Thucydides The Plague In Athens

Thucydides wrote “The Plague in Athens” as both a documentation and a medical reference. The passage is pulled from a larger manuscript by Thucydides named The Peloponnesian War. In “The Plague of Athens,” Thucydides documents what he has witnessed and knows of the plague that befell his city. The passage with the medical technicalities of the plague. Thucydides takes several pages to record the symptoms of the plague, from eye inflammation and foul breath to when the disease eventually killed people via exhaustion due to diarrhea. This is evidence that Thucydides authored this passage for medical purposes because he is noting down all the symptoms so that it may be recognised in the future. Additionally, Thucydides also takes note of cures in relation to the plague. Specifically, Thucydides writes that there was no remedy, and that what worked for one man did not for another. He also admits to have had the plague before, and hopes that in the case that the plague “should ever break out again,” then the information he has recorded can be used as reference and the plague can be “recognized by the student.” This further propagates that Thucydides wrote this section for medical reference. By taking note of all the symptoms and the fact that there has yet to be a remedy found, Thucydides is offering future

The full text is the History of the Peloponnesian War, which suggests that Thucydides was not only documenting the happenings of the plague in Athens, but also the happenings of the war in general. Therefore, this text should also be regarded as documentation of what happened in Athens when the plague hit. Thucydides claims that the reason the plague came to Athens was because the Peloponnesians who poisoned the water. Moreover, Thucydides does more than identify the sickness in his passage. He also takes note of how the plague came to Athens as well as the behaviour of the people when the plague