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Journal Article
Bithynian snake bomb
2021
Overview
184 BCE. Bithynia and Pergamon, two neighboring kingdoms in what is present-day Turkey, are at war. A naval battle is brewing, and the Bithynian fleet, led by Hannibal, is heavily outnumbered. But Hannibal has a plan: he has ordered his ships to focus their attack entirely on the vessel carrying the Pergamenian King, Eumenes II. But how will his ships defend themselves against the many enemy craft that will try to intercept them? By catapulting clay pots full of poisonous snakes at them, that's how. Certainly, few would contest that Hannibal had it in him to enlist the help of unwilling animal allies; after all, this was the former Carthaginian general who famously took elephants over the Alps to attack Rome from the north. This technicality appears not to have crossed the mind of Cornelius Nepos, the Roman biographer who many years after the battle penned De Viris Illustribus, a compendium recording the lives of \"illustrious men\" and an important source of information on this ancient maritime punch-up.
