1 86 ANTIENT M E T A P PI Y S I C S. Book II. 



Thucycliaes, began In Ethiopia, travelled through Egypt, Lybia, 

 and a great part of Afia, and came at lafl to Athens, where it de- 

 ftroyed great numbers *. But a more terrible pcftilence than this, 

 and much farther fpread, happened in the time of Juftinian the Em- 

 peror, about the middle of the fixth ccniury. It is defcribed by 

 three cotemporary hiftorians, Procopius, Evagrias, and Agathias : 

 And, from their account of it, it was, for the extent of the countries 

 it ravaged the deftrudion it made, and the time it endured, the 

 greateft calamity that ever befell mankind, fo flir, at leaft, as we 

 know. Procopius tells us, that if went all over the world known at 

 that time, even to the extremities of it, and, he fays, went near to 

 deftroy the human race f- Evagrias fays it lafted fifty-two years J, vi- 

 fiting different countries at different times and fome countries twice j 

 particularly, it w^as twice in Conftantinople. It began in Egypt, as 

 Procopius informs us ; from which country all the plagues, that 

 in later times have infefted Europe, originally came ; though, 

 from all the accounts of Egypt which we have from antient authors, 

 and particularly from Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, who have 

 given us a pretty full and clrcumftantial account of the hiftory of 

 that nation down to the Perfian conqueft, it does not appear that 

 in thofe antient times they were ever afflided with that cala- 

 mity, unlefs when it proceeded immediately from the hand of 

 God, for the purpofe of delivering the Ifraelltes from bondage. 

 But the nation was much younger in thofe times, and their 

 laws and difcipline in full force ; and phyfic appears to me to 

 have been better underftood and practiced there than in any o- 

 ther part of the world : Whereas, in later times, when the coun- 

 try was inhabited by a mongrel race of people, without arts and 

 fciences, or good morals, and without that attention to diet and to 

 cleanlinefs, which I hold, to be abfolutely necefTary to prevent pef- 



tilentiai 



♦ Tbucydides, Lib. Hi. Cap. 47 

 t Lib. ii. de Bello Perfico, Cap. 2.2' 

 X Lib. iv. Cap. 28 



