The Poison Review

Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 – 63 B.C.) was one of the most significant figures in the early history of toxicology. An implacable enemy of Rome, Mithridates lived in constant fear of being poisoned, and sought to develop a universal antidote.  According to legend he ingested increasing doses of toxins in order to develop tolerance. History reports that this practice had an unanticipated adverse effect when, on the verge of being defeated and captured by Roman forces led by Pompey, Mithridates tried to poison himself only to find that he was immune to toxins.

A.E. Housman made reference to Mithridates in the last stanza to his poem “Terence, This is Stupid Stuff” in A Shropshire Lad:

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
–I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old

In any event, all this meditation on Mithridates was inspired by a review of Adrienne Mayor’s new biography The Poison King in the Washington Post.