Typhoid Fever Caused Plague that Ended Classical Athens

Using DNA testing, researchers have discovered that typhoid fever brought about the decline of ancient Athens. The city is considered by some to be the birthplace of democracy. It was the home of western civilization's greatest philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

According to the Bristish newspaper, The Telegraph:

The plague that wiped out one third of the city's population in 430-426 BC was a deciding factor in the outcome of the Peloponnesian Wars, ending the golden age of Pericles and Athens's predominance in the Mediterranean.

The plague broke out during the siege of the city by the Spartans in the early summer of 430 BC. After a hiatus in 428 BC, the epidemic returned in the winter of 427 BC and lasted until the winter of the following year. One-quarter of its army and the charismatic leader, Pericles, also perished.

In his history of the Peloponnesian Wars, the fifth-century-BC Greek historian, Thucydides, who himself fell ill but recovered, gave detailed descriptions but researchers had never managed to agree on its identity, with candidates including bubonic plague, smallpox, anthrax and measles.