History of the Peloponnesian War

Such was the funeral that took place this winter, at the close of which the first year of this war ended.

At the very beginning of the next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, with two thirds of their forces, as on the first occasion, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians; and after encamping, they laid waste the country.

When they had not yet been many days in Attica, the plague first began to show itself amongst the Athenians; though it was said to have previously lighted on many places, about Lemnos and elsewhere. Such a pestilence, however, and loss of life as this was no where remembered to have happened.

For neither were physicians of any avail at first, treating it as they did, in ignorance of its nature,—nay, they themselves died most of all, inasmuch as they most visited the sick,—nor any other art of man. And as to the supplications that they offered in their temples, or the divinations, and similar means, that they had recourse to, they were all unavailing; and at last they ceased from them, being overcome by the pressure of the calamity.