More than 2,000 years ago they were already used in Greece

Where Arta is today, in Ancient Greece there was a prosperous polis called Ambracia. The city, located in the northwest of the country, lived its golden age when Pyrrhus made it the capital of the Kingdom of Epirus: it had palaces, theaters and temples… but today almost nothing remains. The Romans besieged it and in that episode it appears one of the oldest and best documented cases of the use of a toxic gas as a weapon in military history.

Smoke as toxic gas. Here there are no newly excavated sites that reveal this use, but it is a quote from a work of the time that has revealed the existence of chemical weapons: the Greek historian Polybius in his work ‘Histories’, book 21, chapter 28. There he narrates how during the Roman siege, the defenders of Ambracia responded to the invaders’ attempts to save their walls by digging underground tunnels with an idea that generated one of the most toxic gases. primitive for humanity: the smoke of fire.

Thus, they strategically placed a clay vessel with an iron funnel filled with fine feathers, lit a fire next to the mouth of the vessel and covered it with a perforated iron cover, channeling the exhaust gas into the tunnel dug by the attackers. With a bellows, they blew hard to fan the flames and intoxicate those Romans who came through the gallery.

Context. It was the year 189 BC when, during Rome’s war against the Aetolian League, the city of Ambracia was besieged following the orders of the Roman consul Marcus Fulvius Nobilior. The Ambracians and their walls resisted the siege, so the Romans resorted to a common technique to attack them: digging underground galleries to either damage the foundations or penetrate them from underneath.

What happened next. Polybius himself narrates that the legionaries were trapped in a very distressing situation: the smoke was unbearable and there was no way to stop it (they had placed spears). This ingenious device accomplished its mission, forcing the Roman consul and the Aetolian commanders to sit down to negotiate and delay the outcome.

Despite her ingenuity and resilience, Ambracia fell into decline: surrendered to Marco Fulvio Nobilior and suffered some looting. Later, it was thoroughly plundered by Aemilius Paulus in 167 BC and finally its population was reduced to a minimum when Augustus forcibly moved its inhabitants to the neighboring Nicopolis, founded after the Roman victory in Actium. By the 2nd century AD, the traveler and historian Pausanias he only found a grassy place.

In detail. What Polybius defines in essence is an irritating smoke generator: the combustion of feathers in a closed container causes dense and harmful smoke that, concentrated in a closed area with poor ventilation, can cause suffocation and become lethal. No more is needed.

Although seen in perspective the Ambracians used the toxic effects of smoke as a weapon, warns historian Adrienne Mayor that these ancient practices were not understood in their time under the category of chemical weapons, but rather as another resource of warlike ingenuity against a superior enemy.

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Cover | Hush Naidoo Jade Photography and Constantinos Kollias