History of the Peloponnesian War

for in the surpassing violence of the calamity, men not knowing what was to become of them, came to disregard every thing, both sacred and profane, alike. And all the laws were violated which they before observed respecting burials;

and they buried them as each one could. And many from want of proper means, in consequence of so many of their friends having already died, had recourse to shameless modes of sepulture; for on the piles prepared for others, some, anticipating those who had raised them, would lay their own dead relative and set fire to them; and others, while the body of a stranger was burning, would throw on the top of it the one they were carrying, and go away.

In other respects also the plague was the origin of lawless conduct in the city, to a greater extent [than it had before existed]. For deeds which formerly men hid from view, sc as not to do them just as they pleased, they now more readily ventured on; since they saw the change so sudden in the case of those who were prosperous and quickly perished, and of those who before had had nothing, and at once came into possession of the property of the dead.