Resisting speculation, remaining committed to rational thought, and keeping in mind in inevitability of disasters helped Marcus Aurelius through the Antonine Plague. Could the same principles guide us through the Covid-19 crisis? 

Symptoms were first reported in the East, possibly as far away as China.  Soon it was spreading throughout the West carried home by soldiers and merchants returning from their travels.  Before long, outbreaks of the deadly virus were reported in one European city after another.  The Antonine Plague is believed to have killed up to five million people throughout the Roman Empire.  It turned into a pandemic lasting from 166 AD until at least 180 AD, when it claimed the life of its most famous victim, Marcus Aurelius, after whose dynasty, the Antonines, it was named. 

It was almost as though the universe had chosen to put to the test the Stoicism for which Marcus Aurelius was famed.  Indeed, a generation later, historian Cassius Dio, wrote: