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Thucydides and the Plague of Athens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. C. F. Poole  and
A. J. Holladay
J. C. F. Poole
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Oxford
A. J. Holladay
Affiliation:
Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford
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Extract

Two problems involving Thucydides and medicine have attracted intense treatment by classical scholars and medical men working separately or in combination. They are, first, the nature of the Athenian Plague which Thucydides describes and, second, the possibility of his having been influenced by the doctrines and outlook of Hippocrates and his followers. It is the purpose of the present paper to reconsider both these problems, to indicate some false assumptions made in the methodology of previous attempts to identify the Plague, and to suggest a somewhat radical revaluation of Thucydides' approach to medical matters compared with that of Hippocrates (if, indeed, the surviving evidence about Hippocrates' method has any validity).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , December 1979 , pp. 282 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

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47 We are most grateful to Mr. J. Longrigg for kindly allowing us to read a draft of his as yet unpublished article on the Plague.

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50 Op. cit., (above, n. 39). Littré wrote: ‘C'était une fièvre éruptive, différente de la variole, et éteinte aujourd'hui.’

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59 The authors would like to thank Dr. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, Mr. N. C. Dexter, and Mr. D. E. Poole, all of whom read earlier versions of this article and made valuable suggestions, most of which we have adopted.