One of the victims of the plague that swept Athens in 430 BC was Pericles himself. According to the historian Thucydides: '...The plague seized Pericles, not with sharp and violent fits ...

One opponent, Thucydides (not the historian of the same name), a relative of the ostracised Cimon, tried a novel way to subvert Pericles' influence. Rather like a modern political party ...