Main description (English)

This territorial scope allows us to range from the Tyrrhenian coast to the Tiber Valley, engaging with environmental and cultural contexts that anticipate the birth of the Maremma and that provide the first evidence of epidemic outbreaks in the inland areas. Across a wide period extending from the great plague of 165-167 A.D. to the epidemic that struck Rome in 590, the East is always described as the area of genesis. The myth of lands condemned to malaria, endemic since Alaric’s exploits with the rise of ‘fake news’, is here countered by a centuries-old ‘culture of marshes’, a more realistic evaluation of local outbreaks (prodigia and portenta) and an understanding of these phenomena in their relative scope and gravity. Only through a new analysis of literary and archaeological sources is it possible to debunk commonplaces about crises and abandonment and comprehend the real factors of transformation of the territory in the face of ongoing climate change.