The Athenian Plague: 430 B.C. – 426 B.C. (Half 1)

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Because the Peloponnesian Battle (431-404 B.C.) loomed with the worsening of the chilly struggle between Athens and Lacedæmonia (Sparta), an historical oracle was stated to have offered a warning to Athens and inspiration to Lacedæmonia: “A Dorian war shall come and with it death… “When the god was asked whether they (Lacedæmonia) should go to war, he answered that” in the event that they put their may into it, victory can be theirs…”[1] On the time Athens was in its golden age (479-431 B.C.) underneath the enlightened management of Pericles (495-429 B.C.) who had launched the world’s first type of democracy underneath which particular person rights, literature and the humanities thrived.

In line with Thucydides (460-400 B.C.), an Athenian normal, political critic and historian, enthusiasm and help for the Peloponnesian Battle amongst Athenians “was high” when the battle erupted. Many, particularly the younger, “saw it as an adventure and a potential source of profit.”[2] Nevertheless, help and enthusiasm for the struggle shortly waned when Athens was hit by misfortune (the Peloponnesians led by Lacedæmonia invaded Attica committing a number of the “worst ravages”[3]) and the plague that decimated a lot of the Metropolis’s inhabitants.

Because the Attica countryside was overrun in April 430 B.C., Athenians following Pericles’ directions – “bring all the people… into the city”[4] took shelter in “parts… that were not built over and in the temples and chapels of the heroes… and other such places as were always kept closed” together with the Pelasgian citadel (simply south of the Acropolis) the place residence “had been forbidden by a… Pythian oracle which [read]: ‘Leave the Pelasgian parcel desolate, Woe worth the day that men inhabit it!’”[5] The Attica countryside was deserted to Lacedæmonian destruction, which focused “not merely [Athenian] corn and fruits, but even the garden vegetables near the city, [which] were rooted up and destroyed”[6] as Athenians positioned sole reliance upon the supremacy of their navy to supply “food and other necessities.”[7] As crowds packed inside Athens’ confines, town’s current “sanitation and drainage” infrastructure couldn’t accommodate the bloated inhabitants, creating “appalling” circumstances[8] on prime of these left within the wake of 431-430 B.C. winter as described by Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (90-30 B.C.):[9]

Because of heavy rains… the bottom had turn out to be soaked with water, and lots of low-lying areas, having acquired an unlimited quantity of water, became shallow swimming pools and held stagnant water, very a lot as marshy areas do; and when these waters grew to become heat in the summertime and grew putrid, thick foul [vapors] have been fashioned, which, rising up in fumes, corrupted the encompassing air, the very factor which can be seen going down in marshy grounds that are by nature pestilential.

As well as, the immune programs of Athenians have been additionally compromised because of the lack of high quality meals inside the Metropolis. “Contributing to the disease was the bad character of the food available; for the crops which were raised that year were altogether watery and their natural quality was corrupted,” Diodorus Siculus said. In brief, the state of affairs was optimum for the outbreak of a lethal epidemic.

“Not many days after [the arrival of the Peloponnesians] in Attica the plague… 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; …first… 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 [as well as in parts of the Persian empire]… but a pestilence of such extent and mortality was nowhere remembered. Suddenly falling upon Athens, it first attacked the population in Piræus – 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.”[10] The plague attacked all no matter “class, sex, or age,”[11] Thucydides wrote.

Because the outbreak started, physicians, together with Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), sometimes called the “Father of Medicine,” and clergymen rushed to assistance from the stricken. But their efforts have been futile. Thucydides recounted their heroic efforts – “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 [when it was shown that ‘the oracles had no useful advice to offer’[12] and prayers went unanswered].”[13]

Per Diodorus Siculus, “Athenians… ascribed the causes of their misfortune to [Apollo, a] deity. Consequently, acting upon the command of a certain oracle, they purified the island of Delos, which was sacred to [him] and had been defiled, as men thought, by the burial there of the dead. Digging up, therefore, all the graves on Delos, they transferred the remains to the island of Rheneia, as it is called, which lies near Delos. They also passed a law that neither birth nor burial should be allowed on Delos. And they also celebrated the festival assembly, the Delia, which had been held in former days but had not been observed for a long time.” But the plague continued unchecked, resulting in panic and nice despair.

With the medical efforts, “the usual remedies”[14] being administered in Athens to no avail and the plague spreading north, the Thessalians grew fearful. “No remedy was found that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case did harm in another.”[15] Out of desperation they urged Hippocrates to return to Thessaly with guarantees of limitless riches as recounted by Hippocrates’ son within the “Speech of the Envoy:”[16]

Within the time wherein the plague was operating by means of the barbarian land north of the Illyrians and Pæonians, when the evil reached that space, the kings of these peoples despatched to Thessaly after my father [Hippocrates] due to his status as a doctor, which, being a real one, had managed to go in every single place. He had lived in Thessaly beforehand and had a dwelling there then. They summoned him to assist, saying that they weren’t going to ship gold and silver and different possessions for him to have, however that he might carry away all that he needed when he had come to assist. And he made inquiry what sort of disturbances there have been, space by space, in warmth and winds and mist and different issues that produce uncommon circumstances. When he had gotten everybody’s data he instructed them to return, pretending that he was unable to go to their nation. However as shortly as he might he organized to announce to the Thessalians by what means they might contrive safety in opposition to the evil that was coming.

