The Plague of Athens

A cautionary tale, from a long time ago

In the year 430 BC, the city of Athens was under siege. One year prior, the lacedaemonians— that was the name for inhabitants of Sparta— had marched on the city of Athens. Athens was a democracy, and a radical one at that, hell-bent on exporting its ideological fervor — rule by vote of the people, no matter what was decided.

Athens was prepared, in advance, for this assault from the military powerhouse of Sparta. This was in an era before walls of a certain size could be meaningfully breached. Siegecraft didn't exist yet. If the city had strong enough walls, nobody was getting in. Athens had taken this approach to fortification a remarkable step further:

They had built not only walls around the city, but an entire walled corridor to the sea, and subsequently built walls around the port, so they couldn't be cut off from supplies.

In the 400 BC era, most assaults of a city turn into a siege, and that siege turned into the waiting game, where eventually everyone behind the walls in …