In the Plague of Justinian, one also hears for the first time a sound that becomes overpowering during the medieval pestilence: the sound of human beings drowning in death. “At the outset of this great misfortune,” wrote a lawyer named Evagrius, “I lost many of my children, my wife and other relatives and numerous estate dwellers and servants. . . . As I write this in the 58th year of my life . . . I [have recently] lost another daughter and the son she has produced quite apart from other losses.”
