Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History / The Plague of Athens and Its Fallout
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've covered a lot of Athens' golden age — Pericles, the Parthenon, the rise of the Delian League. But there's a shadow that falls right across that era, and it's something we haven't touched on yet: the great plague that hit Athens in 430 BCE, just as the Peloponnesian War was getting started. Luna: Wait, the plague that killed Pericles, right? Lucas: Exactly. Pericles died in 429 from the plague, but the outbreak actually began the year before, in 430. And it was catastrophic. Our main source is Thucydides, who survived it himself. He gives a chilling, clinical description — probably the first detailed account of an epidemic in Western literature. Lucas: Thucydides says it started in Ethiopia, then moved through Egypt and Libya before hitting the Persian Empire and finally arriving in Athens, specifically through the port of Piraeus. At first, people thought the Spartans had poisoned the wells, but it quickly became clear this was something else entirely. Luna: What were the symptoms? I've read it was pretty gruesome. Lucas: Gruesome is right. Thucydides describes a sudden high fever, red eyes, a throat and tongue that bled, a foul breath, then sneezing, hoarseness, and a terrible cough. Next came vomiting, violent convulsions, and a rash that broke out in blisters and ulcers. Internally, people felt an unquenchable thirst, but they couldn't keep anything down. Many died within a week. Even survivors often lost their fingers, toes, or eyesight — or suffered memory loss so severe they couldn't recognize themselves. Luna: That sounds like something out of a horror movie. Did anyone know what caused it? Lucas: They had no idea. Theories were all over the place. Some blamed miasma — bad air. Others thought it was divine punishment. Hippocrates, the famous physician, was active around this time, but his approach was more about balancing humors, not germ theory. The strange thing is, modern scientists still aren't sure what it was. Candidates include typhus, typhoid fever, smallpox, measles, even an early form of Ebola. But recent DNA analysis of skeletons from a mass grave in Athens has pointed toward typhoid fever, though it's not conclusive. Luna: So it's still a mystery. How did the Athenians react? Lucas: That's where it gets really interesting, and grim. Thucydides says that because the disease was so contagious and deadly, people stopped caring about social norms. They abandoned the sick, even family members. Bodies piled up in the streets and temples. Funeral rites were neglected — people would just throw a corpse onto a pyre that someone else had built, or dump bodies in the water supply. Law and order broke down. Since everyone expected to die soon, they figured they might as well enjoy themselves while they could, leading to rampant hedonism and crime. Lucas: The plague also had huge political consequences. Pericles, who had been the steady hand guiding Athens, fell ill and died in 429. After his death, Athenian leadership passed to figures like Cleon, who were more aggressive and demagogic. That shift in leadership arguably led to worse strategic decisions and contributed to Athens' eventual loss in the Peloponnesian War. Luna: So the plague didn't just kill people — it destabilized the democracy itself. Lucas: Exactly. And there's a darker angle: the plague may have been worsened by Athens' own policies. Pericles had ordered the entire population of Attica to move inside the city walls for protection from Spartan invasions. So you had thousands of people — farmers, their families, animals — all packed into a confined space with poor sanitation. That created a perfect breeding ground for disease. In a way, the war strategy itself amplified the disaster. Luna: That's tragic. So the same walls that protected them also trapped them with the plague. Lucas: Precisely. And the psychological impact was immense. Thucydides notes that people lost all sense of piety or fear of the gods, because the plague hit everyone equally — the devout and the impious. That erosion of traditional religion and morality was a lasting scar. It also fueled a kind of fatalism that undermined the collective spirit Athens had shown at Marathon and Salamis. Lucas: One more thing: the plague struck in multiple waves — the first from 430 to 426, then a second outbreak in 427, and another in 425. So it wasn't a one-time event. It kept coming back, sapping Athens' strength throughout the war. By the time it was over, perhaps a third of the population had died, including thousands of soldiers and experienced rowers. The navy, which was Athens' main military arm, never fully recovered. Luna: No wonder Athens eventually lost. They were fighting Sparta and a disease at the same time. Lucas: Exactly. The plague is a reminder that history isn't just about battles and great men — sometimes a microbe can change the course of civilization. And Thucydides' account, written with such precision and empathy, gives us a window into that human tragedy that still feels relevant today.