History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

CHAPTER VII

_Second Year of the War - The Plague of Athens - Position and

Policy of Pericles - Fall of Potidaea_

 

Such was the funeral that took place during this winter, with

which the first year of the war came to an end. In the first days of

summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies, with two-thirds of their

forces as before, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son

of Zeuxidamus, King of Lacedaemon, and sat down and laid waste the

country. Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague

first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said that it

had broken out in many places previously in the neighbourhood of

Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality

was nowhere remembered. Neither were the physicians at first of any

service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they

died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often;

nor did any human art succeed any better. Supplications in the

temples, divinations, and so forth were found equally futile, till the

overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop to them

altogether.

 

It first began, it is said, in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt,

and thence descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the

King’s country. Suddenly falling upon Athens, it first attacked the

population in Piraeus—which was the occasion of their saying that

the Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs, there being as yet

no wells there—and afterwards appeared in the upper city, when the

deaths became much more frequent. All speculation as to its origin and

its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a

disturbance, I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional;

for myself, I shall simply set down its nature, and explain the

symptoms by which perhaps it may be recognized by the student, if it

should ever break out again. This I can the better do, as I had the

disease myself, and watched its operation in the case of others.

 

That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly

free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred all determined in

this. As a rule, however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in

good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the

head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such

as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and

fetid breath. These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness,

after which the pain soon reached the chest, and produced a hard

cough. When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and discharges of

bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very

great distress. In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed,

producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in

others much later. Externally the body was not very hot to the

touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking

out into small pustules and ulcers. But internally it burned so that

the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of

the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark

naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw

themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the

neglected sick, who plunged into the rain-tanks in their agonies of

unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank

little or much. Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being

able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them. The body meanwhile

did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its height, but

held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they succumbed,

as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal

inflammation, they had still some strength in them. But if they passed

this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels,

inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhoea,

this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal. For the disorder

first settled in the head, ran its course from thence through the

whole of the body, and, even where it did not prove mortal, it still

left its mark on the extremities; for it settled in the privy parts,

the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these,

some too with that of their eyes. Others again were seized with an

entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either

themselves or their friends.

 

But while the nature of the distemper was such as to baffle all

description, and its attacks almost too grievous for human nature to

endure, it was still in the following circumstance that its difference

from all ordinary disorders was most clearly shown. All the birds

and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either abstained from touching

them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after tasting

them. In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind

actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to

be seen at all. But of course the effects which I have mentioned could

best be studied in a domestic animal like the dog.

 

Such then, if we pass over the varieties of particular cases which

were many and peculiar, were the general features of the distemper.

Meanwhile the town enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary

disorders; or if any case occurred, it ended in this. Some died in

neglect, others in the midst of every attention. No remedy was found

that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case, did

harm in another. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally

incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted

with the utmost precaution. By far the most terrible feature in the

malady was the dejection which ensued when any one felt himself

sickening, for the despair into which they instantly fell took away

their power of resistance, and left them a much easier prey to the

disorder; besides which, there was the awful spectacle of men dying

like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other.

This caused the greatest mortality. On the one hand, if they were

afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many

houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the

other, if they ventured to do so, death was the consequence. This

was especially the case with such as made any pretensions to goodness:

honour made them unsparing of themselves in their attendance in

their friends’ houses, where even the members of the family were at

last worn out by the moans of the dying, and succumbed to the force of

the disaster. Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease

that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what

it was from experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the

same man was never attacked twice—never at least fatally. And such

persons not only received the congratulations of others, but

themselves also, in the elation of the moment, half entertained the

vain hope that they were for the future safe from any disease

whatsoever.

 

An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the

country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new

arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be

lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the

mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one

upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and

gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. The

sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of

corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as

the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of

them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or

profane. All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and

they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the

proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died

already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes

getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own

dead body upon the stranger’s pyre and ignited it; sometimes they

tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another

that was burning, and so went off.

 

Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its

origin to the plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had

formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the

rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and

those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. So they

resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their

lives and riches as alike things of a day. Perseverance in what men

called honour was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether

they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that

present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honourable

and useful. Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain

them. As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether

they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and

for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his

offences, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already

passed upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this

fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little.

 

Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the

Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without. Among

other things which they remembered in their distress was, very

naturally, the following verse which the old men said had long ago

been uttered:

 

A Dorian war shall come and with it death.

 

So a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the

word in the verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course

decided in favour of the latter; for the people made their

recollection fit in with their sufferings. I fancy, however, that if

another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us, and a dearth

should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read

accordingly. The oracle also which had been given to the

Lacedaemonians was now remembered by those who knew of it. When the

god was asked whether they should go to war, he answered that if

they put their might into it, victory would be theirs, and that he

would himself be with them. With this oracle events were supposed to

tally. For the plague broke out as soon as the Peloponnesians

invaded Attica, and never entering Peloponnese (not at least to an

extent worth noticing), committed its worst ravages at Athens, and

next to Athens, at the most populous of the other towns. Such was

the history of the plague.

 

After ravaging the plain, the Peloponnesians advanced into the

Paralian region as far as Laurium, where the Athenian silver mines

are, and first laid waste the side looking towards Peloponnese, next

that which faces Euboea and Andros. But Pericles, who was still

general, held the same opinion as in the former invasion, and