Herodotus and Justin have recorded the destruction of the army of Xerxes, when retreating into Asia after his defeat at the battle of Salamis, by a grievous pestilence, which attacked both land and sea forces, especially the army under the command of General Mardonius, anno 480 B.C.: the victims were numbered at 150,000. During this period Diodorus Siculus writes that the ancient Spanish troops were the most faithful and courageous, and constituted almost always the strength of the Carthaginian armies: he continues,—They (the Carthaginians) took treasure and soldiers, who by their valour aided the republic in their most critical times of war. The Spanish soldiers endured hardship with indomitable courage, and, being naturally of a robust make, were not intimidated by the pestilence which destroyed others of the Carthaginian army of that time, nor by the 150,000 dead bodies—plague-victims, which without burial strewed the plains. All these circumstances did not prevent their appearing in arms, and demanding the capitulation of Syracuse from its first tyrant, whilst at the same time the other troops, shamefully abandoned by their chiefs, took to a precipitate flight, and surrendered at discretion. History says nothing of the means taken for the curing of this horrible pestilence at Syracuse, nor shows clearly why the Spaniards alone enjoyed an immunity from this pestilence, which was worthy of being perpetuated in history. Villalba however mentions some physical causes which he considers contributed to the remarkable exemption of the Spaniards from the dire pestilence: he states that the ancient Spaniards were a sober race; and, according to all authorities, sobriety is a powerful means of protection against disease. Filarcus, a citizen of Athens, was singularly struck with this fact: among the rich who lived frugally, drank water alone, and were clothed with the richest garments, moderation and bodily cleanliness were observed to be of the highest importance in maintaining the sensible and insensible perspiration; these functions of secretion and of excretion being essential in order that the integral parts of the blood should preserve its purity, its weight, its normal state of electricity, and natural fluidity, upon which depend the preservation of health and the power of resisting disease in times of epidemics, as is affirmed by medical jurists, and as the ancient Spaniards practised. He continues,—Bathing is also an efficacious means of removing the impurities that opposed the sensible and insensible perspiration; and it would appear that in Spain, long before the Second Punic War, bathing was in general favour. The unmeaning sneer of Diodorus Siculus at the habit of the Spaniards of washing their entire bodies with urine, will be recollected, whilst Galen says that in Syria they avoid the plague by simply drinking that liquid excrement. That the Spaniards used urine advantageously as a topical lotion we shall find in the treatises on baths and other subjects of ancient Spain. Drs. Ribeiro and Sanchez assert, with some foundation, that the use of linen in Europe has caused pestilence to be less frequent; thus, as it were, contributing to the cleanliness which the ancients obtained by the use of their public baths. To a similar cause we may attribute the rarity with which the Spaniards were attacked by the aforesaid frightful pestilence. Catullus, Silius Italicus, and Gratius Faliscus eulogize the vapour baths of the ancient Sætabi: in fine, says Villalba, the sobriety, personal cleanliness, bathing in common water, washing with urine, vapour baths, and the wearing linen garments, with fortitude, concurred powerfully to the immunity enjoyed from disease by our Spanish ancestors.
Anno 476 B.C. During this and the succeeding years, says Florian de Ocampo, there prevailed in Spain from time to time a series of pestilences and other minor diseases, by which a multitude of persons perished. The Carthaginians, to appease the ire of the gods to whom they attributed these fatal visitations, offered up human sacrifices, and made incisions on their arms and legs, and on other parts of their bodies: they also immolated cattle of all kinds, according to the severity of the pestilence.
Orosius, another Spanish writer, and also Dionysius, relate the occurrence of a terrible plague at Rome, which caused great mortality, 463 B.C. This was a grievous time, says the historian, men and beasts being equally afflicted. The disease was preceded by great heat and drought, and the calamities and fatigues of war, which were greatly augmented by crowds of countrymen and herds of cattle received within the walls of the city, in order to avoid the ravages and plunderings of the Latins and Hernici, who then desolated the country. The epidemic first seized on horses and horned cattle, then on man, the poorer people being the chief victims: it began about the calends of September, and raged until the end of November. The two consuls Servilius and Æbutius, and many other illustrious Romans, fell victims to the disease.
Livy and Dionysius inform us that, anno 452 B.C., nearly one-half of the inhabitants of Rome were destroyed by the pestilence loimikié, which was also communicated to the Æqui, the Volsci, and the Sabines, and caused a great mortality amongst them. The distress and consternation being general, the land was left uncultivated, and the miseries of famine threatened to overwhelm those who survived the epidemic. This pestilence was succeeded by another, which, if possible, was more grievous; it lasted from 443 to 438 B.C. In time, so frequently had Rome been scourged by repeated epidemic pestilences, that Livy styled it “urbs assiduis exhausta funeribus.”
