The Roman Empire was so crippled by the Antonine Plague that many scholars believe it hastened the empire’s demise.
At the summit of the Antonine Plague , up to 3,000 ancient Romans dropped bushed every unmarried daytime .
The disease was first cited during the reign of the last of the Five Good Emperors , Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , in 165 or 166 A.D. Even though how the pandemic begin remains unknown , one Grecian physician named Galen manage to document the outbreak itself in startling particular .
victim suffered for two weeks from fever , vomiting , thirstiness , cough , and a vain throat . Others experienced red and opprobrious papule on the tegument , dirty breath , and black diarrhoea . almost ten percent of the conglomerate perished this way .
Wikimedia CommonsAn 1820 portrait of Galen, the Greek physician who documented the Antonine Plague.
sleep together as both the Antonine Plague and the Plague of Galen , the pandemic did eventually settle , seemingly as mysteriously as it had total .
The Antonine Plague rendered the conglomerate of Ancient Rome a kind of Hell . Indeed , the most powerful empire of its clip was utterly helpless in the face of this unseeable killer .
The Antonine Plague Spreads Through Ancient Rome
Wikimedia CommonsAn 1820 portrait of Galen , the Hellenic physician who documented the Antonine Plague .
Sourceslargely agreethat the disease first appear in the wintertime of 165 A.D. to 166 A.D. It was the tallness of the Roman Empire .
During a military blockade of the city of Seleucia in innovative - daylight Iraq , papistic soldiery begin to take tone of a disease among the topical anaesthetic and then its own soldiers . They consequently carried that disease with them to Gaul and further legions stationed along the Rhine river , effectively spreading the plague across the empire .
Wikimedia CommonsGalen (top center) and a group of physicians in an image from the sixth-century Greek-Byzantine medical manuscript, Vienna Dioscurides.
Though modern epidemiologist have n’t name where the pest originated , it is believed that the disease in all likelihood developed first in China and was then carry throughout Euroasia by the Roman troops .
There is one ancient legend that set about to describe how the Antonine Plague first infected the Romans . The fable propose that Lucius Verus — a papistic general and later on the co - emperor moth to Marcus Aurelius — opened a tomb during the beleaguering of Seleucia and unwittingly liberated the disease . It was thought that the Romans were being penalize by the Gods for violating an oath they ’d made not to pillage the city of Seleucia .
Meanwhile , the ancient doctor Galen had been away from Rome for two age , and when he returned in 168 A.D. , the city was in ruination . His treatise , Methodus Medendi , describedthe pandemic as great , drawn-out , and extraordinarily distress .
Wikimedia CommonsBoth Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (represented here in a bust from France’s Musée Saint-Raymond) and his co-emperor Lucius Verus may have died from the plague.
Galen also observe victims suffer from fever , diarrhea , a sore throat , and pustular piece all over their tegument . The plague had a mortality pace of 25 percent and survivors developed immunity to it . Others died within two weeks of first demo symptoms .
Wikimedia CommonsGalen ( top core ) and a mathematical group of doctor in an image from the sixth - 100 Greek - knotty medical holograph , Vienna Dioscurides .
“ In those place where it was not ulcerous , the exanthema was rocky and scabby and fell away like some husk and hence all became healthy , ” M.L. and R.J. Littman wrote inThe American Journal of Philologyof the disease .
Wikimedia CommonsThis Roman coin commemorated the victories of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus during the Marcomannic Wars, which lasted from 166 to 180 A.D. — the year he died.
innovative epidemiologists have largely agreed establish on this verbal description that the disease was credibly smallpox .
By the end of the eruption in 180 A.D. , nigh to a third of the conglomerate in some areas , and a total of five million people , had died .
How The Plague Of Galen Wounded The Empire
Wikimedia CommonsBoth Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( represent here in a bust from France ’s Musée Saint - Raymond ) and his co - emperor butterfly Lucius Verus may have died from the plague .
Of the millions that the plague claimed , one of the most famous was co - Emperor Lucius Verus , who rule beside Emperor Antoninus in 169 A.D. Some modern epidemiologists also mull that Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself perished from the disease in 180 A.D.
The Plague of Galen also heavily impacted Rome ’s military , which then consisted of around 150,000 military man . These legionaries caught the disease from their peers returning from the East and their resultant deaths caused a massive shortage in Rome ’s armed services .
As a result , the Saturnia pavonia recruited anyone healthy enough to fight , but the pool was slim considering so many citizens were conk out of the plague themselves . Freed slaves , gladiators , and criminals joined the war machine . This untrained army then later decrease victim to Germanic tribes who were able-bodied to span the Rhine river for the first time in over two 100 .
Wikimedia CommonsThis Roman coin commemorate the triumph of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus during the Marcomannic Wars , which endure from 166 to 180 A.D. — the twelvemonth he died .
With the thriftiness in trouble and foreign assaulter taking clutch , financially asseverate the empire became a serious issue — if not out of the question .
The Aftermath Of The Antonine Plague
unluckily , the Antonine Plague was only the first of three pandemics to destroy the Roman Empire . Two more would be , devastate the economy and United States Army .
The Antonine Plague begat a shortage in the manpower and a stagnant economic system . Floundering trade meant few taxes to confirm the Department of State . The emperor , meanwhile , blamed Christians for the pandemic , as they supposedly failed to praise the Gods and subsequently enraged them enough to let loose the disease .
Christianity , however , actually garnered popularity during this crisis . Christians were among the few willing to take in those suffer from or left indigent by the plague . Christianity was thus able to emerge as the singular and official faith of the empire following the pestilence .
As people from high classes fall to humbled ones , the country experienced collective anxiety about their own stations . This was antecedently impossible to those entrench in Roman exceptionalism .
Ironically , it was the empire ’s expansive reach and efficient trade routes that facilitated the spread of the plague . Well - link and overcrowded cities once hailed as the image of culture quickly became the epicenters for disease transmission . In the end , the Antonine Plague was only a harbinger of two more pandemic — and the demise of the braggy imperium the globe had ever seen .
After learn about the Antonine Plague of Ancient Rome , explorethe terrific but necessary job of a gothic pestis doctor . Then , learn abouthistory ’s most notorious infestation and why it ’s been tormenting humanity for way longer than we think .
