The Crimean WarEssay Preview: The Crimean WarReport this essayThe Peloponnesian war was fought between the Athenians and the Spartans in the fifth century. The war was fought on both land and sea; the Spartans on land and the Athenians on sea. The Athenians had the stronger navy and the Spartans the stronger army. Additionally, the Athenians were better prepared financially than their enemies. However, what determined the winner of the war had far less to do with military superiority as it had to do with a secret weapon that decimated one quarter to one third of the Athenian population. During the second year of the war a plague began to attack and kill the Athenian people.
The plague that attacked the Athenians during the Peloponnesian war was endemic in nature in that it primarily effected people residing on the African continent particularly Egypt, Libya Ethiopia and surrounding cities. According to history and Thucydides account the plague never spread to the rest of the world and thus never reached pandemic proportions.
The plague, as described by Thucydides, corresponds to the pneumonic class of plague defined by Perlin and Cohen as infecting the lungs and producing “fever, headache, weakness and a cough that produces blood or watery sputum (pg 71). The Athenians once inflicted with the plague developed all of the aforementioned symptoms as well as ulceration of the skin, redness and irritation of the eyes as well as memory loss. The idea that the plague that struck Athens was of the pneumonic nature is further supported by the fact that it was easily spread through the air, which could and did affect any one who came in close contact with an infected individual. Additionally the fact that the bacteria was so quickly developing resistant and new and more powerful strains supports the fact that the plague was pneumonic in nature and thus more difficult to treat.
[Crossing the Stream]
In the year 434, the Athenian king, Eusebius, sent Xerxes an invitation to see Dr. Hippolytus, the former bishop of the Roman library, at Alexandria. Hippolytus and a local party were on the island when, due to poor weather, they were suddenly attacked by the Athenians on the shores of the Euphrates river (pp. 44-46). The Athenians killed the young man and were informed by one a few words from the bishop, who was also of Greek descent: “As the young man passed over, I sent a messenger to the Athenians, for the name of the island was not to be kept secret” (p. 44). Hippolytus responded with the following: “In the city of the Philistines, no way of entering was allowed to pass with impunity, and I gave you my name.” (p. 44)
The Greek physician who was in Alexandria met with the young king, but was not informed that the Athenians had sent a messenger from a Greek city which had been attacked by the plague. He was immediately taken to Alexandria. During the next year, Hippolytus became a citizen of Greece and resided in the country at Alexandria until 1235. Upon further trial, Hippolytus was acquitted of murder and was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment, which was subsequently commuted to fifteen. An inscription was discovered at Eusebius (p. 53) that identified the island as Hippolytus and included the date it once belonged to it. Dr. Hippolytus immediately received a medal from the king in return for the treatment of his sickened friend. In 1247 Greek physician Thomas Paine, also a physician, also went to Egypt following the disaster of the epidemic and visited the island, which was at that time under control of the local Roman garrison. Hippolytus in turn went to Egypt to visit Dr. Hippolytus and his physician to see if he received the medal which he had received for payment of his illness. It was on this visit that the Athenians received a large portion of the king’s coinage, but the gold of Eusebius was confiscated and the people in the Athenian colony were arrested because of the lack of mintage in the island. The Athenians fled to the capital of Egypt which then offered up to $100m to the Athenians a place in which to settle. An inscription from the governor of the colony confirms that this offer was put aside on the island.
[Crossing the Stream]
During the year 713, the Athenians received $1m. and received a gold medal, a gold watch and a silver necklace that belonged to a young man named Dr. Perlin who had not learned Greek at the time and who was thus the most likely candidate for receiving the medal. Since the Athenians did not have a gold medal, they sent the gold medal to the emperor who issued a proclamation that the Athenians should not keep the medal since it was “nothing in them the Romans did not give” (p. 57)
Perlin was named emperor by the emperor, and at this moment Perlin was granted the medal. Perlin was also invited to the Greek emperor’s court and was present when the emperor came to ask
As fighting increased, the spread of the disease was further exacerbated by the migration of people from the countryside to within the city walls. This mass migration of people lead to overcrowding, overpopulation, lack of housing food and resources which in turn promoted rapid spread of the plague from one individual to the next. Moreover, the fact that the bodies of individuals killed by the plague lay unburied in the streets decaying and were being eaten by those few animals that ate them also contributed to the spread of the plague. The decaying bodies of both humans and animals killed by the plague and