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[2] As for the Athenians, they could not venture to meet them in a pitched battle, and being confined as they were within the walls, found themselves involved in an emergency caused by a plague; for since a vast multitude of people of every description had streamed together into the city, there was good reason for their falling victim to diseases as they did, because of the cramped quarters, breathing air which had become polluted.1

1 The detailed description of this plague, whose symptoms resemble more those of typhus than of any other disease, is in Thuc. 2.47 ff

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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