Ancient WMDs - The BAS Library
Login
Home > Magazines > Archaeology Odyssey > March/April 2005

Ancient WMDs

Torches & Poisons & Bees—Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Ancient World

By Adrienne Mayor

Most people assume that biological and chemical weapons are recent inventions, that only our advanced knowledge of science and weapons systems has allowed us to make use of toxins, pathogens and incendiary chemicals. Many historians have assumed, moreover, that the rules of engagement in ancient warfare—predicated on honor, valor and skill—would have banned the use of poisons and other underhanded weapons. In fact, ancient warrior cultures used such weapons more extensively than has been realized, and their attitudes toward unconventional warfare were complex and ambivalent. In antiquity, nature was weaponized in an amazing number of ways. One could […]

Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username

Footnotes

1.

Other popular arrow poisons included aconite, or monkshood, a widespread toxic plant that paralyzes the nervous system, and hemlock (the poison that Socrates was condemned to drink), supposedly favored by archers around the Black Sea.

2.

The Romans were not the first to poison an enemy’s water supply, and they certainly weren’t the last. The earliest recorded instance occurred in 590 B.C., during the First Sacred War in Greece, when an alliance of city-states waged a holy war against the city of Kirrha (near Delphi) for offenses against the god Apollo. The alliance laid siege to the city, then poured poisonous hellebore (Christmas rose) into the stream that supplied the Kirrhans’ drinking water. After the war, the Greek alliance regretted the ignoble strategy and vowed among themselves never again to interfere with one another’s water sources. The rule would be broken countless times.

3.

For more on ancient siege warfare, see Paul Bentley Kern, “Under Siege! How the Ancients Waged War,” Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2004.