The Plague of Antonine

The Antonine Plague, which first hit the RomanEmpire in 165 AD under the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (hey, he was in 'Gladiator') and Lucius Verus (Wait, there were two emperors at the same time?  Yes, deal with it), was the probably the first pandemic in history to hit a body count in the millions.  This plague, primarily reported by the Greek physician Galen, is believed to have been brought back to Rome by soldiers who had been fighting for Roman freedom way down in Iraq, funnily enough.  Like other major disease outbreaks of the ancient world, we have to guess what the disease was these people were describing, because doctors back then were dum-dums who thought all illness and distemperaments were caused by too much blood, bile or phlegm.  Most scholars believe it to have been smallpox (possibly combined with outbreaks of measles), a disease that had been around for thousands of years, but the Romans were finally globalized and urbanized enough for it to really do something special.  The name smallpox is a bit of a misnomer, because its impact was enormous, killing billions throughout human history until its eradication by vaccines in 1980 marked one of humankind's greatest triumphs.  It was called smallpox, however, to differentiate it from syphilis, which was sometimes known as the "Great Pox," and although it didn't kill quite as many people, it could make your wiener fall off, which for many men was simply more terrifying than dying (because it is).