Title:

Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs

Author:

Adrienne Mayor

Category:

Non-fiction

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

January 2, 2026

he complete title of this book is Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs - Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World. It describes different strategies that various civilizations employed to defeat their enemies. Poison shows up a lot - although most cultures abhor the use of poison and call it dishonorable, those concerns about honor always seem to go out the window when it comes down to winning or losing the fight. Every culture seems to have its poisoners - whether they were druids, priests or witches, there were always trained people who specialized in the study of toxins. Most of poisons were delivered by bow or blade, or else diluted in wine "accidentally" left behind by a retreating army, but sometimes other tricks were used, such as poisoning the water source of a besieged city or smearing a toxin on clothing. The author lists classical figures who died from poisons, and it reads like a complete list of famous Greek figures: Achilles, Heracles, Odysseus, Socrates, Paris. The sap of the yew tree is so deadly that Roman archers would coat it on their arrow heads. However, poison from a venomous snake was used for hunting arrows, because snake venom can be digested.

The most interesting chapter talks about attempts to enlist the animal kingdom in warfare. Elephants are the most obvious example - frightening opposing troops or simply overrunning them with the armored behemoths. However, beleagured armies discovered that some elephants were terrified of pigs, so they release pigs ahead of the pachyderm calvary. Sometimes the elephants would go mad, and begin to trample their own soldiers. The Carthaginians equipped their elephant drivers with chisels, so that if an elephant panicked and began trampling their own men, the driver would hammer the chisel into the neck of that elephant, killing it immediately. Some camel calavaries would be panic if they had never encountered horses before. Besiegers tried tricks such as tying incendiaries with long fuses to homing pigeons or cats figuring that the animals would return to their homes and subsequently set them on fire.

The blossoms of rhododendrons are toxic. Bees are immune to these poisons, but if humans eat honey in an area where rhododendrons commonly grow, they will become incapacitated for days, and possibly die if they ate too much of the tainted honey.

There is a story that Archimedes arranged soldiers with highly polished shields to stand in the shape of a parabola and focus sunlight on coming enemy ships, which would then catch fire. Modern tests using mirrors have confirmed that it would be possible to ignite a wooden vessel on the water on a sunny day.

During a siege, the surrounding army might try to induce disease into the beleaguered city by catapulting corpses of plague victims over the city walls. Or they might gather up poisonous snakes or deadly scorpions and place them in clay pots to launch over the walls - the pots would shatter on impact and release their angry denizens on the populace.

Arrows were the first attempts to add fire to the arsenal of weapons. But fire from arrows could be stymied by stone walls or wet animal hides draped over wooden structures. Experiments were run to find substances that would burn without being easily smothered. Weapon makers used various combinations of resins, pitch and petroleum. They stirred in quicklime, sulphur or naptha and other bituminous substances. The goal was fire that would burn even when doused with water. These substances could be molded into balls that would set alight and then hurled at the enemy, or placed inside hollow bolts that would disintegrate on impact.

This book argues that the legendary Greek Fire was actually a sophisticated weapons system used for delivering burning naptha against an enemy. It was a system of pumps and siphons that could be turned against a ship or fortification. The exact formula of the incendiary is not known.

I didn't rate this book higher because the material is presented with a dry, matter-of-fact delivery. There is a lot of information, but some of it kind be mind-numbing to read. Mayor's writing rarely presents the information in a style that makes you want to read a passage aloud to your neighbor. Clearly a lot of research went into this book, but in the end, the writing was less entertaining and more informative in tone.