Prayers and amulets, sacrifices and spells, and nothing resembling quarantine: Greek and Roman strategies for coping with epidemics were neither systematic nor effective. They provide an interesting glimpse, however, into ancient assumptions about the nature of disease – and serve as a reassuring reminder of how far modern medicine has come.
Further Reading
Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (Princeton University Press, 2017)
Susan P. Mattern, The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Vivian Nutton, Ancient Medicine (2nd ed.) (Routledge, 2013)