When Verus returned from the East to Europe, this part of the world, for the first time after several centuries, was visited by the plague. The last mention of a real plague had been in the year of the city 461; in the year 167 after Christ, the eastern pestilence made its appearance, spreading over Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Gaul, in short, over the whole of the West: perhaps Africa alone was not reached by it. It swept away countless victims; and there is no doubt but that the epoch in literature and art which marks the reign of Antoninus, is owing to this plague. A similar effect was produced by the epidemic in the Peloponnesian War on Athens, and by the black death in the year 1348 on Germany and Florence. What rendered M. Aurelius’ reign most unfortunate, besides the plague, which had been occasioned by the Parthian war, was the war with the German nations. Since the days of Augustus, the Germans on the borders only had made inroads against the Romans, whose frontier reached beyond the whole of the country south of the Maine, even as far as the Spessart: Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate on the other side,[50] were Roman; and the Romans went from Frankfort to Ratisbon on highways which they themselves had laid down. The old inhabitants of these southern countries were either wholly Gauls, or at least outnumbered by Gallic settlers: the population, however, was but scanty. At the time when Tacitus wrote, there was evidently a peace, and even much intercourse with some of the tribes, as for instance, with the Hermunduri: during the whole of the first century, only the Sigambri and the Bructeri had taken a share in the risings of the nations on this side of the Rhine, and that was in the reign of Vespasian. This may have still been the case under Hadrian, who already gave yearly subsidies to the peoples there. When Pius was on the throne, a war against the Chatti is spoken of, which on the side of the Romans was a defensive one. It was evidently the advance of the Sclavonic nations from the East, which set the Germans in motion: in the reign of Marcus, they had broken up everywhere; and while they were flying from the enemy, they threw themselves on the Romans. Then did the Marcomanni come forth most gallantly, though indeed it was for the last time: they were at length either annihilated, or they were changed into tribes of a different name. The Marcomanni, Quadi, Chatti, and a number of other peoples, together with the Sarmatians, who were strangers and otherwise hostile to them, for the first time, broke through the Roman frontier from Dacia to Gaul, and cut their way to Rhætia and Aquileia. Xiphilinus throws little or no light on this: with the help of coins alone, which from the time of Hadrian are a very good guide, something may be made out; but even then there is great uncertainty. It is clear that the war against the Marcomanni had two different epochs, which were interrupted by a