Did you know that the 1st mass poisoning was fabricated?
In 331 BC, many #rich men had died & ~200 #Roman women were put on trial.
A slave revealed the truth: the rich ladies were poisoners.
The accused were asked to drink their #poison & promptly died. The officials declared them insane.
The #problem is that this doesn’t make sense.
The women had no political agenda, all wealthy men had food tasters & the accused were willing to drink their potions.
They did not, some even lived. As for the poisons, they were simple botanical concoctions, definitely containing hemlock.
One scholar believes that they actually made medicine for an unknown disease afflicting the affluent - Livy tells us that they claimed that their potions were "wholesome" to the court.
But Livy wrote about it 300 years after the fact & thought it a tall tale 🤔
Add comment