The Second Book, Chapter VII of Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

Anyone care to venture a diagnosis?

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), May 16, 2000

Answers

A prototype of Agent Orange. . .

-- Mean Gene (gmw@ukans.edu), May 16, 2000.

Sounds like good old Ebola to me....

-- Mary "Mad Virologist" Jones (maprunner@juno.com), May 17, 2000.

No idea. I think I'm coming down with leprosy, though.

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), May 17, 2000.

If I'm going to find internet access, there had better be more orienteering related dialogue.

-- Snorkel (daniel_meenehan@hotmail.com), May 21, 2000.

Ebola is not a very accurate answer, due to the fact that the plague of athens had a 30% mortality rate, and Ebola has a 60% to 95% mortality rate. I would say it was probably a milder hemorrhagic fever, maybe Yellow Fever of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, or possibly a mutant strain of Influenza, like the one that caused the pandemic of 1918.

-- Mike Ritchie (michaelritchie18@hotmail.com), February 05, 2001.

Smallpox.

-- Hillary Madsen (hm33@u.washington.edu), November 23, 2002.

I'm a History and Classics student, and it's my contention that Thucydides greatly exaggerated the plague for historiographical purposes. The plague had very little (if any) outcome on the war (the plague hit in 430 BC - the war went on for another 26 years, with a break in between!) - and I think he exaggerated the details so that his work would be the 'possession for all time' that he claimed it would be. I think it was just some sort of small illness which he magnified out of all proportion. If you read more of the plague narrative (2.48-2.54), you'll see that he contradicts himself in some areas, gives details that he couldn't possibly have proven, seems to go on little more than rumour in some cases, etc. His account just rings false to me. It is also the only contemporary source for the plague, so there's no other source that can be used to back up his info. I also think that he has quite a few allusions to Homer as well as Sophocles in there. I wrote a dissertation on this last year. His plague narrative just doesn't inspire me to have confidence in him! P.S. Plague narrative: Thucydides' 'History of the Peloponnesian War', Book Two, Chapters 47-54. It's NOT 'chapter seven'!!!

-- Nancie Rideout (nancierideout@yahoo.ca), March 27, 2003.

Thucydides wasn't the only contemporary writer of the plague. Did you, a classics and history major, forget about the Hippocratics, whose Epidemics were dated beginning in the fifth century B.C. and possibly down throught the fourth, wherein symptoms of patients eerily coincide with the Plague of Athens and our contemporary ebola outbreaks?

-- Kerry Creasy (aiekapunk@hotmail.com), October 27, 2004.