Killing nearly a third of the population, an epidemic ripped through Athens in 430 B.C. Historic accounts and new technology are helping identify the true culprit.

公元前430年，一场夺去了近三分之一人口生命的流行病席卷了雅典。历史卷宗和新技术正在帮助人们找出真正的罪魁祸首。

BYCÉSAR SIERRA MARTÍN

作者：塞萨尔·塞拉·马丁

Two of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece—Sparta and Athens—went to war in 431 B.C. Tensions between the two had been simmering for decades before boiling over into war. Occupying the lands of the Peloponnese (mainland Greece’s southern-most peninsula), Sparta enacted a land-based strategy, relying on their disciplined hoplites to defeat the Athenians in the open field.

公元前431年，古希腊最强大的两个城邦斯巴达和雅典爆发了战争。实际上，两国之间的紧张关系在爆发战争之前已经持续了几十年。斯巴达占领了伯罗奔尼撒半岛(希腊大陆最南端的半岛)，制定了陆基战略，依靠他们纪律严明的重装步兵在开阔的战场上击败了雅典人。

When Spartan troops would invade Attica (the peninsula where Athens and its allies were located), Athenians responded with naval attacks on politically sensitive points in the Peloponnese. Rural populations in Attica would be forced to take refuge within Athens’s city walls when Sparta invaded.

当斯巴达军队入侵阿提卡(雅典及其盟友所在的半岛)时，雅典人用海军攻击伯罗奔尼撒半岛的政治敏感位置作为反击。当斯巴达入侵时，阿提卡的农村居民被迫在雅典的城墙内避难。

The Peloponnesian War would end by fundamentally shifting power in the Mediterranean, but neither Athens’s navy nor Sparta’s soldiers could claim to be the determining factor of the conflict. That honor belongs to an event that nobody could have predicted or planned for: the plague of Athens, which broke out in the war’s second year. A medical mystery to this day, this ancient epidemic would be the most influential factor to shape the war and decide which city-state would be the final victor.

伯罗奔尼撒战争最终以地中海地区权力的根本性转移而告终，但雅典海军和斯巴达士兵都不能被视为这场冲突的决定性因素。这一荣誉属于一个没有人预料到或计划到的事件:雅典瘟疫，这场瘟疫在战争开始的第二年爆发。这是一个至今仍未解开的医学谜题，这种古老的流行病可能是影响这场战争以及决定哪个城邦最终获胜的最具影响力的因素。

Outbreak

瘟疫爆发

In spring 430 B.C. locals in Piraeus, the port area of Athens, began to fall ill with a disease no one had seen before. The malady spread quickly. Reports circulated of similar outbreaks on the island of Lemnos, in the north Aegean, and other locations.

公元前430年春天，雅典港口地区的比雷埃夫斯居民开始感染上一种不为人知的疾病。这种病传播得很快。在爱琴海北部的莱姆诺斯岛和其他地方也有着类似的疫情报告。

In Piraeus, rumors spread that when the Spartans had arrived they had poisoned the wells there so that Athenians were sickened by drinking contaminated water. In a matter of weeks, the disease had spread to the heart of the city and was affecting people of all ages and backgrounds and in unprecedented proportions. The strategy of the Athenian leader Pericles to bring people from rural Attica into the walled city of Athens, only increased the rate of contagion. The illness did not affect the Spartans to the same degree as the Athenians. In total, it is estimated that between 25 and 35 percent of the population of Athens would perish as a result of the plague when it ended five years later.

在比雷埃夫斯地区，有谣言说当斯巴达人到达当地时，他们在那里的水井里下了毒，因此雅典人是喝了被污染的水而生病。在短短数周的时间里，这一疾病就已经蔓延到了城市中心，并以前所未有的规模影响着所有人。雅典领导人伯里克利的策略是把人们从阿提卡农村带到雅典，但是这只会增加传染的速度。 这场瘟疫中，斯巴达人受到的影响并不像雅典人那样严重。据估计，为期五年的瘟疫结束时，总共有25%到35%的雅典人死于瘟疫。

The main source of information about the epidemic comes from the historian Thucydides, who not only witnessed the events firsthand but survived the disease himself. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides believes the plague originated in eastern Africa, in the lands of ancient Ethiopia (present-day Sudan). From there, the sickness traveled north to Egypt and Libya and east to the Persian Empire before reaching Greece.

