APPENDIX
NoI.
Account of the Plague at Athens, in the time of the Peloponnesian War:—FromThucydides.—Smith’s Translation.
THEPeloponnesians and their allies, who had made an incursion into Attica, with two thirds of their forces, had not been many days there before a sickness began first to appear among the Athenians, such as was reported to have raged before this in other parts, as about Lemnos and other places. Yet a plague so great as this, and so dreadful a mortality, in human memory could not be paralleled. The physicians at first could administer no relief, through utter ignorance; nay, they died the faster, the closer their attendance on the sick; and all human art was totally unavailing. Whatever supplications were offered in the temples, whatever recourse to oracles and religious rites, all were insignificant: at last, expedients of this nature they totally relinquished, overcome by calamity. It broke out first, as it is said, in that part of Ethiopia which borders upon Egypt; it afterwards spread into Egypt and Libya; and at length, on a sudden, fell on the city of the Athenians. The contagion shewed itself first in Piræus; which occasioned a report, that the Peloponnesians had caused poison to be thrown into the wells; for, as yet, there were no fountains there. After this it spread into the upper city, and then the mortality very much increased. Let every one, physician or not, freely declare his own sentiments about it; let him assign any credible account of its rise, or the causes strong enough, in his opinion, to introduce so terrible a scene. I shall only relate what it actually was, and as, from an information in all its symptoms, none may be quite at a loss about it if ever it should happen again, I shall give an exact detail of them; having been sick of it myself, and seen many others afflicted with it.
This very year, (430 B. C.) as is universally allowed, had been, more than any other, remarkably free from common disorders; or, whatever diseases had already seized the body, they ended at length in this. But those who enjoyed the most perfect health were suddenly, without any apparent cause, seized at first with head-achs extremely violent, with inflammations and fiery redness in the eyes. Within, the throat and tongue began instantly to be red as blood; the breath was drawn with difficulty, and had a noisome smell. The symptoms that succeeded these were, sneezing and hoarseness; and, not long after, the malady descended to the breast, with a violent cough; but, when once settled in the stomach, it excited vomitings, in which was thrown up all that matter which physicians call discharges of bile, attended with excessive torture. A great part of the infected were subject to such violent hiccups, without any discharge, as brought upon them strong convulsions, to some but of a short, to others of a very long continuance. The body, to the outward touch, was neither very hot nor of a pallid hue, but reddish, livid, marked all over with little pustules and sores; yet, inwardly, it was scorched with such excessive heat that it would not bear the slightest covering of the finest linen upon it, but must be left quite naked. They longed for nothing so much as to be plunging in cold water; and many of those who were not properlyattended threw themselves into wells, hurried by a thirst not to be extinguished; and, whether they drank much or little, their torment still continued the same. The restlessness of their bodies, and an utter inability of composing themselves to sleep, never abated for a moment. And the body, so long as the distemper continued in its height, had no visible waste, but withstood its rage to a miracle; so that most of them perished within seven or nine days by the heat that scorched their vitals, though their strength was not exhausted; or, if they continued longer, the distemper fell into the belly, causing violent ulcerations of the bowels, accompanied with an incessant flux, by which many, reduced to an excessive weakness, were carried off. For the malady, beginning in the head, and settling first there, sunk afterwards gradually down through the whole body. And whoever got safe through all its most dangerous stages, yet the extremities of their bodies still retained the marks of its violence. For it shot down into their privy members, into their fingers and toes, by losing which they escaped with life. Some there were who lost their eyes, and some who, being quite recovered, had at once totally lost all memory, and quite forgot not only their most intimate friends, but even their own selves. For, as this distemper was in general virulent beyond expression, and its every part more grievous than had yet fallen to the lot of human nature; so, in one particular instance, it appeared to be none of the natural infirmities of man, since the birds and beasts that prey on human flesh either never approached the dead bodies, of which many lay about uninterred, or certainly perished if they tasted. One proof of this is then the total disappearance of such birds; for not one was to be seen, either in any other place, or about any of the carcases. But the dogs, because of their constant familiarity with man, afforded a more notorious proof of this event.
The nature of this pestilential disorder was in general (for I have purposely omitted many of its varied appearances, or the circumstances particular to some of the infected in contradistinction to others) such as hath been described. None of the common maladies incident to human nature prevailed at that time; or, whatever disorder any where appeared, it ended in this. Some died merely for want of care; and some with all the care that could possibly be taken; nor was any one medicine discovered from whence could be promised any certain relief; since that which gave ease to one was prejudicial to another. Whatever difference there was in bodies in point of strength, or in point of weakness, it availed nothing; all were equally swept away before it, in spite of regular diet, and studied prescriptions. Yet the most affecting circumstances of this calamity were, that dejection of mind which constantly attended the first attack; for the mind sinking at once into despair, they soon gave themselves up without a struggle; and that mutual tenderness in taking care of one another, which communicated the infection, and made them drop like sheep. This latter case caused the mortality to be so great. For, if fear withheld them from going near one another, they died for want of help; so that many houses became desolate for want of needful attendance; and if they ventured, they were gone. This was most frequently the case of the kind and compassionate. Such persons were ashamed, out of a selfish concern for themselves, entirely to abandon their friends, when their menial servants, no longer able to endure the groans and lamentations of the dying, had been compelled to fly from such a weight of calamity. But those, especially, who had safely gone through it, took pity on the dying and the sick, because they knew by themselves what it really was, and were now secure in themselves; for it never seized one a second time so as to be mortal. Such were looked upon as quite happy by others, and were themselves at first overjoyed in their late escape, and the groundless hope that hereafter no distemper would prove fatal to them. Besides this reigning calamity, the general removal from the country into the city was a heavy grievance, more particularly to those who had been necessitated to come thither. For, as they had no houses, but dwelled all the summer time in booths, where there was scarce room to breathe, the pestilence destroyed them with the utmost disorder, so that they lay together in heaps, the dying upon the dead, and the dead upon the dying. Some were tumbling over one another in the public streets, or lay expiring about every fountain, whither they had crept to assuage their extraordinary thirst. The temples,in which they had erected tents for their reception, were full of the bodies which had expired there. For, in a calamity so outrageously violent, and universal despair, things sacred and holy had quite lost their distinction. Nay, all regulations observed before in matters of sepulture were quite confounded, since every one buried where he could find a place. Some, whose sepulchres were already filled by the numbers which had perished in their own families, were shamefully compelled to seize those of others. They surprised on a sudden the piles which others had built for their own friends, and burned their dead upon them; and some, whilst one body was burning on a pile, tossed another body they had dragged thither upon it, and went their way.
Thus did the pestilence first give rise to those iniquitous acts which prevailed more and more in Athens. For every one was now more easily induced openly to do what for decency they did only covertly before. They saw the strange mutability of outward condition; the rich entirely cut off, and their wealth pouring suddenly on the indigent and necessitous; so that they thought it prudent to catch hold of speedy enjoyments and quick gusts of pleasure; persuaded that their bodies and their wealth might be their own merely for the day. Not any one continued resolute enough to form any honest or generous design, when so uncertain whether he should live to effect it. Whatever he knew could improve the pleasure or satisfaction of the present moment, that he determined to be honour and interest. Reverence of the gods, or of the laws of society, laid no restraints upon them; either judging that piety or impiety were things indifferent, since they saw that all men perished alike; or, throwing away every apprehension of being called to account for their enormities, since justice might be prevented by death; or rather, as the heaviest judgment to which man could be doomed was already hanging over their heads, snatching this interval of pleasure before it fell.