You couldn’t make this stuff up even if you tried.

A plague that ravaged through Roman Italy has been linked to extreme temperature drops in the region, scientists say.

The Justinian Plague—the first recorded wave of bubonic plague to spread through Europe—is thought to have begun in the year 541 CE in Lower Egypt. Within months, it had spread across the Mediterranean in ships to the center of the empire in Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul. From there, the plague raged on until 590 CE, killing as many as 10,000 people a day at its peak.

By the time the plague had run its course, nearly half of the population of Constantinople had died, as well as about a third of the population of Europe.

Now, this was not the first plague during the Roman period. Indeed, the Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 CE and the Plague of Cyprian from 251 to 266 CE also devastated the Roman population. And, according to new research from the universities of Bremen and Oklahoma, these plagues all had one thing in common: they were linked to a changing climate.

The empire that brought civilization to Europe with numerous innovations, such as roads and even sanitation, collapsed because of plagues brough on by climate change resulting from human activity? Seriously?

Its more like there was a trend from the warming period when the Romans were at the apex of their empire’s height and the coming transition to a cooling trend resulting in an ice age that took place during Late Antiquty (a.k.a. the Little Ice Age). But everyone should remain scared because our impending doom is near unless we change course. Look at what happened to the Romans.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay