7/28/2019 Posining in Rome http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/posining-in-rome 1/13 Poisons and Poisoning among the Romans Author(s): David B. Kaufman Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr., 1932), pp. 156-167 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/265324 Accessed: 20/10/2008 08:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Classical Philology. http://www.jstor.org
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Poisons and Poisoning among the RomansAuthor(s): David B. KaufmanSource: Classical Philology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr., 1932), pp. 156-167Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/265324
Accessed: 20/10/2008 08:33
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
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Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
some crime that merits narrow Gyara or a gaol; honesty is praised and
starves. It is to their crimes that men owe their pleasure-grounds and
high commands, their fine tables and old silver goblets with goats
standing out in relief." We learn, from the same author, of mothers
deliberately poisoning their own children, for no particular reason,and even showing defiance when apprehended.' The most deplorable
thing of all is the fact that the women, supposedly the weaker sex,killed for hire.2 Of course, among the male sex professional killers
were common.3 Juvenal4 mentions the case of a woman who stabbed
her husband, after poisons proved ineffective, since the husband,
anticipating her attempt, had secured himself against poison by
prophylactics. Juvenal5 also advises a father to take an antidote be-
fore dinner because his son is praying for his death which has been
postponed so long. Nonius Asprenas, a close friend of Augustus, was
accused of poisoning one hundred and thirty guests.6Poison played a prominent part at the imperial court. Tiberius'
son, Drusus, was reported to have been poisoned by his wife and
Sejanus,7and Claudius
byhis wife
Agrippina.8In the
reignof
Tiberius,Piso was accused of killing Germanicus with poison.9 Agrippina, wife
of Germanicus, even feared to taste any fruit which Tiberius handed
her at dinner.10Murder in the same fashion was committed or at-
tempted by the following emperors: Caligula," Nero,12 Vitellius,13
Domitian,l4 Commodus,l5Caracalla,16 nd Elagabalus.17Caligula left a
large trunk full of poisons.18Suetonius informs us that Nero, the
arch-poisoner, ordered that Britannicus, Claudius' son, be poisoned;1Juvenal vi. 638-42. 4
vi. 659-61.2 Ibid. 646. 5 xiv. 250-54.
3 Ibid. xiii. 25.
6 Pliny op. cit. xxxv. 164; Suetonius Augustus 56.
7 Tacitus Annales iv. 8; Suetonius Tiberius 62; Dio Cassius lvii. 22.8 Juvenal vi. 620; Tacitus Annales xii. 66-67; Suetonius Claudius 44; Nero 33.9Tacitus Annales ii. 69-74; iii. 12-15.10Suetonius Tiberius 53.
11Dio Cassius lix. 14.
12Tacitus Annales xiv. 3 and 65; xv. 60; Suetonius Nero 34; Dio Cassius lxiv. 2-3.13Suetonius 14. 16Spartianus Caracalla3.14 Tacitus Agricola 43. 17Lampridius Heliogabalus 13.15Lampridius Commodus9. 18 Suetonius 49.
that it killed those who drank from vessels carved from it. Pliny adds
that anyone who sleeps beneath a yew tree, or only takes food there,
is sure to meet his death. Arrows may have been dipped into its
juice to give them a poisonous coat. The same author claims that
these poisonous qualities are entirely neutralized by driving a coppernail into the wood of the tree.
One of the varieties of nightshade (strychnosor trychnos)lwas sup-
posed to cause insanity if only a few drops were taken, and instant
death from larger quantities. Weapons that were used in battle were
poisoned with it. The Greeks maintained that it was productive of
delusive and prurient fancies and of vain, fantastic visions. Its anti-
dote was mulled wine. When placed near an asp, it was said to cause
torpor in the serpent. It is to be noted that all the poisons which have
been mentioned so far are vegetable products.The Spanish fly (cantharis) was poisonous, we are told, when taken
internally, causing excruciating pain in the bladder, but, applied ex-
ternally, was beneficial.2 Buprestis3 was an insect rarely found in
Italy. When eaten by cattle, it was reputed to cause such expansionof the gall that the animal burst asunder, but was beneficial to man,when employed externally. A nitrate (nitrum) was used as an emetic,in cases where buprestis had been swallowed, and as an antidote
against bull's blood.4 The scorpion5 is also mentioned. We are told
that a slice of toad's (rubeta)lung or its blood caused death.6 Pliny7mentions several sea fish which are considered poisonous: lepus,
araneus, and trygon. Several species of venomous reptiles were known
inantiquity: vipera,8aspis,9
anddipsas.l0
The salamander was con-
sidered the most venomous reptile and able to wipe out whole nations
at one time. If it crawls up a tree, says Pliny," it infects all the fruit
and kills those who eat thereof. If it only touches with its foot the
wood upon which bread is baked, or falls into a well, the same fatal
effects ensue. If its saliva touches any part of the body, the hair falls
1Ibid. xxi. 177-82. 7Op. cit. ix. 155.2Ibid. xxix. 93-96. 8 Suetonius Claudius 16.
might not consume us by a slow decay, that precipices might not lacerate our
mangled bodies, that the unseemly punishment of the halter may not torture
us, by stopping the breath of one who seeks his own destruction, or that wemay not seek our death in the ocean, and become food for our graves, or that
our bodies may not be gashed by steel. On this account it is that nature has
produced a substance which is very easily taken, and by which life is ex-
tinguished, the body remaining undefiled and retaining all its blood, and only
causing a degree of thirst. And when it is destroyed by this means, neither
bird nor beast will touch the body, but he who has perished by his own hands