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Originally Posted by Hamlet53
Still strange choices. I wonder also if the ancient Greeks were really aware that mice/rats were vectors for spreading epidemics? If they really had any idea of the cause of disease or how it spread?
This is related but in Book 1 where Apollo is slaying all the Achaians with his arrows I took that to mean bringing a deadly plague among them. It is actually translated thus among one of the alternate translations other then Lattimore that I read that book. This actually left me wondering what sort of contagious disease would spread first among mules and hounds before spreading to humans? No doubt I am seeking to attach to much literal truth there.
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Yes, it's mentioned in line 10 (νοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὄρσε κακήν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοί,) that he let loose a terrible sickness on the army and that the men were killed. I wonder about that sort of thing, too. The plague? There is a lot of literal truth to be found in stories in myth, I love thinking about that sort of thing.