Epidemics and antiquity
In one way or another, we have all been affected by the Coronavirus crisis of 2020. Social distancing, barrier gestures, confinement, etc.: none of these measures spared us. none of these measures have spared us. While our working conditions have also been disrupted by this situation, our thoughts as librarians have been enriched, somewhat unexpectedly as far as I’m concerned…
The influence of the situation does not stop at a few material realities: book titles attract our attention, and the subject of pandemics no longer leaves us indifferent. That’s why some of my colleagues have highlighted part of their collection on Renouvaud, in a selection entitled Epidemics, pandemics, allegory.
Similarly, a number of academics have taken up the subject of epidemics within their own disciplines. This is the case, for example, of Giuseppina Lenzo (IASA) and Christophe Nihan (FTSR), who shared their work on ancient epidemics in an article published on June 23 in Viral, a blog devoted to the reflections of UNIL researchers on the COVID-19 crisis. The article, entitled “The role of gods in ancient epidemics: about the goddess Sekhmet in Egypt and the god Resheph in the Levant”, demonstrates a complex duality of gods in ancient polytheism: both the lioness Sekmet and the archer-god Resheph are associated with disease, but also with its cure and prevention.
Our researchers’ text highlights one of the fundamental aspects of ancient religions: illness is not simply a medical phenomenon, but part of a more complex system of thought that does not separate illness and religion, ritual practice and medical practice. A selective bibliography on the subject can also be found on Renouvaud.
Of particular note is the article by Anne Bielman Sánchez and Lara Dubosson-Sbriglione (IASA) , also on Viral (May 6, 2020), entitled Ancient Epidemics. In it, they depict the Ancients’ perception of epidemics from the 8th century BC to the2nd century AD: from Apollo’s wrath in the Greek camp during the Trojan War to the “Antonine plague” that raged throughout the Roman Empire from 165 AD, our authors outline the resilience of ancient populations.
For my part, I acquired a book for the Unithèque collections in Ancient Sciences on a related subject: After the crisis. Remembrance, re-anchoring and recovery in ancient Greece and Rome edited by Jacqueline Klooster and Inger NI Kuin in 2020, with a commentary at the end of the page.
But what do the Unithèque shelves contain on pandemics of the ancient period? While part of the Classical Philology collection is dedicated to ancient medicine (works indexed 87.09-961), the subject of research by several Lausanne academics, I’d like to take a look at some of the works with comments on the back covers…
Air, miasmas and contagion: epidemics in Antiquity and the Middle Agesedited by Sylvie Bazin-Tacchella, Danielle Quéruel and Evelyne Samama, 2001. Based on an examination of the medical treatises of Hippocrates and Galen, and the testimonies of historians Thucydides and Procopius, the authors study how a medical discourse was constructed and developed following the great epidemics of leprosy and plague.
The idea of contagion constantly obsessed ancient authors, leading them to reflect on the ancient miasma, the manifestations of pestilence, the role of corrupted air, the relationship between meteorology or astronomy and disease. Men from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, the latter drawing on ancient knowledge, sought and proposed answers and reasons for hope.
Plague and the end of antiquity: the pandemic of 541-750edited by Lester K. Little, 2007. The plague was a key factor in the decline of Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Eight centuries before the Black Death, a plague pandemic invaded the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and eventually spread as far east as Persia and as far north as the British Isles. It persisted sporadically from 541 to 750, a period that saw the formation of the Byzantine Empire, the Roman papacy and monasticism, the beginnings of Islam, the meteoric expansion of the Arab Empire and the rise of the Carolingian dynasty in Gaul.
In this volume, twelve researchers from diverse disciplines – history, archaeology, epidemiology and molecular biology – have produced a comprehensive account of the origins, spread and mortality of the pandemic, as well as its economic and social consequences and political and religious effects. Historians examine written sources in a range of languages, including Arabic, Syriac, Greek, Latin and Old Irish. Archaeologists analyze burial pits, abandoned villages and aborted construction projects. Epidemiologists use written sources to track the means and speed of disease transmission, the mix of vulnerability and resistance it encountered, and patterns of reappearance over time. Finally, molecular biologists, newcomers to this type of investigation, have become pioneers in paleopathology, seeking ways to identify pathogens in human remains from the distant past.
Diseases at the dawn of Western civilization: research into pathological reality in the prehistoric, archaic and classical Greek worldby Mirko D. Grmek, 1983. This book is not a history of medicine, but a history of disease and its impact on the way of life of early Western societies.
Its aim is to uncover the biological and pathological reality that determined the earliest European discourses on morbidity. Although the study is limited to the Eastern Mediterranean, it goes beyond this geographical framework and leads to conclusions concerning all Western countries. Greek texts, from Homer to Hippocrates, provide fundamental testimonies, but their medical reading is difficult: to overcome the opacities and pitfalls of language, it is necessary to turn to non-literary sources. The originality of this book lies precisely in this multidisciplinary approach, and in the development of several new methods of medical-historical investigation.
After the crisis. Remembrance, re-anchoring and recovery in ancient Greece and Rome edited by Jacqueline Klooster and Inger NI Kuin, 2020. Crises resulting from war or other disorder disrupt people’s lives and can leave their mark on a community for many years after the event. Can crises serve as catalysts for innovation or change, and how does this work? What do crises reveal about the “normality” against which they are defined and framed? People living in post-crisis societies have no choice but to adapt to the changes brought about by the crisis. Such adaptation raises the question of how the relationship between the pre-crisis situation and the new status quo is constructed, and by whom. Because of the reduced possibility of using the immediate past, which is tainted by conflict and bad memories, this can involve revisions of historical narratives about the past and community identities, through the selection of new “anchors”, and sometimes even a rejection of the old. Crises affect all areas of life, and crisis recovery also extends to different fields.
This volume finds traces of these recovery strategies in texts as well as visual representations, in literary and documentary texts, in official ideology as much as in subaltern responses. The contributors bring together diverse testimonies of these ways of coping that have survived into antiquity.
To explore further, check out our Renouvaud selection!
Evelyne Barman Crotti, Unithèque website
