Thucydides, Apollo, the Plague, and the War

Abstract

This article examines Thucydides’ treatment of the cause of the plague, its connection with the Spartans, and Apollo. Thucydides situates references to the plague in various contexts in the narrative, beginning with his account of the suprahuman catastrophes that occurred during the war (1.23) that are woven through the narrative in a seriatim argument that serves methodologically to demonstrate the possibility that Apollo brought the plague to Athens. His method clarifies the positioning of divine assistance in relation to human causation, but it also leaves open the possibility of divine intervention in human history.

Eski Hellen Literatüründe İlahi Cezalandırmanın Tezahürü Olarak Veba Metaforu: İki Örnek

“…Thukydides ve Atina vebası hakkında ayrıca bkz. Kallet, 2013;Swain, 1994;Craik, 2001. 36 Soloski, 2010 Ahrensdorf, 2012: 780, 782, 795.…”

The Plague of Athens Shedding Light on Modern Struggles with COVID-19

“…Despite his apparent devotion to recording this disease, he is reluctant to decide on a specific cause for it, stating in book two of The Peloponnesian War :Let anyone, whether doctor or layman, say as each perceives the likely origin of the plague and whatever causes he believes of sufficient power to have produced so great a change; I will restrict myself to a description of the symptoms, on the basis of which anyone examining them would from foreknowledge recognize the disease should it ever attack again. (Thucydides, in Kallet, 2013, p. 358)…”

“…This is likely due to some combination of inconsistencies between ancient and modern understandings of disease, lack of medical training on Thucydides’ part, and any dramatic licence he may have taken in writing this narrative. Sparing the gruesome details, this plague attacked the respiratory and digestive systems in turn and had a high mortality rate – one expedition recorded that it took almost 40% of its forces within a span of 40 days (Kallet, 2013, pp. 367–368).…”

“…367–368). The outbreak began in Piraeus in the days after a Spartan invasion, which led people to suspect that the Spartans had managed to contaminate the wells of the port (Kallet, 2013, pp. 356–357).…”

“…All Greeks took their religion very seriously, so Apollo as the god of healing and diseases would automatically be involved somehow. With the evacuation of the countryside, household gods and shrines would have been abandoned, and this influx of people into Athens would necessitate that spaces previously deemed sacred and thus uninhabitable would now need to be populated (Kallet, 2013, p. 371). From a religious perspective these two trends would understandably attract the wrath of the gods, and from the modern perspective this shows how limited for space Athenians must have been in order to risk such divine retribution.…”