Health & Medicine in the 5th century BC

12 sourced entries, 487 BCE to 400 BCE, oldest first. Also see Health & Medicine across every century or everything else in the 5th century BC.

• 487 BCEFirst known use of ostracism, an instrument created in 508 by Cleisthenes which enabled the electorate to banish for ten years any citizen deemed to be a threat to democracy. It was intended, therefore, as a safeguard against tyranny. An ostracism could be held annually providing a quorum of 6,000 was achieved but, apparently, the Assembly declined to invoke it until 487 when there was a popular reaction against Hipparchos the Pisistradid who had been the peace party archon in 496. He was the first of several citizens to be ostracised through the fifth century.source
• 452 BCEAn outbreak of plague spreads throughout Italy.source
• 449 BCEPericles places the Athenian sculptor Phidias in charge of all the artistic aspects of his reconstruction program. Construction begins on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, while the Athenian Senate commissions Callicrates to construct a temple to Athena Nike on the Acropolis.source
• 430 BCEPericles becomes ill from the plague but he recovers, temporarily. He is deposed from his position as General (or Strategos) but is later reappointed.source
• 430 BCEAn outbreak of a plague hits Athens and the disease ravages the densely packed city (modern DNA analyses of material from ancient cemeteries suggest the mortal disease may have been typhus). The plague wipes out over 30,000 citizens, sailors, and soldiers as well as Pericles' two sons. Roughly one-quarter of the Athenian population dies. The fear of plague is so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica is abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy.source
• 429 BCEThe plague in Athens that is killing thousands of the city's inhabitants, claims Pericles. Cleon, who has headed the opposition to Pericles's rule, succeeds to power in Athens following Pericles's death.source
• 412 BCEAn epidemic of an unknown disease hits Northern Greece.source
• 412 BCEThe epidemic hits the Roman Republic and causes a food shortage.source
• 406 BCEThe Carthaginians again invade Sicily and attack Agrigentum (Acragas). Plague breaks out in their camp and Hannibal Mago dies. Himilco assumes command and captures Agrigentum (Acragas), Gela and Camarina. Gela is destroyed and its treasures sacked. The survivors take refuge in Syracuse. The plague is carried back to Carthage by its soldiers.source
• 405 BCEDionysius the Elder rises to power as the tyrant of Syracuse. He makes peace with the Carthaginian general, Himilco (whose army has been weakened by the plague), and fortifies Syracuse. This treaty leaves Carthage in control of most of Sicily.source
• 404 BCEAthens, full of refugees and weakened by plague and hunger, capitulates and the Peloponnesian War ends.source
• 400 BCEWith the outbreak of the war between Sparta and the Persians, the Athenian admiral, Conon, obtains joint command, with Pharnabazus, of a Persian fleet.source