Scientists have for many years debated the cause of the Plague of Athens. Analysis carried out by Dr Manolis Papagrigorakis and colleagues using DNA collected from teeth from an ancient Greek burial pit points to typhoid fever as the disease responsible for this devastating epidemic. The study, conducted by the Department of Orthodontics, Dental School, University of Athens, appears on the online version of The International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

The plague, that began in Ethiopia and passed through Egypt and Libya to Greece in 430-426BC, changed the balance of power between Athens and Sparta, ending the Golden Age of Pericles and Athenian dominance in the ancient world. It is thought that up to one third of the Athenians, including their leader, Pericles, perished in the epidemic. Until now our understanding of this outbreak was based on the account by the fifth century BC Greek historian Thucydides, who himself was taken ill with the plague but recovered. Despite Thucydides' detailed description, researchers have not managed to agree on the identity of the plague and several diseases, including bubonic plague, smallpox, anthrax and measles have been implicated in the emergence and spread of this epidemic. A mass burial pit unearthed in the Kerameikos ancient cemetery of Athens and dated back to the time of the historical outbreak, provided the required skeletal material for the investigation of ancient microbial DNA. Aided by modern DNA recovery and amplification techniques, Papagigorakis and his team used dental pulp to identify DNA sequences similar to those of the modern day Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, the organism that causes typhoid fever. The results of this study point to typhoid fever as the probable cause of the Plague of Athens.