Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs

by Adrienne Mayor

  Alexander conceded to his men’s wishes. They did not have to fight King Chandragupta’s formidable forces (the king would later make alliances with Alexander’s successors and supplied them with Indian war elephants for their wars). Alexander followed the Indus River south to the Indian Ocean, where his army divided, half heading home by sea and the others trudging west through the waterless wilderness of Gedrosia (southern Pakistan and Iran) with their leader.

  As they pressed south, Alexander’s men met with many adventures and battles with exotic peoples. They encountered an herb that instantly killed their pack mules and the soldiers suffered eye injuries from the blinding, squirting juice of prickly cucumbers. Men perished from thirst, tropical diseases, and eating unripe dates. And then there were the deadly cobras and vipers. “In the sand-hills,” wrote Strabo, “snakes crept unnoticed and they killed every man they struck.” Snakebites soon became such a menace that Alexander was obliged to hire Hindu physicians to accompany his army. Any soldier who was bitten was to report to the royal tent for emergency treatment by the Hindu healers.19

  It was after conquering the Kingdom of Sambus that Alexander and his men arrived at the fortified city of Harmatelia, in 326 BC (probably Mansura, Pakistan). Here, the Greeks faced a “new and grave danger,” wrote the historian Diodorus of Sicily. The Harmatelians were reported to be oddly confident of victory. When three thousand warriors rushed out of the city to meet Alexander’s army, the Greeks discovered the source of their confidence.

  The Harmatelians “had smeared their weapons with a drug of mortal effect.” The historian Quintus Curtius mentions poisoned swords, and Strabo says they used poisoned arrowheads carved of wood and hardened in fire. Diodorus elaborated further: he says the poison was derived from dead snakes, but by a different technique than that used for the Purple Snake. Like the Scythian adders, the snakes of Harmatelia were killed and left to rot in the sun. As the heat decomposed the flesh, the venom supposedly suffused the liquefying tissue. It is interesting that both the Scythians and the Indians used the entire bodies of vipers to make arrow poisons. A recent herpetological discovery suggests a good reason. Not only would the rotting flesh of whatever prey was in snake’s stomach contain harmful bacteria, but researchers have learned that vipers retain surprisingly large amounts of feces in their bodies over many months. In a dead viper, the volume of rotting excrement would provide further foul bacteria to the mixture.

  Diodorus’s description is vivid. The wounded men went immediately numb, then suffered stabbing pains and wracking convulsions. Their skin became cold and livid, and they vomited up bile. Black froth exuded from the wound and then purple-green gangrene spread rapidly and “brought a horrible death.” Even a “mere scratch” brought the same gruesome death.

  Because India is so famed for its cobras, modern scholars have simply assumed that the poison was cobra venom. I asked herpetologist Aaron Bauer for his expert opinion. Considering Alexander’s route through India and the detailed symptoms recorded by Diodorus, Bauer concluded that the venom probably came from the deadly Russell’s viper, Vipera russelli russelli, rather than from a cobra species. The symptoms suggest that pure snake venom was used on the arrows; Diodorus apparently conflated other accounts of rotting viper poisons into his description, or perhaps the story was circulated by the Harmatelians to discourage attackers. The Russell’s viper venom causes numbness and vomiting, then severe pain and gangrene before death, just as described by Diodorus, whereas death from cobra venom is relatively painless, caused by respiratory paralysis.

  Watching so many of his men, even those with only slight wounds, die one after another in agony, deeply distressed Alexander. He was especially aggrieved by the suffering of his beloved general Ptolemy, who had been grazed on the shoulder by an envenomed arrow. According to Diodorus and Curtius, one night Alexander dreamed of a snake carrying a certain plant in its mouth (according to Strabo’s version, a man showed him the plant). The next morning, Alexander found the herb and applied a poultice of it to Ptolemy’s blackened wound. He also made an infusion of it to drink. With this therapy, Ptolemy recovered, as did a few other wounded men. Seeing that the Greeks had discovered the antidote to their arrows, the Harmatelians surrendered.

