Contagion in the City of Athens

There is a pervading apprehension of pestilence in this great city. The public health is at stake. Almost all living things that existed in the water of the thames have disappeared or been destroyed. A very natural fear has arisen that living beings upon its banks may share the same fate. We don't actually have well documented urban plagues prior to 430 b c. It's really thucydides, in in his history of the peloponnesian war, who gives us the first serious discussion of what happens when plague comes to a city. And so perhaps can we relativise cove in 19 in a way, put it in this sort of historical context?