Episode 282: Griffins, Greek Fire, and Ancient Poisons

Historically Thinking

For thousands of years humans have in war and peace attempted to poison one another—or, perhaps for variety, burn each other to death. We might think of poison gas, biological weapons, or the use of unwitting victims to spread epidemics as being modern innovations, but such horrors have been employed since the earliest recorded history. Moreover, for nearly that entire time humans have debated the morality of employing those weapons. My guest Adrienne Mayor describes this history in Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World, now being issued in a revised and updated edition by Princeton University Press, along with her collection of essays entitled Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws. As she does in all of her books, in both of these she travels through that complicated landscape where the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge all adjoin each other, and seeks there the realities and insights embedded in myth, legend, and folklore. Adrienne Mayor’s other books include The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy, a finalist for the National Book Award. She was previously on the podcast in Episode 107 discussing her book Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology.