Athenian Plague 429 BCE: An Annotated Bibliography
Frøland, A. (2010). The great plague of Athens 430 BC.
Froland examines the reasons for the Sparta invasion of Athens intensified the spread of diseases due to the cultural changes made. The Sparta ruler shielded the entire population of Attica by erecting the protecting walls of Piraeus and Athens. The long walls secluded the two regions whilst the Spartans reigned over Attica during the entire summer. The consequence was significant overcrowding in the two cities as the population rose from 14,500 to over half a million. This provided the perfect conditions for an outbreak of any contagious disease; in this case, it was the Athenian plague.
Cohn Jr, S. K. (2018). Epidemics: Hate and compassion from the plague of Athens to AIDS. Oxford University Press.
Cohn investigates the many examples of epidemics including the plague of Athens and asserts that such a contagious disease does not pose a challenge to the dominant culture since it is believed that such a sickness leads to victimization of the bearers, provokes hate, and people blaming each other, especially if the disease is mysterious. The author states that scholars missed a key aspect of the history of epidemics. He believes that such occurrences led to the unification of societies as demonstrated in Athens after the plague. Therefore, the disease led to a more unified culture in Athens.
Demont, P. (2013). The causes of the Athenian plague and Thucydides. Thucydides between History and Literature. Berlin: de Gruyter, 73-90.
Demont attempts a new survey of the current trends in the examination of Thucydides’ cultural and historical narrative. In particular, he looks at the concept developed by Thucydides and how it was influenced by cultural aspects strategies, stylistic devices, and linguistic aspects. The author focuses on aspects like the representation of character, the interaction between leaders and citizens in Athenian democracy, the role of individuals, and the composition of speeches. He believes that the analysis of language, style, and narrative properties is associated with the construction of meaning in accordance with the present standards of text analysis and interpretation.
Littman, R. J. (2009). The plague of Athens: epidemiology and paleopathology. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine: A Journal of Translational and Personalized Medicine: A Journal of Translational and Personalized Medicine, 76(5), 456-467.
Littman examines the development of Athens during the plague. He states that small pox and typhus have been the two major diagnoses of the Athenian plague in modern literature due to the symptoms they present. However, new scientific methods have enabled scientists to get further insight into the type of disease. For instance, to analyze the disease and its intensity and to calculate the time needed for it to spread as well as for its cure the method of mathematical modeling is useful. Based on this analysis, Littman rules out typhoid as the sudden cause of the epidemic and this finding is reinforced by the examination of mass graves discovered in 2001 that belonged to the plague years. This shows that also the Athenian culture focused on mass burial due to the high number of deaths resulting from the disease.
Powell, C. (2013). A philological, epidemiological, and clinical analysis of the plague of Athens.
Powell (2013) discusses the primary literary source of the plague, History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides. He states that even though Thucydides had presented a clear illustration of the clinical signs of the disease, classicists as well as physicians are in conflict regarding the identification of the disease. Academicians have disagreed for over 39 diseases in the last one hundred years, but there has never been a conclusive argument about a particular illness. To overcome the difficulty created by this approach, the author adopts the method of descriptive scientific examination. This strategy was suggested by Thucydides himself. In this form of enquiry, the focus is on the mode of transmission of the plague of Athens and the inference of the study is that the epidemic resembled a respiratory disease, which has a persistent mode of spreading among the victims. Another probability is that the disease might have been transmitted by an animal or insect. Based on these results, Powel presents the conclusion that the plague of Athens might have been Rickettsia prowazekii.
References
Cohn Jr, S. K. (2018). Epidemics: Hate and compassion from the plague of Athens to AIDS. Oxford University Press.
Demont, P. (2013). The causes of the Athenian plague and Thucydides. Thucydides between History and Literature. Berlin: de Gruyter, 73-90.
Frøland, A. (2010). The great plague of Athens 430 BC. Retrieved from https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/21560771. Accessed 6 February 2019.
Littman, R. J. (2009). The plague of Athens: Epidemiology and paleopathology. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine: A Journal of Translational and Personalized Medicine: A Journal of Translational and Personalized Medicine, 76(5), 456-467.
Powell, C. (2013). A philological, epidemiological, and clinical analysis of the plague of Athens. Retrieved from https://collected.jcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1021&context=honorspapers. Accessed 6 February 2019.