"The Plague in Ancient Athens: A Cautionary Tale for America" Topic

"Twenty-four hundred fifty years ago the ancient Greek city-state of Athens—Western civilization's first democracy and one of the political systems our founding fathers studied—came under great stress. In 430 BCE, in the second year of a war, it was hit by a plague. As Athens was challenged, so the U.S.—under stress from the COVID-19 pandemic, from a fraught, polarized political class and citizenry, and from a sitting president who will probably never concede the election—faces great challenges. While our health experts and political leaders draw lessons from the current pandemic and plan for future ones, Athens' experience should serve as a cautionary tale for our democracy.

In his book, The History of the Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides provides the setting. Athens and Sparta had been the two principal leaders of the united Greeks who vanquished the mighty Persian Empire fifty years earlier. Athens, a democracy, headed a large maritime empire which came to threaten Sparta. Sparta, headed by two kings and with a mixed political system, had a very militarized society and an invincible land force. Thucydides sums up the fundamental cause of the war: "I believe that the truest reason for the quarrel, …, was the growth of Athenian power, which put fear into the [Spartans] and so compelled them into war …."…"
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From History News Network