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Thucydides In
this way the public funeral was conducted in the winter that came at the
end of the first year of the war. At the beginning of the following summer
the Peloponnaians and their allies, with two-thirds of their total forces
as before, invaded Attica, again under the command of the Spartan King
Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus. Taking up their positions, they set
about the devastation of the country. They
had not been many days in Attica before the plague first broke out among
the Athenians. Previously attacks of the plague had been reported from
many other places in the neighbourhood of Lemnos and elsewhere, but there
was no record of the disease being so virulent anywhere else or causing so
many deaths as it did in Athens. At the beginning the doctors were quite
incapable of treating the disease because of their ignorance of the right
methods. In fact mortality among the doctors was the highest of all, since
they came more frequency in contact with the sick. Nor was any other human
art or science of any help at all. Equally useless were prayers made in
the temples, consultation of oracles, and so forth; indeed, in the end
people were so overcome by their sufferings that they paid no further
attention to such things. The
plague originated, so they say, in Ethiopia in upper Egypt, and spread
from there into Egypt itself and Libya and much of the territory of the
King of Persia. In the city of Athens it appeared suddenly, and the first
cases were among the population of Piraeus, where there were no wells at
that time, so that it was supposed by them that the Peloponnesians had
poisoned the reservoirs. Later, however, it appeared also in the upper
city, and by this time the deaths were greatly increasing in number. As to
the question of how it could first have come about or what causes can be
found adequate to explain its powerful effect on nature, I must leave that
to be considered by other writers, with or without medical experience. I
myself shall merely describe what it was like, and set down the symptoms,
knowledge of which will enable it to be recognized, if it should ever
break out again. I had the disease myself and saw others suffering from
it. That
year, as is generally admitted, was particularly free from all other kinds
of illness, though those who did have any illness previously all caught
the plague in the end. In other cases, however, there seemed to be no
reason for the attacks. People in perfect health suddenly began to have
burning feelings in the head; their eyes became red and inflamed; inside
their mouths there was bleeding from the throat and tongue, and the breath
became unnatural and unpleasant. The next symptoms were sneezing and
hoarseness of voice, and before long the pain settled on the chest and was
accompanied by coughing. Next the stomach was affected with stomach-aches
and with vomiting of every kind of bile that has been given a name by the
medical profession, all this being accompanied by great pain and
difficulty. In most cases there were attacks of ineffectual retching,
producing violent spasms; this sometimes ended with this stage of the
disease, but sometimes continued long afterwards. Externally the body was
not very hot to the touch, nor was there any pallor: the skin was rather
reddish and livid, breaking out into small pustules and ulcers. But inside
there was a feeling of burning, so that people could not bear the touch
even of the lightest linen clothing, but wanted to be completely naked,
and indeed most of all would have liked to plunge into cold water. Many of
the sick who were uncared for actually did so, plunging into the
water-tanks in an effort to relieve a thirst which was unquenchable; for
it was just the same with them whether they drank much or little. Then all
the time they were filled with insomnia and the desperate feeling of not
being able to keep still. In
the period when the disease was at its height, the body, so far from
wasting away, showed surprising powers of resistance to all the agony, so
that there was still some strength left on the seventh or eighth day,
which was the time when, in most cases, death came from the internal
fever. But if people survived this critical period, then the disease
descended to the bowels, producing violent ulceration and uncontrollable
diarrhea, so that most of them died later as a result of the weakness
caused by this. For the disease, first settling in the head, went on to
affect every part of the body in turn, and even when people escaped its
worst effects, it still left its traces on them by fastening upon the
extremities of the body. It affected the genitals, the fingers, and the
toes, and many of those who recovered lost the use of these members; some,
too, went blind. There were some also who, when they first began to get
better, suffered from a total loss of memory, not knowing who they were
themselves and being unable to recognize their friends. Words
indeed fail one when one tries to give a general picture of this disease;
and as for the sufferings of individuals, they seemed almost beyond the
capacity of human nature to endure. Here in particular is a point where
this plague showed itself to be something quite different from ordinary
diseases: though there were many dead bodies lying about unburied, the
birds and animals that eat human flesh either did not come near them or,
if they did taste the flesh, died of it afterwards. Evidence for this may
be found in the fact that there was a complete disappearance of all birds
of prey: they were not to be seen either round the bodies or anywhere
else. But dogs, being domestic animals, provided the best opportunity of
observing this effect of the plague. These,
then, were the general features of the disease though I have omitted all
kinds of peculiarities which occurred in various actual cases. Meanwhile,
during all this time there was no serious outbreak of any of the usual
kinds of illness; if any such did occur, they ended in the plague. Some
died in neglect, some in spite of every possible care being taken of them.
