50.
The general character of the malady no words can describe, and the fury with which
it1 fastened upon each sufferer was too much for human nature to endure.
There was one circumstance in particular which distinguished it from ordinary diseases.
The birds and animals which feed on human flesh, although so many bodies were lying
unburied, either never came near them, or died if they touched them.
[2]
This was proved by a remarkable disappearance of the birds of prey, which were not to
be seen either about the bodies or anywhere else; while in the case of the dogs the
result was even more obvious, because they live with man.
1 Even the animals and birds of prey refused to touch the corpses.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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