[102] See the analysis of the Knights in chap. iv.
[103] See Thucyd. iii. 87. The Athenian army at the commencement of the war consisted of 13,000 heavy armed soldiers of the former class, and 1200 horsemen, including the horse archers, who were not citizens. Such being the mortality of the upper classes, we may safely suppose that a quarter of the whole population perished.—Thucyd. ii. 13.
[104] See Mitchell’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 74, 84, and the Platonic Dialogues there quoted. See also the Clouds, especially the concluding part, and the dialogue between the Logos Dikaios and Logos Adikos.
[105] Evagrius adds to this a greater marvel; that the citizens of infected places, who were absent from home, sickened and died, even where no other trace of the plague appeared.
[106] φάσματα δαιμόνων
[107] This curious passage may be illustrated from a pamphlet entitled ‘Medela Pestilentiæ, wherein is contained several Theological Queries concerning the Plague,’ &c., by Richard Kephale. “Some I have talked with, who have ingenuously confest they, at their first infection, have felt themselves manifestly stricken, being sensible of a blow suddenly given them, some on the head and neck, others on the back and side, &c.; sometimes so violently that they have been as it were knockt down to the ground, remaining so for a time senseless; whereof some have died instantly, others in a short time after.”—p. 49. This statement, however, is not entitled to implicit credit; for it is the writer’s object to prove the plague a direct infliction from God, without the intervention of secondary causes. “There are two sorts of plague, the one simple, the other putrid. The simple plague is the very influence of the striking angel executing the vengeance of God on the bodies of men. This kind of plague ariseth from no distemperature of blood, putrefaction of humours, or influence of stars, but falleth merely from the stroke of God’s punishing angel.” (Such were the plagues of old, as you may read in Exod. xii. and Numb. xi. 16, 25; also 2 Sam. xxiv. and 2 Kings xix.)—Ibid.
[108] This passage is remarkable as being probably the earliest assertion extant, of any disease known by the name of plague being uncommunicable by contact. Of all the following accounts of similar pestilences, the dread of contagion will be found to form one of the most striking features.
[109] More probably from that burning heat which Thucydides tells us produced the same effect at Athens.
[110] ὃυτως αἱτία τις ἦν ὀυδεμία ἐν ταυτῇ τῇ ν̓ σῳ ἐς ἀνθρώπου λογισμὸν φέρουσα.
[111] The fig-trees: it included the modern suburbs of Pera and Galata.