Plague of Athens

A pandemic took the lives of many Athens' city-dwellers. The disease ravaged the town from 430-435 BC. SIt is believed that over 100,000 people died during the epidemic. Thucydides, a Greek historian of the era, described the scene saying that "people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, [...] becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural breath."