关于这一流行病的主要信息来源是历史学家修昔底德，他不仅亲眼目睹了这一事件，而且他自己也是瘟疫中的幸存者。修昔底德在他的《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》(History of the Peloponnesian War)一书中认为，这场瘟疫起源于非洲东部的古埃塞俄比亚(今苏丹)。从那里，疾病向北传播到埃及和利比亚，向东传播到波斯帝国，然后到达了希腊。

Early in his account, Thucydides writes: “I shall give a statement of what it was like, which people can study in case it should ever attack again.” His descxtions chart how the disease progressed in its victims, from the first symptoms: “[P]eople in good health were all of a sudden attacked by heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.”

修昔底德在他早期的书稿中写道:“我将陈述它是什么样子的，以便人们可以研究，以防它再次袭击。”他的描述记录了受害者的疾病进展, 从第一个症状开始:“身体健康的人们被头痛脑热突然袭击, 患者出现红肿和发炎的眼睛, 身体内部出现了如喉咙和舌头流血, 发出反常的口臭等症状。”

Symptoms included “sneezing and hoarseness” before the disease attacked the chest, causing “a hard cough,” and then the stomach, where it triggered “discharges of bile,” “ineffectual retching,” and “violent spasms.” By this point the victim was in “very great distress.”

疾病症状还包括“打喷嚏和声音嘶哑”，然后疾病还会袭击胸部，导致“剧烈的咳嗽”，然后袭击胃部，引发“胆汁排泄”，“无效的干呕”和“剧烈的痉挛”。这时，受害者会“非常痛苦”。

Thucydides describes the appearance of the patient’s skin: “reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers.” Sufferers described intense fevers, feeling as though a fire was consuming them inside, so they would remove all their clothes. They experienced an “unquenchable thirst,” which led some to plunge themselves into water tanks as well. Extreme insomnia followed.

修昔底德也描述了病人皮肤的外观:“发红、青色，然后突然出现小脓疱和溃疡。” 据患者描述，他们发烧得很厉害，感觉好像有一堆火在吞噬他们，所以他们会脱掉所有的衣服。他们经历了“无法抑制的口渴”，这导致一些人直接跳进水箱里。随之而来的是极端的失眠。

Thucydides not only left behind a gift in his descxtions of the plague’s physical symptoms; he also recorded the psychological impact the epidemic had in Athens:

修昔底德不仅在描述瘟疫的生理症状时留下了重要记录;他还记录了该疾病在雅典给人们造成的心理影响:

The most terrifying aspect of the whole affliction was the despair which resulted when someone realized that he had the disease: people immediately lost hope, and so through their attitude of mind were much more likely to let themselves go and not hold out . . . [T]he disaster was overpowering, and as people did not know what would become of them, they tended to neglect the sacred and the secular alike. All the funeral customs which had previously been observed were thrown into confusion and the dead were buried in any way possible.

整个痛苦中最可怕的是当一个人意识到自己患有这种疾病时所产生的绝望:人们立即失去了希望，因此他们的心态更有可能是让自己放手，而不是坚持下去……灾难势不可挡，由于人们不知道接下来他们会发生什么，所以他们往往忽视了神圣和世俗。所有以前遵守的葬礼习俗都被打乱了，死者被以任何可能的方式埋葬了。

Treating the sick

治疗病人

Thucydides reports that many patients died within seven to nine days of being infected. If they made it through the first stage, they might then suffer severe ulceration of the bowels accompanied by diarrhea; the ensuing weakness generally proved fatal. The main problems in treating the disease was its novelty and its contagiousness. Doctors had never experienced anything quite like it, leaving their expertise powerless against the epidemic. “No remedy was found that could be used as a specific,” writes Thucydides, “for what did good in one case, did harm in another.” Regardless of the treatment given, he writes, “strong and weak constitutions proved equally incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away.”

修昔底德报告说，许多病人在感染后7到9天内就死亡了。如果他们安全度过了第一阶段，他们可能会遭受严重的肠溃疡并伴有腹泻;随之而来的症状通常被证明是致命的。治疗该病的主要问题是它的新颖性和传染性。医生们从未经历过这样的事情，他们的专业知识对这种流行病无能为力。修昔底德写道:“没有一种药物可以作为一种特定的药物，在一种情况下有益的药物，在另一种情况下可能就有害。”他写道，无论所受到的待遇如何，“强壮和虚弱的体质被证明同样无力抵抗，所有体质的人们在疾病面前都会毫无例外地被攻击。”

The contagious disease took a toll on those who cared for the sick. Physicians were badly hit early on. Indeed, anyone who nursed their sick loved ones paid a high price: “[I]f they ventured to do so, death was the consequence.” If they did not, the patients “perished from neglect.” Thucydides notes that “it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience.”

