Dan Snow's History Hit - Lessons from the Antonine Plague

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

A plague which affects people from across society, the mass exodus from city centres and numerous opinions on how best to stay well ... all familiar to people today, but also to the people of the 2nd century AD. In this fascinating chat with Dr Nick Summerton, from our sibling podcast The Ancients, we explore the causes and effects of the Antonine Plague, the guides to healthy living from Galen, Marcus Aurelius and Aristides, and whether there are overlaps with the current situation. Nick is a practicing doctor and is the author of ‘Greco-Roman Medicine and What it Can Teach Us Today', published by Pen & Sword.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. That sound you hear in the background of this is the real world. I am out. I'm out of lockdown. And I'm standing on the east bank of the River Mersey, the giant chocolate brown river easing its way out towards the Irish Sea. On the other side, the Wirral. I'm probably only a few miles away from where the army of Athelstan crushed that awesome coalition of Vikings and other forces assorted from around the isles to establish the supremacy of Wessex on this island. I'm sitting under my favourite statue

in Liverpool, not of the Beatles, surprisingly enough, but of Frederick Walker aka Johnny Walker, the most successful anti-submarine warfare commander during the battle of britain he won not one not two but three dsos distinguished service orders in his tireless battle against u-boats during the second world war a battle that would eventually destroy his health and kill him over Over on the river, the famous ferry on the Mersey has just left. I've been watching it. Its name is Snowdrop, so I'm clinging to my phone on which I'm recording this with my sweaty hands, making sure it does not join thousands of years of archaeology on the bed of the Mersey. I'm here in Liverpool because we're

making our massive anniversary documentary about Bismarck. Next month is the 80th anniversary of that extraordinary confrontation in the North Atlantic, which I have to say, folks, I've always known about. But now that we're researching and making this documentary for History at TV, I'm particularly excited about it. I don't want to in any way belittle the suffering, the terror of the people involved, but it is one of the most remarkable stories, simply put the war at sea in the second world war the near misses the ups the downs what was at stake quite extraordinary so i'm here in liverpool we're beginning filming

on that that will be on history here i'm probably not going to tell you but i am it'll be on history hit dot tv next month one of our most ambitious documentaries yet really excited about that please head over there and subscribe but i'm really should be telling you about what this podcast is about so here goes it is a crossover episode from our sibling podcast the ancients the tristorian will be a big favorite of all of yours now and in this podcast he is talking to dr nick summerton they're talking about a plague which affects people right across society caused a big movement of people out of city centres a huge amount of discussion and opinions some well informed others

poorly informed about how to avoid catching it i am of course talking about the plague of the second century a.d the so-called antonine plague i thought this was such a fascinating episode i want to put this one out on my feed i hope you all enjoy enjoy it. If you want to hear more of the ancients, you can just do that wherever you get your pod. Type the ancients in and you'll come up with Tristan's brilliant podcast. Huge numbers of people downloading that. It's great to see.

Thank you for supporting it. And so now, without further ado, I give you Tristan and Dr. Nick talking about the plague. Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show thank you very much now first of all thank you so much for your time because actually you're a doctor and you have been on the front line during this pandemic yeah yes i've had a number of roles that i've undertaken i've started off as a gp i evolved into doing like many of us video consultations and then doing some work for the 111 service and then some advisory work on testing and symptoms because that's sort of one of my main research interests. But now I'm much more focused on well-being, both for myself and

for many individuals who've suffered quite a lot under the pandemic. And so it'd be good to see some light at the end of the tunnel, I think. Absolutely. And talking about well-being, because you have an interest in ancient Greco-Roman medicine, and you believe that there are some interesting lessons, some parallels that we can look at with the current crisis. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think some of the individuals who were alive at the time of the Antonine Plague during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, they actually did focus very much on things that are becoming relevant again to us today. The idea of fresh air, the idea of exercise, the idea of sensible eating, the idea of getting enough sleep. Galen, the physician to Marcus Aurelius, was particularly

