According to a group of scientists at Northwestern University, humans are 93% predictable. (college of science) That idea is why history and old stories are so important for humanity. If you understand the past, you can understand the future. A current example of this idea is the current COVID-19 pandemic. We have a few histories and stories of pandemics from ancient Greece that we can compare to the current pandemic and how they affected the societies they infected. I will compare the plague in the tragedy of the Iliad, Oedipus Rex, and the history in Thucydides' Histories (of the Peloponnesian War).
The Iliad
The Iliad starts with the Greeks being tormented by a plague. This plague is causing the army to fall ill, jeopardizing their battle against the Trojans. The plague in The Iliad tells of morals and politics.
The plague in The Iliad is caused by the bad choices of Agamemnon. “...Agamemnon had dishonored Chryses, Apollo’s priest, so the god struck the Greek camp with plague…” (Homer 1) Agamemnon refuses to accept the random payment by Chryses to get his daughter, who was taken as a war prize, back from Agamemnon. Because Agamemnon lacks morals valued by the gods, they curse the Greeks. Similar to the Iliad pandemic, many believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is in part a consequence of low morals. Like many new viruses, COVID-19 likely originated in an animal. When many animals are packed together and slaughtered under poor living conditions viruses can spread and mutate easily. Just as the plague in the Iliad was caused by the poor moral choices of Agamemnon, COVID-19 was likely caused by the poor moral choices of those participating in the wet markets. (Forrester-Soto)
When the plague strikes the Greeks, not everyone is willing to sit back and let it claim more lives. Achilles seeks answers and forms a committee. A soothsayer steps up to help. While fearing for his life, the soothsayer tells them that Agamemnon has brought this plague upon them. (Homer 3-4) Throughout time there have always been those who do not trust their leaders to find or give the truth. Today, there are more who do not trust the government than those who do. According to a poll done in 2019 by PEW, only 17% of Americans trust the government. (PEW) This distrust has caused many to look for their own answers to the origins of COVID-19, some of them being quite ludicrous, such as 5g Cell towers.(Ahmed) Those who oppose the government’s position during the pandemic cause further distrust. A similar thing happens in the Iliad between Agamemnon and Achilles.
Oedipus Rex
Similar to the plague in The Iliad, a plague is affecting the people of Thebes under the rule of Oedipus. While the epidemic is wreaking havoc, people look for an answer. We read of the horrible destruction in the text, “Our city—look around you, see with your own eyes—our ship pitches wildly, cannot lift her head from the depths, the red waves of death . . . Thebes is dying.” (Sophocles 3) According to an article published on the CDC’s website, the plague in Oedipus Rex was most likely a real epidemic caused by Brucella abortus. (Kousoulis) This bacteria is transmitted from animals to humans. The tragedy of Oedipus Rex talks of blame, morals, and leadership.
Blame should be placed on those responsible. Everyone wants justice. When something goes wrong, there must be a reason why. Oedipus has a very strong sense of justice. In Oedipus Rex, they consult the oracle to figure out what is the cause of the illness. Similar to Oedipus Rex, people want to know why COVID-19 came to be. Many point their fingers to China for creating the virus and some Chinese officials point to the USA for creating the Virus. (Campbell) In both situations, people believe someone must be to blame.
The blame should fall on the one who responsable. Similar to The Iliad, the plague is brought upon the people because of the immoral actions of one man, Oedipus. This brings up the same point of a divine plague because of poor moral choices. Like the people of Thebes, many Americans believe that the COVID-19 pandemic was brought upon us by the will of God. According to a recent poll, 63% of religious Americans think that the pandemic is God telling humanity that we need to change our ways. (Associated)
Part of leadership is to punish those with poor morals. Oedipus is the most eager of anyone in Thebes to find the cause of the pollution. These are his people, his power resides in the success of Thebes. Similar to Thebes, each leader of counties, states, and nations are fighting to find a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic. This course of action can cause individual rights to be stepped on.
