Rome evolved its own plauges, which is the central thesis of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome.

I've come to the view that any networked system will co-evolve pathologies which are fitted to that network's specific niche: cities, civilisations, transportation systems, communications systems, social networks, etc., etc.

One challenge is that the growth of such systems occurs in the absence of such pathologies. When they do emerge, things often become quite ugly.