每一个角落。首先死亡的是穷人。接下来，蓝派和绿派被迫放下分歧，共同处理已故同胞。然后是工匠、商人和公会成员。接着是参议员。皇家服务中的许多人都死亡了。此时，特伯尼安从历史记录中消失了，很容易就会认为他是其中的一名受害者。
Death stalked the streets. Thousands were dying every day and citizens were afraid to leave their homes without wearing a tag to identify themselves in case they never returned. Those in pain or suffering hallucinations would throw themselves off buildings to escape their torment. One particularly foul-smelling home was avoided by passes by until someone went in and found 20 rotting corpses inside. A city the size of Constantinople was used to around 30 people dying every day. Within a couple of weeks the regular burial sites were overloaded with the dead.
死亡潜伏在街头。成千上万的人每天都在死亡，市民不敢不戴上标签离开自己的家，以防他们再也没有回来。在疼痛或幻觉中受苦的人会跳楼逃离他们的折磨。一个特别臭的家被路过的人所避免，直到有人进去并发现里面有20具腐烂的尸体。一个和君士坦丁堡差不多大小的城市通常每天会有30个人死亡。在几个星期内，定期的墓地已经因死者过多而超负荷。
Some bodies were tossed into the sea but this soup of decomposing flesh that this created was no solution. Christians demanded a proper burial anyway. Justinian ordered massive pits to be dug across the golden horn in the suburb of Sikai. However, as the nightmare summer dragged on, even this became full, with the unfortunate gravediggers having to pack bodies in tightly and push down on them to make room for more. The men eventually turned to the guard towers along the walls surrounding Sikai and began piling bodies in them. When the wind blew south, the stench covered the whole city.
一些尸体被扔进了海里，但是这造成的腐烂肉汤并不是解决办法。基督徒们仍然要求一个适当的埋葬。贾斯丁尼安下令在锡凯郊区的金角湾挖掘大型坑穴。然而，夜马那般的夏季拖延而来，即使这些坑也充满了尸体，不幸的掘墓人不得不紧密地堆放他们，为更多的尸体腾出空间。这些人最终转向了环绕锡凯的城墙上的警卫塔，并开始在其中堆积尸体。当风向南吹时，臭气覆盖整个城市。
The streets were now empty. No business of any kind was undertaken. The butcher shops, the markets, the bakeries, all ceased to be used. Famine now followed pestilence and it was considered great fortune to have enough bread to feed what remained of your family. An earthquake hit in August which only intensified the feeling that these were the end times. All court functions ceased and no one was seen in official dress, particularly once the disease decided to prove its egalitarian nature once and for all, and infected Justinian. The emperor was one of the lucky ones, left in a coma-like state for weeks he wasn't short of attendance to care for him. Theodora was left in effective control of the government, a situation we will deal with next week.
街道现在人迹寥寥，任何商业活动都已停止。屠肉店、市场、面包店等一切都已关闭。饥荒随之而来，拥有足够的面包来喂剩下的家人被认为是巨大的幸运。八月份发生了一次地震，这只加剧了这些就是末日的感觉。法庭的一切职能都停止了，再也没有人穿着官服出现，尤其是在疾病决定彻底证明其平等主义本质并感染贾斯汀安后。皇帝是幸运的人之一，他进入了类似昏迷的状态，数周来没有照料他。快速处理下一步政府的情况就留给了帝后泰奥多拉。
By August the plague had died down to a manageable level. Trusting Procopius' estimates of the dead is difficult, but many scholars do assume that at least 200,000 people, if not more, died during that outbreak. This in a city that had stood half a million strong. Out in the provinces the toll varied from place to place. One of our sources is a Syrian scholar called Evagrius whose personal story is deeply tragic. Although he survived the plague, he would lose his wife, his daughter, his grandson, other relatives and many servants as the plague returned in later waves. He confirms similar symptoms that Procopius describes adding sore throats and diarrhea for good measure, and pointing out that even those who caught the plague and survived would often have lisp or muscular tremors for the rest of their days.
到了八月，瘟疫已经减少到可以控制的水平。 具体相信普罗科皮乌斯对死亡人数的估计是非常困难的，但许多学者确实认为在那次疫情中至少有200,000人死亡，如果不是更多。这在一个曾经有50万人的城市中发生了。在省份中，死亡人数因地而异。我们的一个消息来源是叙利亚学者伊瓦格里乌斯，他的个人故事非常悲惨。尽管他幸免于难，但他失去了妻子、女儿、孙子、其他亲属和许多仆人，因为随后的瘟疫再次爆发。他证实了普罗科皮乌斯所描述的类似症状，还加了喉咙疼痛和腹泻，并指出即使那些感染了瘟疫并幸免于难的人，他们的余生也经常会有口齿不清或肌肉震颤。
More information comes from a monophysite clergyman who we know is John of Ephesus. He had the journey to Constantinople during this time and describes empty villages and imperial staging posts littered with corpses. As harvest time approached he saw empty fields with grain, white and erect, but no one to reap them, while flocks of sheep and other animals were living wild off the land. He also he has stories of more personal tragedies, of weddings abandoned on the day itself, when either bride or groom had died.
