Poisons and poisoners

[caldrail]

Its often been suggested that the romans were prone to lead poisoning. I've always been a bit suspicious of this. True the roman plumbing was composed of lead pipes but the amount of lead picked up is insignificant and in any case, a protective chemical layer tends to form. On the other hand, the use of cooking vessels made of lead has better credibility. This poisoning wouldn't have dropped a roman dead in thirty seconds, more like senile in thirty years. So rather like today, some aspects of roman lifestyles were unhealthy.

[WotWotius]

Are there any references to Rome's lower classes using poisons against each other? If so, how did they differ from the poisons use by the upper class?

[caldrail]

Good point. I haven't seen any. However, it strikes me that they'd have little use for it. First of all poison might be expensive to obtain, and then you might need someone to prepare and administer it. Lower classes tend to be more direct. A knife in the ribs or a darn good thrashing usually better for them. The upper classes require more subtlety, hence the use of poison.

[Pertinax]

Here is a link to a thread where we touched on the lead poisoning theory previously

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showto...=lead+poisoning

 

I need to work this up to logical argument sometime in the not too distant future.

 

Isn't it possible to find belladonna either in the wild or in a garden, and process it yourself?

 

Sea-hare?? Is that better, or worse, than the various frogs?

 

Deadly Nightshade (Atropa belladonna) is an easy plant to find -and yes you could process it yourself with a little ethanol and clean water .

[Pertinax]

Heres a Festive blog link to concentrate the mind:

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...g&blogid=19

 

as you will see the "anti grazing" capabilities of certain plants have a lot to answer for in terms of the history of toxicology-also notice that many of the items cited are ancient and modern poisons. Not too great a leap of imagination to consider that pastoral societies must have had a a grasp of those plants and herbs that afflicted livestock, and thence not a great leap in faith to consider the possibility of low level , widespread knowledge.