Ancient Use of Chemical Weapons

The Persians (King Darius, center) at the Battle of Issus, 1st century B.C., from a Roman mosaic.  The Persians attacked a Roman garrison using lethal gas.

The use of chemical or poisoned weapons has a long history in warfare. According to recent archaeological investigations, poison gas consisting of sulfur crystals and a “tarlike substance” known as bitumen was pumped by Persian invaders into a tunnel underneath the defenders of the Roman city of Dura-Europos in modern-day Syria nearly 2,000 years ago. Research indicates that at least 20 Roman soldiers died from this primitive form of chemical warfare.

Byzantine ship using Greek fire in the late 11th century.  Madrid Skylitzes manuscript.

Ancient history is filled with other examples of the use of chemical weapons, from the Roman Army poisoning wells of besieged cities, the Byzantine use of “Greek fire,” and the Chinese use of limestone powder as a primitive riot-controlling tear gas, to the fifth-century B.C. Brahmanic Laws of Manu outlawing the use of poison-tipped arrows.