The Possible Meaning of Ἄνθραξ in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Description of an Epidemic and Its Later Latin Reception

In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea describes a famine and an epidemic in the eastern Roman Empire, presenting them as divine punishment for the anti-Christian stance of Emperor Maximin. Later, Rufinus of Aquileia loosely translates Ecclesiastical History into Latin, while later Haymo of Halberstadt syn thesizes Rufinus’s text. The Ancient Greek original uses the term ἄνθραξ to describe a disease with symptoms resembling being burnt with fire from within. This same idea is rendered as ignis sacer in the Latin translations. When existing medical and paleo pathological research is cross-referenced with the key descriptors of the supposed disease — acute course, black/red skin lesions, high mortality, and frequent blindness, as mentioned by Eusebius and Rufinus — the most probable retrospective diagnosis of the described symptoms is smallpox.