1. Brief presentation of the crisis

The biennial famine that afflicted Edessa between the years 499/500 and 502 was the result of various destructive factors: the raid of a huge swarm of locusts at first, then the continuous climatic anomalies and, finally, the outbreak of an epidemic disease. The number of victims was great, since the impact of the crisis was felt not only in the city of Edessa but to the whole surrounding area.

2. The famine: onset - aggravation - recovery

Everything started in March of 499/500 when an unusually large number of locusts incubated, started infecting the area stretching from the coasts of the Mediterranean until Western Armenia. The fact immediatly resulted to the ruination of the crop of grain, which consequently caused an apeak increase in the prices. The menace of the famine forced the financially weaker into selling their possessions and into beggary.

Gradually a lot of people abandoned these regions, whereas all those, who due to age lacked the strength required, migrated massively to the cities, mainly Edessa. The abrupt increase of the population combined with the ongoing famine aggravated the miserable standard of living in the city. People bedevilled by the famine, resourced to the consumption of inedible food, which hastened massive fatality.

Meanwhile, the unfavorable climatic conditions caused a further disintegration of the situation. The cold and the frost during winter caused the death of a great number of homeless refugees, whereas the hot wind and the drought, that prevailed during the period of harvest, resulted into its destruction, prolonging the lack of food and intensifying the famine. The prices of grain rose to about 650%; meanwhile an epidemic broke out in the area, which also contributed to the increase of mortality. Although we do not know the disease that afflicted the area, it is possible that it was an epidemic of the same kind of small-pox which had broken out a few years earlier and had infested a great part of the population.

In May 502, more than two years after the eruption of the crisis, the famine reached its end thanks to a good harvest.

3. Victims - confrontation

The exact number of the victims was not documented, the basic, however, source for these events, Joshua the Stylite, informs us that in the period between November of 500 and March of 501 approximately 17,000 people lost their lives.¹ The inhabitants of Edessa, under the supervision of the metropolitan Nonnus, assumed the responsibility for the care of the diseased and the burial of the numerous dead. Improvised clinics and dormitories for the homeless were erected in the streets and the city baths, whereas older tombs were opened in order to house the unprecedented number of corpses.
On the behalf of the imperial government the measures against the crisis were not drastic. During the first phase of the crisis, during the spring of 499/500, the emperor Anastasios I (491-518) offered nothing but an incosiderable amount of money in order to assist the suffering people of Edessa. A few months later, when the situation was already out of control, Anastasios appeared more generous and offered a large amount of money to the city, which was used by the governor of the province of Osrhoene into suppling the starving people with bread. Nevertheless this measure did not work since during the same period an abrupt rise of mortality was documented. The measure taken by the emperor shortly before the end of the crisis is also noteworthy: within a decree he banned the celebration of the pagan ceremonies in honour of Adonis, connoting that the worship of the ancient deity had angered the God of the Christians, and resulted into the appearance of the scourge.