Pericles, Cincinnatus, and Zombies: Classicizing Nostalgia in The Walking Dead (2010-)

The “flu episodes” of the fourth season of AMC’s The Walking Dead are situated in a long tradition of plague literature that begins in the 5th century BCE with the Greek historian Thucydides ( History of the Peloponnesian War 2.47-55). His account of the historical plague that struck the city of Athens influenced all major literary accounts of devastating illnesses that followed, including Camus’ The Plague , the immediate inspiration for these Walking Dead episodes. Two features of this five episode arc are specifically rooted in the original Thucydidean narrative: (1) the positioning of an image of an ideal community before a tragedy to make the latter more severe and (2) the exemplification of anomia (lawlessness) through the treatment of the dead.

Thucydides purposely juxtaposes his portrait of Golden Age Athens as a lawful, organized community in the funeral oration of Pericles (2.34-46) with his description of the disastrous plague. Similarly, The Walking Dead ’s fourth season shapes its narrative through a contrast between civilization and the disorder brought by disease. In the season opener, “30 Days without an Accident,” the small band of survivors of the “walker” apocalypse has reestablished civilization. Their walled settlement, a former prison, is now secure enough to sustain agriculture. It is a new Golden Age for these survivors: there is an emphasis on scenes between the couples in love (Maggie and Glen, Tyreese and Karen, Beth and Zack), and the community is now run by a council made up of Carol, Hershel, Glen, Daryl, and Sasha; like Pericles’ Athens (Thuc. 2.37), there is rule by law. Rick, the former cop who had previously held the role of group leader, now rejects his gun in favor of farming. These features resonate with the viewer because they are tropes that have long been used to mark Golden Ages and civilization. For example, in the long digression detailing the shield of Achilles in the Iliad (18.478-608), a city at war is contrasted with a city at peace; the city at peace is filled with weddings, festivals, and a dispute solved by an official arbiter rather than vigilante acts. In the character of Rick, there are echoes of Cincinnatus (Livy 3.26-29), who willingly gave up the rule of Rome and returned to his farm when his city was no longer in crisis.

The slow, relatively uneventful start to the season makes the inevitable downturn in the survivors’ fortunes all the more devastating. At the end of the first episode, this new Golden Age begins to be threatened by a deadly flu. This internal danger is exacerbated by living in cramped quarters in a time of conflict, a situation comparable to the breakout of plague in Athens as the Spartans ravaged Attica (Thuc. 2.52.1-2). It is the resulting breakdown of law and order ( anomia ) that ultimately destroys both idyllic communities. Formerly lawful Athenians who participated in civic rites honoring the dead in their community began to treat corpses shamefully when the plague overcame them (Thuc. 2.52.2-4). In the prison of The Walking Dead , the fallen, whenever possible, are humanely kept from turning into walkers and then buried in the prison courtyard. But the shocking murder and immolation of two characters in episode 2 by someone within their own community tears apart civility. It is not an external threat that is their undoing, but an internal one, not just the disease, but their own selves. The flu episodes introduce new dangers that reverse any gains the survivors have made toward returning to their old way of life. By the conclusion of the fifth episode, the farm and its animals have been destroyed, Rick banishes the murderer by fiat, and the Golden Age is proved illusory.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv7h0vbc