Antonine Plague
An epidemic, probably of smallpox, brought back by the army from the Parthian war swept through the empire, killing an estimated 5–10 million people — perhaps a tenth of the population.
- Date
- 165–180year known · duration: ≈ 15 years
- Place
- Rometoday: Rome, Italy · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius, Galen
- Threads
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
- Also known as
- Plague of Galen; Чума Галена
The disease is thought to have appeared among the troops of Lucius Verus at the siege of Seleucia on the Tigris in the winter of 165–166 and to have spread with the returning army to Rome and the western provinces. Galen, who witnessed an outbreak among soldiers at Aquileia in 168/169, described its fever, rash and diarrhoea. The co-emperor Lucius Verus died in 169, probably of the disease, and Marcus Aurelius’s death in 180 has also been attributed to it; a new outbreak in 189 killed, according to Cassius Dio, up to 2,000 people a day in Rome.
The identification with smallpox is widely accepted but not certain, and the death toll is only an estimate. Losses in the army and among taxpayers came just as the Marcomannic Wars began, and some historians see the plague as the beginning of the empire’s long crisis.
Connections
Related events
- Marcomannic Wars166–180 · Western and Central Europethe plague struck the army as the wars began
- Plague of Justinian541–549 · Balkans and AnatoliaThe two great pandemics of the Roman world
Same participants
- Hadrian’s Wall122 – c. 128 · Western and Central Europevia Roman Empire
Same place
- Great Fire of Rome19 July 64 – c. 27 July 64 · Western and Central Europe
- Inauguration of the Colosseum80 · Western and Central Europe
- Constitutio Antoniniana212 · Western and Central Europe
- Crisis of the Third CenturyMarch 235 – 20 November 284 · Western and Central Europe
- Aurelian Walls271–275 · Western and Central Europe
- Battle of the Milvian Bridge28 October 312 · Western and Central Europe
- Sack of Rome by the Visigoths24–27 August 410 · Western and Central Europe
- Vandal sack of Rome2–16 June 455 · Western and Central Europe
- Gothic War (535–554)535–554 · Western and Central Europe
- Coronation of Charlemagne25 December 800 · Western and Central Europe
- Imperial coronation of Otto I2 February 962 · Western and Central Europe
- Fourth Council of the Lateran11–30 November 1215 · Western and Central Europe
- “Summa Theologica” by Thomas Aquinas1265–1274 · Western and Central Europe
- Sack of Rome (1527)6 May 1527 · Western and Central Europe
Adjacent events in the thread
- Ptolemy’s Almagestc. 150 · Middle East and Egypt
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- The Goths settle in Oiumc. 180 – c. 230
- Kyiv culturec. 200 – between 400 and 430
- Chernyakhov culturebetween 200 and 250 – between 400 and 430
- Zarubintsy culturec. 200 BC – c. 200
Middle East and Egypt
- Ptolemy’s Almagestc. 150
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Antonine Plague
- Wikipedia (Russian): Антонинова чума
- Harper K. The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. — Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.
- Wikidata: Q599141