In the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 435 B.C., epidemic pestilence broke out at Athens, where the inhabitants of the Athenian territory were crowded together into the city to avoid the ravages of the Lacedemonians: it destroyed 5000 of the prime of their armies, and an immense number of the poor, and continued without interruption for five years. It began towards the close of an open spring, after a severe winter, raged the four following summers and autumns, was especially fatal to their armies at the siege of Epidaurus and Potidea, and continued all through the severe winters. Thucydides, Lucretius, Anacharsis, Plutarch, and Hippocrates give an account of a similar pestilence which ravaged Persia about the same period. Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, sent for the great physician of Cos and Greece to come and arrest its progress, but Hippocrates nobly answered the Persian monarch in these words, addressing Hystaspes, prefect of the Hellespont: “To the epistle which you have sent, and you have asserted to come from the king, write to the king as I briefly answer,—We enjoy victuals, clothing, homes, and everything necessary for life in abundance; and it is neither right for me to use the wealth of the Persians, nor to liberate barbarians from diseases while they may be the enemies of Greece. Farewell.” Thucydides describes the symptoms of the disease in a cursory manner; Lucretius more minutely; and from these historians we infer the following morbid phenomena. The invasion was sudden and unexpected; the disease commenced with a violent headache, fiery redness of the eyes, succeeded by pains and inflammation of the throat, difficulty of breathing, and offensive breath, a sneezing and hoarseness, violent fever with insatiable thirst supervening: watchfulness and delirium or stupor, vomiting of bilious matter, utter prostration of strength, and urgent flux of the bowels, were noticed in the second stage of the disease. In the first stage, the stools were dark and fœtid: there were hiccough, bleeding at the gums, throat, nose, stomach, and bowels,—convulsions: pustules or sores of a livid hue were also observed about the bodies of those affected. This bilious plague or pestilence of Athens exhibited, from the foregoing accounts, symptoms analogous to those of the bilious remittent or yellow fever of America and the West Indies, and would appear to have arisen from similar causes.
The historian, in speaking of the calamity, brings the causes of the pestilence to our view. He says, “As they had no houses, but dwelt in booths all the summer season, where there was scarcely room to breathe, the pestilence destroyed with the greatest confusion, so that they lay together in heaps, the dying upon the dead, and the dead upon the dying: they were tumbling one over the other in the public streets, or lay expiring round every fountain, whither they had crept to assuage the intolerable thirst which was consuming them. The temples of which they had taken possession were full of the dead bodies of those who had expired there.”
Anno 427 B.C. a cruel pestilence or plague spread almost through the world. Mariana and other Spanish writers say that it commenced in Egypt, and, travelling through all the intervening countries, reached Spain: the mortality in most places began among the cattle. From various accounts it would appear that the country people were first affected with this pestilence; afterwards the inhabitants in the towns. Anno 404 B.C. Carthage was almost depopulated, as recorded by Justin and Diodorus Siculus. The Carthaginians sent on an expedition under Himilco to reduce revolted Sicily to subjection, were destroyed in great numbers by pestilence; it was so fatal that, according to one writer, Ocampo, there did not escape either Mallorcan slingers, Celts, Andalusians, or Africans; many fell dead as soon as they took the disease. The bad policy of leaving their dead bodies unburied on the plains, a prey to dogs, &c., contributed in no small degree to the propagation and virulence of the epidemic. This pestilence was distinguished by the remarkable symptoms of violent dysentery, severe fever, acute pains in all parts of the body, anguish, and great depression of both mind and body. Similar disasters have attended expeditions and long campaigns in warm climates within our own time, as our expeditions into Egypt, Flanders, Brabant, the West Indies, &c. testify.
Annis 393 and 383 B.C. the armies of Gaul and Rome were afflicted with sore pestilence. In the latter year, there were many months of severe drought in Andalusia and along the southern coasts, from the Pyrenees as far as Cape St. Vincent; great famine ensued, with pestilential diseases.
Rome was revisited by pestilence anno 366 B.C.: it raged dreadfully for three years, and swept away the great Camillus with multitudes of his people. When the disease was at its height, it is reported that 10,000 citizens died daily: it prevailed terribly in the months of September, October, and November, and the Sibylline books and Lectisternium were resorted to in vain. To add to their calamities and distress, the earth opened in the midst of Rome, giving rise to the tragical and superstitious decease of Marcus Curtius, by his throwing himself, for the salvation of the city, into the awful chasm on the site of which the lake Alba soon after arose.
Orosius in describing this pestilence says, “This was such a pestilence as generally proceeds from irregular seasons, extreme drought, heat of the spring, moisture in the summer and autumn;” which implies that irregular seasons inducing a pestilential constitution of the atmosphere, according to the doctrines of Hippocrates, who dictated medicine to all the world in those days, were productive of pestilence.