The Antonine Plague

How a Pandemic Destroyed Rome's Economy & Belief Structures

This essay is part of a series comparing the twilights of (1) Rome's slave-based economic system and (2) the Middle Ages' feudal system to (3) today's capitalism. In addition to the broad life cycles of these economic systems, we'll compare similarities between infectious diseases and communication technology across all three eras. Finally, we'll see how belief systems rise and fall in tandem with these broad economic systems. When economic systems seize up and stop functioning, people begin to question and expose authority of all kinds, leading to the collapse of bedrock conceptions of reality itself.

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Introduction

If it were not for the Black Death, the Antonine Plague might be the best-known pandemic in history. It tore through the Roman Empire between AD 165 and 180. This plague was either smallpox or measles, and it ripped through the whole Empire with terrifying speed. The Antonine Plague marked a significant turning point in Roman history. It crippled the Roman economy and, by destroying public faith in the old pagan religious authorities, led to the rise of Christianity.

The Plague & The Economy

The Antonine Plague is estimated to have killed 10–15% of the Roman population. This demographic shock greatly impacted the labor force. The death toll left many cities underpopulated, and the shortage of workers caused an acute economic contraction. It also led to a sharp decline in tax revenues as agricultural production and trade were disrupted.

The fiscal strain created by this crisis forced the Empire to raise taxes and debase their currency, leading to inflation similar to that which we recently experienced during COVID. Furthermore, the lack of tax revenue and people made it impossible to maintain the military Rome needed to defend its vast Empire. These economic challenges were never fully resolved; they laid the groundwork for further economic instability and, eventually, the collapse of Roman civilization on the Italian peninsula.

The Plague & Belief Structures

The Antonine Plague coincided with the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher-emperor. The crisis shaped his book Meditations, which reflects on mortality and the fragility of life. It's no coincidence that this book is gaining popularity again after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since there was no separation between church and state in Roman times, the political and religious authorities were one and the same. And everyone could see that they were powerless to stop the plague. The sheer volume of suffering, death, and economic chaos caused Roman citizens to begin looking for explanations and hope outside the traditional Roman state religion. With its message of salvation and eternal life, Christianity offered comfort to those disillusioned by the failure of the old Roman gods to protect them. The Antonine Plague was a significant cause of Rome abandoning its ancestral religion and embracing Christianity.

1,200 years later, the Black Death caused a similar crisis of faith. By then, the Roman Catholic Church had calcified into a rigid authority. And, like the Roman authorities who had preceded them, it was utterly powerless to stop the plague. People lost faith in authority, and the Renaissance and the Reformation were the ultimate results.

Additionally, during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, large swaths of the population lost faith in our modern institutions of authority. Though the death toll was minute compared to the Black Death or the Antonine Plague, the damage to trust in authority was every bit as significant. The consequences will be as historically important as the Black Death or the Antonine Plague.

Conclusion

The Antonine Plague marked a significant turning point in the history of the Roman Empire, with long-lasting effects on its population, economy, military, and social structures. The demographic and economic toll of the plague strained the Empire in ways that caused its long-term decline. It played a critical role in exposing and exacerbating the vulnerabilities that led to the rise of Christianity and the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West.

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Further Materials

The Book of Revelation forecast these four plagues as punishment for the greed and inequity into which the Roman Empire was falling. By Late Roman times there seemed no alternative to the Dark Age that was descending. Recovery of a more equitable past seemed politically hopeless, and so was idealized as occurring only by divine intervention at the end of history. Yet for thousands of years, economic polarization was reversed by cancelling debts and restoring land tenure to smallholders who cultivated the land, fought in the army, paid taxes and/or performed corvée labor duties. That also would be Byzantine policy to avoid polarization from the 7th through 10th centuries, echoing Babylonia’s royal proclamation of clean slates.
Michael Hudson, The Collapse of Antiquity, 2023

Lucius brought with him the invisible victor of the war—pestilence. It had appeared first among the troops of Avidius in captured Seleucia; it spread so rapidly that he withdrew his army into Mesopotamia, while the Parthians rejoiced at the vengeance of their gods. The retreating legions carried the plague with them to Syria; Lucius took some of these soldiers to Rome to march in his triumph; they infected every city through which they passed and every region of the Empire to which they were later assigned. The ancient historians tell us more of its ravages than of its nature; their descriptions suggest exanthematous typhus or possibly bubonic plague. Galen thought it similar to the disease that had wasted the Athenians under Pericles: in both cases black pustules almost covered the body, the victim was racked with a hoarse cough, and his "breath stank." Rapidly it swept through Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, Italy, and Gaul; within a year (166-67) it had killed more men than had been lost in the war. In Rome 2000 died of it in one day, including many of the aristocracy; corpses were carried out of the city in heaps. Marcus, helpless before this intangible enemy, did all he could to mitigate the evil; but the medical science of his day could offer him no guidance, and the epidemic ran its course until it had established an immunity or had killed all its carriers. The effects were endless. Many localities were so despoiled of population that they reverted to jungle or desert, food production fell, transport was disorganized, floods destroyed great quantities of grain, and famine succeeded plague. The happy hilaritas that had marked the beginning of Marcus' reign vanished; men yielded to a bewildered pessimism, flocked to soothsayers and oracles, clouded the altars with incense and sacrifice, and sought consolation where alone it was offered them—in the new religions of personal immortality and heavenly peace.
Will & Ariel Durant, Caesar & Christ, 1944, Page 428