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Adrienne Mayor starts with, intelligently, expanding the normal contemporary definition of ‘chemical and biological’ weapons to include pretty much anything that causes biological harm, such as poisons, noxious chemicals, and beyond, to the use of animals, heated sand, and other unusual items. Her book then combs all the ancient sources for examples of these in the ancient world. There’s a concentration on Greek and Roman sources, but there are repeated references to Indian and Chinese uses as well.

The problem is that the phrase ‘unusual items’ above does describe the book. While grouped into chapters for broad topics, its really a bunch of mini-essays on what are often ‘one-off’ uses of poisons and disease, and shows little systematic use of any of these. On the other hand, it does very well with making the point that the concepts were not unknown, and that even where deliberately spreading a disease might be difficult to do reliably, people were thinking about how to do it.

Sadly, the first item in the title of the book (Greek Fire), is the last thing discussed, and it doesn’t get much. It is shown that it is descended from earlier petroleum-based fire weapons. What was special about it was the delivery system, and that isn’t even speculated on.

Overall, the book does well in showing that, despite generally being ignored in histories of the era, ‘chemical and biological’ weapons were very much on the minds of the ancients, and it shows that they were probably in regular use with peoples we don’t have a lot of records from. It also shows that Western attitudes towards them match up with Greek and Roman thought, pointing out how the ‘boomerang’ effect of poisons and disease feature prominently in early myths. But, the mini-essay approach undermines the cohesion of the work, especially when the same thing is re-introduced over and over (yes, by the sixth time it’s brought up, I’m pretty sure I remember that the Arthashastra is from India).

The second half of Jeff Champion’s history of Syracuse picks up right where the the first left off: The death of Dionysius the Elder and the ascension of his son, Dionysius the Younger as Tyrant of Syracuse. He uses this split as a convenient excuse to avoid using ‘the Elder’ and ‘the Younger’ while each is actually in office, since the change in ‘default’ occurs across the books. And it actually works.

From there, the book details the next two decades in Syracuse dealing trying to get rid of Dionysius the Younger. The careers of Timoleon and Agathocles are also well covered, as well as Pyrrhus’ campaigns in Sicily, Hiero II, and the fighting in Sicily during the first two Punic Wars. Champion points out the shift in Syracuse’s fortunes when the expansion of Rome into southern Italy and Sicily puts the city between two much larger powers. Until that point, Syracuse consistently held sway over most of Sicily, and could successfully fight off Carthage, even though neither side could ever truly conquer the other. Once Rome was on the scene, Syracuse became distant third to the two major powers in Sicily. The book’s epilogue wraps up with a quick overview of Syracuse’s history since being conquered by Rome, including the shift of power in Sicily from Syracuse to Palermo.

For some reason, the editing in this volume broke up for a few chapters in the final third of the book, with some missing words, and sentences that had been incompletely rewritten. But then the problems went away again at the end, and I didn’t see any problems for the bulk of the book. Other than those hiccups, it’s a good book on an interesting subject that doesn’t get a lot of attention, just like the first volume of the series.