Greek fire, poison arrows, and scorpion bombs : biological and chemical warfare in the ancient world

"A history of the ways in which ancient cultures developed and used biological, chemical, and other unconventional warfare, drawing on myth, science, and history and told Mayor's scrupulous, yet entertaining style"--

User reviews

LibraryThing member Shuffy2

Biological and Chemical Warfare a thing of the past- actually yes! The idea that biological and chemical weapons are a modern invention is naive, it is merely how you view and/or define the terms.

Poisoned arrows, tampering with water supplies, deadly scorpions used inside bombs and spreading

disease as a weapon are ancient tactics used in the ancient world. Adrienne Mayor sheds light onto the use of "weapons of mass destruction" thousands of years before one would associate the term to warfare. Using first sources she points out various civilizations that employed 'dishonorable' acts in early battles.

The book while informative was at times very repetitive, it could have been just as thorough in a shorter amount of pages. I would still recommend the book to anyone interested in ancient warfare.

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LibraryThing member Michael.Rimmer

It's somewhat saddening to realise that although the earliest mythological stories about the use of biochemical weapons came with the moral "too dangerous and inhumane to use", they're still in use today, and causing all the same tragic misery.

Despite this chastening theme, this is an engrossing

book. The author makes her points well and is clear about what is known and and what is speculation and opinion.

Anybody interested in mythology, ancient history or military tactics should find this a rewarding read.

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LibraryThing member iluvvideo

Weapons of biological and chemical warfare have been in use for thousands of years, and Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs, Adrienne Mayor's exploration of the origins of controversial weaponry, draws extraordinary connections between the mythical worlds of Hercules and the Trojan War, the

accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides, and modern methods of war and terrorism.

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 explores the ambiguous moral implications inherent in this kind of warfare: Are these nefarious forms of weaponry ingenious or cowardly? Admirable or reprehensible?

With the news full of talk about bio-terrorism and chemical weapons, Mayor's exploration of the origins of biological and unethical warfare is an attention-grabber that follows through with fascinating illustrative episodes.

A fascinating read, if you have the stomach for it. I recommend this book highly. There really is nothing new about using biology and chemistry as weapons in war.

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LibraryThing member Luftwaffe_Flak

A very interesting book on an extremely overlooked topic of ancient warfare, ancient WMD's, chemical and biological weapons. I appreciated the explanation of the various biblical phenomenons that were attributed to 'spirits' but were actually clever scientific tricks. I also appreciated the author

exploring the down hill slide that these things have created and how it effects our modern attitude towards them.

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LibraryThing member Paul_S

Interesting, frivolous, well written but scattershot and lacking structure.

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