Poisoning in Rome.
Livy tells the story of the earliest of the poison leagues. He is dependent on older historians for his facts, as the alleged events happened some three centuries before he wrote; about the year 330 B.C. in fact. A number of patricians died one after the other, their illnesses presenting similar symptoms, but the causes of these could not be traced. At last, however, a female slave gave information to the Ediles of a group of twenty Roman ladies of the highest position who, she said, occupied themselves in concocting poisons, and administering them to their husbands or others who had become inconvenient to them. The confederacy was directed by two women named Cornelia and Sergia, and although Livy says 20, some accounts give the number of the conspiratresses as 170, while others total it at 366. Cornelia and Sergia were brought before the magistrates, and indignantly denied that they had done more than prepare wholesome beverages and medicines. On this the slave, whose own life was in jeopardy, demanded that they should themselves be required to take some of these compounds. They were granted permission to consult with their associates before doing this, and in the interval they all poisoned themselves. Livy states that this story is not told by all the contemporary narrators.
Later Roman history leaves little doubt that poisoning became a profession, or rather was frequently associated with the pharmacy of the period, as it had been in Greece. Theophrastus, who wrote about 300 B.C., alludes to a poison prepared from aconite which could be so administered as to take effect at a defined future time, three months, six months, a year, or longer after it was taken, the victim gradually growing weaker. It was perhaps in consequence of this belief that the possession or cultivation of aconite was made a capital offence. Pliny states that Calpurnia Bastia, one of the Catiline conspirators, was poisoned by aconite.
Locusta was one of the noted poison compounders of the Roman empire. She had been condemned to death in the reign of Claudius, but probably by the influence of the Empress Agrippina, she was pardoned and was employed by that infamous woman. Claudius was getting on in years, and was showing more affection for his own son Britannicus than for his stepson Nero, whom at the solicitation of Agrippina he had adopted and made his heir. The empress therefore resolved to get rid of Claudius, but she was afraid to use a suddenly acting agent, and Locusta was ordered to compound something which should produce a fatal effect, but not immediately. It was to be so compounded that it would destroy the emperor’s reason lest in the course of his proposed illness he should take measures to supplant Nero by Britannicus. Locusta had to pretend to be able to fulfil this commission, and the poison she prepared was mixed in a dish of mushrooms. Claudius having eaten some of these was soon taken ill and had to be carried from the table, but as this was what usually occurred at his dinner not much notice was taken of the event. His physician gave him an emetic, and he was in a fair way to recover, but Agrippina, frightened at the possible exposure, employed another minion to apply more of Locusta’s poison on a feather to his throat, under the pretence of making him vomit more. He soon died. Tacitus and Suetonius relate how Nero used Locusta later to help him rid himself of Britannicus, and also of his old tutor Burrhus, who had wearied him with his remonstrances. Locusta was executed in the reign of Galba A.D. 68.
Among other famous Romans believed to have perished by poison were Germanicus and Drusus. Caligula ordered a deadly ointment to be given to an impolitic gladiator named Columbus, who had unwisely worsted the emperor with the fencing foils, to be applied to his wounds. The poor wretch died in consequence. These are only samples of Roman poisonings.