  Strabo surmises that the fantastic story of Alexander’s healing dream was fabricated after someone—probably one of the Hindu doctors accompanying the Greek army—informed him of an antidote for the snake-venom arrows. Indian physicians were very experienced in treating snakebites and wounds made by snake-venom arrows. They would have immediately recognized by the symptoms what kind of venom Harmatelians were using on their weapons.20

  The use of poisoned arrows for war was common in India and yet, as in many other ancient cultures, the practice aroused mixed reactions. Toxic weapons violated the traditional Hindu laws of conduct for Brahmans and high castes, the Laws of Manu. The laws, recited over generations in oral verses, date back to about 500 BC (some say even earlier), and were therefore known at the time of Alexander. The Laws of Manu explicitly proscribed the use of arrows that were “barbed, poisoned, or blazing with fire.”

  The Laws of Manu principles of correct and noble warfare for Brahmans were countered, however, by another treatise from the time of Alexander’s adventures in India, the Arthashastra. An infamous book on ruthless statecraft written by Kautilya, King Chandragupta’s Brahman military strategist, the Arthashastra has been described as “revolting” and “cynical” by the medical historian Guido Majno, while political scientists and historians see it as a fascinating example of ancient realpolitik. Kautilya advised King Chandragupta to use any means, with no moral constraints, to obtain his military goals, and enumerated an astonishing number of methods to secretly poison enemies, including several complex recipes for creating biochemical weapons based on venomous snakes and other noxious ingredients. The Harmatelians (identified as Brahmans by the ancient Greek historians) probably felt justified in using toxic measures similar to those recommended by Kautilya, to defend themselves against such a formidable foreign invader as Alexander the Great.

  How many of Kautilya’s biochemical recipes were actually put into practice is unknowable, but the deterrent effect of the weird and loathsome ingredients may have been part of the book’s impact. Indeed, Kautilya himself referred to the valuable propaganda effects of exhibiting the frightening effects of his poisons and potions to induce “terror among the enemy.”

  In a startling revival of ancient bio-warfare in modern India, Kautilya’s Arthashastra, compiled some twenty-three hundred years ago, became the subject of intense study by Hindu military experts and Pune University scientists in 2002. Funded by the Indian Defence Ministry, the scientists began researching Kautilya’s ancient “secrets of effective stealth warfare” and biochemical armaments, to use against India’s modern enemies. According to reports by the BBC and other news agencies, the military scientists have begun experimenting with ancient recipes reputed to give armies special biological powers. For example, a potion of fireflies and wild boar’s eyes are believed to endow night vision, and special shoes smeared with the fat from roasted pregnant camels or the ashes of cremated children and bird sperm are supposed to allow soldiers to walk for hundreds of miles without fatigue. The scientists are also studying Kautilya’s formulas for powders from nefarious substances that were intended to cause madness, blindness, or death in one’s adversaries.

  The Indian military experiments might be dismissed as useless experiments with magic. Yet the Hindu scientists are not alone in the search for unusual biochemical agents to give armies special biological powers. In 2002, for example, military scientists funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Defense Department initiated a search for special stimulants and agents based on “magical genes in mice and fruit-flies” that would eliminate the need for sleep in American soldiers.21

  The possibilities for creating arrow poisons from natural toxins were myriad in the ancient world, and
the search for antidotes and treatments for poison wounds kept pace. Remedies for envenomed wounds in Greek myths reflected the actual treatments used by battlefield doc-tors. For example, the festering wound suffered by Hercules’ son Telephus, caused by a puncture from Achilles’ poisoned spear, was cured with iron rust. Pliny described a famous painting that depicted Achilles using his sword to scrape rust from his spear into Telephus’s wound (a relief sculpture of the same scene was found in the ruins of ancient Herculaneum). According to Pliny, scrapings of iron rust and bronze verdigris mixed with myrrh staunched oozing poisoned wounds, and indeed, archaeologists have discovered sets of rusty nails and old metal tools for this very purpose in Roman military surgeons’ kits.

  FIGURE 13. Achilles treating Telephus’s poison wound by scraping rust from his spear. Roman bas relief sculpture, found at Herculaneum.

