Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.49.7 · 2.49.7

Thucydides follows the sickness as a thing that moves. Diexiei means "went right through," and the participle arxamenon says it began anōthen, "from above." Its starting place is given as to en tēi kephalēi prōton hidruthen kakon, "the evil first settled in the head." The verb hidruō means to set something up in a fixed place, as one sets up a statue or an altar, so the evil is pictured as taking up residence there before it travels.

The second half is about survivors. Ek tōn megistōn perigenoito is "should come through the greatest dangers," and the next phrase says that even then the antilēpsis, a laying hold, of the akrōtēria, the extremities or outermost parts, epesēmainen, "gave a sign." That verb means to mark or signal, so the damage to the extremities is treated as the proof that the illness had been there. The following section says what this damage was.

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