(Minghui.org) An epidemic suddenly appeared in the brilliant and splendid city of Athens over 2,000 years ago. People who got the strange disease first had a fever, followed by diarrhea, red bumps all over their bodies, and lesions on their limbs; tapeworms were seen in the lesions. People who came down with the disease died within seven or eight days.

Sick people had no chance of survival. The historian Thucydides wrote a detailed account of the plague at that time: people only knew that the number of deaths was increasing sharply, but they could not find the cause or a way to stop it.

Many corpses were left unburied. Even carnivorous birds and wild animals died as a result of feasting on the corpses; dogs and domestic animals were not spared either.

Unexpectedly, however, at the end of 426 BC, the plague that had been raging for several years suddenly disappeared, as if it had received a silent instruction.

The Great Plague of Athens quickly brought the glorious Greek civilization into decline. The cause of the disease has so far been unconfirmed among scholars. However, the Athenians at the time had very bad morality. Extravagance, incest, homosexuality, acts of violence, and murder almost became the norm.

The decline of morality may be the underlying cause of the destruction of the Athenian civilization, which is worth thinking about and heeding as a warning.