THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS
I
At the beginning of the next summer the Peloponnesians again enteredAttica, and resumed their work of devastation, destroying the youngcrops, and wrecking whatever had been spared in the previous year.Before they had been many days in Attica, a new and far more terriblevisitation came upon the Athenians, threatening them with totalextinction as a people. We have seen how the whole upper city, with thespace between the Long Walls, and the harbour-town of Peiraeus, waspacked with a vast multitude of human beings, penned together, likesheep in a fold. Into these huddled masses now crept a subtle andunseen foe, striking down his victims by hundreds and by thousands.That foe was the Plague, which beginning in Southern Africa, anddescending thence to Egypt, reached the southern shores of theMediterranean, and passed on to Peiraeus, having been carried thitherby seamen who trafficked between northern Africa and Greece. FromPeiraeus it spread upwards with rapid strides, and before long thewhole space within the walls presented the appearance of a vastlazar-house.
From the description of the symptoms we may conclude that this epidemicwas similar to that dreadful scourge of mankind which has been almostconquered by modern science, the small-pox. The patient who had takenthe infection was first attacked in the head, with inflammation of theeyes, and violent headache. By degrees the poison worked its way intothe whole system, affecting every organ in the body, and appearing onthe surface in the shape of small ulcers and boils. One of the mostdistressing features of the disease was a raging thirst, which couldnot be appeased by the most copious draughts of water; and the internalheat, which produced this effect, caused also a frightful irritabilityof the skin, so that the sufferer could not bear the touch of thelightest and most airy fabrics, but lay naked on his bed, in all thedeformity of his dire affliction. Of those who recovered, many bore themarks of the sickness to their graves, by the loss of a hand, a foot,or an eye; while others were affected in their minds, remaining inblank oblivion, without power to recognise themselves or their friends.The healing art had made great progress in Greece in the course of thelast generation; and in this, as in all else, the Greeks remained thesole teachers of Europe for ages after. But against such a malady asthis, the most skilful physicians could do nothing, and those whoattempted to exercise their skill caught the plague themselves, and forthe most part perished. Still less, as we may well suppose, was thebenefit derived from amulets, incantations, inquiries of oracles, orsupplications at temples; and at last, finding no help in god or man,the Athenians gave up the struggle, and resigned themselves to despair.
It is recorded as a curious fact, showing the strange and outlandishcharacter of the pestilence, that the birds and animals which feed onhuman flesh generally shunned the bodies of those who died of theplague, though they might have eaten their fill, for hundreds were leftunburied. The very vultures fled from the infected city, and hardly onewas seen as long as the pestilence continued.
The fearful rapidity with which the infection spread caused a panicthroughout the city, and even the boldest were not proof against thegeneral terror. If any man felt himself sickening of the plague, he atonce gave up all hope, and made no effort to fight against the disease.Few were found brave enough to undertake the duty of nursing the sick,and those who did generally paid for their devotion with their lives.In most cases the patient was left to languish alone, and perished byneglect, while his nearest and dearest avoided his presence, and hadgrown so callous that they had not a sigh or a tear left for the deathof husband, or child, or friend. The few who recovered, now free fromrisk of mortal infection, did what they could to help their sufferingfellow-citizens.
The mischief was aggravated by the overcrowded state of the city,especially among those who had come in from the country, and wereliving in stifling huts through the intense heat of a southern summer.Here the harvest of death fell thickest, and the corpses lay heapedtogether, while dying wretches crawled about the public streets, andencumbered the fountain-sides, to which they had dragged themselves intheir longing for drink. All sense of public decency, all regard forlaws, human or divine, was lost. The temples in which they had madetheir dwellings were choked with dead, and the sacred duty of burial,to which the conscience of antiquity attached so high an importance,was performed in wild haste and disorder. Sometimes those who werecarrying out a corpse found a vacant pile prepared by the relatives ofanother victim, flung their dead upon it, set fire to the pile, anddeparted; and sometimes, when a body was already burning, others whowere seeking to dispose of a corpse forced their way to the fire, andthrew their burden upon it.