focused on these and wrote a couple of large books on hygiene in which he was very keen on promoting these. So let's go on to the background then first. You mentioned the Antonine Plague and you mentioned one of those key figures there, Galen. Who was Galen? Well Galen, born in Pergamon, he was some people would say a slightly arrogant individual and probably quite difficult at his time but became a very eminent physician over the Roman Empire. Spent time in Pergamon, spent time in Egypt, Alexandria in particular, learning anatomy, worked as a physician originally for gladiators back in Pergamon and then travelled to Rome where he gradually got involved in Roman society and

eventually became physician to Marcus Aurelius and so he was there very much at the time of the Antonine Plague both at the beginning and then he scooted off back to Pergamum, actually, after the beginning of the Antonine Plague, and then returned and again was involved in a sort of second sub-wave of the Antonine Plague with Marcus Aurelius and saw some of the patients suffering from the disease and also the impact it had on the army in particular. He was there with the army at the time when they were quite devastated by the plague. in particular. He was there with the army at the time when they were quite devastated by the plague. And so you've mentioned names such as Marcus Aurelius, the Antonine Plague. So the Antonine Plague, is this in the second half of the second century AD or mid-second century AD? Yeah, towards the end of the second century. So really starting in about AD 165 through to 180. So the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperor Lucius Verus. And then probably there was a later wave around AD 189, because the historian Dio Cassius,

who was a youngster really at the time, did encounter that second wave himself. He actually saw, he writes about 2,000 people dying a day in Rome. So quite a devastating illness. Very devastating indeed. I mean, Nick, how does it all come about? How does this plague reach the ancient Mediterranean? Well, the plague was probably smallpox, although there has been some suggestion that it might have been measles, but I think the consensus is that it was smallpox and probably picked up as a result of the Parthian War in Mesopotamia and then transferred by the troops back to Rome afterwards. At least that's the modern view.

The ancients had a slightly different view about how it occurred. Their view was that a soldier had gone to a place called Seleucia, opened a golden casket in the Temple of Apollo, and let out the plague from there. And that's actually relevant because later on, Apollo becomes quite relevant in terms of people trying to protect themselves from the plague. But that was the ancient view was that it was a pestilence that came out of this golden casket of the Temple of Apollo. But I'd say the traditional modern view is that it was smallpox spread by the troops as they moved back from the Parthian War in Mesopotamia in about AD 165. the Parthian War in Mesopotamia in about AD 165. And I guess the question then, Nick, is if it's coming back with the troops, how does it start spreading so rapidly to become this illness that has become infamous in ancient history? Yeah, well, I think the troop movements were key in

bringing it back to Italy. And then good communications, which, you know, we highlight as being a great thing about the Roman Empire they were unfortunately very good at spreading the illness around and of course the other thing were people living in close proximity not as good hygiene perhaps as we might imagine about the Roman world and that would have spread the disease in terms of it moving further particularly up to Britain and into Gaul and in the Rhineland provinces probably a a lot of it travelled by boat up the Rhône and the Rhine and then across the English Channel into ports at places like London and Gloucester. I think the other thing about the Antonine play which made it particularly devastating

was that there was probably very little immunity in the population at the time. So, effectively, a virgin population in terms of smallpox. So, that would have virgin population in terms of smallpox. So, that would have caused quite a few problems. And one thing that Galen noted in the effect on the troops, he noticed that as it was winter, when it hit the troops at Aquilia, it was particularly devastating. So, again, climate was an influence as well. So, it travelled by road, by boat, by the movement of troops, and also compounded, as I said, by the climate and the hygiene and the close proximity of people beginning to move into towns and cities more than they had done previously. Nick, keeping on Rome, as you say, we sometimes think of the sewers, the Cloraca

Maxima, we think of the aqueducts, we think, oh, actually, they were very good sanitation. Completely opposite, very, very poor sanitation, a lot of squalor. And you can imagine in those places with the insulae, where everyone's cramped together, that must have been like the plague of completely opposite very very poor sanitation a lot of squalor and you can imagine in those places with the insulae where everyone's cramped together that must have been like the plague of athens in the centuries before should we call a breeding ground for the spreading of this illness yeah exactly people very close proximity i think sanitation we sometimes take a rather modern view about roman public health practices because we see the bathhouses and we see the aqueducts and we see the drains. But actually, a lot of the time they would have lived in squalor.

