How do you view and deal with the plague in ancient Rome?

In the Greek and Roman world, diseases and plagues have long been regarded as "providence", and few intellectual elites try to treat and explain diseases with rationality and "science". Hippocrates (460-370 BC) and Thucydides (460-400/396 BC), famous doctors of medicine in Greece, initiated the rational cognition of infectious diseases.

Among them, Hippocrates explained the causes of human diseases with the famous "four body fluids theory" (blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile), emphasizing that diseases are caused by the imbalance of four body fluids and are closely related to the influence of external factors (climate, air, water source, lifestyle, etc.). For example, infectious plagues are mainly related to harmful air, and "bad air" comes from decaying organic matter. This view is the germination of miasma theory in 18 and 19 centuries.

Thucydides and Hippocrates basically agree on the cause of infectious diseases. When describing his personal experience of the Great Plague in Athens, he not only abandoned the long-standing theory of divine punishment, but also ruled out the conspiracy theory that Spartans poisoned the water supply system in Athens. More importantly, he also considered human policies and natural causes. He suggested that the plague in Athens should have originated in Ethiopia and spread through the sea.

Perikles's wrong policy made Athens overcrowded, air pollution was serious, and a large-scale plague broke out. He also clearly pointed out that the doctor with the highest incidence rate is "the doctor who has the most frequent contact with patients" and became the first person in ancient western countries to notice and record the spread of diseases. The above-mentioned new Greek theory of epidemic disease challenges the fallacy that God or God punishes mankind, and makes mankind's understanding of epidemic disease take a big step forward.

Roman scholars accepted the views of Greek scholars on the phenomenon and causes of plague infection, but failed to formulate an effective mechanism or strategy to deal with the spread of plague. Historian Li Wei, poet Lucretius (94 BC-55 AD), agronomist Varo (65438 BC+065438 AD+06 AD-27 AD), Melaleuca (4-70 years), encyclopedic writer Pliny Sr, and medical scientist Claudius Gelele.

Although they failed to find a comprehensive and effective diagnosis and treatment plan, their theoretical thinking and practical suggestions on infectious disease pathology made due contributions to the progress of epidemic theory in later generations.

Lucretius, a Latin poet and philosopher, was the first Roman writer to discuss the principle of infectious diseases. He believes that pathogens are the seeds of diseases in miasma, and breathing and contact are the routes of transmission.

In the sixth volume of Theory of Materiality, he borrowed the theory of "seeds of disease" from the Greek philosophers Anaxagoras (500 BC-428 BC) and Epicurus (3465438 BC+0 BC-270 BC), and proposed that harmful seeds came from outside or were assembled by the earth itself, which polluted the air. Humans and livestock get sick from inhaling toxic air and transmit it to those who care for or come into contact with them.

Rome's observation of infectious diseases and its preliminary understanding of the principle of infection, although unable to fundamentally prevent and control the plague, should have a certain guiding role for the rulers and society at that time. When the great plague broke out, the imperial government, doctors and people at that time took some scientific and reasonable measures to prevent the spread of the disease and provide post-disaster relief to maintain the basic operation of society.

Although the imperial government did not form a systematic epidemic prevention system, it also took a series of reasonable measures to prevent the spread and spread of diseases, and provided post-disaster relief to maintain the basic operation of society. For example, Kyle Aurillo promulgated a strict law on burial and graves, forbidding the burial of corpses in Rome, requiring them to be transported outside the city for incineration before burial, and stipulating that corpse trucks must not walk in the city center, but must drive around the city. It is even forbidden for nobles to build graves in the manor and bury relatives and friends who are infected and sick.

Under the primitive and irrational cognition, both polytheists and Christians blame the mysterious and terrible plague on the intervention or punishment of the gods. They usually take witchcraft activities such as praying to God to exorcise evil spirits, divination to exorcise evil spirits, and "purification" behaviors such as spiritual purity and physical removal of scapegoats.

However, some elites, such as agronomists, doctors and historians, did not wait for this disaster. They not only recorded valuable epidemic information, but also made a preliminary scientific study on the characteristics and causes of the epidemic, and put forward many reasonable suggestions that are beneficial to people's epidemic prevention and anti-epidemic, such as isolation, less gathering, cleaning bath, burning incense and disinfection. These scientific understandings and suggestions played a direct or indirect guiding role in Rome's response to the plague.