[Rockhounds] Volcanic Eruption in Alaska May Have Sparked Political Turmoil in Ancient Rome

[Dora Smith]

I'd appreciate it if anyone can send me a copy of this article. It 
requires a subscription.

I have to say, though, that what I'll be looking for is there was an 
eruption that mattered.   It hasn't attracted attention until now.  
Neither has massive signs of climate instability in the time of Julius 
Caesar.    The Roman empire was outstandingly successful and growing in 
that time.

Julius Caesar's assassination was part of purely political fireworks 
involved in the transition from republic to empire. Caesar was an 
emperor in all but name, and a lot of people wanted to keep the republic.

It had more to do with Rome's military and imperial ambitions and 
changing structure than the climate.   The events after 537 AD were much 
more global with far more evidence of some possible mechanisms 
underlying it.  We know there was plague, and everything fell apart at 
once.   Tehre was evidence of climate upheaval.  And it wasn't hard to 
find suspect volcanoes.

In this case, the abstract gave the impression that here's a volcano, 
now what do we make of it.

Yours,

Dora Smith


On 6/24/20 5:16 PM, Kreigh Tomaszewski wrote:
> An unusually powerful volcanic eruption in 43 BCE has been linked to
> political upheaval on the other side of the globe, including the fall of
> the Roman Republic and the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
>
> Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of rebellious senators in 44 BCE,
> triggering a chain of events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic
> and the Ptolemaic Kingdom (a long standing Egyptian dynasty) and the rise
> of the Roman Empire. These historic political events were set against a
> backdrop of environmental and social instability, including unusually cold
> and wet weather, crop failures, famine, and disease.
>
> New research <https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/17/2002722117>
> published
> this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has identified
> a potential catalyst for these events: the eruption of Okmok volcano in
> Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Historians had previously suspected a volcano,
> but the new research finally identifies the offending culprit, which
> erupted 2,063 years ago. The evidence points to a particularly powerful
> eruption, which had a dramatic effect on the Mediterranean climate and
> quite possibly its political climate as well.
>
> https://gizmodo.com/volcanic-eruption-in-alaska-may-have-sparked-political-1844147367
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