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Infant Mortality and Childbirth in Ancient Greece and Rome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In Ancient Greece and Rome, as in virtually all other societies before the eighteenth century, the most common cause of death was complications owing to childbirth and infancy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Natal complications and weak immune systems during infancy led to large numbers of deaths either in the first year of a child\u2019s life or, to a lesser extent, in the first ten years of life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An estimated 25% to 30% of all children died in the first year of life. This fact meant that parents generally had to accept in fourth century BC Athens or first century BC Rome that if they had six children, two would not survive past infancy, and a third would probably die before reaching adulthood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After that, mortality risks declined considerably. This pattern held in medieval and early modern Europe. Child mortality continued to be very high until the advent of various medical interventions beginning in the late eighteenth century, most notably vaccines and the ability to intervene in complicated pregnancies through surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plague and Disease in the Ancient World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The same things which killed children also killed adults. Diseases such as measles and smallpox were highly virulent in the adult population of both Ancient Greece and Rome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They killed many people, though less so than in child populations who were more susceptible to such illnesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For instance, the Antonine Plague of 165 AD to 180 AD, and the Plague of Cyprian, which ravaged the Roman Empire between 249 AD and 262 AD, were believed to have been caused either by smallpox or measles or perhaps a combination of the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Antonine Plague killed between five and ten million people across the Empire, or 10-15% of the total population. Estimates of the mortality rate associated with the Plague of Cyprian are more mixed. The Empire was undergoing a profound political and economic crisis during the third century, and demographic data were less clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, at its height, thousands of people were dying in Rome itself every day, and the population of Alexandria in northern Egypt, the second-largest city in the Empire, fell by over 50% between the 240s and the 260s AD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, diseases like these, which are a distant memory in the modern world and are heard of only in so far as people are quickly inoculated against them in one\u2019s infant years, were devastating in ancient times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bacterial Disease<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Other diseases also ran riot in ancient times, but these were bacterial rather than viral. They were brought about because of unsanitary conditions in crowded cities without adequate ways of dispensing waste<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In such conditions, bacteria spread efficiently and could cause epidemics, like viral diseases like smallpox and measles. Such was the case with the Plague of Athens, which struck the Greek city-state in 430 BC during the second year of the Peloponnesian War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was most likely a highly virulent wave of typhus, which killed between 70,000 and 100,000 of the city\u2019s half a million people, including the leading politician of the city at the time, Pericles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other bacterial diseases rampant in the ancient world included cholera and diphtheria, while some were geography and seasonal-specific. Malaria, for instance, was common in the warmer parts of the Roman Empire during the summer months and was a major cause of death in Egypt, North Africa, and the Levant.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWar in the Ancient World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n