Join Peter in 5th century Athens, a crowded city in the midst of a siege, where a devastating disease had just erupted. Our guests discuss whether this really was plague, the breakdown in law and order that began to emerge, and how the historian Thucydides survived the disease that hit his city.

This episode is part of our History of Pandemics season - follow Professor Peter Millican as he talks to researchers from around the world about some of the devastating pandemics humanity has experienced. Peter and his colleagues will discuss ten major outbreaks: from the Plague of Athens to the West African Ebola outbreak, via the Black Death, Smallpox and Cholera, and ask how these outbreaks have shaped society, what we may be able to learn from them today, and where we might be heading? Find out more at https://bit.ly/TheHistoryOfPandemics  

Futuremakers is created in-house at The University of Oxford, and presented by Professor Peter Millican, from Hertford College. The voice actor for this episode was Shaunna-Marie Latchman. The score for the series was composed and recorded by Richard Watts, and the series is written and produced by Ben Harwood and Steve Pritchard.