They [the enemy] had not been there [in Attica] many days when the
plague broke out at Athens for the first time. A similar disorder is
said to have previously smitten many places, particularly Lemnos;[27]
but there is no record of such a pestilence occurring elsewhere, or of
so great a destruction of human life. For a while physicians, in
ignorance of the nature of the disease, sought to apply remedies; but
it was in vain, and they themselves were among the first victims,
because they oftenest came into contact with it. No human art was of
any avail, and as to supplications in temples, inquiries of oracles,
and the like, they were utterly useless, and at last men were
overpowered by the calamity and gave up all remedies.
The disease is said to have begun south of Egypt in Ethiopia; thence
it descended into Egypt and Libya, and after spreading over the
greater part of the Persian empire, suddenly fell upon Athens. It
first attacked the inhabitants of the Piræus, and it was supposed that
the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns, no conduits having as
yet been made there. It afterward reached the upper city, and then the
mortality became far greater. As to its probable origin or the causes
which might or could have produced such a disturbance of nature, every
man, whether a physician or not, will give his own opinion. But I
shall describe its actual course, and the symptoms by which any one
who knows them beforehand may recognize the disorder should it ever
reappear. For I was myself attacked, and witnessed the sufferings of
others.
The season was admitted to have been remarkably free from ordinary
sickness; and if anybody was already ill of any other disease, it was
absorbed in this. Many who were in perfect health, all in a moment,
and without any apparent reason, were seized with violent heats in the
head and with redness and inflammation of the eyes. Internally the
throat and the tongue were quickly suffused with blood, and the breath
became unnatural and fetid. There followed sneezing and hoarseness; in
a short time the disorder, accompanied by a violent cough, reached the
chest; then fastening lower down, it would move the stomach and bring
on all the vomits of bile to which physicians have ever given names;
and they were very distressing. An ineffectual retching producing
violent convulsions attacked most of the sufferers; some as soon as
the previous symptoms had abated, others not until long afterward. The
body externally was not so very hot to the touch, nor yet pale; it was
of a livid color inclining to red, and breaking out in pustules and
ulcers. But the internal fever was intense; the sufferers could not
bear to have on them even the finest linen garment; they insisted on
being naked, and there was nothing which they longed for more eagerly
than to throw themselves into cold water. And many of those who had no
one to look after them actually plunged into the cisterns, for they
were tormented by unceasing thirst, which was not in the least
assuaged whether they drank little or much. They could not sleep; a
restlessness which was intolerable never left them.
While the disease was at its height the body, instead of wasting away,
held out amid these sufferings in a marvelous manner, and either they
died on the seventh or ninth day, not of weakness, for their strength
was not exhausted, but of internal fever, which was the end of most;
or, if they survived, then the disease descended into the bowels and
there produced violent ulcerations; severe diarrhea at the same time
set in, and at a later stage caused exhaustion, which finally with few
exceptions carried them off. For the disorder, which had originally
settled in the head, passed gradually through the whole body, and, if
a person got over the worst, would often seize the extremities and
leave its mark, attacking the privy parts and the fingers and the
toes; and some escaped with the loss of these, some with the loss of
their eyes. Some, again, had no sooner recovered than they were seized
with a forgetfulness of all things and knew neither themselves nor
their friends.
The malady took a form not to be described, and the fury with which it
fastened upon each sufferer was too much for human nature to endure.
There was one circumstance in particular which distinguished it from
ordinary diseases. The birds and animals, which feed on human flesh,
altho so many bodies were lying unburied, either never went near them
or died if they touched them. This was proved by a remarkable
disappearance of the birds of prey, which were not to be seen either
about the bodies or anywhere else; while in the case of the dogs the
fact was even more obvious, because they live with man.
Such was the general nature of the disease; I omit many strange
peculiarities which characterized individual cases. None of the
ordinary sicknesses attacked any one while it lasted, or, if they did,
they ended in the plague. Some of the sufferers died from want of
care, others equally who were receiving the greatest attention. No
single remedy could be deemed a specific; for that which did good to
one did harm to another. No constitution was of itself strong enough
to resist or weak enough to escape the attacks; the disease carried
off all alike and defied every mode of treatment. Most appalling was
the despondency which seized upon any one who felt himself sickening;
for he instantly abandoned his mind to despair and, instead of holding
out, absolutely threw away his chance of life. Appalling too was the
rapidity with which men caught the infection, dying like sheep if they
attended on one another, and this was the principal cause of
mortality. When they were afraid to visit one another, the sufferers
died in their solitude, so that many houses were empty because there
had been no one left to take care of the sick; or if they ventured
they perished, especially those who aspired to heroism. For they went
to see their friends without thought of themselves and were ashamed to
leave them, even at a time when the very relatives of the dying were
at last growing weary and ceased to make lamentations, overwhelmed by
the vastness of the calamity. But whatever instances there may have
been of such devotion, more often the sick and the dying were tended
by the pitying care of those who had recovered, because they knew the
course of the disease and were themselves free from apprehension. For
no one was ever attacked a second time, or not with a fatal result.
All men congratulated them; and they themselves, in the excess of
their joy at the moment, had an innocent fancy that they could not die
of any other sickness.
The crowding of the people out of the country into the city aggravated
the misery, and the newly arrived suffered most. For, having no houses
of their own, but inhabiting, in the height of summer, stifling huts,
the mortality among them was dreadful, and they perished in wild
disorder. The dead lay as they had died, one upon another, while
others hardly alive wallowed in the streets and crawled about every
fountain craving for water. The temples in which they lodged were full
of the corpses of those who had died in them; for the violence of the
calamity was such that men, not knowing where to turn, grew reckless
of all law, human and divine. The customs which had hitherto been
observed at funerals were universally violated, and they buried their
dead each one as best he could. Many, having no proper appliances,
because the deaths in their household had been so frequent, made no
scruple of using the burial-place of others. When one man had raised a
funeral pile, others would come, and throwing on their dead first, set
fire to it; or when some other corpse was already burning, before they
could be stopt would throw their own dead upon it and depart.
There were other and worse forms of lawlessness which the plague
introduced at Athens. Men who had hitherto concealed their indulgence
in pleasure now grew bolder. For, seeing the sudden change--how the
rich died in a moment, and those who had nothing immediately inherited
their property--they reflected that life and riches were alike
transitory, and they resolved to enjoy themselves while they could,
and to think only of pleasure. Who would be willing to sacrifice
himself to the law of honor when he knew not whether he would ever
live to be held in honor? The pleasure of the moment and any sort of
thing which conduced to it took the place both of honor and of
expediency. No fear of God or law of man deterred a criminal. Those
who saw all perishing alike thought that the worship or neglect of the
gods made no difference. For offenses against human law no punishment
was to be feared; no one would live long enough to be called to
account. Already a far heavier sentence had been passed and was
hanging over a man's head; before that feeling, why should he not take
a little pleasure?
Such was the grievous calamity which now afflicted the Athenians;
within the walls their people were dying, and without, their country
was being ravaged. In their troubles they naturally called to mind a
verse which the elder men among them declared to have been current
long ago:
"A Dorian war will come and a plague with it."