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Reading Thucydides in Quarantine
By far the most terrible feature in the malady was the dejection which ensued when any one felt himself sickening, for the despair into which they instantly fell took away their power of resistance, and left them a much easier prey to the disorder; besides which, there was the awful spectacle of men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other. This caused the greatest mortality. On the one hand, if they were afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the other, if they ventured to do so, death was the consequence. — Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book Two
Perhaps the great advantage of a long quarantine is that it gives people time to read long books. You know the ones I mean: Democracy in America, War and Peace — the big, bold, important books that one always feels slightly embarrassed not to have read before, but which just don’t fit into the contours of normal life. Maybe even a book that has something useful to say about the situation that caused the quarantine in the first place.
If you are looking for a book like this, to read or even to reread, I highly recommend The History of the Peloponnesian War by the Greek historian Thucydides. This classic history recounts the events of the 27-year war (431–404 BCE) between Athens and Sparta (and their allies throughout the Greek world) that resulted in Athens losing most of its power and prominence, fundamentally changing the world. This is not just a relation of events, though. Thucydides analyzes the causes of the war, and the root problems in Athenian democracy that make both the war, and its result, inevitable.
One need not look too deeply to apply Thucydides wisdom to a plague that causes everyone to stay inside, as one of its early chapters (Book Two, Chapter 7) is all about the plague that hit Athens in 430 BCE, just as the war with Sparta was getting underway. The plague was an unqualified disaster. It killed 1/3 of the population of Athens, including Pericles, the democratic leader who had provided stability to Athens for more than 30 years.
The plague was devastating, and it killed far more Athenians than the Spartans did, and it all but destroyed their ability to prosecute the war. But they kept at…