更多的信息来自一个我们知道他是以弗所的约翰的单性论牧师。他在这段时间里前往君士坦丁堡，描述了空无人烟的村庄和散落着尸体的皇家驿站。随着收获季节的到来，他看到了空荡荡的麦田，白色挺立，但没有人来收割，而成群的羊和其他动物则在原野上自由生活。他还讲述了更多个人悲剧的故事，比如在婚礼当天被取消，因为新郎或新娘已经去世了。
In addition to the horror and the grief, there also came a psychological and spiritual torment. Many victims claimed they had seen a ghostly apparition touch them just before they fell ill. While out on the coast, as one port town after another succumbed to the disease, men began to describe demonic visions out on the waves, boats with headless oarsmen glowing like fire moving around the Mediterranean to deliver God's vengeance.
除了恐怖和悲痛，还有一种心理和精神的折磨。许多受害者声称在生病之前看到了鬼魅般的幽灵触碰了他们。当沿海的一个又一个港口屈服于疾病时，人们开始描述在海浪上出现恶魔般的幻象，无头船桨手发光如火，环绕地中海传递上帝的惩罚。
During the height of the plague, a story comes to us from a city on the edge of Palestine, where apparently some demons, in the form of angels, appeared to the terrified inhabitants, telling them they would only be spared if they worshipped a bronze idol. It's fair to say that for most people in the empire this apocalyptic event was assumed to be the work of God. When John saw the bodies being squeezed into the pits at Seekai, he calls forth the image of the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God from the book of Jeremiah. And assumes that as with the flood, good Christians should be building their metaphorical arcs in order to survive.
在瘟疫的高峰期，我们从巴勒斯坦边缘的一个城市中听到一个故事，据说一些恶魔，以天使的形式出现在受惊吓的居民面前，告诉他们只有崇拜一尊青铜偶像才能幸免于难。可以说，对于大多数帝国的人来说，这场启示性的事件被认为是上帝的工作。当约翰看到人们被挤压到Seekai的坑中时，他从耶利米书中召唤了上帝愤怒的酒榨的形象，并认为与洪水一样，好的基督徒应该建造他们的比喻方舟以求生存。
Temporarily this may have worked, as according to Procopius, local brigands and ne'er duels changed the habits of a lifetime for fear of being struck down, visiting church regularly and being kind to those around them. Feel the disease passed when they returned to their old ways. By March 543, Justinian was back on his feet, issuing a law which declared that the epidemic was over, and calling it God's education. As William Rosen points out, we are very lucky to have Procopius, whose training and preference was for the Hellenistic historical approach to writing, which means that he notes events as he saw them, rather than putting them through a starkly Christian lens.
暂时而言，这种方法也许奏效了。根据普罗科比乌斯的记载，当地的强盗和争斗者为了避免被感染瘟疫，改变了一生中的习惯，经常参加教堂活动，善待身边的人。但当他们回到旧习惯时，疾病再次传播。到了543年3月，贾斯汀尼安已经康复了，颁布了一项法律宣布瘟疫已经结束，并将其称为上帝的教训。威廉·罗森指出，我们很幸运有普罗科比乌斯这样一个以希腊式历史学方法为训练和偏好的历史学家，他的记录是客观的，不会过分用基督教的视角去解释事件。
If the plague was God's wrath, then it seemed that God was angry at everyone. The disease took no account of gender, race, age, class, location, or even season. If agrius notes with frustration, how some were spared even when they tried to contract the disease to end their misery? Through these sources, we also hear that cattle, dogs, mice, even snakes were not immune to the plague. White even rats, swollen with bubos, were to be seen infected and dying. The plague was a devastating blow to the Byzantine Empire, just as it was to all the nations whom it touched. Estimates of the total number of dead are hard to come by, but it's assumed that most towns, cities or army camps that became infected would lose a third of their people.
如果瘟疫是上帝的愤怒，那么似乎上帝对每个人都生气了。这种疾病不区分性别、种族、年龄、阶级、地点甚至季节。如果Agrius沮丧地指出有些人即使试图感染疾病以结束他们的痛苦也幸免了？通过这些消息来源，我们也听说牛、狗、老鼠甚至蛇都不免于瘟疫。甚至被肿胀的淋巴结包裹着的白鼠也被感染并死亡。瘟疫对拜占庭帝国造成了毁灭性打击，就像对所有被触及的国家一样。关于死亡总数的估计很难得出，但可以假定大多数感染的城镇、城市或军营会失去三分之一的人口。
The plague was not over either. Every year it would break out in a new location. In 543 it reached Africa, Italy, Elyricum, Gaul, and the border with Persia. The historian comments that the world seemed returned to its primordial silence for no voices rose in the fields. No whistling was heard of shepherds. The following year it made its way to Spain, Britain, and Ireland, with reports coming in from places as far afield as Scandinavia and the Yemen. Whether it was an island or a hilltop community, the plague seemed to find those places which it hadn't already struck. Spain would return to the same cities a few decades later and hit them again. Constantinople would suffer a recurrence in 558, 573, and 559. The same goes for Antioch, Amida, Nisbis, Rome, Thessalonica, and so on for two centuries until 747 when the last recorded outbreak took place in Naples.
