Plague of Athens

The Plague of Athens was an epidemic which hit the city-state of Athens in ancient Greece during the second year of the Peloponnesian War (430 BC), when an Athenian victory still seemed possible. Many historians believe that it entered Athens through Piraeus, the city's port and sole source of food and supplies. The city-state of Sparta, and much of the eastern Mediterranean, was also struck by the disease. The plague returned twice more, in 429 BC and in the winter of 427/6 BC.

Plague Of Athens Media

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  Plague in an Ancient City, Michiel Sweerts, c. 1652–1654

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  Α reconstructed appearance of Myrtis, an 11-year-old girl who died during the plague of Athens and whose skeleton was found in the Kerameikos mass grave, National Archaeological Museum of Athens

References

• Gomme, A. W., edited by A. Andrewes and K. J. Dover. An Historical Commentary on Thucydides, Volume 5. Book VIII Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-814198-X.
• McNeill, William H. Plagues and People. New York: Anchor Books, 1976. ISBN 0-385-12122-9.
• Papagrigorakis, Manolis J., Christos Yapijakis, Philippos N. Synodinos, and Effie Baziotopoulou-Valavani. "DNA examination of ancient dental pulp incriminates typhoid fever as a probable cause of the Plague of Athens," International Journal of Infectious Diseases 10 (2006): 206-214. ISSN 1201-9712.
• Pomeroy, Sarah B., Spartan Women Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-513067-7.
• Zinsser, Hans. Rats, Lice and History: A Chronicle of Pestilence and Plagues. Originally published in Boston in 1935, later edition in 1963. Most recent edition 1996, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, New York. ISBN 1-884822-47-9.

Other websites

• Access to International Journal of Infectious Disease/Article
• History of the Peloponnesian War ii, 47–55 Archived 2009-05-16 at the Wayback Machine.
• ^  Live Science article Accessed January 23, 2006.
• Women in Classical Athens Archived 2013-01-10 at the Wayback Machine