Since the birth of humanity people have fought against each other. The only change that progress has brought is that the ancient weapons have been replaced by more sophisticated ones.
However, some of our ancestors proved to be very sophisticated in warfare themselves. In spite of the lack of sophisticated modern technology in antiquity, they were very extremely inventive in how they killed one another. Some of the ancient weapons used would blow the mind of modern man.
We are not talking about swords, spears, catapults or morning stars. Some ancient weapons were not even actual killing instruments; they were warfare tactics or strategies that were as good as actual arms in bringing about the defeat of the enemy.
Great civilizations were built upon many victorious battles and long wars. Some battles were won thanks to ingenious schemes hatched by brilliant men. Others were victorious because one side took advantage of the superstitions of their opponent.
The poisonous flowers used to stop Alexander the Great
The mighty army of Alexander the Great had advanced deep into Asia and the Persians found it impossible to stop the most powerful army of the ancient world. This was especially trye of Alexander’s Companion Cavalry, an elite force of fearless horsemen.
The Persian generals thought that one way to defeat the Greeks was to disable their horses. What they did was to resort to the use of an ancient weapon: poison. In this case they used a poisonous plant with deadly flowers and leaves. A plant that thrives in warm climates.
The toxicity of oleander nerium is lethal. What the retreating Persians did was to poison ponds of water with the deadly oleander plant. The poison killed many horses of Alexander’s cavalry. Similarly, soldiers who barbecued meat on skewers made from oleander plants were unable to take part in battle.
Nevertheless, the casualties did not stop Alexander advancing and building the largest empire of the ancient world.
The cats that did not protect the Egyptians
The ancient Egyptians were known for their obsession with cats and how they perceived them as divine creatures, depicting gods as cats. Mafdet representing justice, Bastet for fertility and Sekhmet for power were depicted as cats. In fact they were seen as protectors of Egypt.
In the 6th century BCE the Persians had invaded Egyptian lands and were advancing to conquer territories. The fighting between the two armies was fierce.
The invaders were aware that the Egyptians revered cats and used this fact to their advantage. When the two armies met at Pelusium, Persian King Cambyses II ordered his troops to paint cats on their shields to deter the Egyptians from attacking. When the Persians marched into the battlefield they were hiding behind their shields with the painted cats.
When the Egyptian soldiers faced a long line of painted cats, they feared that if they attacked they might attract the wrath of their gods. Instead of fighting, they surrendered to the Persians. By using religious superstition as a weapon, the ancient Persians took over Egypt.
While this tale is widely known, there is some skepticism about its complete historical accuracy. It’s possible that the story was exaggerated over time or used symbolically to illustrate the Persians’ clever tactics. Ancient accounts like Herodotus and Plutarch mention this story, but the lack of concrete evidence makes it hard to verify as a definitive cause of Egypt’s defeat.
The death ray of Archimedes
Archimedes (287-212 BCE) was a mathematician, astronomer, engineer, physicist and inventor. His greatest invention is the one that rescued Syracuse, the ancient Greek colony in Sicily, from the Roman siege.
His greatest invention was a “death ray”—the first the world had ever seen—that he used to burn the Roman ships that sieged Syracuse between 213-212 BCE.
The ancient weapon concentrated the sun’s rays onto a series of highly polished bronze or copper plates. Reflecting the hot beams of the sun onto polished metal and focusing them on the attacking Roman ships generated fire that was enough to set the whole ship in flames.
Two historians, the 2nd century CE Lucian and 4th century CE architect Anthemius of Tralles, both make mention of the death ray machine created by Archimedes.
Elephants as tanks
When the army of Alexander the Great faced the elephant units of the Persians at Gaugamela it was the first time his troops had seen such a spectacle, and it was frightening. The purpose of the huge mammals was to trample the opposing troops. The awe the gigantic animals generated also served as an ancient psychological weapon.
Alexander was impressed by the animals and found a way to neutralize them. He knew that elephants were afraid of the sound of squealing of pigs and sent into their midst a troop of horsemen, trumpeters and all the pigs he could find, setting them on fire. The elephants fled in terror and the Greek cavalrymen pursued them and killed 980 of them and brought back their teeth and tusks.
The great Greek general took fifteen elephants into his army. He continued to conquer the rest of the Persian empire. By the time Alexander reached the borders of India five years later, he had a substantial number of elephants under his command.
Hannibal of Carthage used elephants as well, but he didn’t stop there. He is also remembered for using clay pots filled with venomous snakes. These “snake bombs” were then thrown onto the decks of enemy ships like hand grenades, where the surviving snakes could generate chaos amongst the crew.
Similarly, the people of Hatra in Mesopotamia, when battling against the Roman troops of Septimius Severus, used pots filled with poisonous insects and even scorpions, throwing them at the enemy.
The ancient biological weapons of the Hittites
It may sound like a modern way to kill the enemy, but biological warfare is an ancient weapon documented to have existed in 1500 BCE and used by the Hittites. These were not as sophisticated as modern biological weapons, of course, but very effective.
The first known case of ancient biological warfare was recorded in the Hittite texts of 1500-1200 BCE. These writings make reference to people who were sick with tularemia (an infectious disease also known as rabbit fever) being driven into enemy lands with the hope of infecting the enemy. It was a largely effective ancient warfare strategy.
Later, ancients realized the connection between the spread of disease and the rotting corpses of animals and people. As far back as 400 BCE, Scythian archers were dipping their arrows in rotting bodies and blood tainted with feces.
The Romans later followed suit and adopted the practice of dipping their swords in rotting blood and excrement, an effective tactic of ancient warfare.