瘟疫并没有结束。每年都会在新的地方爆发。在公元543年，它传到了非洲、意大利、艾尔里库姆、高卢和波斯边境地区。历史学家评论说，世界似乎回到了最初的寂静状态，田野上没有声音，牧羊人的哨声也没有听到。在接下来的一年里，它传到了西班牙、英国和爱尔兰，从斯堪的纳维亚到也门，各个地方都有报道。无论是岛屿还是山顶社区，瘟疫似乎总能找到那些它之前没有袭击过的地方。几十年后，西班牙的一些城市会再次遭受打击。君士坦丁堡在558年、573年和559年又遭受了重创。反复发生的还包括安条克、阿米达、尼斯比斯、罗马、塞萨洛尼基等城市，长达两个世纪，直到747年那次在那不勒斯的爆发被记录下来。
To put it another way by the year 600, the Mediterranean population, was probably only 60% of what it had been in 500. The demographic growth which had helped the Byzantines see off the Germans and the Isorians, that had filled the treasury of Anastasia and allowed for the reconquests under Justinian were wiped out in a year or two. The chance for the Roman Empire to reform itself in anything like its former strength was now gone. The Byzantine world did not collapse though. Despite the death and the accompanying dislocation, life would go on.
换句话说，在公元600年左右，地中海地区的人口可能只有500年的60％。人口增长曾帮助拜占庭帝国击败德国人和伊索里亚人，填满了安娜斯塔西亚的宝库，并允许贾斯丁尼安进行重新征服，但这一切都在一两年内消失了。罗马帝国像以前一样重新发展其力量的机会现在已经不存在了。然而，拜占庭世界没有崩溃。尽管人口减少和伴随而来的混乱，生活仍会继续下去。
Next week we will explore the political fallout in detail, but for the rest of this episode I want to try and answer the question of what on earth happened here. I should start by acknowledging that there is no academic consensus on what the plague was. Its origins, its makeup, or even if all those who reportedly died of plague from 540 to 740 were suffering from the same disease. Even with DNA evidence from 6th century skeletons confirming the mainstream theory, we still lack sufficient proof to be certain.
下周，我们将详细探讨政治后果，但本集剩下的时间，我想回答一下地球上究竟发生了什么的问题。首先，我应该承认，关于瘟疫是什么并没有学术共识。它的起源，它的成分，甚至从540年到740年被报道死于瘟疫的人是否都患有同一种疾病都没有确定。即使有第六世纪骸骨的DNA证据证实了主流理论，我们仍然缺乏足够的证据来确定。
We are fairly confident though that the bacteria responsible for the plague goes by the name of Yassinia Pestys. Bacteria have been living on the earth for millions upon millions of years. They were here well before we were and have had a long time to adapt to the new environments that the arrival of mammals provided. Bacteria spend their days adapting and reproducing. That is their raison d'être. They have the ability to rewrite their genetic code by borrowing, copying, or adapting themselves to find a better means of surviving, spreading, and multiplying.
我们相当有信心，黑死病的病菌被称为“鼠疫杆菌”。细菌生存在地球上已经数百万年了，在我们出现之前就已经存在，有足够的时间来适应哺乳动物带来的新环境。细菌每天都在适应和繁殖，这是它们的存在理由。它们有能力通过借鉴、复制或自我适应来重写遗传密码，以寻找更好的生存、传播和繁殖方式。
For Yassinia, its preferred home for a long time was the digestive system of the rodent, marmats, squirrels, and rats. The process was slow but steady as Yassinia passed out of one animal through its waste and then managed to find a new host. However, there is an inefficiency to that process that I am sure you can imagine, and Yassinia dreamt of a better way.
对于亚洲鼠咯菌来说，长期以来其最喜欢的栖息地是啮齿动物（如旱獭、松鼠和老鼠）的消化系统。这个过程虽然缓慢但稳定，亚洲鼠咯菌从一个动物体内经过它的排泄物排出，然后成功地找到一个新的寄主。然而，这个过程有一些低效的地方，我相信你能够想象，亚洲鼠咯菌梦想着有更好的方式。
The answer came with the flea. The tiny blood sucking insect many of whom live on the backs of rodents. Although their aim is to extract blood, the process is something of a two-way street. Here then came Yassinia's chance. Who knows how many times over how many years it took for Yassinia to adapt to living temporarily in a flea's gut. A quite different environment to that of a mammal, before working out a way of being pumped back into another animal's bloodstream.
答案随着跳蚤而来。这种微小的吸血昆虫居住在啮齿动物的背上，它们的目的是吸取血液，但这个过程也是双向的。于是，Yassinia有了机会。谁知道这些年她在跳蚤肠道中临时适应了多少次，跳蚤的环境与哺乳动物完全不同，才找到一种方式被输送回到另一个动物的血液循环系统中。
The process was utterly ingenious. Once absorbed by the flea, Yassinia would make a protein which would turn off the flea's natural defenses and prevent itself from adhering to the flea's stomach. It would then make a sort of glue out of blood. This biofilm would clump together sealing off the flea's stomach from the blood it was taking in. The flea, realizing it wasn't getting fed, would now bite frantically at anything it could, desperate to gather more life-giving blood.
这个过程真的非常巧妙。一旦被跳蚤吸收，Yassinia会产生一种蛋白质，这种蛋白质会关闭跳蚤的天然防御，防止其粘附在跳蚤的胃上。然后它会用血液制作一种胶。这种生物膜会凝聚在一起，将跳蚤的胃从它吸入的血液中封闭起来。跳蚤意识到它没有得到饱食，在绝望中咬紧一切它能咬的东西，试图收集更多的滋养性血液。
As it sucked voraciously at its new target, the blood already in its foregut would be forced out, infecting the unfortunate mammal with Yassinia pesties. This ultra-cunning transportation system gave Yassinia exactly what it was looking for. Fleas, you see, are themselves very adaptive to their rodent hosts.
