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Hey, I'm Cassie Depeckle, the host of Wunderies Against the Odds. In our next season, Amelia

Earhart wants to make history by flying across the Atlantic alone, but brutal weather and

malfunctioning equipment could leave her lost at sea. Listen to Against the Odds on Amazon

music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the Daily Stood. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help

you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of

these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's

greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystood.com.

Don't Ignore the Smell. From 165 to 180 AD, Rome was hit by a plague. The Antenine

plague, also known as the plague of Galen, would literally kill millions of people during

Marcus Aurelius' reign. It was horrible and terrifying. No one knew what caused this awful

disease or what had brought it on. Had the gods cursed the Empire, was it punishment for

their sins? How could they stop the contagion, which could kill a person in two miserable

weeks? In his book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Donald Robertson tells us that

the Romans believed that the burning of incense would protect a family from falling ill.

Marcus Aurelius, who bravely refused to flee Rome as other leaders had, would wake up

each day to a surreal smelling city, a mixture of the putrid smell of dead bodies and the sweet

aroma of incense. As Donald writes for over a decade, the scent of smoke of incense was a

reminder to Marcus that he was living under the shadow of death and that survival from one day

to the next could never be taken for granted. Until very recently, most of us in the first world

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