The emperor who sold the palace treasures

In 165 AD, Roman troops returning from a campaign in the east brought back a disease. The Antonine Plague, probably smallpox, swept through the empire for more than two decades. Historians estimate it killed millions; at its worst, Rome reportedly lost around two thousand people a day.

At the same time, Germanic tribes broke across the Danube. Marcus needed money for an army just as plague was emptying farms and towns. The obvious answer was a new tax on provinces that were already burying their dead.

Instead, according to the ancient biography in the Historia Augusta, he held a two-month public auction in the Forum of Trajan. He sold imperial gold cups, crystal goblets, silk robes embroidered with gold, statues and paintings, and even some of his wife’s jewellery. Buyers who regretted their purchase were later allowed to return items for a refund.

He then spent most of the next decade in military camps on the Danube, where he wrote much of the Meditations. “Do not be ashamed to be helped,” he reminded himself. He died on campaign in 180, possibly of the same plague.