And I think Scobie, the historian, often says that probably Rome was very much like Paris in the 17 and 1800s. People wallowing around in sewage a lot of the time. So it probably wasn't as clean and hygienic as we think it was. And as a very close proximity and people living very much on top of each other as well. And Nick, then going further west, it's quite interesting how we've talked about Mesopotamia, we've now talked about Rome, and now let's talk about Roman Britain and the Antonine Plague. And you mentioned London, you mentioned Gloucester. Let's focus on Gloucester, because at the time of the plague, you mentioned Gloucester. Let's focus on Gloucester because at

the time of the plague this is a thriving Roman settlement. Yeah I mean it was really founded as a colonia probably under the reign of the Emperor Nerva in about AD 97. It had been a legionary fortress beforehand and it had thrived really since foundation by Nerva. It was doing extremely well and the archaeology at that time, it was walled, which was unusual for a town at that time as well in Britain. But it was 380 acres, large town, baths, temples, forum, statues, some very grand houses, some peristyle-type houses with mosaics and hypochors. So really a grand place.

And, of course, a big port. And things like the iron and lead waschores. So really a grand place and of course a big port and things like the iron and lead was being transported. So iron from the Forest of Dean and from the Mendips, lead was being transported as water as well. So a busy place, busy civilian port. And so what's this extraordinary archaeology that has been uncovered that might suggest that Gloucester was struck down by the Antonine Plague? Well, it was quite interesting. I mean, they were excavating along London Road that Gloucester was struck down by the Antonine Plague? Well, it was quite interesting. I mean, they were excavating along London Road in Gloucester, and the Oxford Archaeology Unit in about 2004-2005 found lots of graves in a cemetery,

but found this mass grave as well, where it appeared that about 91 bodies, although difficult because they're obviously all mixed up in bits and pieces had sort of been tipped in so the bones were intermingled intermeshed and they'd been tipped in probably covered immediately because there was no evidence of rodents had been nibbling the bodies so they were all tipped in and the idea i mean mass graves like this you think to yourself well is it because there's been major warfare? Is it because they're all poor people and it's something about they can't afford proper burials? And certainly if you go to more modern mass graves, like for example, a Battle of Talton up here in Yorkshire, you would find a lot of injuries on the bones from the battle. No injuries on any of these bones,

so no evidence of any trauma. So it probably wasn't a battle. And they were well nourished as well. So they weren't paupers and they looked like they'd all been tipped in at the same time and so pottery some other items for example a hairpin and some brooches indicated that it was consistent with the bodies being tipped into this pit at the time of the Antonine Plague. Masquerades are quite interesting because they generally relate to something terrible that's caused some sort of breakdown in society and so normal burial practices can't take place and so we look back to the Athenian Plague where about 150 individuals were found in a mass grave there. About a thousand were buried normally, but there was this mass grave as well, again, showing the similar effect of a plague. So quite interesting. And we can't prove it was smallpox,

but it's highly suggestive. There really is very difficult to come up with an alternative explanation at the time. Absolutely. And I'm glad you mentioned that cross-reference with the plague of Athens, because when you think of the importance of burial for the ancient Greeks and the fact that they put them all in this mass grave I don't know if it was similar for the Romans this importance of burial being able to tell which bones belong to which person the fact as you said they're being meshed together as well it seems as if these burial rites have just been thrown aside because of the perhaps the significant impact of what could perhaps be plague on ancient Roman Gloucester. Exactly. I mean, in the writings about the Peloponnesian War, they actually say the man

