Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs

[Viggen]

May I lay aside all attempts at academic objectivity, and simply proclaim that this book is fun? Of course, one's definition of "fun" must include reading a detailed catalogue of macabre bio-chemical weapons from Antiquity. This is a work on ancient warfare unlike any other, with a certain haunting relevance in today's post 9/11 climate. Adrienne Mayor's Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs is informative, entertaining and all too often chilling...

 

...read the full review of Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological & Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

I read the book about two weeks ago and must fully concur with Ursus : the book is fun. Yet while it does provide an indepth look at the issue of biological and chimical warfare (taken in a very large meaning), it is not without some issues not raised by our previous reviewer.

The use of myth made by Ms Mayor is a good idea because, as said by Ursus, even if it does not relate facts, the myth does give us a view on the general attitude of the period on a specific topic. But the question is for which period are these ideas or attitudes valid for, since there is no real discussion of the evolution of the ideas, and not much critical evaluation of the sources, the lack of text meaning Ms Mayor uses all that's availlable without looking much into what's the text history, what his goals are, etc.

And this is there that lies the main default of Ms Mayor's book, for she lets mistake go through which should not have been passed over, like using the passage of Polyanus talking of "Caesar's elephant", known for long to be a mistake and a confusion between Julius Caesar and Claudius' campaigns : not having taken the time to criticise her sources, Ms Mayor followed blindly their texts and thus wrote mistakes in her book.

Also the small amout of texts she could rely upon means she usually generalise her conclusion without consideration for changing technical, political or philosophical conditions.

But it must be said despite this that she did probably produce a book which is close to the best book one could have written on the topic and that will be the main source on this subject for at least 25 to 50 years !