Did King Porus's men use snake poison against Alexander's troops?
score:11
I am Adrienne Mayor and I never wrote that Porus used any kind of poison weapons, not swords or arrows and certainly not poisoned elephant tusks, as claimed on About.com and the Univ. of Washington sites
See my "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World" (Overlook/Duckworth, 2003, 2009) pp 88-91 and reference notes for information about the poison weapons encountered by Alexander AFTER defeating Porus, at Harmatelia (now Pakistan) and my theory that the poison was Russell's viper venom.
Upvote:4
There are certainly references to "poison" and these come from Diodorus, Arrian, Plutarch and Justin.
But these seem more like many of the other fantasies that the Greeks spun- especially if you consider the methods of preparation of the poison and how Alexander was told in a dream about the antidote.
Also, the only reference to anyone being wounded, by these accounts is that of Ptolemy. There is no mention of it being used in the battle of Hydaspes.
All in all it should be discounted as a 'tale'.
The fact that much of the Greek accounts of India were fantasy (while of course much was also authentic) is easy to ascertain today simply due to the ludicrous content.
More post
- 📝 When were the baskets invented in Australia and America?
- 📝 How effective were the forces of the French Provisional Government compared to the other allies?
- 📝 Was there a trade link between the medieval Hungarian Kingdom and the Mali Empire?
- 📝 To prevent sex were men bound in bags or locked in beds?
- 📝 Before the use of Anno Domini dating (BCE/CE), how were years numbered?
- 📝 Why wasn't Russia in the Paris Peace Talks?
- 📝 What is the origin of the expression "I'm the culture they're dying for"?
- 📝 Can anyone identify this uniform from SE Asia?
- 📝 What did the Catholic Church do to promote human rights of non-christians from 1500s to mid 1900s?
- 📝 Is George Louis known to have considered the assumption of a different regnal name in Great Britain?
- 📝 Are tech workers in the Siberian city of Tomsk really "descendants of those sent to the gulags"?
- 📝 Term for one culture having a large influence over surrounding cultures?
- 📝 How did Rome's legal system work?
- 📝 Where to get historical Finland railways map for 1939 year?
- 📝 Why do some slave narratives from the WPA seem so positive?
- 📝 Where was Arielis?
- 📝 What happened to the French soldiers evacuated at Dunkirk and elsewhere in 1940?
- 📝 Could a German insult Hitler without being arrested?
- 📝 Rose tattoo used to mark convicts condemned to death?
- 📝 What was the worst economic crisis of all time?
- 📝 What is the name of the weapon shown in the image below?
- 📝 Was Lampsacus a Phocaean or Milesian colony?
- 📝 What does CONOB mean on ancient Roman coins?
- 📝 When and how did the concept of posthumous reward and punishment enter ancient Judaism?
- 📝 Why in English do we say "Tsar of all (the) Russias"?
- 📝 How common was smoking in first half of the 20th century?
- 📝 What do we know about "Honorary Aryans" like Milch, Warburg and a few others?
- 📝 Did Charles IV of Spain legally change Spanish succession law in 1789?
- 📝 Which culture used no personal names?
- 📝 What specifically did Einstein have in mind when he called the Israeli Freedom Party fascistic?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Did King Porus's men use snake poison against Alexander's troops?
- 📝 Why did Hitler not order the use of poison gas in combat?
- 📝 Did French troops use chemical weapons during the Siege of Laghouat in 1852?
- 📝 Did men carry talisman on them against threats or to bring luck during Medieval Times?
- 📝 Why exactly did telegraphs have to use "STOP" instead of a period and "QUOTE" instead of a quotation mark? (Or special codes.)
- 📝 Why did the Germans spare Allied troops trapped at Dunkirk?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Why did Civil War officers tell their men to "aim low"?
- 📝 Why did Europe not see Roman-era numbers of men participating in battles until the 17th century?
- 📝 Why did the Germans use the Enigma machine rather than the far superior "Lorenz" cipher machine?
- 📝 Did the King of Siam offer war elephants to the Union during the Civil War?
- 📝 Did Roman troops suffer from PTSD?
- 📝 ‘Avoid sleeping on your back’ & ‘breathe in toilet smells’ were seen as precautions against the Black Death. Why did doctors think these would work?
- 📝 Did Roman unmarried men have a preferred hand and finger for wearing their seal ring?
- 📝 Did the Soviet army intentionally send troops (e.g. penal battalions) running over minefields?
- 📝 How did Medieval armies survive the use of mail armor in the deserts of the Middle East?
- 📝 Why did only the English adopt, evolve and use the longbow en masse in war?
- 📝 What pretext did Hitler use to justify Operation Barbarossa?
- 📝 When and why did the use of the lifespans of royalty to limit clauses in contracts come about?
- 📝 Did people use to marry much younger during the last millennium?
- 📝 Why did the grip-centered viking shield fall out of use relative to the kite shields?
- 📝 Why did Roosevelt and Churchill use voice-based telecommunication, instead of simpler text-based options which were easier to encrypt?
- 📝 Did any British working class men have the vote before 1918?
- 📝 Given their reputation for fighting to the last man in the Pacific, why did 700,000 Japanese troops surrender in Manchuria?
- 📝 Did a unit of 40 men hold off Rommel's "ghost division" for 18 days?
- 📝 When did the round house fall out of vernacular use throughout Britain and Ireland?
- 📝 Did men and women feast together in early medieval East Francia?
- 📝 Why did really old paintings use such bizarre, unnatural perspective/proportions?
- 📝 Why were troops with bayonets often effective against enemy cavalry even though the bayonet was a "secondary" weapon?
- 📝 Why did the USSR stop in the Winter War against Finland in 1940?
