Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Others, on first recovering, suffered a total loss of memory, and were unable to recognize themselves and their relatives. 1 ff. med. Thucydides offers us a description of a city-state in crisis that is as poignant and powerful now, as it was in 430BC. Croix, Mr. N. C. Dexter, and Mr. D. E. Poole, all of whom read earlier versions of this article and made valuable suggestions, most of which we have adopted. It’s not one thing: it’s a succession of things. One would expect that after the description of the disease, the historian would have made a remark about the consequences that the plague had for the war. surprises me: but I see no reason to dispute it in some cases (esp. J. [2.48.3] 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. closely, with a few additions and embellishments (1150, 1202–3) and one or two mistakes (esp. Terrible was the clash that rose from the bow of silver. and had not explicitly given an entirely different (and sufficient) reason for this action. 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. Others were caught with no warning, but suddenly, when they were in good health. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted with the utmost precaution. (I am obliged to the University Librarian at Cambridge for providing me with microfilms of this elusive article); and Ehlert, J., de verborum copia Thuc., diss. (ii) He does not refer to the condition of the urine: but that may be because there was nothing significant to record; I notice that standard modern accounts of the disease with which we shall shortly identify Thuc. 25 Rolleston, J. D., The History of the Acute Exanthemata (London, 1937), p. 49. Benitez, R.Michael 's Plague include no reference to the urine. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. page 119 note 2 The foregoing is a revised version of a paper read to the Philological Society at Cambridge and to the Classical Association at Oxford in 1952. Brandeis, p. 24, absolutely rejects the possibility of this identification). gives too little detail about the development and duration of individual symptoms, and does not distinguish systematically enough between the various stages in the progress of the Plague: I think it a fair comment that descriptions of such diseases in modern medical textbooks are not much superior in these respects, (iv) Brandeis (p. 62) complains that Thuc. 1988. Langmuir, Alexander D. has confused a plurality of simultaneous plagues, had already been expressed by Sticker, G., Festschr.für B. Nocht, 1937, p. 604 (quoted by von Hagen; I have not seen it). [2.49.6] Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them. Thucydides’ description of the plague that struck Athens in 430 BC is one of the great passages of Greek literature. for this article. Solomon, Jon For the plague broke out as soon as the Peloponnesians invaded Attica, and never entering Peloponnese (not at least to an extent worth noticing), committed its worst ravages at Athens, and next to Athens, at the most populous of the other towns. sunk to such a state of filth that die disease might be generated and the infection universally transmitted in this way. page 112 note 2 At least we must continue to try until failure is proven; which is not yet. 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. It is an extraordinary procedure for a scientific writer; but the only point of importance at present is that there is no reason to believe that Lucr. and [2.55.1] Such was the history of the plague. "Thucydides on the Plague of Athens: Text & Commentary." ….