As for a recognized method of treatment, it would be true to say that no
such thing existed: what did good in some cases did harm in others. Those
with naturally strong constitutions were no better able than the weak to
resist the disease, which carried away all alike, even those who were
treated and dieted with the greatest care. The most terrible thing of all
was the despair into which people fell when they realized that they had
caught the plague; for they would immediately adopt an attitude of utter
hopelessness, and, by giving in this way, would lose their powers of
resistance. Terrible, too, was the sight of people dying like sheep
through having caught the disease as a result of nursing others. This
indeed caused more deaths than anything else. For when people were afraid
to visit the sick, then they died with no one to look after them; indeed,
there were many houses in which all the inhabitants perished through lack
of any attention. When, on the other hand, they did visit the sick, they
lost their own lives, and this was particularly true of those who made it
a point of honour to act properly. Such people felt ashamed to think of
their own safety and went into their friends’ houses at times when even
the members of the household were so overwhelmed by the weight of their
calamities that they had actually given up the usual practice of making
laments for the dead. Yet still the ones who felt most pity for the sick
and the dying were those who had had the plague themselves and had
recovered from it. They knew what it was like and at the same time felt
themselves to be safe, for no one caught the disease twice, or, if he did,
the second attack was never fatal. Such people were congratulated on all
sides, and they themselves were so elated at the time of their recovery
that they fondly imagined that they could never die of any other disease
in the future. A
factor which made matters much worse than they were already was the
removal of people from the country into the city, and this particularly
affected the incomers. There were no houses for them, and, living as they
did during the hot season in badly ventilated huts, they died like flies.
The bodies of the dying were heaped one on top of the other, and half-dead
creatures could be seen staggering about in the streets or flocking around
the fountains in their desire for water. The temples in which they took up
their quarters were full of the dead bodies of people who had died inside
them. For the catastrophe was so overwhelming that men, not knowing what
would happen next to them, became indifferent to every rule of religion or
of law. All the funeral ceremonies which used to be observed were now
disorganized, and they buried the dead as best they could. Many people,
lacking the necessary means of burial because so many deaths had already
occurred in their households, adopted the most shameless methods. They
would arrive first at a funeral pyre that had been made by others, put
their own dead upon it and set it alight; or, finding another pyre
burning, they would throw the corpse that they were carrying on top of the
other one and go away. In
other respects also Athens owed to the plague the beginnings of a state of
unprecedented lawlessness. Seeing how quick and abrupt were the changes of
fortune which came to the rich who suddenly died and to those who had
previously been penniless but now inherited their wealth, people now began
openly to venture on acts of self-indulgence which before then they used
to keep dark. Thus they resolved to spend their money quickly and to spend
it on pleasure, since money and life alike seemed equally ephemeral. As
for what is called honour, no one showed himself willing to abide by its
laws, so doubtful was it whether one would survive to enjoy the name for
it. It was generally agreed that what was both honourable and valuable was
the pleasure of the moment and everything that might conceivably
contribute to that pleasure. No fear of god or law of man had a
restraining influence. As for the gods, it seemed to be the same thing
whether one worshipped them or not, when one saw the good and the bad
dying indiscriminately. As for offenses against human law, no one expected
to live long enough to be brought to trial and punished: instead everyone
felt that already a far heavier sentence had been passed on him and was
hanging over him, and that before the time for its execution arrived it
was only natural to get some pleasure out of life. This,
then, was the calamity which fell upon Athens, and the times were hard
indeed, with men dying inside the city and the land outside being laid
waste. At this time of distress people naturally recalled old oracles, and
among them was a verse which the old men claimed had been delivered in the
past and which said: War
with the Dorians comes and a death will come at the same time. There
had been a controversy as to whether the word in this ancient verse was
‘dearth’ rather than ‘death’; but in the present state of affairs
the view that the word was ‘death’ naturally prevailed; it was a case
of people adapting their memories to suit their sufferings. Certainly I
think that if there is ever another war with the Dorians after this one,
and if a dearth results from it, then in all probability people will quote
the other version. Then
also the oracle that was given to the Spartans was remembered by those who
knew of it: that when they inquired from the god whether they should go to
war, they received the reply that, if they fought with all their might
victory would be theirs and that the god himself would be on their side.
What was actually happening seemed to fit in well with the words of this
oracle; certainly the plague broke out directly after the Peloponnesian
invasion, and never affected the Peloponnese at all, or not seriously; its
full force was felt at Athens, and, after Athens, in the most densely
populated of the other towns. Such
were the events connected with the plague. Meanwhile the Pelloponnesians,
after laying waste the Attic plain, moved on into the Paralian district as
far as Laurium, where the Athenian silver-mines are. First they laid waste
the side that looks towards the Peloponnese, and then the other side
facing Euboea and Andros. |
