[279] Thucyd. ii, 54.
Φάσκοντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι πάλαι ᾄδεσθαι—
Ἥξει Δωριακὸς πόλεμος, καὶ λοιμὸς ἅμ᾽ αὐτῷ.
See also the first among the epistles ascribed to the orator Æschinês, respecting a λοιμὸς in Delos.
It appears that there was a debate whether, in this Hexameter verse, λιμὸς (famine) or λοιμὸς (pestilence) was the correct reading: and the probability is, that it had been originally composed with the word λιμὸς,—for men might well fancy beforehand that famine would be a sequel of the Dorian war, but they would not be likely to imagine pestilence as accompanying it. Yet, says Thucydidês, the reading λοιμὸς was held decidedly preferable, as best fitting to the actual circumstances (οἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι πρὸς ἃ ἔπασχον τὴν μνήμην ἐποιοῦντο). And “if (he goes on to say) there should ever hereafter come another Dorian war, and famine along with it, the oracle will probably be reproduced with the word λιμὸς as part of it.”
This deserves notice, as illustrating the sort of admitted license with which men twisted the oracles or prophecies, so as to hit the feelings of the actual moment.
[280] Compare Diodor. xiv, 70, who mentions similar distresses in the Carthaginian army besieging Syracuse, during the terrible epidemic with which it was attacked in 395 B.C.; and Livy, xxv, 26, respecting the epidemic at Syracuse when it was besieged by Marcellus and the Romans.
[281] Thucyd. ii, 52. Οἰκιῶν γὰρ οὐχ ὑπαρχουσῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν καλύβαις πνιγηραῖς ὥρᾳ ἔτους διαιτωμένων, ὁ φθόρος ἐγίγνετο οὐδενὶ κόσμῳ, ἀλλὰ καὶ νεκροὶ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοις ἀποθνήσκοντες ἔκειντο, καὶ ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς ἐκαλινδοῦντο καὶ περὶ τὰς κρήνας ἁπάσας ἡμιθνῆτες, τοῦ ὕδατος ἐπιθυμίᾳ. Τά τε ἱερὰ ἐν οἷς ἐσκήνηντο, νεκρῶν πλέα ἦν, αὐτοῦ ἐναποθνῃσκόντων· ὑπερβιαζομένου γὰρ τοῦ κακοῦ οἱ ἄνθρωποι, οὐκ ἔχοντες, ὅ,τι γένωνται, ἐς ὀλιγωρίαν ἐτράποντο καὶ ἱερῶν καὶ ὁσίων ὁμοίως.
[282] Thucyd. ii, 50: compare Livy, xli, 21, describing the epidemic at Rome in 174 B.C. “Cadavera, intacta à canibus et vulturibus, tabes absumebat: satisque constabat, nec illo, nec priore anno in tantâ strage boum hominumque vulturium usquam visum.”
[283] Thucyd. ii, 52. From the language of Thucydidês, we see that this was regarded at Athens as highly unbecoming. Yet a passage of Plutarch seems to show that it was very common, in his time, to burn several bodies on the same funeral pile (Plutarch, Symposiac. iii, 4, p. 651).