NAUFRAGIO CON SPETTATORE: EPIDEMIE E SOCIETÀ NEL MONDO ANTICO

Abstract

Shipwreck with Spectator: Epidemics and Society in the Ancient World. – Starting from the meaning of the Greek word epidemia, the paper highlights its topographical and social connotation (“stay at home, stay in a city”), from Homer to Hippocrates. It then moves on to scrutinize some of the most impactful epidemic events in ancient Greece and Rome, focusing on their social and political consequences, on the geographic spread and the medical features. These events are the Athenian plague of 431 BCE, the epidemic cough of Perinthos as told by Hippocrates, and the Antoninian plague in Rome around 166 CE; the paper also recalls the so-called plague of Justinian, whose fateful aftermath has been often related to the end of the Roman empire. A possible connection is also discussed between the Antoninian plague in Rome and a very similar epidemics taking place in the same years in China, at a time when the first direct contacts between the two empires were established. Eventually, a reflec-tion upon the different perceptions of an epidemics is offered.