became indifferent to every rule of religion or law. So in other words, that typifies the problems. And I think it's again, we saw this in the Black Death as well. We probably saw it less so actually in the plague in the 1600s. There's always been a view that there were mass graves, but probably there was more mass burials actually. So they didn't lose control, probably in the way that they lost control in Athens and probably in the Antonine Plague and also probably in the Black Death as well. So yeah, it does say something about the impact on society. And Nick, can I just ask about the bodies found at Gloucester? Do we know from the DNA at all if they're mainly older people or was it a mix of ages who were affected? A mixture. I mean, a lot of them were quite young, fit individuals. So

unlike the Athenian plague, where they're able to identify from the DNA the likely causative organism, well, at least they found typhoid in the Athenian plague they haven't as yet been able to do that with any of the bones from Gloucester which is disappointing but not surprising. The interesting thing is smallpox won't leave many signs on the bones as well so the bones didn't show any particular things I mean if you had tuberculosis you might see something on the bones if you had syphilis you might see something on the bones but there was nothing on the bones shows that they probably died quickly which is what you'd expect with smallpox nick from all you've been saying so far it sounds like the antonine plague possibly far-reaching very deadly and could affect anyone it could and i think there are other areas across

britain as well gloucester's one example but at the same time we're seeing things like in london for example there is some evidence of reduction in population quite a few houses some people have argued up to two-thirds of the houses being abandoned around the same sort of time saint alban similarly and there's also economic effects across the empire and in britain it's quite interesting that the lead mining, we talked about that in terms of the Mendips and elsewhere, there were no inscribed ingots now being found after the AD 160s. You're remembering the Antonine Plague coming into Britain probably late 160s. And coin hoarding, of course, becomes more prevalent at that time as well. So a number of things happening. But as I said earlier on, I mentioned about the idea the Romans had about the plague occurring because somebody had opened up this casket in Babylonia in the Temple of Apollo. And that obviously had some impact because you do find from London in particular, there's an amulet that was found on the riverbank back in the 1980s. And that's inscribed to protect an individual called Demetrios against an airborne plague.

It's only a small pewter plaque, about five centimetres by about 12 centimetres. But it was a poem in Greek and again linked to Apollo and talked about this pestilence coming through the air. poem in Greek and again linked to Apollo and talked about this pestilence coming through the air and then the other interesting thing linked to that is there is this selection of dedications to Clarion Apollo found across the Roman Empire about 12 of them generally seen by C.P. Jones to be a centralized anti-plague initiative if you. And one of those has been found quite clearly at house steps on Hadrian's Wall and part of one at Ravenglass. Again, a dedication to Clarian Apollo, probably some sort of central idea of protection against a plague.

So these were the responses to the plague, as well as the consequence that we've talked about earlier on. That's really interesting, just that, the interconnected nature of the Roman world. Because I believe at the sanctuary of Apollo Kleros, that's in Asia Minor, that's in Anatolia, central Turkey. It is, yes, it's a long journey. But I think in the Historia Augusta later on, we're talking about a fourth century history, so not quite contemporary. It talks about Marcus Aurelius at this time reviving the worship of the ancient gods and so Apollo being one of those and it does feel like this was some sort of centralized

initiative possibly linked to that idea that unlocking this if you like Pandora's box in Apollo's temple had actually been the cause of the plague to the Romans so they were trying to deal with that and the amulet again, as well as these dedications across the empire. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. I'm on the banks of the Mersey and we're all listening to the ancients talking about the plague.

