{"id":12281,"date":"2020-04-03T10:00:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12281"},"modified":"2020-04-01T21:41:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T04:41:37","slug":"some-coronavirus-humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/some-coronavirus-humility\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Coronavirus Humility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ City Journal<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two well-known themes, or topoi, in classical literature. One concerns the graphic descriptions in Thucydides, Sophocles, and Procopius of plagues\u2014especially the human misery and despair that accompanies outbreaks that killed large numbers. The unknown plague at Athens (430\u2013429&nbsp;BC) killed one-quarter of the Athenian population during the Peloponnesian War, wrecking the social structure of the city. In 542&nbsp;AD, during a virulent bubonic plague epidemic, millions perished throughout the Byzantine Empire, crippling and ultimately curtailing the emperor Justinian\u2019s grandiose efforts to restore the Roman Empire by reclaiming its lost provinces in the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But just as frequently, we read of groundless mass panics that caused deadly harm. Thucydides\u2019s description of the preparations of the Athenian armada on the eve of the ill-fated expedition to Sicily is a sort of fantastical bookend to the panic he previously described about the real plague. In 415&nbsp;BC, a sudden public frenzy swept the Athenian demos to rule all of distant Sicily and get rich from promises of wealthy allies. Sicily was billed as a prequel to a Mediterranean-wide Athenian empire\u2014at least until the money and the allies proved almost nonexistent and the scheme unworkable. Eventually, some 40,0000 Athenian and allied lives were lost in utter defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the United States, the collapse of the stock market and banks in 1893 and 1929 altered American life for generations, in part driven by panicked selling. One of cinema\u2019s most dramatic scenes is the run on the Bailey Building and Loan in Frank Capra\u2019s&nbsp;<em>It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em>&nbsp;that threatens to turn idyllic Bedford Falls into a Potterville slum. I remember as a boy stomping on June bugs all summer long in 1962 to prevent their supposedly deadly contagion that was supposedly sweeping the nation\u2014aping the behavior of those delusional at Athens who drew maps in the sand of Sicily, hooked on the fantasy of the riches to come from the extravagant 415&nbsp;BC&nbsp;expedition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/coronavirus-pandemic-humility\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ City Journal There are two well-known themes, or topoi, in classical literature. One concerns the graphic descriptions in Thucydides, Sophocles, and Procopius of plagues\u2014especially the human misery and despair that accompanies outbreaks that killed large numbers. The unknown plague at Athens (430\u2013429&nbsp;BC) killed one-quarter of the Athenian population during the Peloponnesian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3c5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5574,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/delium-the-battle-only-one-man-wanted-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":12281,"position":0},"title":"Delium: The Battle Only One Man Wanted&#8211;Part II","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Military History Quarterly [Delium will appear this week in a five part series: 1)The Battle, 2) The Aftermath, 3) Armor and Ranks, 4) Innovation and the Battlefield, 5) Coalition Warfare] Part II:\u00a0 The Aftermath Delium was the first battle in or on the border of Attica\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;December 2005&quot;","block_context":{"text":"December 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/december-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5571,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/delium-the-battle-only-one-man-wanted-part-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":12281,"position":1},"title":"Delium: The Battle Only One Man Wanted&#8211;Part I","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Military History Quarterly [Delium will appear this week in a five part series: 1)The Battle, 2) The Aftermath, 3) Armor and Ranks, 4) Innovation and the Battlefield, 5) Coalition Warfare] Part I: The Battle By 424 B.C., the Peloponnesian War was at a stalemate. 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