[Tax-chick]

Interesting. It looks like they’ve established that the Plague of Athens and the Antonine Plague could have been Y. pestis, because the pathogen existed then. However, there’s no specific evidence that it actually was.

I think a water-borne infection is far more likely for the Plague of Athens, given that it was triggered by the crowding in the city during the invasion of Attica.

[LadyDoc]

There is some evidence the plague of Athens was typhoid, and the Antoinine plague was smallpox. Historically smallpox was a bigger killer then black plague.

but too often news articles go in for ‘sexy’ diseases like plague or ebola to get headlines.

as for plague...I always thought the epidemic with “hemorrhoids” that affected the Philistines when they stole the ark of the covenant was plague.

and one epidemic that depopulated Mexico in the 1500s was not brought by the Spanish, but a hemorrhagic virus that had struck there in an epidemic before Columbus...