传染病使照顾病人的人也付出了惨重的代价。医生们在早期受到了严重的打击。事实上，任何照顾他们生病的亲人的人都付出了高昂的代价:“如果他们冒险这么做，后果就是死亡。”如果他们不这样做，病人也会“死于被忽视。”修昔底德指出:“病人和垂死之人最同情那些从疾病中恢复过来的人。他们清楚地知道这些人到底经受了什么。”

Infection seems to have brought with it some immunity: “The same man was never attacked twice.” Those who had been infected but had come through might experience a brief, euphoric feeling that they could survive anything. Even so, the plague, whatever it was, could leave those who recovered with severe aftereffects. Some people were “seized with an entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either themselves or their friends.” Many survivors suffered lasting damage to their fingers and toes, genitals, and eyes.

感染似乎带来了某种免疫力:“同一个人从未遭受过两次病毒攻击。”那些已经被感染过但已经康复的人可能会有一种短暂的、愉悦的感觉，觉得自己能战胜一切。但即便如此，不管是什么瘟疫，都会给那些康复的人留下严重的后遗症。有些人“在第一次康复时就完全失去了记忆，既不认识自己，也不认识朋友。”还有许多幸存者的手指、脚趾、生殖器和眼睛遭受了持久的损伤。

As well as its impact on health, the epidemic caused radical disruption to everyday life for Athenians. According to Thucydides, “the bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets.” Corpses piled up and, given the urgency of the situation, there was no time to perform even the most elementary rites when burying the dead. Several bodies would be cremated at the same time on the same pyre.

除了对健康的影响，这种流行病还对雅典人的日常生活造成了根本性的扰乱。根据修昔底德的说法，“垂死的人的尸体一个接一个地躺着，半死的生物在街上摇晃。”尸体堆积如山，考虑到情况的紧急，在埋葬死者时，人们甚至没有时间进行最基本的仪式。几具尸体被放在同一个火葬台上同时火化。

Homer’s epic work The Iliad begins with an epidemic that forces the Greek leaders besieging Troy to consider withdrawing their troops. They consult the soothsayer Calchas to find out the cause of the sickness. Calchas tells them the affliction has been sent by Apollo as punishment for an offense committed by Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks.

荷马史诗《伊利亚特》以一场瘟疫开始，这场瘟疫迫使围攻特洛伊城的希腊领导人考虑撤军。他们向占卜师卡尔卡斯请教，想找出这种病的原因。卡尔卡斯告诉他们，这种痛苦是阿波罗送给他们的，作为对希腊领袖阿伽门农所犯罪行的惩罚。

Agamemnon has seized Chryseis, the daughter of a Trojan priest of Apollo, as a war prize and refuses to ransom her back to her father. To end the epidemic, Agamemnon reluctantly returns Chryseis but then takes Briseis, the war prize of Greek hero Achilles, as a replacement. Agamemnon’s petty, short-sighted decision sends Achilles into a rage and sets in motion the great epic’s dramatic events.

阿伽门农扣押了特洛伊祭司阿波罗的女儿克里赛斯作为战争的战利品，并拒绝了将她赎回给她的父亲的请求。为了结束这场瘟疫，阿伽门农不情愿地将克里赛伊斯带了回来，但随后又将希腊英雄阿喀琉斯的战利品布里塞伊斯取而代之。阿伽门农这个狭隘而短视的决定让阿喀琉斯暴跳如雷，从而触发了伟大史诗中的戏剧性事件。

Civil unrest

内乱

The plague had a radical effect on Athenian society. Traditional hierarchies were turned upside down: Wealthy citizens might see their livelihoods destroyed from one day to the next, while poor ones might get rich by appropriating a dead man’s assets. Thucydides describes how moral conventions were abandoned and people tended to live each day as if it were their last: “[A]s the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or profane.” Nobody feared justice, as death by plague seemed more imminent than any pending court case.

