[284] The description in the sixth book of Lucretius, translated and expanded from Thucydidês,—that of the plague at Florence in 1348, with which the Decameron of Boccacio opens,—and that of Defoe, in his History of the Plague in London, are all well known.
[285] “Carthaginienses, cum inter cetera mala etiam peste laborarent, cruentâ sacrorum religione, et scelere pro remedio, usi sunt: quippe homines ut victimas immolabant; pacem deorum sanguine eorum exposcentes, pro quorum vitâ Dii rogari maximè solent.” (Justin, xviii, 6.)
For the facts respecting the plague of Milan and the Untori, see the interesting novel of Manzoni, Promessi Sposi, and the historical work of the same author, Storia della Colonna Infame.
[286] Thucyd. iii, 87. τοῦ δὲ ἄλλου ὄχλου ἀνεξεύρετος ἀριθμός. Diodorus makes them above 10,000 (xii, 58) freemen and slaves together, which must be greatly beneath the reality.
[287] Thucyd. ii, 54. τῶν ἄλλων χωρίων τὰ πολυανθρωπότατα. He does not specify what places these were: perhaps Chios, but hardly Lesbos, otherwise the fact would have been noticed when the revolt of that island occurs.
[288] Thucyd. ii, 57.
[289] Thucyd. ii, 56-58.
[290] Thucyd. ii, 59. ἠλλοίωντο τὰς γνώμας.
[291] Diodor. xii, 45; Ister ap. Schol. ad Soph. Œdip. Colon. 689; Herodot. ix.
[292] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὁ μὲν δῆμος, ὅτι ἀπ᾽ ἐλασσόνων ὁρμώμενος, ἐστέρητο καὶ τούτων· οἱ δὲ δυνατοὶ, καλὰ κτήματα κατὰ τὴν χώραν οἰκοδομίαις τε καὶ πολυτελέσι κατασκευαῖς ἀπολωλεκότες.