当跳蚤狼吞虎咽地吸食新目标时，已经存在于其前肠中的血液会被排出，将不幸的哺乳动物感染上鼠疫细菌。这种超级狡猾的运输系统为雅新尼亚提供了其所追求的一切。你看，跳蚤本身非常适应它们的啮齿类寄主。
Some species of flea have learned to give birth at the same time as their carriers do, so that their children can move to new homes. The fleas can also, of course, jump from one rodent to another, latch on and begin feeding. So now Yassinia could spread itself more efficiently around a group of mammals infecting, replicating, and adapting.
一些跳蚤物种学会了在宿主同时分娩，以便它们的孩子可以移动到新家。 跳蚤当然也可以从一只啮齿动物跳到另一只，紧贴并开始进食。 因此，现在雅西尼亚可以更有效地在哺乳动物群中传播、复制和适应。
But it was at this point that Yassinia pesties got greedy. This is also the moment when we introduce the particular species responsible for the plague. The flea was Zenopsylla Chiosus, the Oriental rat flea. This host was Ratus, Ratus, the Black Rat. The Black Rat arrived in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire, and its population density is what attracted it to Yassinia pesties.
但正是在这个时候，雅森尼亚害虫变得贪心了。这也是我们介绍导致瘟疫的特定物种的时刻。这只跳蚤是东方鼠跳蚤，名为Zenopsylla Chiosus。它的宿主是黑鼠，也叫Ratus, Ratus。黑鼠在罗马帝国时期来到了欧洲，由于其人口密度，它被雅森尼亚害虫所吸引。
Rats live in large groups, falling over one another to breed and get access to food, and female rats deliver litters of up to 20 pups, 5 to 7 times a year. It was staring at a gold mine of fresh bloodstreams to replicate within, and was not satisfied even with the fleas transporting them around.
老鼠生活在庞大的团体里，彼此互相挤挤挤，以繁殖和获取食物为目的。母老鼠每年可以产下5到7窝，每窝多达20只幼仔。它们仿佛在盯着一座新鲜血液的金矿，甚至不满足于通过跳蚤来传播病菌。
You see, Zenopsylla Chiosus has little reason to leave the rat it's living on. Fleas have short lives, and so several generations of flea can live happily on the back of one rat. Despite its amazing adaptability, Yassinia could not effectively survive in every bloodstream. Some rats had hardy immune systems, and if they detected and killed Yassinia, they would remember it, develop an immunity, and possibly pass it on to their offspring.
你看，Chiosus幸福跟那只老鼠待在一起，它们的生命短暂，因此几代跳蚤可以在一只老鼠的背上快乐地生活。尽管Yassinia适应性惊人，但无法在每种血液中生存。有些老鼠免疫系统强壮，如果它们察觉并消灭了Yassinia，它们会记住并发展免疫力，有可能传给它们的后代。
Yassinia wanted a way to force the fleas to find new rats who had no immunity. The solution to this problem was quite simple. Yassinia would just kill the rat. Even over untold years or centuries of adapting, Yassinia developed the necessary toxins and proteins that could attack the rat's immune system and kill it.
雅茜妮亚希望能够让跳蚤去找那些没有免疫力的新老鼠。解决这个问题的方法很简单。雅茜妮亚只需杀死老鼠。即使在无数年的适应中，雅茜妮亚也开发了必要的毒素和蛋白质，可以攻击老鼠的免疫系统并将其杀死。
The flea would be forced to jump to a new host and spread Yassinia far and wide amongst the colony of rats. The balance has to be right, of course. Yassinia needs time to reproduce before the rat begins to die. So the bacteria learnt to keep its poisons less poisonous at mammal body temperature. The rat could therefore live with the disease for a week without showing any symptoms until the bacteria reproduced sufficiently to raise body temperature, and then the lights would go out.
跳蚤会被迫跳到新的宿主身上，将Yassinia在老鼠群落中广泛传播。当然，平衡必须要保持。在老鼠开始死亡之前，Yassinia需要时间来繁殖。因此，这种细菌学会在哺乳动物体温下降低其毒性。老鼠因此可以带着这种病生活一周而没有任何症状，直到细菌足够繁殖以使体温升高，然后灯就会熄灭。
Now this new deadly strain of Yassinia presented a major problem. So it was too successful and killed all the rats. In its search for the most efficient reproduction method, Yassinia was reaching the point where it might have undermined itself. Thousands of fleas living on hundreds of rats, injecting hundreds of thousands of bacterial cells, is for the most part a stable ecosystem.
现在这个致命的新百日咳菌株已经成为一个重大的问题。它实在太成功了，把所有的老鼠都杀死了。在寻找最有效的繁殖方法的过程中，百日咳菌已经到了可能会削弱自身的地步。成千上万只跳蚤寄生在数百只老鼠身上，注射数百万个细菌细胞，大多数情况下是一个稳定的生态系统。
As you remember, a good number of rats will be immune to Yassinia, either through a strong immune system or acquired immunity after infection. The problem for Yassinia's survival only arises when there aren't enough of these resistant rats in a particular group.
你还记得，很多老鼠会因自身免疫系统强大或感染后获得免疫能力而对Yassinia免疫。当一个特定群体中这些具有抗药性老鼠数量不够时，Yassinia的生存问题才会产生。
For any rat colony, there will be a tipping point. If for some reason 80% of one group of rats became infected and die, then suddenly you've got a lot of manically hungry fleas looking for something to feed on. Naturally, they look for the nearest warm-blooded mammal to bite, and who the rats normally live next to? Humans. Of course horses, dogs, camels, whatever will get bitten too, but we are rats' constant companions.
