hey themselves were among the first victims,
because they oftenest came into contact with it. No human art was of
any avail, and as to supplications in temples, inquiries of oracles,
and the like, they were utterly useless, and at last men were
overpowered by the calamity and gave up all remedies.

The disease is said to have begun south of Egypt in Ethiopia; thence
it descended into Egypt and Libya, and after spreading over the
greater part of the Persian empire, suddenly fell upon Athens. It
first attacked the inhabitants of the Piraeus, and it was supposed that
the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns, no conduits having as
yet been made there. It afterward reached the upper city, and then the
mortality became far greater. As to its probable origin or the causes
which might or could have produced such a disturbance of nature, every
man, whether a physician or not, will give his own opinion. But I
shall describe its actual course, and the symptoms by which any one
who knows them beforehand may recognize the disorder should it ever
reappear. For I was myself attacked, and witnessed the sufferings of
others.

The season was admitted to have been remarkably free from ordinary
sickness; and if anybody was already ill of any other disease, it was
absorbed in this. Many who were in perfect health, all in a moment,
and without any apparent reason, were seized with violent heats in the
head and with redness and inflammation of the eyes. Internally the
throat and the tongue were quickly suffused with blood, and the breath
became unnatural and fetid. There followed sneezing and hoarseness; in
a short time the disorder, accompanied by a violent cough, reached the
chest; then fastening lower down, it would move the stomach and bring
on all the vomits of bile to which physicians have ever given names;
and they were very distressing. An ineffectual retching producing
violent convulsions attacked most of the sufferers; some as soon as
the previous symptoms had abated, others not until long afterward. The
body externally was not so very hot to the touch, nor yet pale; it was
of a livid color inclining to red, and breaking out in pustules and
ulcers. But the internal fever was intense; the sufferers could not
bear to have on them even the finest linen garment; they insisted on
being naked, and there was nothing which they longed for more eagerly
than to throw themselves into cold water. And many of those who had no
one to look a