Antonine Plague

The Antonine Plague AD 165-180, also known as the Plague of Galen, was an ancient pandemic, either of smallpox or measles brought back to the Roman Empire by troops returning from campaigns in the Near East. The epidemic claimed the lives of two Roman emperors ? Lucius Verus, who died in 169, and his co-regent who ruled until 180, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whose family name, Antoninus, was given to the epidemic. The disease broke out again nine years later, according to the Roman historian Dio Cassius, and caused up to 2,000 deaths a day at Rome, one quarter of those infected. Total deaths have been estimated at five million.

Reference

• Marcus Aurelius, ?Meditations? - IX.2. Translation and Introduction by Maxwell Staniforth, Penguin, New York. 1981.
• McNeill, William H. "Plagues and Peoples." Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., New York, NY, 1976, ISBN 0-385-12122-9.
• Zinsser, Hans. ?Rats, Lice and History: A Chronicle of Disease, Plagues, and Pestilence.? Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 1996. ISBN 1884822479.