In the general relaxation of public morality all the dark passions ofhuman nature, which at ordinary times lurk in secret places, came forthto the light of day, and raged without restraint. Some, who had grownrich in a day by the death of wealthy relatives, resolved to enjoytheir possessions, and indulge every appetite, before they wereovertaken by the same fate. Others, who had hitherto led good lives,seeing the base and the noble swept away indifferently by the sameruthless power, began to doubt the justice of heaven itself, and rushedinto debauch, convinced that conscience and honour were but emptynames. For human laws they cared still less, for in the universal panicthere was none to enforce them, and before the voice of publicauthority could be heard again, both judge and transgressor, as theybelieved, would be involved in a common doom. All shame and fear wereaccordingly thrown aside, and those whom the plague had not yet touchedseemed possessed by one sole desire--to drown thought and care in anorgy of fierce excess, and then to die.
II
The second invasion of the Peloponnesians was prolonged for forty days,and the whole Attic territory was laid waste. Pericles again refused toventure a pitched battle against them, knowing well that the Athenianarmy was no match for them in the open field. But a powerful fleet wassent to cruise round Peloponnesus, which inflicted much damage on thecoast districts. It was a welcome relief to the Athenians selected forthis service to escape for a time from the plague-stricken city; butunhappily they carried the infection with them, and the crews weredecimated by the same disease. Nor did the evil stop here: for the samearmament being afterwards despatched to Potidaea, to reinforce theblockading army and fleet, caused a virulent outbreak of the plagueamong the forces stationed there, which up till then had been healthy.After some fruitless operations against the town this second armamentwas withdrawn, and returned to Athens with the loss of more than athousand men.
After all these disasters the reaction against Pericles, which hadbegun with the first invasion of Attica, reached a climax, and on allsides he was loudly decried by the Athenians, as the author of alltheir miseries. Envoys were sent with overtures of peace to Sparta, andwhen these returned with no favourable answer, the storm of popularfury grew more violent than ever. Pericles, who knew the temper of hispeople, and had foreseen that some such outbreak would occur, remainedcalm and unmoved. But wishing to allay the general excitement, andbring back the citizens to a more reasonable view of their prospects,he summoned an assembly, and addressed the multitude in terms of graveand dignified rebuke. He reminded them that they themselves had votedfor war, and remonstrated against the unfairness of making himresponsible for their own decision. If war could have been avoidedwithout imperilling the very existence of their city, then thatdecision was wrong; but if, as was the fact, peace could only have beenpreserved by ruinous concessions, then his advice had been good, andthey had been right in following it. The welfare of the individualcitizen depended on the welfare of the community to which he belonged;as long as that was secured, private losses could always be made good,but public disaster meant private ruin. On this principle they hadacted two years before, when they determined to reject the demands ofSparta. Why, then, were they now indulging in weak regrets, and turningagainst him whom they had appointed as their chosen guide and adviser?Was there anything in his character, any fact in his whole life, whichjustified them in suspecting him of unworthy motives? Was he the man tolead them astray,
in order to save some selfish end--he, the greatPericles, whose loyalty, eloquence, clear-sightedness, andincorruptibility, had been proved in a public career of more thanthirty years? If any other course had been open to them, he would havebeen to blame in counselling war; but the alternative was between thatand degradation. The immediate pressure of private calamity wasblinding them to the magnitude of the interests at stake--Athens, withall her fond traditions, and all the lustre of her name. That they weresure of victory he had already declared to them on many infalliblegrounds. But seeing them so sunk in despair, he would speak in a toneof loud assurance, and boldly assert a fact which they seemed to haveoverlooked. They were lords of the sea, absolute masters, that was tosay, of half the world! Let them keep a firm grasp on this empire, andthey would soon recover those pretty ornaments of empire--their gardensand their vineyards--which they held so dear: but, that oncerelinquished, they would lose all. Surely this knowledge should inspirethem with a lofty contempt of their foes, a contempt grounded, not onignorance or shallow enthusiasm, but on rational calculation. Theycould not now descend from the eminence on which they stood. Athens,who had blazed so long in unrivalled splendour before the eyes of theworld, dared not suffer her lustre to be abated: for her, obscuritymeant extinction. Let them keep this in mind, and not listen tocounsels of seeming prudence and moderation, which were suicidal in aruling state. All their calamities, except the plague, were theforeseen results of their own decision. Now was the time to displaytheir known courage and patience. Let them think of the glory ofAthens, and her imperial fame.
