Disease In the Greco-Roman world

Question 1

Other predisposing factors

Answer 1

Risks of child birth and child birth difficulties

Dangerous occupations such as the army and working in the mines

Question 2

Location

Answer 2

Low lying areas prone to malaria
Over crowding in cities
Wealthy villas on the coast and in the hills escape summer heat and disease in the cities

Question 3

Problems of interpretation

Answer 3

Not always easy to identify. Diseases can mutate over time. The plague at Athens described at length by Thucydides but it’s still not really known what it was.
Burials show high proportion of infant deaths but written sources have very little on this. Given the age structure fewer would have had degenerative diseases, but skeletons show arthritis.

Question 4

Occupational diseases

Answer 4

Types of hard labour could cripple
War-wounds
Lead poisoning from mines

Question 5

Malnutrition

Answer 5

Lack of margins in subsistence farming
Seasonal shortages - winter there is a lack of fishing, fresh produce and supplies run low in spring
Procopius discusses the famine of the Gothic war - 6th c AD.

Question 6

Causation

Answer 6

Climate and individuals reaction to the ‘bad air’. Diet and lifestyle also contribute. Herodian explains disease in Alexander Severus’s army in 232 AD as effect of hot climate on bodies, not a transmittable disease arising from poor sanitation. However, Thucydides mentions person to person transmission

Question 7

Congenital abnormality

Answer 7

Fewer would survive than today, due to natural causes and deliberate exposure. In Sparta, there were legal requirements to expose if deformed (also permitted in Rome). Causes believed to have been divine displeasure (Hesiod). Religious significance more official at Rome. It was important to be blemish free.