Thucydides' plague: Who was killed by the epidemic of the 5th century BC?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In that epidemic, they saw the wrath of the gods falling on Athens. And even now it is difficult not to see something like fate in what happened, because it was then that a turning point occurred in the war, in Athenian history, in the course of the development of the ancient world. Among the thousands of unknown victims of that "plague" was the main Athenian statesman at that time, and it was his death that led to the military and political crisis.

War and the beginning of the epidemic

The first of the epidemics described in history was called the Athenian, or Thucydides, plague. It erupted in the fifth century BC, at a very inopportune time for Athens, for which this mass disease was fatal. At that time, the influence of the Athenian state reached its maximum, it became the strongest power in the Mediterranean, and Sparta, a powerful neighbor, has long undertaken regular attacks on policies, has already begun a full-fledged war against Athens.

The reason for the start of the war was the attack of the Thebans, allies of Sparta, on the town of Plateia, which was part of the Athenian union. It happened in 431 BC. The Athenian troops came to the aid of the townspeople, the Thebans were defeated, and then the Spartan forces invaded Attica, the "Athenian region." His authority and talents as a commander and statesman manifested themselves during the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. By the beginning of the military confrontation, he had been elected for a decade and a half to the post of strategist - commander of the army and navy. Thanks to the defensive strategy, Pericles managed to ensure superiority over Sparta. Meanwhile, while the Athenian fleet marched with victories along the coast of the Peloponnese, the population of Attica was concentrated within the Athenian city walls. And in 430 BC. an epidemic began in Athens.

The influx of residents of nearby cities and refugees, overcrowding and cramped housing in hastily created dwellings made it possible for the disease to spread at a tremendous speed. Within a short time, the "plague of Athens", according to various sources, claimed the lives of 30 to 70 thousand people. One of the victims of the epidemic was Pericles himself.

How the "plague" affected the ancient world

In Athens, chaos began, the law, the worship of the gods was forgotten; funeral fires were constantly burning, and the dead were hastily buried in mass graves. The sick were cared for only by those who managed to be cured, but there were few of them. What was happening in the city caused panic among the population, it was transmitted to the opponents: the Spartans were frightened away by the news of the epidemic, plans to invade Attica were canceled.

The plague of Athens determined the further course of the war. Pericles' successors chose a much more aggressive strategy that did not pay off. A combination of different reasons led to the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. victory for Sparta and its allies. Athens never regained its pre-war power, they were forbidden to have a fleet and overseas possessions, the city itself was ravaged.

In history, this epidemic remained as a "Thucydides" plague, named after the historian who described in detail what was happening then in Athens. Thucydides, belonging to a wealthy and noble family, received, like Pericles, an excellent education, was an influential man in Athens. With the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides immediately set to work, rightly believing that what was happening was an event of great historical importance. His work on describing the course of the war is considered the first of its kind, unlike his predecessors, Thucydides abandoned poetic fiction, described only what he himself witnessed, and subjected the rest of the data to a thorough check. Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War" was therefore not an entertaining reading, but for historians this work became a document of great value. Much is written in it about the epidemic.

According to the author's assumption, the infection came from Ethiopia, and came to the Greek world from Egypt and Libya. Plague penetrated directly into Athens through the port of Piraeus, where ships arrived from overseas territories. Thucydides himself was not spared the disease, who, unlike Pericles, recovered and left a description of this ailment in the "History". "" … "". Indigestion, rash, intense thirst, complications in the form of loss of limbs, blindness, amnesia - these and other symptoms described by Thucydides provided rich food for historians and physicians to try to diagnose and establish, after many centuries, which disease fatally affected the ancient stories.

What could be hidden behind the Thucydides plague?

Almost three dozen diseases, including the plague itself, smallpox, measles, and even Ebola, claim to be the real cause of the Athenian plague epidemic. Opinions were also expressed that the disease was not caused by a virus, but by grain contaminated with ergot, and the victims of the epidemic did not catch the disease from each other, but simply ate the same food. In 1994, a mass grave was discovered, dated to 430 BC, where 240 people were buried, the bodies were folded randomly, within one or two days.

Molecular genetic analysis of the remains revealed the presence of traces of bacteria that cause typhoid fever in the samples - however, a number of scientists dispute or question the research carried out. Scientists cannot give a categorical answer about what the Thucydides plague was; it is possible that this disease is not familiar to modern medicine, having remained the property of past centuries and civilizations.

Thucydides, thanks to whom the Athenian plague went down in history, worked on a description of the Peloponnesian War until 411 BC. His "History" was continued by other authors - Xenophon, Kratipp. It is believed that thanks to Thucydides, ancient science entered the "era of the Enlightenment", when philosophers made rationalism, the search for truth, their slogans - even to the detriment of the artistic value of their works.

More about the philosopher of antiquity: Philochorus, a scholar-historian executed in old age.