Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & Scorpion Bombs: Biological & Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World - Softcover

Mayor, Adrienne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 158567608X ISBN 13: 9781585676088

Publisher: Abrams Press, 2004

Synopsis

Drawing on sources ancient and modern, Mayor describes ancient recipes for arrow poisons, booby traps rigged with plague, petroleum-based combustibles, choking gases, and the deployment of dangerous animals and venomous snakes and insects. She also explo

About this title

About the Author

Adrienne Mayor is a classical folklorist who specializes in the early history of science. A frequent contributor to Archaeology, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Folklore, and the Journal of American Folklore, she is often interviewed on NPR, the BBC, and on the History and Learning channels.

From Publishers Weekly

This dense but highly informative volume narrates the long pretechnological history of the use of poisons and fire in warfare. Mayor, who has published in Military History Quarterly, begins with the first legend of poisoned arrows: Hercules and his quiver of missiles tipped with the hydra's venom (probably snake venom). He and his wife also figure in an early use of an externally applied poison-the "poisoned" garments that killed them both with an inextinguishable flame may have been impregnated with saltpeter. Using their powers of observation and a sound if rule-of-thumb grasp of cause and effect, our not-so-primitive ancestors went on to set fires, throw fires and project fires (Greek fire reached its apex when flung from a ship-mounted flame thrower). They also put poison on arrowheads, in food and wine and in water supplies, tamed elephants to use as living tanks, bottled scorpions to throw over walls and knew about the problems of accidental casualties, enemy retaliation and lowering the ethical level of warfare. Mayor clearly describes how some of the poisons caused gruesome deaths, and Greek fire was essentially napalm. One antielephant weapon consisted of coating live pigs with pitch, setting them on fire and driving them at the elephants. The sheer mass of information will be daunting for the novice, particularly to one not familiar with classical mythology, but the book is otherwise absolutely absorbing, if macabre, and a formidable source on classical warfare, with bibliography, illustrations and annotations to serve further research.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Abrams Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 158567608X
• ISBN 13: 9781585676088
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336