ON THE EPIZOOTIC. 
37 
The simple meaning of this is, that the season was excessively 
sultry — that the dogs, horses, and mules, first began to sink under 
the excessive heat; and that, at last, the soldiers began to perish 
in great numbers. The means which were taken to lessen the 
mortality are related by the poet. They consisted in frequent 
bathing, in personal cleanliness, and in throwing into the sea 
every offensive matter. 
Many centuries now pass, and we find a fearful record of the 
epizootic in the Roman territories. Livy thus describes its at- 
tack, u. c. 2S9 : — 
“ That was a grievous season, and it chanced to be a pestilent 
year both to city and country, nor to the men more than their 
cattle ; but the fear of being plundered increased the violence of 
the disease, by their taking of sheep and the like, as well as coun- 
try people, into the city. Then the mixture and conflux of all 
sorts of animals did not only annoy the citizens with unusual 
smells, but the country folks, too, w 7 ere crowded up into little 
huts where the heat and watching was very offensive to them; 
yea, the friendly offices that they were fain to do to each other, 
together with the contagion itself, propagated the distemper all 
over the town*.” 
In the year u. c. 326 was another dreadful eruption of the 
disease : — 
“ In that year there was a very great drought, nor did the peo- 
ple want only, but the earth also, being bereft of her native moist- 
ure, could scarcely supply the running streams; insomuch that 
in some places the defect of water about these dried rivers and 
fountains caused a great many cattle to die of thirst, while others 
were taken off by the murrain. Yea, there was a contagion very 
rife at last among men also, which, althougli it first seized upon 
the country folks and servants, soon after filled all the cityf.” 
Aristotle asserts that no pestilent disease similar to those by 
which men and quadrupeds suffered has ever attacked the fishj. 
We shall hereafter see the incorrectness of this assertion. 
Ancient history contains a few other references to these epi- 
zootics. One was at the siege of Syracuse by Marcellus, anno 
ant. J. C 212. Silius Italicus gives a dreadful description of it 
first attacking the dog, then the bird, then horses and cattle, and, 
last of all, the human beirtg^, 
Livy relates that, in the 178th year before Christ, a pestilence 
appeared among cattle, which was followed in the succeeding 
year by a more fearful one attacking the human being. 
* Tit. Liv , lib. iii, cap. 6. f Ibid., lib. i’v, cap. 30. 
4 Arist. Histor. Animal., lib. viii, cap. 19. § Silius Ital., lib. xiv. 
