Quick questions on Pericles' death, the plague and his legacy: HSC Ancient History

2short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.

What is the plague of Athens, 430 to 429 BC?

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In 430 BC, during the second Spartan invasion, a devastating epidemic broke out in Athens, probably entering through the crowded port of Piraeus. The overcrowding of refugees behind the walls, precisely the situation Pericles' strategy created, allowed it to spread with terrible speed. Thucydides gives a famous, clinically detailed account (2.47 to 54); he is an unusually valuable witness because he caught the disease himself and survived, and he deliberately recorded the symptoms so that the disease might be recognised if it ever returned.

What is the death of Pericles, 429 BC?

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Pericles did not long enjoy his restored authority. He died in the autumn of 429 BC, in the third year of the war, having (in Thucydides' precise phrase, 2.65.6) survived its outbreak by two years and six months. Thucydides implies he died of the plague or its lingering after-effects; Plutarch (Pericles 38) describes a slow, wasting illness rather than the disease's usual swift course, and adds the story of Pericles, near death, being told his greatest boast should be that no Athenian had ever put on mourning because of him.

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