Thucydides

The Athenian aristocrat Thucydides was elected as a general in 424 B.C., seven years after the beginning of the war between the city of Athens and an alliance of Greek citystates led by Sparta, a town on the Peloponnesus. After suffering a military setback, Thucydides was exiled by the leaders of his city. On his travels he spoke to many civilian and military leaders about the war and began writing a masterful history of the conflict, a work known in modern times as The Peloponnesian War.

In the following excerpt, Thucydides describes a devastating disease epidemic that began sweeping through Athens in 430 B.C., the second year of the war. The plague endured for at least three years and considerably weakened the Athenian will to carry on the fight against Sparta. Although Thucydides does not name the...