History of the Peloponnesian War

As a proof of this, there was a marked disappearance of birds of this kind, and they were not seen either engaged in this way, or in any other; while the dogs, from their domestic habits, more clearly afforded opportunity of marking the result I have mentioned.

The disease, then, to pass over many various points of peculiarity, as it happened to be different in one ease from another, was in its general nature such as I have described. And no other of those to which they were accustomed afflicted them besides this at that time; or whatever there was, it ended in this. And [of those who were seized by it] some died in neglect, others in the midst of every attention.

And there was no one settled remedy, so to speak, by applying which they were to give them relief; for what did good to one, did harm to another. And no constitution showed itself fortified against it, in point either of strength or weakness;

but it seized on all alike, even those that were treated with all possible regard to diet.

But the most dreadful part of the whole calamity was the dejection felt whenever any one found himself sickening, (for by immediately falling into a feeling of despair, they abandoned themselves much more certainly to the disease, and did not resist it,) and the fact of their being charged with infection from attending on one another, and so dying like sheep. And it was this that caused the greatest mortality amongst them;