Looks like we will pass 1,000,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the next few minutes. So let’s rewind.

22 BCE or so. Plague in Italy. No one left to work the land. The people want Augustus named dictator.

“The year after that, when Marcus Macellus and Lucius Arruntius were consuls, the city was flooded again when the river overflowed, and many things were struck by lightning, even the statues in the Pantheon, so that the spear fell from Augustus’ hand as well. And then, as the Romans suffered from disease and from famine—for the plague had come to all of Italy and no one worked the land; I suppose the same thing happened in foreign countries as well—they, thinking that these things had happened to them for no other reason but that they didn’t have Augustus as a consul, wished him to be appointed dictator. They locked the senate in their chamber and, threatening to burn them to ashes, they forced them to take a vote. And after this, taking the twenty-four rods, they came to Augustus, bidding him to be named dictator and to become commissioner of the grain supply, just as Pompey once had been.”

τῷ δ' ἐπιγιγνομένῳ ἔτει, ἐν ᾧ Μᾶρκος τε Μάρκελλος καὶ Λούκιος Ἀρρούντιος ὑπάτευσαν, ἥ τε πόλις πελαγίσαντος αὖθις τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἐπλεύσθη, καὶ κεραυνοῖς ἄλλα τε πολλὰ ἐβλήθη καὶ οἱ ἀνδριάντες οἱ ἐν τῷ Πανθείῳ, ὥστε καὶ τὸ δόρυ ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Αὐγούστου χειρὸς ἐκπεσεῖν. πονούμενοι οὖν ὑπό τε τῆς νόσου καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ λιμοῦ (ἔν τε γὰρ τῇ Ἰταλίᾳ πάσῃ ὁ λοιμὸς ἐγένετο καὶ τὴν χώραν οὐδεὶς εἰργάσατο· δοκῶ δ' ὅτι καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔξω χωρίοις τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο συνηνέχθη) νομίσαντες οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι οὐκ ἄλλως σφίσι ταῦτα συμβεβηκέναι, ἀλλ' ὅτι μὴ καὶ τότε ὑπατεύοντα τὸν Αὔγουστον ἔσχον, δικτάτορα αὐτὸν ἠθέλησαν προχειρίσασθαι, καὶ τήν τε βουλὴν κατακλείσαντες ἐς τὸ συνέδριον ἐπηνάγκασαν τοῦτο ψηφίσασθαι, ἀπειλοῦντές σφας καταπρήσειν, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα τὰς ῥάβδους τὰς τέσσαρας καὶ εἴκοσι λαβόντες προσῆλθον αὐτῷ, δικτάτορά τε ἅμα δεόμενοι λεχθῆναι καὶ ἐπιμελητὴν τοῦ σίτου, καθάπερ ποτὲ τὸν Πομπήιον, γενέσθαι.

Cassius Dio, Historiae Romanae 54.1.1–3