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It's very interesting how we've got that divine response to the plague, as it were, that you've just mentioned there. But Nick, at the same time, you argue that in particular, there are three key figures who also, when responding to the plague, they offer some very good advice that we can look at today in our current situation. Yes, I mean, there are three particular individuals. I've talked a little bit about Galen earlier on, as I said, born in Pergamon, physician, philosopher, prolific writer, probably a belligerent and very difficult individual, but came up with this idea that fresh air, exercise, sensible eating, sleep, mental well-being. In fact, the medieval folk, they added excretions onto that list and called it Galen's six non-naturals, which people may have heard of. And they're really the guide to healthy living. And increasingly over the course of the

last few months I've certainly talked to a lot of my patients about the importance of getting outside to exercise and I've written articles for the national parks and for the ramblers recently about the importance of exercise fresh air sunlight getting some vitamin d we've heard about that throughout the coronavirus epidemic all of us at Christmas were asked to, if we did have our relatives indoors, we're asked to open a window. So bring some fresh air in. And again, we know about the importance of obesity and the obesity linked with, and Boris Johnson emphasised this, with the coronavirus and the poor outcomes and the risk of getting diabetes. So a lot of the things that Galen were talking about, the fresh air, the exercise, sensible eating, getting sleep and mental well-being, they're so relevant to our plague just as much as they were to his plague. Admittedly, he didn't have the treatments that we have and didn't have the option of a vaccine.

But at the beginning of our coronavirus epidemic, as a doctor there sitting in the surgery, we had nothing either. So well-being was very much what we could focus on so he was one of the individuals Marcus Aurelius himself the emperor at the time reigning over the period of the Antonine Plague again he wrote a book called Meditations which was never designed to be published very much a his stoic take on life. And within there, he made a number of important points that I think a lot of people have reflected on during the Antonine Plague. And I think the sales of Marcus Aurelius' meditations have gone up significantly during the time of the plague. And he talks about things like, particularly about control, knowing that there are things over which we have control

and over things which we don't have control. So a natural disaster like the plague or the Antonine Plague or coronavirus, we don't have control over that. We don't have control of many things around the plague, but we do have control about the way we respond to it and the way we react to it. And I think people's reactions have often been part of the problem. Younger people, perhaps at the beginning, thought it was a lot more serious than it would be for them. Others have perhaps got very anxious and depressed about it. Some people have perhaps followed some slightly bizarre treatment routes. And then I think that the other thing that Marcus Aurelius emphasised is understanding what things we value because I think we have become obsessed with

lots of things that perhaps aren't as valuable and perhaps we've now begun to appreciate the value of going outside and seeing the sunshine and seeing the birds and we begin to value the contact with our friends and our families that perhaps we've taken for granted and I think other things have become less important so I think he's done two things. He's emphasised to us that there are things that we can control and things we can't control and also the things that we value and things that are perhaps less valuable. And I think a lot of people during the course of the epidemic

have looked at that and thought, yes, actually, there's a lot of sense in a lot of Marcus Aurelius' writings. And it's not a long book, but I think it's been well read. Just before we go on to the third one, I've just got to jump in there because it we go on to the third one, I just got to jump in there because it is really interesting what you're saying, Nick, there with Galen and with Marcus Aurelius. The importance of mental wellbeing at this time, we sometimes think of mental health being quite a modern thing with social media, with instant news outlets

nowadays. But it sounds like even in ancient history with this ancient pandemic, you have these sources which really stress focus on what you can do. You know, get outside, make sure mentally you're all OK, because that seems is just as important as physical protection against the disease itself. I think you're exactly right. And one of the things that Galen emphasises in particular is that the modern view that we have mental well-being and we have physical well-being is something that he considers actually to be wrong, that actually there is an overlap between the two. And in fact, this very much idea of holistic care comes from Galen, the idea being that it isn't about mental well-being, you go to a psychiatrist, physical well-being, you go and see a different sort of doctor. being you go to a psychiatrist physical well-being you go and see a different sort of doctor the idea they come together and you have to focus on both of them equally and I think as we move forward out of the pandemic the mental well-being is going to be the one that we're going to have to work really hard on because I think a lot of people have suffered because they've lost contact with activities they do they've lost contact with their they do, they've lost contact with their support

