Latest / The History of Greece: Philosophy, Empire, and Endless Reinvention — Fexingo History / The Epidemic That Changed Athens: The Plague of Pericles
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to The History of Greece. I'm Lucas, and as always, Luna is with me. We've talked a lot about the Peloponnesian War — the battles, the politics, the personalities. But today I want to focus on something that changed the course of the war in a way no general could have predicted. Luna: The plague of Athens? Lucas: Exactly. The plague that hit Athens in 430 BCE, right at the start of the war. It's one of the most famous epidemics in ancient history because we have an incredible firsthand account from Thucydides, who not only lived through it but survived it himself. And the effects were absolutely devastating. Lucas: So let's set the scene. It's the summer of 430 BCE. Athens is packed with people — not just citizens, but also refugees from the countryside who've moved inside the Long Walls because of the Spartan invasions. Pericles has convinced everyone to adopt a defensive strategy: avoid land battles, rely on the navy, and let the city's walls protect them. But those walls became a trap. Luna: So the crowding made it worse? Lucas: Much worse. Thucydides says the disease first appeared in Piraeus, the port city, and then spread to Athens proper. People were living in makeshift huts, often in unsanitary conditions. And the disease hit hard. He describes symptoms that are still chilling to read: burning fever, red eyes, throat and tongue bleeding, coughing, vomiting, violent diarrhea, and then a kind of rash or ulceration. People who survived often lost their fingers or toes, or their sight, or their memory. Lucas: Thucydides himself caught it but recovered, so his account is a survivor's. He notes that doctors were helpless — they died at high rates because they were in close contact with the sick. And temples, which people turned to for divine help, became places of death as supplicants piled up. Luna: Did anyone know what caused it? Lucas: Not at all. Thucydides says people blamed the Spartans for poisoning the wells, but that was just rumor. The Athenians also interpreted the plague as divine punishment — they remembered an oracle that said a Dorian war would bring a plague, and they thought this was it. But Thucydides, being the rationalist he was, just describes the symptoms and tries to find patterns. He's often called the first scientific historian because of this approach. Luna: But doctors like Hippocrates were around then — did he have any insight? Lucas: Hippocrates was active on the island of Kos just a little later, but there's no evidence he was in Athens during the plague. Some later traditions, like those from the Roman writer Varro, suggested he might have treated patients, but it's not reliable. What we do have is Thucydides' clinical description, and it's so detailed that modern scientists have tried to identify the pathogen. Lucas: Over the years, people have proposed everything from bubonic plague to smallpox to measles to typhus. But more recently, a study of DNA from a mass grave in Athens — one that dates to around 430 BCE — found evidence of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, the bacterium that causes typhoid fever. That's a strong candidate, though not everyone agrees. Some argue the symptoms don't perfectly match typhoid, and it could have been a disease that's now extinct. Luna: So we might never know for sure. Lucas: Probably not. But the historical effects are clear. The plague killed an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the population of Athens — maybe 75,000 to 100,000 people. Among them was Pericles himself, who died in 429 BCE. He had been the steady hand guiding Athens — his strategy, his rhetoric, his authority. After he was gone, more reckless leaders like Cleon took over, and the war took a more aggressive, often disastrous turn. Lucas: Thucydides also describes a complete breakdown of social order. People stopped fearing the gods or the laws, because everyone was dying anyway. They spent their money recklessly, indulged in pleasures, and lost any sense of shame. The plague literally tore the fabric of Athenian society apart at a moment when unity was most needed. Luna: And the Spartans? Did they get sick too? Lucas: That's one of the strange ironies. The Spartan army camped outside the walls, but the plague didn't seem to spread to them — probably because they weren't in close quarters with the Athenian population. So the disease that devastated Athens actually gave Sparta a strategic advantage. They could just sit back and wait for the Athenians to weaken themselves. Lucas: There's also a personal dimension. Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration in the winter of 431–430, before the plague hit, celebrating Athens as an open, democratic society. Then, just months later, the plague exposed the vulnerability of that very openness. The speech is remembered as a masterpiece, but the plague undercut its ideals. Luna: And didn't the plague also affect the trial of the generals after Arginusae? Lucas: Good connection. That's later — 406 BCE — but the erosion of civic trust that began with the plague made such episodes possible. The plague helped breed a culture of suspicion and scapegoating. When things went wrong, Athenians were quicker to blame their leaders. And that's a theme that runs right through the rest of the war. Lucas: Thucydides ends his account of the plague with a haunting reflection: that the suffering was so great that people just stopped caring. They didn't even bother to bury their dead properly. Bodies were left in the streets, or piled onto funeral pyres that belonged to others. The sense of civilization itself breaking down is palpable. Luna: It's almost like a preview of what happens later in the war — the Melian Dialogue, the Sicilian disaster, the final defeat. Lucas: Exactly. The plague is the first great crack in Athens' confidence. It doesn't end the war by itself, but it weakens Athens at a critical moment and sets the stage for everything that follows. And it's a reminder that history isn't just shaped by battles and speeches — sometimes it's shaped by a microbe. Luna: That's a sobering thought to end on. Lucas: It is. But it's also why studying history is so important — it helps us see the unexpected forces that have shaped our world. Thanks for joining us on Fexingo History.