The toxic hel- lebore plant was used during the First Sacred War to poison water supplies.
N
perweapons” was biological conta- gion, says Adrienne Mayor, research scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford University in Cali- fornia and author of Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World (Overlook/Duckworth, 2009). According to Mayor, Sumerian tablets dating to 1700 B.C. show an advanced understanding of conta- gion, and the Hittites are known to have sent plague-ridden corpses into enemy lands. But perhaps the best-known example of ancient bio- logical warfare occurred during the First Sacred War (c. 590 B.C.), when allies of Athens, Greece, poisoned the water supply of the besieged city of Kirrha with the toxic plant known as hellebore. Ingestion of the plant resulted in severe diarrhea, which weakened the city’s popula- tion enough that they were unable to continue fighting. “I would consider that one of
the very first uses of a biological weapon,” Mayor says. “It’s also note- worthy because the attack affected noncombatants as well as soldiers, so it was really a moral decision that embraces all of the problems of the use of biological weapons.”
58 MILITARY OFFICER APRIL 2011 APRIL 2011
NAPALM. LAND MINES. DEADLY CONTA- GIONS. SHOCK AND AWE. All are part of the modern warfighting arsenal. But a review of historical accounts reveals they are not really “modern” weapons at all. In fact, a surprising number of contemporary weapon systems have their basis in antiquity. One of the very first ancient “su-
Honor in combat There were few written rules regard- ing the conduct of war in ancient times, Mayor says, though most societies viewed anything other than face-to-face combat as nefari- ous and cowardly. (Some cultures even thought the use of archers was unsportsmanlike because they were fighting from afar.) Of course, that didn’t stop military commanders from resorting to nefarious tactics when the situation called for it. In the second century B.C., for example, Roman forces poisoned the water supplies of several cities in Anatolia, part of modern-day Turkey, rather than wage long, drawn-out sieges. It led to a quick Roman victory, but the general who authorized the attack was criticized publicly. Many ancient civilizations also used poisonous insects and other critters to obtain a strategic advan- tage against opposing forces. In A.D. 198-199, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus started the Second Parthian War in a bid to control Mesopotamia. As his forces approached the city of Hatra in what is now Iraq, its citizens went into the desert and gathered hundreds of live scorpions, which they stored in pottery jars. When the Roman siege began, the defenders
PHOTO: SALLY A. MORGAN, ECOSCENE/CORBIS
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