Marcus Aurelius ve Lucius Verus Dönemlerinde M.S. 165-180 Yılları Arasında Görülen Büyük Salgın

A pandemic began to occur in Nisibis in AD 165 during the Parthian expedition, which began in AD 162 under the command of Lucius Verus. Military troops which had their headquarters stationed in the Balkans and in the European regions of the empire, were involved in the Parthian expedition and suffered under this pandemic. The epidemic then moved further into Europe and even to Britannia, as the soldiers who had participated in the expedition from AD 162 to AD 166 later returned to their headquarters at the borders of the Rhine and Danube. The losses which occurred as a result of the epidemic in the period of Marcus Aurelius were not exaggerated. The death toll was very high and the population structure within the borders of the empire was significantly affected. The destruction caused by the disease continued for years, as stated in the sources of the period. According to these sources, the disease even spread to the Barbaricum region outside the borders of Rome and also continued during the period of Commodus who reigned immediately after his father Marcus Aurelius. Neither the epidemic which had occurred in 430-429 BC in the vicinity of Athens, nor that of AD 248 in Rome (also called Decius or Kyprianos), spread to such a vast area as the pandemic of AD 165, and the death toll of these other epidemics was not as high as that of AD 165. By comparison, the Plague of Justinianus in the 6th century spread in waves and caused many deaths for years. Like the plagues of the medieval period it changed the populational structure of the world. In the 19th century ancient historians argued that the destructive effect of the pandemic of Marcus Aurelius’ era, also known as “The Antoninus Epidemic”, caused the political, military and economic crisis that the Roman Empire faced in the 3rd century and it could even be interpreted as the end of Antiquity. However, there were other reasons for this crisis in the 3rd century, and it is notable that the negative effects of the pandemic were mainly seen in the second half of the 2nd century.