对于任何一群老鼠，都会有一个关键点。如果由于某种原因，其中80%的老鼠感染并死亡，那么突然间你就会有很多疯狂饥饿的跳蚤寻找食物。当然，它们会寻找最近的温血哺乳动物咬一口，而老鼠通常与谁生活在一起呢？人类。当然，马、狗、骆驼、任何动物都会被咬，但我们是老鼠的不变伴侣。
This is because rats are so omnivorous that they feast on human garbage. They'll eat any sort of vegetable matter from seeds, nuts, leaves and fruit to less obvious fare, like paper, soap, beeswax, along with animal food and all sorts of items that humans gladly pile up day after day. So if the rat population crashes and fleas feast on the neighboring humans instead, then Yassinia pesties will enter the human bloodstream.
这是因为老鼠是杂食动物，它们会大肆进食人类垃圾。它们会吃任何蔬菜，包括种子、坚果、叶子和水果，还有不那么明显的食物，比如纸张、肥皂、蜂蜡，以及动物食物和人类每天积攒的各种物品。如果老鼠数量减少，跳蚤转而在邻近的人类身上进食，那么雅兹尼亚疫虫就会进入人类血液中。
All the mechanisms and adaptions made for the rats' body now go out the window. The human body is of course much larger, and Yassinia had no instructions to find a balance with this new system it only cared about the rat.
所有为老鼠身体所做的机制和适应性现在荡然无存。人类的身体当然要大得多，雅西尼亚没有指令来找到这个新系统的平衡，它只关心老鼠。
So when Yassinia arrived in Palusium, it began to attack and destroy its strange new environment. The outer proteins of Yassinia pesties are designed to prevent the body from destroying it, in part by blocking the signals which would alert the body to attack, and in part by blocking the phagocytes, a type of white blood cell which would normally absorb such an intruder. Once in, Yassinia would begin replicating as fast as it could, which would often leave the area of the flea bite to turn the crotic, or leave tissue with it.
当Yassinia到达帕卢西姆时，它开始攻击和摧毁它奇怪的新环境。Yassinia pesties的外部蛋白质被设计成防止身体破坏它，部分原因是阻止身体发出攻击警报的信号，部分原因是阻止一种名为噬菌细胞的白细胞吞噬这种入侵者。进入后，Yassinia会尽快开始复制，这通常会导致跳蚤咬痕区域变得坏死，或使组织脱落。
At this point the body does recognize that something is wrong and conveys the bacteria to the lymphatic system, where our blood circulates and diseases are normally attacked. However, this is where Yassinia wants to be taken. It now has access to the whole body and continues to spread and replicate. Our immune system tries to drag the disease to one of the regional lymph nodes, garrisons of white blood cells where most diseases are slowly absorbed.
此时身体已经意识到有什么问题，并将细菌传递到淋巴系统，血液循环时通常会攻击疾病的地方。然而，这正是 Yassinia 想要到达的地方。它现在已经可以进入整个身体，并继续传播和复制。我们的免疫系统试图将疾病拖至其中一个区域性淋巴结，那里是白细胞的守卫驻地，大多数疾病都可以缓慢吸收。
The battle is fierce and the node becomes engorged with blood and cellular debris, which create the grossly swollen bubos. As you may have figured out by now, the lymph nodes can be found in the groin, the armpit, and other areas where the swelling appeared. The reason swelling of the groin was most common is simple. The tiny fleas, looking for somewhere to bite, would first come upon the legs, and so the infection would be drained toward the nearest lymph node around the crotch.
战斗激烈，淋巴结充血并充满血液和细胞垃圾，造成明显肿胀的淋巴肿瘤。你可能已经发现，淋巴结可位于腹股沟、腋窝和其他出现肿胀的区域。腹股沟肿胀最常见的原因很简单。寻找咬人的地方的小跳蚤首先遇到的是腿部，所以感染会朝最近的伏笼周围的淋巴结排出。
The bubonic edamers would press on the nerve endings of its victims, causing tremendous pain. As the body struggles to replace deoxygenated blood with oxygenated, the muscles surrounding the human voicebox become more acidic, which was the cause of much temporary or permanent speech problems for those who survived. They have now reached the stage where the divergences which procopious observed begin.
鼠疫埃达莫奴将压迫受害者的神经末梢，引起极度疼痛。身体努力用含氧血液替换脱氧血液时，人喉部周围的肌肉会变得更加酸性，这是幸存者临时或永久发言障碍的主要原因。他们现在已经达到了普鲁考普斯观察到的分歧阶段。
For those who were destined to survive, their battle would now rage, leaving them exhausted and sleepy until their body won, and often the swollen bubo would explode in a shower of pus. For others, the bubonic edamer might turn septic, and like a snake shedding its skin the tissue would collapse, often causing shock and death.
对于那些注定要存活下来的人，他们的战斗现在会持续，让他们精疲力尽，瞌睡，直到他们的身体战胜疾病，而且通常肿胀的淋巴结会爆炸，溢出脓液。对于其他人来说，淋巴结瘤可能会发展成败血症，就像蛇蜕皮一样，组织会塌陷，通常会引起休克和死亡。
As the body heats up from battle, Yassinia begins to release its toxins. Two of its most deadly weapons interfere with the body's ability to clot blood and form platelets. This attack on the blood leads to the gangrene, or blackened extremities, chiefly toes and fingers, which 700 years later, in Yassinia's most famous appearance on the world stage, would lead to the nickname, the Black Death.
