Ancient Historians · Part 7 · Thucydides · C1
Thucydides II: The Plague and Melos
Part 7 of Ancient Historians: two of the most powerful passages in any history. First, the plague that struck Athens in 430 BCE, described by Thucydides, who caught it himself and survived, with its effects on people’s behaviour as well as their bodies. Then the Melian Dialogue, in which Athenian envoys tell a small neutral island that justice only matters between equals: “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Conditionals in argument (if you surrender…, unless, were you to, provided that, suppose), and the language of power and justice, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria. The plague and the fate of Melos are described briefly.
Tonight we read two passages that people still read when they need to think about disease, fear and power. In the second year of the war, a plague came to Athens. Thucydides caught it, and survived, and wrote down not only the symptoms but what the disease did to people’s sense of right and wrong.
A historian describing his own illness. That is rare.
Rare and very honest, Philo. And then, years later, a debate between Athens, the most powerful city in Greece, and Melos, a little island that only wanted to stay neutral. It is written like a play, question and answer, and it is one of the coldest conversations in history. Tonight’s grammar is the grammar of argument: conditions, threats and appeals.
I already know I won’t like the Athenians in this one.
In 430 BCE, the second summer of the war, a terrible plague struck Athens, crowded with refugees from the countryside behind the city walls. Thucydides, who caught it and recovered, describes the symptoms precisely, “so that if it ever breaks out again, people may recognise it”. Doctors could do nothing; many died. He also describes its effects on society: people lost hope, stopped respecting the gods and the laws, and spent their money on pleasure, since no one expected to…
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