Abstract
The knowledge of anthrax as a disease and its importance as a zoonosis in the Greco-Roman world is revealed through a selection of classical texts and mythological sources, taking into account evidence of reworking and reuse of these texts up until the nineteenth century. The numerous names given to the disease throughout history and their linguistic origins will also be examined in this paper. The narrative of the epizoonoses in Noricum in Virgil's Georgics; taken by several to represent a description of an anthrax epidemic, and which had a great influence in written works on veterinary medicine up until the discovery of bacteria, will be given particular attention. The crucial term is "Sacer Ignis", synonymous for several different human and animal diseases through time. This term will be analysed in terms of linguistic origin and the changes in meaning it acquired throughout the centuries.
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