This memorable speech, the last recorded utterance of Pericles, had thedesired effect. It was resolved to continue the war, and no furtherembassies were sent to Sparta. But resentment still smouldered in thehearts of the Athenians against their great statesman. How fearful wasthe contrast between the high hopes with which they had embarked inthis struggle, and the scenes of horror and desolation which lay aroundthem! From the walls they could see their trampled fields, theirravaged plantations, and the blackened ruins of their homes. Within,the pestilence still raged undiminished, and the city was filled withsounds and sights of woe. Under the pressure of these calamities theascendency of Pericles went through a brief period of eclipse, and hewas condemned to pay a fine. Soon, however, he recovered all hisinfluence, and remained at the head of affairs until his death, whichoccurred in the autumn of the following year.
Pericles is the representative figure in the golden age of Atheniangreatness, the most perfect example of that equable and harmoniousdevelopment in every faculty of body and mind which was the aim ofGreek civic life at its best. As an orator, he was probably neverequalled, and the effect of his eloquence has found immortal expressionin the lines of his contemporary Eupolis. Persuasion, we are told, satenthroned on his lips; like a strong athlete, he overtook and outranall other orators; his words struck home like the lightning, while heheld his audience enchained, as by a powerful spell; and among all themasters of eloquence, he was the only one who left his sting behindhim. As a statesman, it was his object to admit every freeborn Athenianto a share of public duties and privileges; and for this purpose heintroduced the system of payment, which enabled the poorer citizens toperform their part in the service of the state. His military talents,though never employed for conquest or aggression, were of no meanorder; and on two occasions of supreme peril to Athens, the revolt ofEuboea, and the revolt of Samos, it was his energy and promptitudewhich saved his city from ruin.
But it is as the head of the great intellectual movement whichculminated in this epoch, as the friend of poets, philosophers, andartists, that Pericles has won his most enduring fame. By his liberaland enlightened policy the surplus of the Athenian revenues was devotedto the creation of those wonders of architecture and sculpture, whosefragments still serve as unapproachable models to the mind of modernEurope. And under his rule Athens became the school of Greece, thegreat centre for every form of intellectual activity, a position whichshe maintained until the later period of the Roman Empire.
If, however, we would understand the character of Pericles, and thespirit of the age which he represents, we must never forget that thisaspect of Athenian greatness, to us by far the most important, was notthe aspect which awoke the highest enthusiasm in him and hiscontemporaries. Those things which have made the name of Athensimmortal, her art and her literature, were matters of but secondaryimportance to the Athenian of that age. He worshipped his city as abeloved mistress, and, like a lover, he delighted to adorn her withoutward dignity and splendour. But to lavish all his thought and careon these external embellishments would have been, in his estimation, asenseless waste of his highest faculties, as if a lover should make therobes and jewels of his mistress the objects of his highest adoration.To make Athens the mightiest state in Greece, to build up the fabric ofher material greatness--these were the objects for which he was readyto devote the best energies of heart and brain, and if need were, tolay down his life. He might be skilled in every elegant accomplishment,an acute reasoner, an orator, a musician, a poet; and to some extent hewas all of these. But before all else he was in the highest sense apractical man, finding in strenuous action his chief glory and pride.And such a man was the last to melt into ecstasies over the high notesof a singer, or dream away his life in the fairyland of poetry.
We have dwelt at some length on the work and character of Pericles, ashis death marks a turning point in Athenian history. From that dayonward the policy of Athens takes a downward direction, denoting acorresponding decline in Athenian character and aspiration. Pericleshad been able, by his commanding talents and proved integrity, toexercise a salutary check on the restless energies and soaring ambitionof his countrymen. He had been a true father and ruler of his people,in evil times and in good, curbing them in the insolence of prosperity,comforting and exalting them in the dark hour of disaster. But thegovernment now passed into the hands of weaker men, who, since theywere incapable of leading the people, were compelled to follow it, andto maintain their position by pandering to the worst vices of theAthenian character. Rash where they should have been cautious, yieldingwhere they should have been resolute, they squandered the immenseresources of Athens, and led her on, step by step, to humiliation anddefeat. The course of our narrative will show how easily the Atheniansmight have emerged triumphant from the struggle with their enemies, ifthey had followed the line of conduct marked out by Pericles. Theymight, indeed, have avoided the occasion of offence which ledimmediately to the war, and thus have escaped the necessity of fightingaltogether; and this, as we have seen, was the one fatal mistake madeby Pericles. But, once launched in the conflict, they were sure of aneasy victory, if they had only shown a very moderate degree of prudenceand self-restraint. And we need not blame the great statesmen tooharshly for not foreseeing the wild excesses of folly and extravagancewhich we shall have to record in the following pages.