networks. All of these things will have had a dramatic effect on people and the disruption to young people in particular is probably even worse than older people during this pandemic. So I think it's a lesson to us that we should not categorise mental and physical well-being as being two different sides of the coin. They are all about a person's well-being, if you like. That's the important thing that comes through. And I think both Marcus Aurelius and Galen emphasise that. If we move on to the third individual, which is probably people have less heard of,

somebody called Aelius Aristides. He was a somewhat eccentric, again, a Greek orator, author, who suffered from illnesses all his life. Amazingly, he survived the Antonine Plague, which unfortunately wasn't the case for Marcus Aurelius or Lucius Verus, despite being frail and debilitated throughout his life. And that amazed Galen, actually. Galen actually commented on seeing him and thinking, you know, this guy looks like he's on death's door, but he managed to survive. But what he tended to do was he spent a lot of time hanging around Ascalapian healing sanctuaries.

And his view, again, was about the importance of holistic care. I mean, he did have some interest in dream therapy, which is perhaps slightly off-centre a little bit. But even so, he understood the importance of holistic care, spending time at these healing sanctuaries pergamon in particular where you can experience what i guess i call locotherapy now and the locotherapy is about the psychological benefits of being in a particular place but also about locomotion as well about the pilgrimage to the place walking around the place participating in the exercise and activities at the place so he was very much involved in those and I suppose reading his work again it perhaps makes

me perhaps as a traditional doctor think that perhaps some of the therapies that he's talking about some of the psychological therapies music therapy bibliotherapy art therapies perhaps I need to take a little bit more seriously than I have done before. And even dream therapy. There are people, there's somebody called Edward Tick, a psychologist from the United States who's taken people on dream healing pilgrimages to these Aesculapian healing sites, people with post-traumatic stress from wars. And Hal actually has found that there are benefits from being immersed in the ancient ruins and in the ancient cultures so I think what Galen and Marcus Aurelius are saying are things that are

easy to understand Aristides is saying some other different things about the importance of locations it's important about healing sites and healing sanctuaries and the other psychological treatments including dream therapy that you might be able to encounter there. I mean certainly many people have had bad dreams during the coronavirus epidemic. I mean dreams are an issue but where we go in terms of dream healing be interesting to know but I think we probably need to open our minds to other therapies which might have some relevance to get us over the next phase of this pandemic and recover absolutely in today's pandemic world do we have any sites that you think could be

an equivalent to the asclepian sanctuary at pergamum that could work as that kind of psychological place in this current pandemic well it's difficult there's two healing sanctuaries in britain which I've visited, Lydney and Little Dean, along the side of the River Severn. And they're beautiful sites to visit, mainly because when you visit them, nobody else is there because very few people know about these or they're difficult to access. But actually, you generally feel better in these places. Lydney in particular, it's a beautiful site

excavated by Mortimer Wheeler back in the 1930s and it's on the hill in the grounds of Lydney Park so you actually get a beautiful view across to the river Severn and you can see the river snaking away silver the river Severn snaking away in the distance and you're wandering around there amongst the ancient ruins and it's nice to visit but you actually do feel better well at least you feel better until the owner told me that there were wild boar roaming around and I had to keep my eyes open for them but wild boar aside you do actually feel better in those sort of places and this summer I certainly went I was invited to go to Little Dean which again is a little further along from Lydney more

where the Severn Boar actually starts and again the view from there is stunning down to the curvature of the river and again something about the site and that's what I said earlier on something about the location the locotherapy it's uplifting and psychologists are now talking about what they call all walks the idea that when you walk you look around and you admire the scenery and that is psychologically uplifting it's a new idea of all walks so there are things about these sites but the other thing I always remind people of is that Romans were very careful about where they chose their locations for their sites Vitruvius the architect talks about choosing sites that are high free of pestilences and vapors

