Endnote 1 – Classical Corner: The Antonine Plague and the Spread of Christianity

This modern term for the second-century plague in Rome comes from the dynastic name of the emperors at the time. Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperor Lucius Verrus were both members of the Antonine family. Because of Galen’s surviving case notes that documented the symptoms of the disease, the epidemic is sometimes referred to as the “Plague of Galen.”