Plague from Egypt: topos or reality?

(© Immagine: Depositphotos) Many reports from antiquity about outbreaks of plague mention Egypt as the source of pestilences that reached the Mediterranean. But was this really the case? Researchers from the University of Basel are conducting a critical analysis of the ancient written and documentary evidence combined with archaeogenetic findings to add some context to the traditional view. Red and inflamed eyes, bad breath, fever, violent convulsions, boils and blisters over the entire body: these and other symptoms are mentioned by historian Thucydides in connection with the "Plague of Athens", which lasted from 430 to 426 BCE. He suspected that the epidemic originated in Aithiopia . "This area isn't to be confused with the country we now know as Ethiopia, but was a more general term used at the time to refer to the region south of Egypt," explains Professor Sabine Huebner, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Basel. Contemporary accounts suggest that later epidemics in the Mediterranean also started in Egypt and Aithiopia , such as the Antonine Plague, the Plague of Cyprian and the Justinianic Plague, which ravaged the ancient world between the second and sixth centuries. Papyri providing new information.