Thucydides' Histories (of the Peloponnesian War)
Thucydides’ histories are interesting when it comes to the plague of Athans. At the time, Athans was at war with Sparta. The plague that struck Athans, had a great impact on the current war. Thucydides was a keen observer and his records, surprisingly contain information on the epidemiology of the plague. His records were used by later generations to better understand the spread of sickness and helped form the modern medicine we know today. Although Thucydides did not know what caused the plague, Thucydides wrote of population density, pathogen transmission, and Immunity. (Kousoulis)
Population density makes a large difference with the transmissivity of an infectious disease. Just like the COVID-19 pandemic today, areas with higher population density are affected more as the pathogens transmit faster between people. Thucydides notes that people were brought into Athens and as the density went up, so did the severity of the epidemic. (Morens)
Thucydides alludes to his knowledge of pathogen transmission when he writes, “Neither were the physicians at first of any service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often…” (Thucydides Book 2 Paragraph 47) Thucydides realizes that the sickness must be transmitted from a sick person to another. Similar to Thucydides’ time, healthcare workers have the highest exposure to pathogens including COVID-19 because they are in close contact with the infected population. (Gan)
Thucydides realizes that people aren’t getting the sickness twice. He records, “These knew what it was from experience, and had no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice- never at least fatally.” (Thucydides Book 2) The same can be observed for COVID-19. Antibody tests have become very important recently to see who has had COVID-19 and therefore does not need to be as worried about getting sick. (Abbasi)
While comparing the plagues of Ancient Greece to the plagues affecting us today, we can see that not only does the plague have similar consequences on the very different populations, but the people react in similar ways. It is so important to understand people in our past because they are not so different than we are today. We can learn of the past and prepare for a better future at the same time.
Work Cited
Abbasi, Jennifer. "The promise and peril of antibody testing for COVID-19." Jama 323.19 (2020): 1881-1883.
Ahmed, Wasim, et al. “Four Experts Investigate How the 5G Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Began.” The Conversation, 11 June 2020, theconversation.com/four-experts-investigate-how-the-5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-began-139137.
Associated Press. “Poll: 63% of Religious Americans Believe COVID-19 Pandemic Is Message from God for Humanity to Change.” FOX 2 Detroit, FOX 2 Detroit, 17 May 2020, www.fox2detroit.com/news/poll-63-of-religious-americans-believe-covid-19-pandemic-is-message-from-god-for-humanity-to-change.
Campbell, Josh, et al. “US Explores Possibility That Coronavirus Spread Started in Chinese Lab, Not a Market.” CNN, Cable News Network, 16 Apr. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/politics/us-intelligence-virus-started-chinese-lab/index.html.
College of Science. “Human Behavior Is 93% Predictable, Research Shows.” Northeastern University College of Science, 19 Feb. 2010, cos.northeastern.edu/news/human-behavior-is-93-predictable-research-shows/.
Forrester-Soto, Naomi. “Coronavirus: Where Do New Viruses Come from?” The Conversation, 7 May 2020, theconversation.com/coronavirus-where-do-new-viruses-come-from-136105.
Gan, Wee Hoe, John Wah Lim, and K. O. H. David. "Preventing intra-hospital infection and transmission of COVID-19 in healthcare workers." Safety and Health at Work (2020).
Homer, et al. The Essential Homer: Selections from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Hackett, 2000.
Kousoulis, Antonis. “The Plague of Thebes, a Historical Epidemic in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex - Volume 18, Number 1-January 2012 - Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal - CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/1/ad-1801_article.
Morens, David M., and Robert J. Littman. “Epidemiology of the Plague of Athens.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), vol. 122, 1992, pp. 271–304. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/284374. Accessed 11 June 2020.
PEW.“Public Trust in Government: 1958-2019.” Pew Research Center - U.S. Politics & Policy, 4 Jan. 2020, www.people-press.org/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/.
Sophocles, and R. D. Dawe. Oedipus Rex. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Thucydides, et al. The Portable Greek Historians: The Essence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius. Penguin Books, 1977.
Woodward, Aylin. “Both the New Coronavirus and SARS Outbreaks Likely Started in Chinese 'Wet Markets.' Historic Photos Show What the Markets Looked like.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 26 Feb. 2020, www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-chinese-wet-market-photos-2020-1.
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