The Peloponnesian War had just begun. Pericles, Athens’s great statesman, convinced his people to adopt a radical strategy. They would abandon the countryside of Attica to the invading Spartan army. The entire population would shelter behind the city’s formidable Long Walls. Athens would use its unbeatable navy to raid the enemy coast and supply itself by sea. It was a strategy built on logic and strength. But it had a fatal flaw. It did not account for an enemy far more terrible than Sparta: disease.
Table of Contents
The historian Thucydides, a general in the war and a survivor of the illness, gives us our only contemporary account. He describes a catastrophe that did not just kill thousands, but tore apart the very fabric of Athenian society.
An Unknown Enemy
The plague appeared suddenly. It began, Thucydides reports, in Ethiopia, traveled through Egypt and Libya, and then struck Athens’s port, the Piraeus (p. 215).
The city was dangerously overcrowded. Farmers, their families, and their livestock had poured in from the countryside. They lived in makeshift huts, temple grounds, and any available open space within the walls (p. 218). This created the perfect breeding ground for disease.
At first, the Athenians had no idea what was happening. A rumor spread that the Spartans had poisoned the water reservoirs (p. 215). But soon, the sheer scale and horror of the illness made it clear this was something else. It was an affliction beyond any known experience. The city’s physicians were helpless. In trying to treat the sick, they were often the first to die (p. 215).
🤒 The Horrific Symptoms
Thucydides’s description of the plague is chilling in its clinical detail. He set out to record its nature so that it might be recognized if it ever struck again (p. 216).
- It began with violent fevers in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes (p. 216).
- Internally, the throat and tongue became bloody, and the breath was unnatural and foul (p. 216).
- These symptoms were followed by sneezing, hoarseness, and a hard cough (p. 216).
- Once it settled in the stomach, it caused vomiting of bile and violent spasms (p. 216).
- The skin was not overly hot to the touch but was reddish and covered in small blisters and ulcers (p. 216).
- The internal fever was so extreme that victims could not bear any clothing. Many were driven by an unquenchable thirst to throw themselves into cold water tanks (p. 217).
- Most of the afflicted died on the seventh or ninth day (p. 217).
- Those who survived often lost their extremities, their sight, or their memories (p. 217).
So complete was the devastation that even animals were affected. Thucydides notes that birds and dogs that scavenged the many unburied corpses either stayed away or died after tasting the flesh (p. 217).
The Social Collapse
The plague did more than kill. It shattered Athenian law, religion, and custom. This social breakdown was, for Thucydides, as significant as the disease itself.
The city descended into chaos. The sheer number of dead overwhelmed all funeral traditions. Desperate people abandoned rites, tossing the bodies of their relatives onto the funeral pyres of others or dumping them in mass graves (p. 218).
This collapse of order spread to every aspect of life. Thucydides famously wrote, “Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them” (p. 219).
People saw that the pious died just as easily as the wicked. They concluded that worship and reverence were useless (p. 219). At the same time, no one expected to live long enough to be brought to justice for any crime. This led to a state of utter lawlessness. Citizens began to spend their money wildly and pursue immediate pleasure, believing that both life and wealth were temporary (p. 219). The discipline and social cohesion that had made Athens great dissolved in the face of overwhelming death.
A Weakened Athens
The plague raged for two full years and returned again a year later (p. 228). The toll on Athens’s military strength was catastrophic. Thucydides records that no fewer than 4,400 hoplites (heavy infantry) and 300 cavalrymen died from the disease (p. 228). This was a massive blow to the army. The number of deaths among the common people was so large it was never accurately calculated (p. 228).
Among the victims was Pericles himself (p. 438). Athens lost its most influential and steadfast leader at the moment it needed him most. In the end, Thucydides delivers a stark verdict. The plague was the single greatest disaster to befall the city. He concludes, “nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced their power more than this” (p. 228).
A Zombie Apocalypse (Metaphorically):
This might sound exaggerated at first, but this analogy best captures the social collapse Thucydides describes. Why?
- The Invalidation of Laws: Just like in a zombie movie, the fear of gods and human laws completely disappeared in Athens. Everyone fell into pursuing only momentary pleasure and survival.
- Man’s Enmity to Man: People stopped burying their deceased loved ones; they even stole funeral pyres from others. The healthy fled from the sick and the dying. Social trust was completely destroyed.
- The Collapse of Civilization: The Athens that Thucydides describes is no longer the Athens we know. The center of art, philosophy, and democracy instantly transformed into an arena for a primitive struggle for survival, much like the zombie narratives where civilization suddenly vanishes.
A Nuclear War Amidst a Biological Weapons Attack:
This analogy better reflects the strategic dimension of the plague.
- A Two-Front War: Athens was already at war with Sparta on the outside. The plague opened a second, more lethal front inside the walls. It is just like a country fighting a conventional war while its cities are paralyzed by a biological attack.
- An Incomprehensible and Uncontrollable Enemy: What the plague was and how it spread was unknown. Just like an invisible biological agent, it rendered even the strongest military defenses meaningless.
- The Collapse of Leadership: The plague also killed Pericles, the architect of Athens’s strategy. This created an effect like the command structure being wiped out in the middle of a war.
Summary
- The Outbreak: An unknown and highly lethal disease struck Athens in the second year of the Peloponnesian War. It spread rapidly through the city, which was overcrowded due to Pericles’s war strategy (p. 215, 218).
- The Symptoms: Thucydides, a survivor, left a detailed clinical account of the plague’s horrific effects, from extreme fevers and thirst to social and moral decay (p. 216-217).
- Social Collapse: The plague caused a complete breakdown of law, religion, and funeral customs. Facing random death, Athenians abandoned their fear of both gods and laws, leading to widespread lawlessness (p. 219).
- Decisive Impact: The plague killed a huge portion of the population, including thousands of soldiers and the leader Pericles himself. Thucydides argues it was this event, more than any Spartan victory, that critically wounded Athens and crippled its power for years to come (p. 228, 438).
Works Cited
Allison, Graham. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.Thucydides. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. Edited by Robert B. Strassler, translated by Richard Crawley, Simon & Schuster, 1998.
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