History of the Peloponnesian War

Such was the misery into which the Athenians being fallen were much oppressed, having not only their men killed by the disease within but the enemy also laying waste their fields and villages without.

In this sickness also (as it was not unlikely they would) they called to mind this verse said also of the elder sort to have been uttered of old:

1. A Doric war shall fall,
2. And a great plague withal.

Now were men at variance about the word, some saying it was not loimos [plague], that was by the ancients mentioned in that verse, but limos [famine]. But upon the present occasion the word loimos deservedly obtained. For as men suffered, so they made the verse to say. And I think if after this there shall ever come another Doric war and with it a famine, they are like to recite the verse accordingly.

There was also reported by such as knew a certain answer given by the oracle to the Lacedaemonians when they inquired whether they should make this war or not:

that if they warred with all their power, theyshould have the victory, and that the God himself would taketheir parts. And thereupon they thought the present misery to be a fulfilling of that prophecy. The Peloponnesians were no sooner entered Attica but the sickness presently began, and never came into Peloponnesus, to speak of, but reigned principally in Athens and in such other places afterwards as were most populous. And thus much of this disease.