当身体从战斗中变热时，耶西尼亚开始释放它的毒素。它最致命的两种武器干扰了身体凝结血液和形成血小板的能力。这种对血液的攻击导致坏疽，或者说是黑色的肢体末梢，尤其是脚趾和手指，在700年后，它在耶西尼亚最著名的世界舞台上，被称为黑死病。
If they spread further across the body, giving the appearance of lentil like blisters as procopious identified, then death would follow swiftly. If the plague became septicemic, then victims would die of vomiting blood from internal hemorrhages. Another of Yassinia's deadly toxins are a collection of fatty acids known as lipid A. Once embedded, they cause overproduction of an enzyme which releases tumor necrosis factor, which can kill cells. Again, the result is shock, sometimes fatal.
如果它们在身体上扩散得更广，出现了像prolopious所指出的豆状水泡，那么死亡就会很快来临。如果瘟疫变成败血症，受害者会因内出血呕吐血液而死亡。Yassinia的另一种致命毒素是被称为脂质A的一组脂肪酸。一旦嵌入，它们会导致一种释放肿瘤坏死因子的酶的过度产生，这种酶会杀死细胞。再次，结果是休克，有时是致命的。
The most fatal results though come from the third option. If Yassinia reached the highway into the lungs, then the victim would start to produce sputum. When the sputum accumulates blood, the infection moves from being bubonic to pneumonic. This meant that a victim's saliva drops were infectious and could contaminate someone being talked to within a 2 meter range. Mortality rates for pneumonic plague are 100%. Although bubonic plague is what killed most people, with a gas being that 40% of those infected would die, pneumonic plague leads to guaranteed fatality.
最致命的后果来自第三种情况。如果耶西尼亚到达通向肺部的公路，那么受害者将开始产生痰液。当痰液中积累了血液时，感染就从腺鼠疫变成了肺鼠疫。这意味着受害者的唾液滴是有传染性的，可以感染在2米范围内的人。肺鼠疫的死亡率为100%。虽然腺鼠疫是导致大多数人死亡的原因，但感染者中有40%会死亡，而肺鼠疫则会导致必然的死亡。
Like the zombie fiction which gives this episode its title, victims of the plague were unknowingly breathing a death sentence onto the loved ones who gathered around them. The tiny particles would be absorbed slowly by the unwitting victim who might then spend the best part of a month thinking themselves immune before suddenly Yassinia had replicated enough to attack. So that's what was going on in the body.
就像这集名为“僵尸小说”的剧集一样，瘟疫的受害者无意中对聚集在身边的亲人呼吸了一种死亡判决。这些微小的颗粒会被无意识的受害者慢慢吸收，然后可能会认为自己免疫，并花费大部分月份，而突然之间，雅西尼亚已经复制了足够的数量来攻击。所以，这就是人体内发生的事情。
In the Byzantine Empire and beyond, I assume you can now build up a picture of how the disease spread. The diet of ratus ratus requires a good deal of water, so the rats were big fans of anywhere that was damp and had lots of food. The Nile Valley, Palusium and Alexandria were all ideal homes for the rat. And noble, Antioch and any other major city with a good source of water would do just as well.
在拜占庭帝国及其它地方，我相信你现在能够想象出这个疾病是如何传播的了。黑鼠的饮食需要大量水分，因此它们非常喜欢湿润且食物充足的地方。尼罗河谷、帕卢西姆和亚历山大港都是黑鼠理想的栖息地。而贵族、安条克以及任何拥有良好水源的主要城市也同样适合黑鼠生存繁衍。
Many diseases might flare up dramatically in one city, but having killed off so many potential hosts they would burn themselves out. And given the ancient world's slow travelling speed, most diseases would never make it all the way to a neighbouring province. This is why the plague attacking the Byzantine Empire is what turned the outbreak into a pandemic.
许多疾病在一个城市可能会突然爆发，并杀死许多潜在宿主，它们也会烧完自己。而且，由于古代世界旅行速度缓慢，大多数疾病永远不会传播到相邻的省份。这就是为什么袭击拜占庭帝国的瘟疫成为了大流行病的原因。
Once Yassinia had killed off all the susceptible Egyptians it could find, it may well have died out before the very slow caravan routes carried it out towards Libya or in the other direction towards Palestine. But fortunately for Yassinia, the Roman fleet was as good as any flea. The ships which set off from Alexandria in Spring 542 carried rat, flea and bacteria on ships filled to the brim with grain. A moving food hall to keep the rats alive and ready to spread their disease to the rats of the capital and its people. To add another gross thought to the legions conjured up already, the piles of dead bodies only provided a fresh source of food for the rats who could then go on providing incubation for more plague.
一旦Yassinia杀光了所有易感染的埃及人，它有可能在运往利比亚或向巴勒斯坦的缓慢的商队路线之前就灭亡了。但Yassinia很幸运，罗马舰队就像跳蚤一样良好。542年春天从亚历山大港开出的船只上装满了谷物、老鼠、跳蚤和细菌。这些机动的餐厅为老鼠提供了食物，让它们存活并传播疾病给首都的老鼠和人。除了已经提到的军队以外，死亡的尸体成了老鼠的新鲜食物，它们可以持续提供瘟疫的温床。
Once it reached New Shores, Yassinia was able to spread slowly inland. One by one towns would be visited and Yassinia burst to life again, feasting on untested victims. Areas which avoided the plague in the early years would be found sometime later, and major cities like Constantinople and Antioch would be revisited multiple times, usually with 15 or 20 year gaps, so that a whole generation of children would have grown up with no acquired immunity to the disease. Round and round Yassinia would go, always capable of killing thousands, so long as new humans arrived, who could be infected.
