Thucydides on the Plague

The skull of an eleven year old girl, victim of the plague, found in the Kerameikos cemetery; archaeologists have called her Myrthis.

Among the most famous parts of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is his account of the plague that killed nearly a third of the Athenian population in the summer of 430 and caused greater loss of human life than the rest of the Archidamian War. (A mass grave discovered in 1994 illustrates the terrible death rate; the disease has been identified as typhoid fever.) What is remarkable is the complete absence of any explanation: the historian offers a clinical description of the symptoms, but does not discuss the cause of the disease. Thucydides' elder colleague Herodotus of Halicarnassus would have said that "the gods wanted it" or something like it, but Thucydides refuses to do so.

One would expect that after the description of the disease, the historian would have made a remark about the consequences that the plague had for the war. However, this is not what he does. The story gradually changes into a shocking story about moral corruption, which serves as a mirror to the "Funeral Speech of Pericles", in which the virtues of the Athenians have been praised. This diptych - the speech and the medical description - leave the reader with some questions about human nature.

Atempts to identify the disease with ebola hemorrhagic fever, glanders, typhus, or smallpox are misguided. This is not a medical account, but a moral story posing as a medical account.

The translation of Thucydides 2.47.1-55.1 was made by Richard Crawley.

Thucydides on the plague

[2.47.2] In the first days of summer theSpartans and their allies, with two-thirds of their forces as before, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of Sparta, and sat down and laid waste the country.

[2.47.3] Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said that it had broken out in many places previously in the neighborhood of Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality was nowhere remembered.

[2.47.4] Neither were the physicians at first of any service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often; nor did any human art succeed any better. Supplications in the temples, divinations, and so forth were found equally futile, till the overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop to them altogether.

[2.48.1] It first began, it is said, in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt, and thence descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the King's country.note[I.e., Persia.]

[2.48.2] Suddenly falling upon Athens, it first attacked the population in Piraeus - which was the occasion of their saying that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs, there being as yet no wells there - and afterwards appeared in the upper city, when the deaths became much more frequent.

[2.48.3] All speculation as to its origin and its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a disturbance, I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional; for myself, I shall simply set down its nature, and explain the symptoms by which perhaps it may be recognized by the student, if it should ever break out again. This I can the better do, as I had the disease myself, and watched its operation in the case of others.

[2.49.1] That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred all determined in this.

[2.49.2] As a rule, however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.

[2.49.3] These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness, after which the pain soon reached the chest, and produced a hard cough. When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and discharges of bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very great distress.

[2.49.4] In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed, producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in others much later.

[2.49.5] Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers. But internally it burned so that the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the neglected sick, who plunged into the rain tanks in their agonies of unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank little or much.

[2.49.6] Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them.

The body meanwhile did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its height, but held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they succumbed, as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal inflammation, they had still some strength in them. But if they passed this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels, inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhea, this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal.

[2.49.7] For the disorder first settled in the head, ran its course from thence through the whole of the body, and, even where it did not prove mortal, it still left its mark on the extremities;

[2.49.8] for it settled in the privy parts, the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these, some too with that of their eyes. Others again were seized with an entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either themselves or their friends.

[2.50.1] But while the nature of the distemper was such as to baffle all description, and its attacks almost too grievous for human nature to endure, it was still in the following circumstance that its difference from all ordinary disorders was most clearly shown. All the birds and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either abstained from touching them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after tasting them.

[2.50.2] In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to be seen at all. But of course the effects which I have mentioned could best be studied in a domestic animal like the dog.

[2.51.1] Such then, if we pass over the varieties of particular cases which were many and peculiar, were the general features of the distemper. Meanwhile the town enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary disorders; or if any case occurred, it ended in this.

[2.51.2] Some died in neglect, others in the midst of every attention. No remedy was found that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case, did harm in another.

[2.51.3] Strong and weak constitutions proved equally incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted with the utmost precaution.

[2.51.4] By far the most terrible feature in the malady was the dejection which ensued when any one felt himself sickening, for the despair into which they instantly fell took away their power of resistance, and left them a much easier prey to the disorder; besides which, there was the awful spectacle of men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other. This caused the greatest mortality.

[2.51.5] On the one hand, if they were afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the other, if they ventured to do so, death was the consequence. This was especially the case with such as made any pretensions to goodness: honor made them unsparing of themselves in their attendance in their friends' houses, where even the members of the family were at last worn out by the moans of the dying, and succumbed to the force of the disaster.

[2.51.6] Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice- never at least fatally. And such persons not only received the congratulations of others, but themselves also, in the elation of the moment, half entertained the vain hope that they were for the future safe from any disease whatsoever.

[2.52.1] An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals.

[2.52.2] As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water.

[2.52.3] The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or profane.

[2.52.4] All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another that was burning, and so went off.

[2.53.1] Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its origin to the plague.

[2.53.2] Men now coolly ventured on what they had formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property.

[2.53.3] So they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their lives and riches as alike things of a day. Perseverance in what men called honor was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honorable and useful. Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them.

[2.53.4] As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his offenses, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already passed upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little.

[2.54.1] Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without.

[2.54.2] Among other things which they remembered in their distress was, very naturally, the following verse which the old men said had long ago been uttered:

A Dorian war shall come and with it death.

[2.54.3] So a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the word in the verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course decided in favor of the latter; for the people made their recollection fit in with their sufferings. I fancy, however, that if another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us, and a dearth should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read accordingly.

[2.54.4] The oracle also which had been given to the Spartans was now remembered by those who knew of it. When the god was asked whether they should go to war, he answered that if they put their might into it, victory would be theirs, and that he would himself be with them.

[2.54.5] With this oracle events were supposed to tally. For the plague broke out as soon as the Peloponnesians invaded Attica, and never entering Peloponnese (not at least to an extent worth noticing), committed its worst ravages at Athens, and next to Athens, at the most populous of the other towns.

[2.55.1] Such was the history of the plague.