It is believed to have originated in Ethiopia, and then to have spread throughout the Mediterranean. does not mention the pulse: true, but the significance of the pulse in relation to health was not, so far as we know, appreciated by the doctors until after the lifetime of Thuc. ; reemerging there in 425 B.C.E. Web. The position is apparently quite simple: from 1138 to 1181 and again from 1197 onwards Lucr. 21 ff., points out that Thuc. The strength of this negative argument is broken by the parallel example of mumps, described at Thasos in the fifth century B.C. Thank you! Originally published on The Conversation. Cunha, Burke A. This insight too was remarkable since our modern concept of specific acquired immunity came even later than our concept of infectious disease. Synodinos, Philippos N. Homer’s Iliad, (around 700BC), commences with a description of a plague that strikes the Greek army at Troy. Useful introductions to the medical literature are provided most recently by Shrewsbury, J. F. D., Bulletin of the History of Medicine, xxiv, 1950, pp. Thucydides’ description of the plague that struck Athens in 430 BC is one of the great passages of Greek literature. [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. 594 ff. page 114 note 2 I have seen it stated that it is not quite certain that the rat is the sole permanent reservoir of epidemic typhus, and that the body-louse (which was thought to convey from man to man an infection derived by man from the rat) may itself be the host. B., Report to the Governor; for this I have depended wholly on Shrewsbury. The nature of the Plague described by Thucydides in Book 2, chapter 49, has long been discussed both by medical and by classical scholars. Thucydides writes prose, not verse (as Homer and Sophocles do), and he worked in the comparatively new field of “history” (meaning “enquiry” or “research” in Greek). 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. Classen-Steup mention only the agnostic Ebstein, W., Die Pest des Thuk., Stuttgart, 1899, and ‘Nochmals die Pest des Thuk.’, Deutsche Mediz. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted with the utmost precaution. Terrible was the clash that rose from the bow of silver. The lessons that we learn from the coronavirus crisis will come from our own experiences of it, not from reading Thucydides. Others again were seized with an entire loss of memory on their first recovery and did not know either themselves or their friends. 1 ff., with the objections of Ebstein, W., Deutsche Med. The First Peloponnesian War (c. 460-446 BCE) was fought primarily between Athens and Corinth (an ally of Sparta) but the second would be a direct conflict between the two antagonists. Again, there is much general similarity in the symptoms, but again the discrepancies are numerous and important (sc. The measure of agreement was such as to encourage me, perhaps against my better judgement, to publish this; the expressions of disagreement were such as to lead me to expect no mercy for having done so. People in the Piraeus caught it first, and so, since there were not yet any fountains there, they actually alleged that the Peloponnesians had put poison in the wells. One of the remarkable things about it is how focused it is on the general social response to the pestilence, both those who died from it and those who survived. He also encouraged the development of the arts and Greek science in the city as well as the works of notable philosophers such as Protagoras (l. c. 480-430 BCE), Zeno of Elea (l. c. 465 BCE) and one of his close friends, Anaxagoras (l. c. 500 - c. 428 BCE) as well as the careers of doctors such as Hippocrates and Greek tragedy playwrights of the stature of Sophocles. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The following narrative comes from the History of the Peloponnesian War, II.vii.3-54 as translated by scholar P. J. Rhodes and given by Michael Grant in his Readings in the Classical Historians: [The plague] is said to have broken out previously in many other places, in the region of Lemnos and elsewhere, but there was no previous record of so great a pestilence and destruction of human life. 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. This has led to numerous radical innovations in the genetic and biochemical fields, with CRISPR going vogue around the world. Of numerous suggested identifications none has found general approval; and it is doubtful whether any opinion is more prevalent today than that the problem is insoluble. Find out the easiest way for you to apply to study at La Trobe. I. L. Heiberg, 1927), references to these works (by volume and page+‘K.’ for Kuehlewein, by page+‘H.’ for Heiberg) are added to the Jones-references. The sanctuaries in which people were camping were filled with corpses, as deaths took place even there: the disaster was overpowering, and as people did not know what would become of them, they tended to neglect the sacred and the secular alike. Allow Cookies, Professor Christopher Mackie - Classics & Ancient History, La Trobe University. Gleanings from the last forty years of Bursian are small and generally unfruitful. What’s more, contrary to popular opinion; the Greeks did not actually invent the scientific method. Thucydides makes the point clearly that there was nothing any human agency could do to stop its spread and ends his narrative by simply saying that it left Athens in a state of misfortune. He has taught history, writing, literature, and philosophy at the college level. 209 ff., with references on p. 212 to modern treatments of the subject. Last modified April 01, 2020. The Plague claimed the lives of about a third of Athens’ citizens. "Thucydides on the Plague of Athens: Text & Commentary." The disease worked it way right through the body from the top, beginning with the affliction which first settled in the head.

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