I
At the beginning of the next summer the Peloponnesians again entered
Attica, and resumed their work of devastation, destroying the young
crops, and wrecking whatever had been spared in the previous year.
Before they had been many days in Attica, a new and far more terrible
visitation came upon the Athenians, threatening them with total
extinction as a people. We have seen how the whole upper city, with the
space between the Long Walls, and the harbour-town of Peiraeus, was
packed with a vast multitude of human beings, penned together, like
sheep in a fold. Into these huddled masses now crept a subtle and
unseen foe, striking down his victims by hundreds and by thousands.
That foe was the Plague, which beginning in Southern Africa, and
descending thence to Egypt, reached the southern shores of the
Mediterranean, and passed on to Peiraeus, having been carried thither
by seamen who trafficked between northern Africa and Greece. From
Peiraeus it spread upwards with rapid strides, and before long the
whole space within the walls presented the appearance of a vast
lazar-house.
From the description of the symptoms we may conclude that this epidemic
was similar to that dreadful scourge of mankind which has been almost
conquered by modern science, the small-pox. The patient who had taken
the infection was first attacked in the head, with inflammation of the
eyes, and violent headache. By degrees the poison worked its way into
the whole system, affecting every organ in the body, and appearing on
the surface in the shape of small ulcers and boils. One of the most
distressing features of the disease was a raging thirst, which could
not be appeased by the most copious draughts of water; and the internal
heat, which produced this effect, caused also a frightful irritability
of the skin, so that the sufferer could not bear the touch of the
lightest and most airy fabrics, but lay naked on his bed, in all the
deformity of his dire affliction. Of those who recovered, many bore the
marks of the sickness to their graves, by the loss of a hand, a foot,
or an eye; while others were affected in their minds, remaining in
blank oblivion, without power to recognise themselves or their friends.
The healing art had made great progress in Greece in the course of the
last generation; and in this, as in all else, the Greeks remained the
sole teachers of Europe for ages after. But against such a malady as
this, the most skilful physicians could do nothing, and those who
attempted to exercise their skill caught the plague themselves, and for
the most part perished. Still less, as we may well suppose, was the
benefit derived from amulets, incantations, inquiries of oracles, or
supplications at temples; and at last, finding no help in god or man,
the Athenians gave up the struggle, and resigned themselves to despair.
It is recorded as a curious fact, showing the strange and outlandish
character of the pestilence, that the birds and animals which feed on
human flesh generally shunned the bodies of those who died of the
plague, though they might have eaten their fill, for hundreds were left
unburied. The very vultures fled from the infected city, and hardly one
was seen as long as the pestilence continued.
The fearful rapidity with which the infection spread caused a panic
throughout the city, and even the boldest were not proof against the
general terror. If any man felt himself sickening of the plague, he at
once gave up all hope, and made no effort to fight against the disease.
Few were found brave enough to undertake the duty of nursing the sick,
and those who did generally paid for their devotion with their lives.
In most cases the patient was left to languish alone, and perished by
neglect, while his nearest and dearest avoided his presence, and had
grown so callous that they had not a sigh or a tear left for the death
of husband, or child, or friend. The few who recovered, now free from
risk of mortal infection, did what they could to help their suffering
fellow-citizens.
The mischief was aggravated by the overcrowded state of the city,
especially among those who had come in from the country, and were
living in stifling huts through the intense heat of a southern summer.
Here the harvest of death fell thickest, and the corpses lay heaped
together, while dying wretches crawled about the public streets, and
encumbered the fountain-sides, to which they had dragged themselves in
their longing for drink. All sense of public decency, all regard for
laws, human or divine, was lost. The temples in which they had made
their dwellings were choked with dead, and the sacred duty of burial,
to which the conscience of antiquity attached so high an importance,
was performed in wild haste and disorder. Sometimes those who were
carrying out a corpse found a vacant pile prepared by the relatives of
another victim, flung their dead upon it, set fire to the pile, and
departed; and sometimes, when a body was already burning, others who
were seeking to dispose of a corpse forced their way to the fire, and
threw their burden upon it.
In the general relaxation of public morality all the dark passions of
human nature, which at ordinary times lurk in secret places, came forth
to the light of day, and raged without restraint. Some, who had grown
rich in a day by the death of wealthy relatives, resolved to enjoy
their possessions, and indulge every appetite, before they were
overtaken by the same fate. Others, who had hitherto led good lives,
seeing the base and the noble swept away indifferently by the same
ruthless power, began to doubt the justice of heaven itself, and rushed
into debauch, convinced that conscience and honour were but empty
names. For human laws they cared still less, for in the universal panic
there was none to enforce them, and before the voice of public
authority could be heard again, both judge and transgressor, as they
believed, would be involved in a common doom. All shame and fear were
accordingly thrown aside, and those whom the plague had not yet touched
seemed possessed by one sole desire--to drown thought and care in an
orgy of fierce excess, and then to die.