These accounts describe an arsenic-containing "soul-hunting fog", and the use of finely divided lime dispersed into the air to suppress a peasant revolt in 178 AD. Other Chinese writings dating around the same period contain hundreds of recipes for the production of poisonous or irritating smokes for use in war along with numerous accounts of their use. In the second century BC, writings of the Mohist sect in China describe the use of bellows to pump smoke from burning balls of toxic plants and vegetables into tunnels being dug by a besieging army. The Art of War described the use of fire weapons against the enemy.Īrsenical smokes were known to the Chinese as far back as c. Ancient Greek historians recount that Alexander the Great encountered poison arrows and fire incendiaries in India at the Indus basin in the 4th century BC.
Kautilya's " Arthashastra", a statecraft manual of the same era, contains hundreds of recipes for creating poison weapons, toxic smokes, and other chemical weapons. 400 BC) forbids the use of poison and fire arrows, but advises poisoning food and water. The "Laws of Manu," a Hindu treatise on statecraft (c. Some of the earliest surviving references to toxic warfare appear in the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Homer's epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, allude to poisoned arrows used by both sides in the legendary Trojan War ( Bronze Age Greece).
Chemical weapons have been a part of warfare in most societies, although their use has been particularly controversial since the 20th century.Īncient Greek myths about Heracles poisoning his arrows with the venom of the Hydra monster are the earliest references to toxic weapons in western literature.
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