Killing nearly a third of the population, an epidemic ripped through Athens in 430 B.C. Historic accounts and new technology are helping identify the true culprit
Two of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece—Sparta and Athens—went to war in 431 B.C. Tensions between the two had been simmering for decades before boiling over into war. Occupying the lands of the Peloponnese , Sparta enacted a land-based strategy, relying on their disciplined hoplites to defeat the Athenians in the open field. When Spartan troops would invade Attica , Athenians responded with naval attacks on politically sensitive points in the Peloponnese.
Dedicated to Athena, patron goddess of Athens, the Parthenon overlooks the city from its perch on the Acropolis. The temple was finished in 432 B.C., shortly before the start of the Peloponnesian War.In Piraeus, rumors spread that when the Spartans had arrived they had poisoned the wells there so that Athenians were sickened by drinking contaminated water.
Thucydides describes the appearance of the patient’s skin: “reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers.” Sufferers described intense fevers, feeling as though a fire was consuming them inside, so they would remove all their clothes. They experienced an “unquenchable thirst,” which led some to plunge themselves into water tanks as well. Extreme insomnia followed.This funerary stela of the Athenian woman Hegeso dates to about 450 B.C.
The contagious disease took a toll on those who cared for the sick. Physicians were badly hit early on. Indeed, anyone who nursed their sick loved ones paid a high price: “[I]f they ventured to do so, death was the consequence.” If they did not, the patients “perished from neglect; indeed many houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse.” Thucydides notes that “it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion.
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