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Quote of the day " SUCH was the funeral that took place during this winter, with
which the first year of the war came to an end. In the first days of
summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies, with two-thirds of their
forces as before, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son
of Zeuxidamus, King of Lacedaemon, and sat down and laid waste the
country. 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 neighbourhood of
Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality
was nowhere remembered. 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.
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. 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. 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.
That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly
free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred all determined in
this. 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. 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. In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed,
producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in
others much later. 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. 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 diarrhoea,
this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal. 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; 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally
incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted
with the utmost precaution. 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. 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:
honour 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. 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.
An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the
country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new
arrivals. 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. 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. 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.
Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its
origin to the plague. 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. 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 honour 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 honourable
and useful. Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain
them. 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
offences, 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.
Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the
Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without...
[The Plague of Athens,
in History of the Peloponnesian War II, transl. Richard Crawley]"

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