In 431 BC the first year of the Peloponnesian War drew to a close with the Athenian custom of the public burial of the war dead. The bones of the deceased were laid in ten cedar boxes drawn in a row along the wall in Ceramicus. Pericles was given the signal honor of delivering the funeral speech. In what is commonly recognized as the greatest speech of the Ancient World, Pericles proclaimed the glory of Athens. He had a right to feel proud. The strategy he had designed of withdrawing the people behind the Long Walls and leaving the Spartans to fume, while the Athenian fleet ranged far and wide, supplying the city and inflicting damage on the enemy at will, had proven effective. A fleet of one hundred triremes had circumnavigated the Peloponnese and blockaded the Corinthian fleet in the gulf. The next year opened much the same as the previous one. The Spartans launched their expected invasion of Attica, the plain from which Athens rises; simultaneously Pericles led 100 ships and a force of 4000 hoplites on a raid of Epidaurus, while another Athenian force besieged the city of Potidaea. When Pericles returned to Athens, however, there what he would later describe as "the only case of something happening which we did not anticipate" — an epidemic had come to the city. The Plague The Plague struck Athens shortly after the Spartans had arrived in Attica. Initially it was thought that Spartan agents had poisoned the water cisterns at the Piraeus — the earliest recorded accusation of biological or chemical warfare —since that was where the first cases appeared, but the disease rapidly spread to the upper city, negating this theory. Victims were beset with a sudden fever that lasted only a day or so. Their eyes became red and inflamed and there was a bleeding from the throat and the tongue. Sneezing and hoarseness of voice followed. Before long the pain settled on the chest and was accompanied by a racking cough. Next the victim suffered from severe stomach-aches and nausea with violent spasmodic retching. The skin was red and livid, usually breaking out in small ulcerations and papules. While there was no apparent fever, victims felt as if they were burning up inside, and objected to the even the lightest linen clothing. Some became depraved and jumped stark naked into the wells, cisterns and fountains trying to seek relief. Death usually came on the seventh or eighth day. Those who survived this stage did not rapidly recover, but were afflicted with an uncontrollable diarrhea, which claimed more lives. Many of the survivors were marred for life as the disease effected the fingers, toes and genitalia, causing them to necrotize and lose their function. Many of the victims went blind, others insane. The cause of the Plague of Athens (sometimes called the Plague of Thucydides after the Greek historian), has never been identified. Some writers suspect measles, some plague, others typhus, typhoid, ergotism (from improperly stored rye), yellow fever, influenza, cholera, or combinations of those. Some writers even contend that the Plague was a one time visitation of some unknown disease that has never returned. Whatever it was, the Plague held Athens in a fatal grip that summer of 430 BC. The refugee camp crowding in the city as a result of the evacuation of the countryside to behind the Long Walls in anticipation of the Spartan incursions exacerbated the problems. The chronically poor state of sanitation within the city (there was no central waste disposal system), only served to hasten the disease's spread. As the disease swept through the city it was relentless, creating a scene of death and destruction that was to remain unequaled until the Black Death would turn Europe into a continent wide morgue. Bodies were heaped one upon the other, half-dead creatures staggered through the streets. Many despaired of life and committed suicide, others took an attitude of "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die". Everywhere the people were afraid of illness and fathers abandoned children and children their parents. Respect for law, one of the hallmarks of Athens was gone. Thucydides states "that no one expected to live long enough to be brought to trial and punished". The Athenian psyche was warped by the event. Their own self- esteem had been based on the idea that Greece was the center of the civilized world and Athens was the center of Greece, a city-state beloved of the gods. But, while the Athenians died in behind their walls in droves, the Spartans ravaged their country with impunity and escaped the Plague. It appeared as if the gods had now abandoned Athens. Trapped, frustrated and frightened the Athenians fell into a mood of childish anger which they vented on Pericles, whom they identified as the author of their misfortunes. They ousted him from office Once supremely confident of victory, the Plague, in the space of a mere month, had the Athenians in psychological collapse and teetering on the brink of military collapse. With Pericles ousted, the Athenians suddenly sent envoys to the Peloponnesians to treat for peace. The mission failed, for reasons Thucydides does not record. However, the Spartans, sitting in Attica had seen the ominous fires from the funeral pyres of the city and had garnered a good idea of conditions within from defectors. Obviously as long as the Plague raged in the city, it was in their best interest to let the epidemic do what they could not — bring Athens to her knees. Pericles was re-elected leader after the failure of the peace mission and summoned the Athenians to Assembly in an attempt to restore their shattered confidence. But it was different Pericles and a different argument. Whereas before the war had been an idealistic crusade to contend with the Peloponnesians, now it was time for the "glory of Greece" to face harsh reality. Their very survival was at stake. "Your empire is now like a tyranny," said Pericles, "it may have been wrong to take it, but now it is certainly