Unable to pay his troops, Marcus Aurelius results to extreme measures.

He holds a public sale of his own imperial furnishings, which included his wife’s silk robes (I’m sure he got an earful that night) so he could fund a new expedition against the germanic tribes who were raping and pillaging the northern border.

In modern times, it would be as if Donald Trump decided to put all the White House furniture on eBay to pay for a new war in the Middle East.

Clearly, Marcus Aurelius (or Donald Trump) wouldn’t be able to pay for a new war with just the goods from his house, no matter how lavish it maybe. It was a public relations scheme.

It amounted to an attempt to show that even the emperor was willing to make a sacrifice for the public good.

Marcus Aurelius then went into the streets and started sacrificing goats, pigs, and cows on behalf of the gods as a gesture to his subjects that he was eliciting all the help he could get to fill the empty coffers and stop the spreading disease.

According to some estimates, smallpox was killing 2,000 people a day in Rome where eventually the disease would wipe out 10% — 25% of the Roman population.

Due to a smaller pool of funds and able-bodied men, the emperor found it difficult to recruit new troops for the expedition against the Germanic tribes.

As a grand gesture, Marcus Aurelius personally led the expedition.