Solution to the Pericles Plague Mystery
Reuters reports that dental evidence suggests that the plague that struck Athens during the second year of the Peloponnesian War may have been Typhoid Fever. The evidence comes from DNA in teeth found in an ancient mass burial pit. Besides Typhoid Fever, candidates for the plague that may have killed as many as one third of the Athenians had been smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax, and measles.