一旦到达新海岸，亚西尼亚便能够缓慢地向内陆扩散。一个个城镇会被访问，亚西尼亚再次繁荣起来，以未受过考验的牺牲品为食。那些在早年避免瘟疫的区域，也会在稍后被发现，并且像君士坦丁堡和安条克这样的大城市会被多次重访，通常会间隔15到20年，这样整整一代孩子就没有获得对该疾病的免疫力。亚西尼亚会不断周而复始，只要有可以被感染的新人类到来，就能够杀死成千上万的人。
Initially, Kusro was able to continue the war with Byzantium and retreat whenever the plague broke out in a nearby town. The Persians had limited trade between the empires to designated cities, like Nisbis. This kept the Sassanids away from the plague temporarily. But once it broke through, Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates providing a wonderful home for rats, was devastated. One chronicler notes that all was famine, madness, and fury. The few areas to avoid large-scale destruction were those where rats would not want to live. Mainly mountainous highland or desert. Wherever water and human garbage were hard to come by. We will explore this as we go on, but once more I am sure you can see the significance of a plague which repeatedly decimated those living in cities, while the Arabs out in the desert or the bulgars of the steppe were far less affected. In the next episode we will encounter such a scenario when the moors of Africa returned to the offensive.
开始时，库斯罗仍能够与拜占庭帝国进行战争，并在附近城镇爆发瘟疫时撤退。波斯人将帝国间的贸易限制在特定城市，比如尼斯比斯，这暂时将萨珊王朝与瘟疫隔离开来。但一旦瘟疫突破了隔离区，底格里斯和幼发拉底河提供了老鼠理想的栖息地，美索不达米亚遭到了极大的破坏。一位编年史学者指出，饥荒、疯狂和愤怒笼罩着整个地区。少数幸免于难的地方是老鼠不愿居住的地方，主要是山区或沙漠地带，水和人类垃圾都很少。随着我们的探索不断深入，我相信你可以看到这场瘟疫的重要性，它一再摧毁那些生活在城市中的人，而生活在沙漠或草原上的阿拉伯人或保加尔人则受到的影响较小。在下一集中，我们将遇到这样的情况，当非洲的摩尔人再次发起攻势时。
We've seen what the disease did. We've seen what it was doing on the inside. We've looked at how it spread. But what about the question why now? Was this simply the moment when Yassinia had developed the ability to kill rats in large numbers? Or were other factors at play? The question is still open as to where exactly the deadly strain of Yassinia learned its trade.
我们已经看到这种疾病造成了什么影响，我们已经看到它在内部正在做些什么，我们已经研究了它的传播方式。但是，现在的问题是为什么？这是否只是 Yassinia 发展出了大规模杀死老鼠能力的时刻？还是其他因素在起作用？至于致命的 Yassinia 品系到底从何处学来了这一技能，问题仍然存在。
In his excellent book, Justinian's Flea, William Rosen puts together fairly convincing conjecture about the origins of the plague. He points out that Zenopsylliciosis, the Flea in question, prefers a dry warm environment of around 20-25 degrees centigrade or 68-77 Fahrenheit. As with several other diseases, Rosen assumes that Yassinia originated around the mouth of the Nile, where many of the great African lakes are. This would have provided a comfortable home for rat, flea and bacteria, but kept it away from any large-scale human settlements.
在威廉·罗森的出色书籍《贾斯汀尼安的跳蚤》中，他对瘟疫的起源提出了相当有说服力的猜测。他指出，问题中的跳蚤Zenopsylliciosis喜欢干燥温暖的环境，温度约为摄氏20-25度或华氏68-77度。与其他几种疾病一样，罗森认为，Yassinia源于尼罗河口附近，那里有许多伟大的非洲湖泊。这为老鼠、跳蚤和细菌提供了一个舒适的家，但它远离任何大规模的人类定居点。
The question is how did it get all the way up the Nile to Egypt, and then why jump to the human population at that moment? The Flea would not enjoy the hotter temperatures of the desert environment of Egypt, which would have normally prevented any journey that far north. What it would need to make such a jump would be several years of lower average temperatures. Like the sort that might occur if the sun gave forth its light without brightness, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse for the beams it shed were not clear.
问题是它是怎么从尼罗河一路到埃及的，然后为什么在那个时刻跳到人类人口上呢？跳蚤不喜欢埃及的沙漠环境中更热的温度，这通常会阻止任何那么远的旅程。它需要几年的低平均温度才能进行这样的跳跃。就像如果太阳发出的光线没有亮度，看起来非常像日食的样子，它所散发的光线不清晰。
Those were the words of Procopius, who says that between 536 and 538, summers were colder, because something was blocking the sun. As I said in episode 25, the two most likely explanations for a dust avail that could cover the whole earth for two years would be a comet or meteor strike, or a huge volcanic explosion. Through dendocrinology, or the study of tree rings, we have evidence suggesting that during this period a very real drop in temperature occurred.