  (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples)

  The physician Rufus of Ephesus (first century AD) advised military doctors to ask deserters and prisoners of war about their army’s use of poisons, so that antidotes could be prepared. Purple spurge and the gum resin from giant fennel were supposed to be effective against envenomed arrows, according to Pliny, who also recommended a plant called “centaury” or “chironion” (Centaurium), after the Centaur Chiron. An astringent for drying up septic wounds, its power to close torn flesh was “so strong that pieces of meat coalesce when boiled with it.” Supplies of centaury have been discovered by archaeologists in the ruins of ancient Roman military hospitals in Britain.

  Pliny claimed there was an antidote for every snake venom, except the asp (cobra). Aelian agreed that the victim of asp venom was “beyond help.” Some antidotes, such as rue, myrrh, tannin, and curdled milk, were beneficial or at least harmless; others were dangerous, and still others seem downright silly, such as boiled frogs, dried weasel, and hippopotamus testicle.22

  There were also notions of trying to develop resistance to snake and other venoms. It was well known that natives of lands with venomous creatures such as scorpions or snakes often had some immunity to the toxins, so that a scorpion sting simply itched or a snakebite merely stung. The resistance of some natives was said to be so powerful that their breath, saliva, or skin repelled vipers or cured their bites. The Psylli of North Africa were considered the outstanding example of this kind of resistance. According to the Romans, the Psylli were so habituated to snakebites that their own saliva was an effective antivenin. Antivenin is derived from antibodies to live snake venom, and the implication is that the Psylli immunity was achieved by the same antiserum principle. Psylli spit was eagerly sought by the Romans to counteract snakebites during their African campaigns.

  It was also a common belief in antiquity that ingesting poisons in small amounts, along with the proper antidotes, could offer protection against the poisons, a concept related to the modern techniques of immunization. The idea is evident in the ancient Hindu Laws of Manu, which advised kings to mix antidotes to poisons in their food. King Mithridates VI of Pontus on the Black Sea was the most famous practitioner of this systematic poison-resistance program in antiquity. But even today, in Indonesia, jungle military training includes inuring soldiers to snake venom by having them drink snake blood.23

  Another remedy for snake poison was to try to remove the venom from the victim. Philoctetes’ festering wound from the Hydra-venom arrow was cured by sucking out the poison and applying a poultice. This was the standard remedy for snakebite and poison-arrow wounds, both of which were detected by black gore instead of bright red blood. Warriors felled by toxic arrows were immediately tended by army doctors who either sucked the venom themselves or applied leeches, salves, or suction cups to draw out the poison.

  Sucking out snake venom by mouth could be hazardous for the doctor. The death of a medicine man in Rome in about 88 BC demonstrated the peril. While exhibiting his snake-handling skills to fellow practitioners, he was bitten by one of his cobras. He managed to successfully suck out the poison himself, but was unable to rinse out his mouth with water soon enough. Aelian tells the horrible result: the venom “reduced his gums and mouth to putrescence” and spread through his body. Two days later he was dead. To avoid such an accident, Trojan doctors used leeches, while Indian doctors stuffed a wad of linen in their mouths as a filter.

  The medical writer Celsus, writing about a hundred years after the Roman snake handler’s death, recommended a cup to draw out the poison, but if none was available, the alternative was to send for someone adept at drawing venom by mouth. The fabulous reputation of the Psylli, whose saliva was said to neutralize serpent venom, was probably a misunderstanding on the part of inexperienced observers who had watched a Psylli healer sucking out venom. Celsus revealed that their skill actually came from “boldness confirmed by experience.” He correctly pointed out that anyone “who follows the example of the Psylli and sucks out a wound will be safe,” provided that “he has no sore place on his gums, palate, or mouth.”

