The word “Pandemic” has its origin in Ancient Greece and show that diseases have always been part of human history.
Plague was already and insidiously present in the first monumental piece of western literature, The Iliad by Homer .
The plague hit the Greek army at Troy after Agamemnon, the Greek leader, showed disrespect towards the god Apollo, who immediately retaliated. No outrage to a god can go unpublished.
But what brought down the glory of Athens and the whole Hellenistic world ?
The period known as the Golden Age of Athens started around 478 BCE, after the defeat of the Persian invasion.
It was the time of glory for Athens.
It is also known now as “the time of Pericles”, its most important and glorious statesman but it is also known as the time of Plato, Socrates and Hippocrates, as the time of the building of the Acropolis, as the time of democracy… a time of cultural flourishing…
It was a time of dominance for Athens until a rivalry with Sparta degenerated into a long atrocious conflict that is known in history as “the Peloponnesian War”. The bloodshed will last 27 years.
The outcome of the Peloponnesian war still to this day remains uncertain, but an invisible ominous enemy will alter the balance dramatically for the whole Hellenistic world ; a very deadly epidemic, known as the “Great Plague of Athens” was going to put an abrupt end to the hubris of the Athenians, killing massively and un discernibly starting with the most powerful of the Athenians, Pericles himself.
After the Great Plague, Athens never regained its former power nor glory.
Thucydides’ Testimonial
It is thanks to one great man , the Athenian general Thucydides, considered to be the father of the “scientific history”, the Athenian historian and general Thucydides, that we have information about the Great Plague of Athens which happened some 2500 years ago. His eight-volumes work “History of the Peloponnesian War” is regarded as one of the finest works of history ever written. He contracted the disease and luckily survived.
“A plague as great as this and with such devastating consequences that it had no similarity in nothing else in human history”.
The disease erupted at the beginning of the summer of 430 BC and by the summer of 428 BC it had literally decimated the population of the city. After a brief period of recession, the epidemic broke out again during the winter of 427 BC and lasted until the winter of 426 BC. It is estimated that about one in three residents of Athens was lost in the epidemic, including Pericles, the city’s leader.
«I let everyone, doctor or ignorant, explain, as far as he knows, where he came from and what was the cause of the disease that caused such disorder in the body, leading him from health to death. I, who got sick myself and saw with my own eyes getting sick, will describe the illness and its symptoms so that if it ever happens, everyone will have it in mind and know the illness to get well measures of…”
Thucydides describes the symptoms : the burning feeling of sufferers, stomachaches and vomiting, the desire to be totally naked without any linen resting on the body, insomnia and restlessness.
If the patient survived this first stage, after seven or eight days, the pestilence would descend to the bowels and other parts of the body (genitals, fingers and toes). Some people even went blind.
According to Thucydides: “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. The most terrible thing 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 in this way, would lose their powers of resistance. As for offenses against human law, no one expected to live long enough to be brought to trial and punished: instead everyone felt that a far heavier sentence had been passed on him”.
The disease was very infectious, with high mortality among doctors and relatives who cared for patients. It is estimated that about a quarter or a third of the population of Ancient Athens was lost to the epidemic.
Thucydides’ description of the symptoms does not fit into any of the modern forms of infections, so far…
The loss of a large proportion of the human resources and a significant portion of the city’s leaders, coupled with the sharp decline in the morale of its surviving civilians, led to significant errors in the city’s political and military choices, which resulted in unconditional defeat and the capitulation of Athens.
The world of today is obviously different from the Ancient world.
Still if you feel that you have recently heard this very quote from Thucydides, “Through knowledge, patience and science we can prevail.” said by our present leaders, then remember that “there is nothing new under the sun”…
Keep safe ….