Originally published on September 26, 2022 (Episode 282)
Introduction
For thousands of years, humans in war and peace have attempted to poison one another—or, 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 modern horrors, but they were employed as far back as the earliest recorded history. And for nearly that entire time, humans have debated the morality of such weapons.
Adrienne Mayor describes this long and unsettling history in Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World (Princeton University Press, revised and updated edition), along with her new essay collection Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws. As in all her work, she explores the borderlands where history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and folklore meet, uncovering the realities embedded in myth and legend.
About the Guest
Adrienne Mayor is a research scholar in the Classics Department at Stanford University. She is the author of The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (National Book Award finalist) and Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology, among other books.
For Further Investigation
Adrienne Mayor, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World (Princeton University Press, 2022, revised and updated edition)
Adrienne Mayor, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Essays (Princeton University Press, 2022)
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press, 2009)
Episode 107: Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology
💬 Listen & Discuss
What do ancient debates about poison and fire tell us about the ethics of modern warfare? Share your thoughts in the comments—and send this episode to a friend who thinks chemical weapons, and most other things, are only a modern invention.
