Similarities Between Three Major Greek Plagues and the COVID-19 Pandemic The word “pandemic” is of Greek origin and literally meant “all people” (“pan” meaning “all” and “demos” meaning “people”). That is a fitting etymological origin for a word that has, in just a couple of months, seemingly found its way into the vocabulary of “all people” as the new coronavirus and accompanying COVID-19 disease sweep the earth. However, the word isn’t the only thing that ancient Greece has to contribute to the present conversation about the coronavirus. At least three major plagues are associated with Greek history and tradition--one from the beginning of Homer’s Iliad , one from Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex , and the Plague of Athens described in Thucydides’s Histories of the Peloponnesian War . Much can be learned from comparing the ancient plagues and the modern coronavirus. In fact, these three plagues from Greek history had remarkably similar effects on the...