Fleas have stained the pages of history with blood, wrecked empires, defeated armies, and pushed civilization back three hundred years. They are the victor of many conquests, and the first of those conquests was that of the Roman Empire, for it was the flea who was in part responsible for the decline of that most powerful of all empires. Fleas carried within their bodies the deadly bubonic plague. Where the rats were, the fleas were. And where the fleas were, there was death.