Each passage describes an epidemic. In Homer, Ovid and Josephus it is sent from heaven as a punishment: Apollo’s anger at Agamemnon, Juno’s against Aegina, God’s against David. Thucydides declines to guess at causes and records the symptoms as one who had the disease; Lucretius follows his account closely and explains plague as a poisoned air. Eusebius quotes a bishop of Alexandria on how Christians and pagans treated their sick, and Bede records the pestilence of 664 in a few plain sentences.
Chosen by hand, not counted: a passage is here when it is plainly about the topic, and the list is not every mention. Each is shown in the order the books were written, and each links to the section it is in.
Apollo, angered at the dishonour done to his priest Chryses, sends a pestilence on the Achaean host.
… And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. … Book 1 →The plague reaches Athens; Thucydides, who caught it himself, sets down its course and symptoms.
… Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said that it had broken out in many places previously in the neighbourhood of Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality was nowhere remembered. … Book 2 →Lucretius ends his poem with the plague that came from Egypt to Athens, and its symptoms.
… 'Twas such a manner of disease, 'twas such Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands Whilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones, Unpeopled the highways, drained of citizens The Athenian town. For coming from afar, Rising in lands of Aegypt, traversing Reaches of air and floating fields of foam, At last on all Pandion's folk it swooped; Whereat by troops unto disease and death Were they o'er-given. … Book 6 →Aeacus tells how Juno’s anger brought a pestilence that emptied Aegina of its people.
… A dreadful pestilence fell upon my people, through the anger of the vengeful Juno, who hated a country named from her rival. While the calamity seemed natural, and the baneful cause of so great destruction was unknown, it was opposed by the resources of medicine. But the havoc exceeded all help, which now lay baffled. … Book 7 →David chooses three days of pestilence over famine or war, and God strikes the Hebrews.
… Now when the prophets had signified to David that God was angry at him, he began to entreat him, and to desire he would be merciful to him, and forgive his sin. But God sent Nathan the prophet to him, to propose to him the election of three things, that he might choose which he liked best: Whether he would have famine come upon the country for seven years, or would have a war, and be subdued three months by his … Book 7 →Dionysius of Alexandria describes Christians nursing the plague-stricken while pagans abandoned theirs.
… After these events a pestilential disease followed the war, and at the approach of the feast he wrote again to the brethren, describing the sufferings consequent upon this calamity. 2. “To other men the present might not seem to be a suitable time for a festival. Nor indeed is this or any other time suitable for them; neither sorrowful times, nor even such as might be thought especially cheerful. … Book 7 →In 664 a sudden pestilence ravages southern Britain, Northumbria and Ireland.
… In the same year, a sudden pestilence depopulated first the southern parts of Britain, and afterwards attacking the province of the Northumbrians, ravaged the country far and near, and destroyed a great multitude of men. By this plague the aforesaid priest of the Lord, Tuda, was carried off, and was honourably buried in the monastery called Paegnalaech. … Book 3 →