瘟疫对雅典社会产生了根本性的影响。传统的等级制度被颠覆了:富人的生计可能一天比一天被毁，而穷人还可能通过盗用死者的资产而变得富有。修昔底德描述了道德习俗在疫情中是如何被抛弃的，人们倾向于把每一天都当作生命的最后一天来过:“如果灾难越过了所有的界限，人们对未来一无所知时，就会变得完全不在乎一切，无论是神圣的还是亵渎的。”没有人害怕正义，因为死于瘟疫似乎比任何悬而未决的法庭案件更迫在眉睫。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Spiritual concerns loomed large as well. Many believed something had angered the gods, who unleashed the disease as punishment. According to Thucydides, the elders spoke of an ancient oracle that had predicted a great epidemic would ensue after a “Dorian war”; the Spartans were Dorians, descendants of an ancient people who had settled in the Peloponnese. It was also rumored that the Spartans had consulted the oracle at Delphi about the outcome of the war; through prophecy, the god Apollo had promised his support to Sparta. The Athenians themselves sought counsel of the gods and sent emissaries to Delphi and other sanctuaries for divine guidance on the epidemic.

人们精神方面出现的问题也很突出。许多人认为是他们激怒了诸神，所以诸神释放了这种疾病作为惩罚。据修昔底德说，长老们提到一个古老的神谕，预言一场“多里安战争”之后将会爆发一场大流行病; 而斯巴达人就是多里安人，是定居在伯罗奔尼撒半岛的一个古老民族的后裔。也有传闻说斯巴达人曾在德尔斐就战争的结果咨询过神谕; 通过预言，阿波罗神已经承诺支持斯巴达。雅典人自己也寻求神的建议，并派使者到德尔斐和其他避难所寻求神的指导。

Stone columns on a hill
Left: As an epidemic ravaged the city, Athens looked to the gods for help and sent delegations to the oracle in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The colonnade standing at the site today dates to the fourth century B.C.

图：当瘟疫肆虐雅典时，雅典人向众神寻求帮助，并派代表团前往德尔斐的阿波罗神庙寻求神谕。矗立在遗址上的柱廊可以追溯到公元前4世纪

A stone statue of a seated robed woman
Right: This undated statue depicts the healing goddess Hygieia, whose cult grew during the plague of Athens.

图:这尊未注明日期的雕像描绘的是治疗女神Hygieia，人们对她的崇拜在雅典瘟疫期间滋长。

Overwhelmed by the impact of the plague on their loved ones and on their way of life, Athenians began to turn against their leader, Pericles. While the move may have seemed practical at the time, with hindsight, his war strategy of encouraging the population to shelter from Sparta’s attacks within Athens’s city walls had worsened the sanitary conditions in the city. As Thucydides records:

瘟疫对人们的亲人和生活方式的影响使雅典人不堪重负，他们开始反对他们的领袖伯里克利。虽然伯里克利封城的这一举动在当时看来是可行的，但事后看来，他鼓励民众在雅典城墙内躲避斯巴达的攻击的战争策略，却恶化了雅典的卫生条件。据修昔底德记录:

An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint.

人们从农村涌入城市的行为加剧了现有的灾难，新来者尤其感觉得到这一点。由于没有多余的房子接待他们，他们不得不在一年中炎热的季节里住在令人窒息的小屋里，死亡在这些地方更加肆无忌惮地蔓延。

Pericles’ political rivals went further, accusing him of calling down the misfortune upon them through his determined support for the war. After more than a decade of often adoring support, Athens turned against Pericles: A heavy fine was levied against him, and he was not reelected as official strategist.

伯里克利的政治对手则更进一步指责伯里克利通过坚决支持战争来让自己国家遭受不幸。伯里克利的政治对手在得到了十多年的支持之后，开始领导雅典人民转而反对伯里克利，于是伯里克利被处以重罚，此后，他就退出了雅典官方战略家的舞台。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Having been thrown out of office for mishandling the epidemic, Pericles would then suffer the ravages of the disease firsthand. According to the historian Plutarch, Pericles’ eldest son, Xanthippus, who had a rocky relationship with his father, succumbed to the plague, as did Pericles’ sister shortly after. His second son, Paralus, also fell ill and died, a tragedy that ended up breaking the legendary self-control of Pericles, who died from the plague himself in fall 429 B.C.