dangerous to let it go." With these words he swept away the self-delusion of a city possessed of gentleness, chivalry and idealism, and replaced it with the fear of the reaction of the freed colonies, a fear that was to form the basis for continued Athenian resistance throughout the war. Shortly after this speech, Pericles died of the Plague, which Thucydides calls the greatest disaster of the war, as Pericles' successors, were "inadequate." Impact on Manpower If the war had already stretched the capacity of Athenian manpower, the plague devastated it. Athens' army had consisted of 13,000 hoplites, 1000 cavalry, and 1800 light troops at the start of the war. Another 16,000 "reserve hoplites" were available but mostly for the defense of the Walls. Another 3000 "marines" were available. The war fleet, the centerpiece of Athens' power, consisted of 300 triremes manned by approximately 180 officers and men each. One hundred more ships were held in reserve, but it is not clear whether they were actually manned or held as a reserve "fleet". The Plague cut heavily into this military force. Required to call forth all available manpower at the Battle of Delium, the Athenians were only able to muster 9500 men, both hoplites and cavalry combined. Naval capacity was also reduced as shipboard epidemics of the plague raged through the fleet. At the start of the war the Athenians regularly launched fleets of three hundred triremes, after the plague, the most she was ever to launch was 180 ships—effectively reducing the Athenian fleet to the size of the Peloponnesian fleet. In essence the plague had cost Athens her quantitative and qualitative naval superiority. Success now rested solely on the greater skill of the Athenian oarsmen. It is interesting to note that the Athenian fleet which left for Sicily in the principal naval engagement of the war, consisted of a mere one hundred ships but evoked great comment on its vast size, while the portion (italics) of the fleet that Pericles took to Epidaurus was the same size and produced no such comment. Effect on the Conduct of the War The overall impact of the Plague on the conduct of the war was to severely reduce Athens' military options while her enemies were able to pursue actions that prior to the Plague would have seemed foolhardy. In 429 the Plague returned to Athens but the Spartans forsook their annual invasion of Attica, and turned instead to the reduction of Plataea. Plataea had been Athens' one faithful mainland ally and the only city that had stood beside her at Marathon against the forces of Darius the Great. Her strategic position was important as she was only thirty miles from Athens, (an easy day and night's march) on the northern slope of Mount Cithaeron, overlooking the Boetian plain, she formed, with Athens a stranglehold on Theban-Spartan lines of communication. The attack on this essential strategic point by the Peloponnesians had started the war in 431. The Spartans offered the Plataeans liberal peace terms, but these were rejected after this small city received assurances from Athens that she would stand next to her. This rejection was to prove a mistake. For two years the Peloponnesians besieged the city but the Athenians never once tried to fulfill their commitments and relieve the siege. When the city fell, the carnage that followed was noted by other Athenian allies who became leery of the city's promises. Assault on the Piraeus In the winter of 429, the Peloponnesians engaged upon an audacious scheme — to attack the Piraeus. Their reasoning was simple. The port was unguarded, whereas before one hundred ships has guarded Attica, Salamis and Euobes, now these ships were dispersed to guard the essential Black Sea grain route without which Athens would starve. The Peloponnesians launched forty ships against the vital Athenian port. Enroute, they apparently lost their nerve. "There was something about the direction of the wind (they said) which held them back" reported Thucydides sarcastically (the ships had oars to be used for such an eventuality). Still to even have contemplated such an attack in 431 would have been unthinkable. The Plague and the Defeat of Athens It is obvious that the Plague which befell the city from 430- 429 BC was the single most important factor in the final defeat of Athens. The only year of the war in which the effects of the Plague were not felt was 431. In that year the Athenians were able to mount large scale naval assaults against their enemies and essentially ignore the Spartan incursions against Attica. To the Athenians in 431 belonged both the momentum and the initiative. With the coming of the Plague, Athens' previously certain victory was dealt a twin blow. First, its morale, was shattered. Secondly its precarious and critical manpower resources were sapped. Athens' population would never again reach its 430 level. The Plague reduced the Athenian army to roughly two-thirds of its original size, and the fleet to three fifths of its initial strength. After the Plague, the Peloponnesians became more daring and courageous, and even contemplated taking the Piraeus. Lesbos, attempting to revolt, pointed to her master's weakened state as the reason. No single disaster, not even the Sicilian debacle, cost Athens' as much of her manpower as did the Plague. By killing such a large a number of people, by demoralizing the capital and above all by destroying the fighting power of the navy, the Plague ensured that Athens was never able to strike a decisive blow against Sparta. This unforeseen epidemiological event destroyed and wreaked havoc with Athenian plans for a quick and final victory over Sparta. Without the Plague, Athens would have won the war easily. Even after it occurred and she had adjusted to its psychological impact, she nearly did. But, as Thucydides stated, compared to the Plague: "Nothing was more disastrous to the power of Athens." Back to Cry Havoc #18 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com