The plague killed an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 people, around 25% of the population, and is believed to have entered Athens through Piraeus, the city's port and sole source of food and supplies.

Unfortunately, the strategy also resulted in massive migration from the Attic countryside into an already highly populated city, generating overpopulation and resource shortage.

Due to the close quarters and poor hygiene exhibited at that time, Athens became a breeding ground for disease, and many citizens died.

He writes of a disease coming from Ethiopia and passing through Egypt and Libya into the Greek world and spreading throughout the wider Mediterranean; a plague so severe and deadly that no one could recall anywhere its like, and physicians ignorant of its nature not only were helpless but themselves died the fastest, having had the most contact with the sick.

The sight of the burning funeral pyres of Athens caused the Spartans to withdraw their troops, being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy.

[clarification needed][11] Physicians and health care workers were at a higher risk to catch the plague due to the exposure of other diseases.

Thucydides describes a disappearance of social morals during the time of the plague: "The catastrophe was so overwhelming that men, not knowing what would happen next to them, became indifferent to every rule of religion or law.”The perceived impact of the Athenian plague on collective social and religious behavior echoes accounts of the medieval pandemic best known as the Black Death,[16] although scholars have disputed its objective veracity in both instances, citing a historical link between epidemic disease and unsubstantiated moral panic that bordered on hysteria.

Many felt they would not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of wise investment, while some of the poor unexpectedly became wealthy by inheriting the property of their relatives.

The offerings we found consisted of common, even cheap, burial vessels; black-finished ones, some small red-figured, as well as white lekythoi (oil flasks) of the second half of the 5th century BC.

[24]The plague was an unforeseen event that resulted in one of the largest recorded loss of life in ancient Greece as well as a breakdown of Athenian society.

[3] Thucydides says that the balance of power between citizens had changed due to many of the rich dying and their fortunes being inherited by remaining relatives of the lower classes.

[3][27] Thucydides left a detailed account of what victims of the plague experienced, in order to "describe what it was like, and set down the symptoms, knowledge of which will enable it to be recognized, if it should ever break out again.

According to his account, though plague sufferers were not hot to the touch, their fever must have been intense, as they could not bear even very thin linen garments; they insisted on being naked and longed for nothing more than to throw themselves into cold water.

The disease has traditionally been considered an outbreak of the bubonic plague in its many forms, but a reconsideration of the reported symptoms and epidemiology have led scholars to advance alternative explanations.

In addition, crowding caused by the influx of refugees into the city led to inadequate food and water supplies and a probable proportionate increase in insects, lice, rats, and waste.

[32] In January 1999, the University of Maryland devoted their fifth annual medical conference, dedicated to notorious case histories, to the Plague of Athens.

"It hits hardest in times of war and privation, it has about 20 percent mortality, it kills the victim after about seven days, and it sometimes causes a striking complication: gangrene of the tips of the fingers and toes.

[37] A second group of researchers, including American evolutionary molecular biologist Dr. Beth Shapiro of the University of California, Santa Cruz, disputed the Papagrigorakis team's findings, citing what they claim are serious methodological flaws.

[38] In a letter to the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, Shapiro et al. stated that "while this DNA analysis confirms that the Athens sequence is possibly Salmonella, it demonstrates clearly that it is not typhoid.

"[39] The technique used by the Papagrigorakis team (PCR) has shown itself to be prone to contamination-induced false-positive results, and the source burial site is known to have been heavily trafficked in antiquity by hogs, carriers of another Salmonella serovar that may have been confused with the one that causes typhoid fever.

Unusual in the history of plagues during military operations, besieging Spartan troops are described as not having been afflicted by the illness raging near them within the city.

Thucydides' description further invites comparison with VHF in the character and sequence of symptoms developed and of the usual fatal outcome on about the eighth day.

Some scientists have interpreted Thucydides' expression "lygx kenē" (λύγξ κενή) as the unusual symptom of hiccups,[42] which is now recognized as a common finding in Ebola virus disease.

Outbreaks of VHF in Africa in 2012 and 2014 reinforced observations of the increased hazard to caregivers and the necessity of barrier precautions for preventing disease spread related to grief rituals and funerary rites.

With an up to 21-day clinical incubation period, and up to 565-day infectious potential recently demonstrated in a semen-transmitted infection, movement of Ebola via Nile commerce into the busy port of Piraeus is plausible.

Ancient Greek intimacy with African sources is reflected in accurate renditions of monkeys in the art of frescoes and pottery, most notably guenons (Cercopithecus), the type of primates responsible for transmitting Marburg virus into Germany and Yugoslavia when that disease was first characterized in 1967.

Writing in the 1st century BC, Lucretius characterized the Athenian plague as having bloody discharges from bodily orifices (Book 6.1146–47: "sudabant etiam fauces intrinsecus atrae / sanguine" – the throat sweated within, black with blood).

While none of the original works of Acron, a physician, are extant, it is reported that he died c. 430 BC after traveling from Sicily to Athens to assist against the plague.

[citation needed] Unfortunately, DNA sequence-based identification is limited by the inability of some important pathogens to leave a "footprint" retrievable from archaeological remains after several millennia.