They ate and drank what they pleased, and walked abroad, carrying odoriferous flowers, herbs, or spices, which they smelt to from time to time, in order to invigorate the brain, and to avert the baneful influence of the air, infected by the sick and by the innumerable corpses of those who had died of the plague.
Others carried their precaution still further, and thought the surest way to escape death was by flight.

They therefore left the city; women as well as men abandoning their dwellings and their relations, and retiring into the country.

But of these also many were carried off, most of them alone and deserted by all the world, themselves having previously set the example.

Thus it was that one citizen fled from another--a neighbour from his neighbours--a relation from his relations; and in the end, so completely had terror extinguished every kindlier feeling, that the brother forsook the brother--the sister the sister--the wife her husband; and at last, even the parent his own offspring, and abandoned them, unvisited and unsoothed, to their fate.

Those, therefore, that stood in need of assistance fell a prey to greedy attendants, who, for an exorbitant recompense, merely handed the sick their food and medicine, remained with them in their last moments, and then not unfrequently became themselves victims to their avarice and lived not to enjoy their extorted gain.