这是普罗科比乌斯的话，他说536年到538年之间夏天变得更寒冷了，因为有些东西挡住了太阳。正如我在第25集中所说，能够覆盖整个地球两年的尘埃的最有可能的两种解释是彗星或陨石撞击，或巨大的火山爆发。通过树轮学，我们有证据表明在这个时期确实发生了温度下降。
Could it have been enough to entice rats and fleas north toward Palusium? Could the lower temperatures in fact encourage an explosion in the rat population, as the colonies of Egypt reveled in the cooler conditions? An explosion in susceptible rats, of course, would be just what Yosinia was looking for, and as it began a great call of the unsuspecting rodents, the Flea would have been forced to look elsewhere for something to bite and landed on the ankles of that sailor in the harbor of Palusium.
它足以引诱老鼠和跳蚤南北迁移至帕卢斯半岛吗？实际上，更低的温度是否会促进老鼠数量的爆发，因为埃及殖民地沉溺于更凉爽的气候？当然，易感老鼠数量的激增正是Yosinia所期望的，并且当它开始呼唤无所警觉的啮齿动物时，跳蚤将不得不寻找其他东西咬，落在帕卢斯半岛港口的那位水手的脚踝上。
It's a good theory, one that it's very hard to prove, but which fits the fact sufficiently to offer us an educated guess about the origins of the plague. In David Kees's book Catastrophe, he argues for an explosion of the Sumatran volcano Cracatoa, as the source of the dust veil.
这是一个很好的理论，虽然难以证明，但足以使我们对瘟疫起源的推测得以提供教育性的猜测。在大卫·基斯的书《灾难》中，他认为苏门答腊的克拉卡托火山爆发是尘埃面纱的来源。
He may well be right, but personally I'm attracted by the idea that a body from beyond the heavens struck the earth. That it was something extraterrestrial that ended up causing the plague which would devastate the Roman Empire. The Empire would never recover the strength it had in Justinian's early years, and the Eastern provinces, as you know, were destined to be conquered by the Arabs. But what if none of that was meant to be? What if the volcanic explosion had never happened or the comet had missed the earth? Would Justinian have crushed the remaining Goths, seen off the Persians and gone on to conquer Spain and leave a Roman Empire that would fight on for centuries more? It's fun to speculate.
他也许是对的，但是我个人被一个从天外降落的身体撞击地球的想法所吸引。这是一些外星物体导致了将毁灭罗马帝国的瘟疫。帝国将永远无法恢复在朱斯蒂尼安早年的强大实力，而你知道，东部省份注定要被阿拉伯人征服。但如果所有这些都没有发生呢？如果火山爆发从未发生或彗星错过地球怎么办？朱斯蒂尼安会击败剩下的哥特人，抵挡波斯人并继续征服西班牙，留下一个持续数个世纪的罗马帝国吗？这种推测很有趣。
The final word on the plague is its name. The Black Death is such a catchy title and is both more recent and more devastating that it tends to hog the headlines when it comes to human pandemics. Our plague, unfaily or not, has conventionally been called the Justinianic plague, or the plague of Justinian. Name for the Roman Emperor who strived so hard to be great and was so horrifically surprised by this turn of events.
瘟疫的最终定义在于它的名字。黑死病这个响亮的标题由于近代以及造成的破坏更甚，往往是人类大流行病的中心，吸引了众多注意力。无论公平与否，我们的瘟疫惯常被叫作贾斯汀尼安瘟疫，或者是贾斯汀尼安的瘟疫。这个名字取自为成为卓越大帝而不遗余力的罗马皇帝，他却遭受了这样残酷的意外。
The plague certainly defines the Emperor more than any other man, and there's a real irony that for all his lore books and the cities and army detachments and the like which he named after himself, that it's Yassinia Pestis that will be known by his name to future generations. Next week we go back to politics and see what happened while Theodora was left in charge of the Empire and the wars in Italy, Africa and Persia roll on. Despite the apocalypse unfolding around them, the Byzantines kept on fighting.
瘟疫肯定比任何其他人更能定义这位皇帝，真正的讽刺是，尽管他给自己命名了大量的学术书籍、城市和军队，但未来的世代将以他的名字知道鼠疫。下周我们会回到政治上，看看当西奥多拉负责帝国和战争在意大利、非洲和波斯持续时发生了什么。尽管末日正在他们周围展开，拜占庭人仍在奋勇战斗。
Next week is also the episode I'm using to raise funds for the future of the history of Byzantium. It will be on sale at thehistoryofbizantium.com for either $5 or any amount above that you'd like to donate. And in case anyone is still in any doubt, two weeks after that episode 29 will be back on the free feed as normal and so will episode 31 and so on. I think I'll leave this episode there for now though.
下周也是我用来为拜占廷历史的未来筹集资金的一集。你可以在thehistoryofbizantium.com以5美元的价格购买，或捐赠任意数额。如果有人仍然有疑虑，两周后的第29集将恢复免费播放，第31集等等也是。但我现在要把这一集留在这里了。
Reading constantly about the plague for several weeks leaves you feeling kind of itchy. So I will release another podcast in the middle of next week to explain what you need to do to buy episode 28. I will make it as simple as possible and I'm hugely grateful to all of you who've been so supportive. Again you can find me at thehistoryofbizantium at gmail.com or on the Facebook page.
连续几周阅读瘟疫的文章，让你感觉有点痒痒的。因此，下周中旬，我将发布另一个播客，解释如何购买第28集。我会尽可能地让它简单易懂，非常感激一直支持我的所有人。你可以在我的电子邮件 thehistoryofbizantium@gmail.com 或者脸书页面上找到我。