Hippocrates had good motive to keep away from Thessaly. “Physicians were among the first to die, since they contracted the disease from its earliest victims.”[17] “…the mortality among [physicians] was unusually high, because they most frequently came into contact with the disease.”[18]

When the plague started, regardless of phrase of comparable outbreaks in North Africa, Persia and Rome, the latter in about 446 B.C., it was nonetheless surprising by Athenians. “That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred all eventuated 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,” Thucydides started. “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… ensued, accompanied by very great distress. In most cases… 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… 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, 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. 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 [even the] eyes,”[19] he added. Typically, regardless that there have been survivors, together with Thucydides, in addition to some who “were seized with an entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either themselves or their friends,”[20] the illness was deadly. “Seven to nine days the disease lasted, and when it passed it left behind it a terrible weakness, so that many perished of exhaustion.”[21]

To compound issues, Athenian troopers have been additionally hindered by the outbreak as Diodorus Siculus wrote – “As for the Athenians, they could not venture to meet [the Lacedæmonians] in a pitched battle, and being confined as they were within the walls, found themselves involved in an emergency caused by the plague; for since a vast multitude of people of every description had streamed together into the city, there was good reason for their falling victim to diseases as they did, because of the cramped quarters, breathing air which had become polluted.”[22] As an indicator of the plague’s severity and the hostile impression it had on the Athenian army, Pericles had “started with 150 triremes (ancient ships utilizing three banks of oars and sails for mobility) and a large number of hoplites and horsemen” to assault the Peloponnesus states when it initially broke out. After being joined by plague-infected reinforcements, this Athenian drive returned a couple of years later “in a pitiable condition” having suffered an amazing lack of life.[23]

~Continued In Half 2~

[1] Thucydides. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle. c. 400 B.C.

[2] Sayaret. The Plague in Athens Throughout The Peloponnesian Battle. Jelsoft Enterprises, Ltd. 2006. 22 July 2006. http://www.militaryphotos.web/boards/archive/index.php/t-28767.html

[3] Thucydides. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle. c. 400 B.C.

[4] Sayaret. The Plague in Athens Throughout The Peloponnesian Battle. Jelsoft Enterprises, Ltd. 2006. 22 July 2006. http://www.militaryphotos.web/boards/archive/index.php/t-28767.html

[5] Thucydides. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle. c. 400 B.C.

[6] Telemachus T. Timayenis. A Historical past of Greece from the Earliest Occasions to the Current. (D. Appleton & Co. 1883) 312.

[7] > Sayaret. The Plague in Athens Throughout The Peloponnesian Battle. Jelsoft Enterprises, Ltd. 2006. 22 July 2006. http://www.militaryphotos.web/boards/archive/index.php/t-28767.html

[8] Arthur James Grant. Greece In The Age of Pericles. (John Murray. London, UK, 1893) 261.

[9] David Noy. 9. Plagues. College of Wales, Lampeter, UK. 2002. 27 July 2006. [http://www.lampeter.ac.uk/~noy/Medicine9.htm]

[10] Thucydides. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle. c. 400 B.C.

[11] Telemachus T. Timayenis. A Historical past of Greece from the Earliest Occasions to the Current. (D. Appleton & Co. 1883) 313.

[12] Arthur James Grant. Greece In The Age of Pericles. (John Murray. London, UK, 1893) 262.

[13] Thucydides. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle. c. 400 B.C.

[14] Arthur James Grant. Greece In The Age of Pericles. (John Murray. London, UK, 1893) 261.

[15] Carl J. Richard. Twelve Greeks And Romans Who Modified The World. (Barnes & Noble Publishing. New York. 2006) 90.

[16] David Noy. 9. Plagues. College of Wales, Lampeter, UK. 2002. 27 July 2006. [http://www.lampeter.ac.uk/~noy/Medicine9.htm]

[17] Carl J. Richard. Twelve Greeks And Romans Who Modified The World. (Barnes & Noble Publishing. New York. 2006) 90.

[18] Arthur James Grant. Greece In The Age of Pericles. (John Murray. London, UK, 1893) 262.

[19] Thucydides. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle. c. 400 B.C.

[20] Thucydides. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle. c. 400 B.C.

[21] Arthur James Grant. Greece In The Age of Pericles. (John Murray. London, UK, 1893) 262.

[22] David Noy. 9. Plagues. College of Wales, Lampeter, UK. 2002. 27 July 2006. [http://www.lampeter.ac.uk/~noy/Medicine9.htm]

[23] Telemachus T. Timayenis. A Historical past of Greece from the Earliest Occasions to the Current. (D. Appleton & Co. 1883) 316.

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