Antiquity[edit]
The earliest documented incident of the intention to use biological weapons is recorded in
Hittite texts of 1500–1200 BC, in which victims of
tularemia were driven into enemy lands, causing an epidemic.
[1] Although the Assyrians knew of
ergot, a parasitic fungus of rye which produces
ergotism when ingested, there is no evidence that they poisoned enemy wells with the fungus, as has been claimed.
According to
Homer's epic poems about the legendary
Trojan War, the
Iliad and the
Odyssey, spears and arrows were tipped with poison. During the
First Sacred War in
Greece, in about 590 BC,
Athens and the
Amphictionic League poisoned the water supply of the besieged town of
Kirrha (near
Delphi) with the toxic plant
hellebore.
[2] During the 4th century BC
Scythian archers tipped their arrow tips with snake venom, human blood, and animal
feces to cause wounds to become
infected.
In a naval battle against
King Eumenes of
Pergamon in 184 BC,
Hannibal of Carthage had clay pots filled with
venomous snakes and instructed his sailors to throw them onto the decks of enemy ships.
[3] The
Roman commander
Manius Aquillius poisoned the wells of besieged enemy cities in about 130 BC. In about AD 198, the Parthian city of
Hatra (near
Mosul, Iraq) repulsed the Roman army led by
Septimius Severus by hurling clay pots filled with live scorpions at them.
[4]
There are numerous other instances of the use of plant toxins, venoms, and other poisonous substances to create biological weapons in antiquity.
[5]