  Snake venom can be digested safely, as long as no internal abrasions allow it to enter the bloodstream. That fact was also understood by Lucan, a Roman historian in the first century AD. Lucan described, in page after page of lurid details, the “unspeakable horrors” of death by various snakebites and scorpion stings during Cato’s arduous civil war campaigns in the North African desert in the first century BC. The Psylli came to Cato’s rescue. Just as the Hindu doctors skilled in treating snakebites aided Alexander the Great in India, the Psylli joined Cato’s army to treat the constant stream of snakebite victims carried into their tents. Whereas the Hindu doctors recognized the species of venom on the Harmetalian arrows by the symptoms of the wound, Lucan claimed the Psylli could identify the species of snake by the taste of the venom. The Psylli apparently encouraged the notion of their special immunity to boost their monopoly on curing envenomed wounds. In fact, soon after the civil war, some Psylli practitioners had set up shop in Rome, plying their arcane toxicology skills. They were criticized by Pliny and Lucan for importing deadly poisons and venomous snakes and scorpions of many exotic lands into Italy for profit—apparently the Psylli had become purveyors of poisons for nefarious plots.24

  In ancient India, doctors were well versed in dealing with snakebites, but removing arrows, including those coated in venom, was a special skill of the shalyahara (“arrow-remover”). These surgeons had to decide whether to pull the shaft out or push it all the way through the body. Sometimes they used magnets to locate and help draw out iron arrowheads, and sometimes tree branches or horses were used to jerk a deeply embedded arrow out speedily, with the hope that it was not barbed. Barbed weapons “have always been the curse of battlefield surgery,” remarks the historian of battle-wound treatments, Guido Majno. In the Mediterranean world, however, special instruments were designed to deal with barbed arrowheads, like those of the Scythian nomads. In about 400 BC, Diokles of Karystos invented a tool, called the “spoon of Diokles,” to ease a hooked arrow out without further damage to the flesh.

  But in spite of all the remedies, antidotes, panaceas, and drastic emergency treatments—and Alexander the Great’s legendary dream—the grim sight of black blood trickling from an arrow wound was cause for despair. A terrible toxin was already coursing through the body, which almost always spelled doom. The survival rate of real-life warriors pierced by poisoned projectiles was slim, probably no better than the dismal rate of recovery in Greek myth, where only two victims, Telephus and Philoctetes, recovered, and then only after years of suffering. Even Chiron the Centaur died despite treatment with a special healing plant, and antidotes were futile in the cases of Achilles, Paris, Odysseus, Hercules, and the many other mythic warriors felled by poison weapons. In the event of biologically contaminated wounds on real-life battlefields, the reaction among warriors was undoubtedly “gloom and frustration.”25

  Despite the perils of obtaining and handling the hazardous materials to make toxic weapons—and the moral disapproval that often clouded their use—the guarant
eed casualty rate, the vast arsenal of natural toxins and the lack of effective antidotes, plus the advantages of long-distance projectiles, made poisoned arrows the most popular bioweapon in antiquity. But a great many other natural agents were also manipulated to achieve military victories. The next two chapters look at delivery systems for poisons and disease, capable of destroying enemies en masse. With the ancient myths as models, one could not only pick off one’s foes arrow by arrow as did Hercules or Odysseus, but one could copy the sorceress Circe and poison entire bodies of water—or even imitate the god Apollo and spread contagion.

  3

  POISON WATERS, DEADLY VAPORS

  Aquillius finally brought the Asiatic war

  to a close by the wicked expedient of

  poisoning the springs of certain cities.

  —FLORUS, 130 BC

  SUCCUMBING TO THIRST is a terrible way to die.

  The Greek historian Thucydides described the horrific outcome of the rout of the Athenians after they invaded Sicily in 413 BC, their worst defeat in the Peloponnesian War. In their failed siege of Syracuse, the Athenians had destroyed the pipes conveying drinking water to the city, a common practice in ancient warfare. But the tide shifted and the Syracusans retaliated in kind. They chased the demoralized Athenian forces overland, constantly denying them access to water. When the parched army, already sickened by swamp fevers, finally reached a river, chaos erupted as the mass of delirious soldiers trampled each other trying to reach the water. The Syracusans stood on the cliffs above and slaughtered the Athenians, who kept on drinking the muddy water, now fouled with blood and gore, until the river was dammed up with heaps of bodies.

  In the next century, in India, the Greek army of Alexander the Great was so wracked by thirst that the desperate soldiers would leap into wells, armor and all. The historian Strabo wrote that the crazed men drowned trying to drink while submerged. Their bloated corpses floated to the surface, corrupting their only available source of water. In this case, the Greek army polluted their own water, but Indian strategists of that era knew many ways of poisoning water along enemy routes.