Antonine plague in Northern Europe?

[MarcusNorwood]

Some estimates have the Antonine plague killing 100 million people across the Roman Empire. Has there ever been any credible estimates of the deaths among the Germanic tribes like the Quadii and Marcomanni?

[Epictetus]

I haven't heard any. Has there been any credible estimates of the population of those tribes? We would need that, before we could estimate mortality upon them.

A couple of years ago I was fascinated by the Antonine plague and devoured everything I could find on it. Luckily, I kept a list of some of the articles I read, so I have attached them below. You can get some of these for free on JSTOR, if you sign up for their new membership deal.

Some articles are about what the plague was (smallpox, most experts say), and others are about the economic, social and demographic impact. The plague didn't discriminate, so I would assume it impacted the Germanic tribes similar to how it impacted the Roman territories.

Duncan-Jones, R., 1996, “The Impact of the Antoninen Plague”, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 9: 108-136

Gilliam, J. 1961, “The Plague Under Marcus Aurelius”, American Journal of Philology, 82: 225-251

Jackson R., 1988, Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Littman M. & Littman R., 1973, “Galen and the Antonine Plague”, American Journal of Philology, 94:245

Scheidel W., 2002, “A model of demographic and economic change in Roman Egypt after the Antonine plague”, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 15:97-114

[Marja]

Some estimates have less than a hundred million people in the Roman Empire on the eve of the plague. And there's much more evidence for population in the Mediterranean world than in central/northern Europe.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/papers/s...nhist.html

Walter Scheidel has a whole series of articles on Roman demographics and economics. He tends to favor lower population estimates though. In "Roman wellbeing and the economic consequences of the ‘Antonine Plague’" he alludes to an estimate of 60 to 75 million people in the Roman empire.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I always heard it was around 100 million between the two halves of the Empire, but not much more even in the principate.