and if you go to places like Hard Knock Roman Fort up in the Lake District, or Cawthorn Roman Camps in Yorkshire, or even just walk around the walls of Silchester, you will feel better, I think. And immersing in the past is something that I know Natural England and English Heritage or National Heritage are looking at the moment as well. So there are things there about these places that I think could help us all. It's certainly worth exploring. That's really interesting. Of course, I must say, if you are very ill with the COVID, go to hospital, go to hospital. But Nick, last of all, we've talked all about the plague. We've talked about the lessons we could possibly look at with

the Antonine Plague. Let's talk about the aftermath. How the Romans respond, how people in the Roman Empire rebuild following it. Can we look and can we learn lessons from that too? I think we can. I mean, I think they look back on the time of Marcus Aurelius, oddly, as a sort of golden age. And I think it was smallpox. And we talk about the R number nowadays, people hear about the R number all the time with coronavirus epidemics. And we're always trying to get the R number below one in terms of the transmission rate smallpox we're talking about an R number they were coping with of about six so for every one person about six people were getting it it was a nasty illness so it hit the empire hard it hit the army hard and we're talking about a lot of people, 5 to 10 million people dying, probably the estimate,

third of the population in some areas, and devastated the army for a generation. And I talked earlier about Diocasius commenting on 2,000 people a day dying in Rome. But they recovered. I mean, it took a while to recover. There is a sort of slight hesitation I make about how good the recovery was, because if you think the army was devastated, it did lead on to the promotion of people that perhaps you might not have wanted to have emperors in the future so we look at Septimus Severus and his sons in particular Caracalla and Gaeta whose main items in common was an interesting infratricide people like that perhaps might not have appeared if we hadn't have had the Antonine Plague so they recovered but they recovered I would say with some caveats attached to it so hopefully we'll

recover and we won't end up with a Caracalla at the end of it no absolutely not hopefully and I'm sure that won't happen but it is interesting isn't it to say that and we've seen it today with the current pandemic how everyone's saying now well we're looking forward to getting back to a new normal. Like we won't have the old normal that we had before the pandemic. It will be a new normal. For instance, we've seen Amazon rising, maybe more people ordering from home. So it's a new normal that hopefully looks like we're going to have in the years ahead. Does it feel quite similar in the aftermath of the Antonine Plague that there was like a new normal which followed it? I think there was I mean you have a funny period after the Antonine Plague

going into the third century in the Roman world and I think it took them a while and we're talking about I would think well it was a bit of a mess really after Septimus Severus and then we end up eventually getting to Diocletian and Constantine but they did get there I mean the empire continued and rebuilt and if you go into the provinces Roman Britain in particular we can look at the age of the villas beginning to come on and a lot of the villas particularly around here in the north they were thriving and you see things particularly around small towns around York, like Moulton, you see nice mosaics and splendid houses being built in the 50, 60 years after the Antonine Plague. And temples, let's say, at Lydney beginning to be established in that period as well. I mean, there was an interest in healing sites.

look at the coin record we talked about coin hordes earlier on but after under the reigns of septimus severus and cabracale you do begin to see a growing interest in the healing deities like aesculapius the roman god of healing and apollo as well was also a deity associated with healing but aesculapius in particular a lot of the coins bearing aesculapius dates of the time of of after the antonine plague so perhaps they were looking at other ways of healing themselves at that time as well it's really interesting especially when you consider for instance like masks might remain compulsory in many many months and years ahead and that's a great point to leave it on nick and finally you mentioned it just there you've got a book coming out and it is called it's called greco-Roman Medicine and What It Can Teach Us Today,

covering things like the Antonine Plague, eye remedies, psychological well-being, but also things like architecture and health and medical personnel as well. So we'll be out by pen and sword books sometime in this year. Brilliant. Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you. I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country,

all were gone and finished. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of our sibling podcast, The Ancients, with the brilliant Tristan Hughes, who we call the Tristorian

in the office. If you want to listen to more Ancients, and I'm telling you there's plenty of them, the guy's a machine, just simply go to wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to The Ancients.