由于对疫情处理不当，伯里克利被赶下台，他将直接遭受疫情的蹂躏。根据历史学家普鲁塔克的说法，伯里克利的长子赞提普斯与他的父亲关系不稳定，不久之后也死于瘟疫，伯里克利的妹妹也是如此。他的第二个儿子帕拉乌斯后来也生病去世了，这一系列的悲剧最终打倒了传奇的伯里克利，他自己在公元前429年秋天死于瘟疫。

The epidemic greatly weakened Athens and brought an end to its Golden Age. By the time the plague ended around 425 B.C., it is estimated that nearly a third of the city’s people died, with between 75,000 to 100,000 lives lost. Sparta and Athens would strike a truce around 421 B.C. Sparta would ultimately win the Peloponnesian War, destroying the Athenian fleet at sea in 405.

这场瘟疫极大地削弱了雅典，并结束了它的黄金时代。据估计，瘟疫在公元前425年左右结束时，将近三分之一的城市人口死亡，7.5-10万人丧生。斯巴达和雅典在公元前421年左右达成休战，斯巴达最终赢得了伯罗奔尼撒战争，在405年摧毁了雅典的海上舰队。

Mystery malady

神秘的疾病

Historians have still not identified the epidemic’s exact source. Because of Thucydides’ use of the word “plague,” some have hypothesized that it was an outbreak of the bubonic plague, cause of the Black Death in the 14th century. However, close reading of Thucydides shows no mention of the Black Death’s most notorious symptoms: the “buboes,” the swollen lymph nodes that blackened and sometimes burst.

历史学家们直到现在仍未确定疫情的确切来源。由于修昔底德使用了“瘟疫”这个词，一些人猜测它是源于14世纪引起黑死病的鼠疫的爆发。然而，人们仔细阅读了修昔底德的笔记，发现笔记种却没有提到黑死病最臭名昭著的症状:“淋巴结肿大”，淋巴结变黑，有时会破裂。

Over time, scholars have proposed several culprits, bacterial and viral, including typhus, cholera, influenza, smallpox, and measles. As research tools have become more sophisticated, new theories have emerged.

随着时间的推移，学者们提出了几种罪魁祸首——细菌和病毒，包括斑疹伤寒、霍乱、流感、天花和麻疹。随着研究工具变得越来越复杂，新的理论也出现了。

In 1994 a mass grave dating to 430-420 B.C. was identified. Within it were 150 bodies that appeared to have been hastily buried. A team of researchers led by Manolis J. Papagrigorakis analyzed DNA from the dental pulp of three individuals. Publishing their results in 2006, they found the presence of a pathogen with a 93 percent similarity to typhoid fever. Other scholars, however, have challenged the theory that the plague was caused by that illness because typhoid was common at the time. Thucydides’ account is of an ailment the likes of which had never been seen before in ancient Greece, a so-called virgin soil epidemic.

1994年，人们发现了一个公元前430-420年的集体坟墓。里面有150具似乎是匆忙下葬的尸体。由Manolis J. Papagrigorakis领导的研究小组分析了其中三个人的牙髓DNA。他们在2006年发表了他们的研究结果，发现了一种病原体的存在，与伤寒有93%的相似性。然而，其他学者对这场瘟疫是由伤寒引起的理论提出了质疑，因为当时伤寒很常见。修昔底德的叙述中提到了一种在古希腊从未见过的疾病，一种所谓的荒地流行病。

Many of Thucydides’ symptoms match those of Ebola. Unlike illnesses of bacterial origin (like typhoid or bubonic plague), finding genetic evidence of viruses like Ebola or measles is more challenging. To identify them, geneticists must study RNA, which is more unstable than DNA and degrades more easily over time. Finding a viable sample from fifth-century B.C. Athens is very unlikely, so if the plague of Athens was caused by a virus, its precise identity will remain a mystery for now.

修昔底德的笔记中记录的许多症状与埃博拉病毒的症状相似。与研究细菌来源的疾病(如伤寒或黑死病)不同，找到埃博拉或麻疹等病毒的基因证据更具挑战性。为了识别它们，遗传学家必须研究RNA，它比DNA更不稳定，更容易随着时间的推移而降解。所以要从公元前5世纪的雅典找到一个可行的样本是非常不可能的。因此，如果雅典的瘟疫是由一种病毒引起的，那么病毒的确切身份目前仍是一个谜。