ABSTRACT
Beset by sickness and death in reality, the cities of ancient Greece were also subject to a range of symbolic and metaphorical diseases, amongst them the equation of disorder in the state with a sickness of the body politic. This image, though not part of the Homeric repertoire, appears in Greek literature with Solon and Theognis, and seems to have become something of a commonplace as well as a staple of political discourse, to judge from the way it is parodied by Aristophanes.1 As a widespread and substantial development of the concept of disease, the phenomenon merits investigation here in its own right.
