The poisons known to the ancients cannot be with certainty identified. The one to which the power of philtres was principally attributed was mandragora, which was said to produce various hallucinations and temporary madness. It is most likely, however, that in many of the cases where this drug is named the poison actually used was belladonna root. Hannibal, fighting against a large army of African rebels, simulated retreat, but left on the field of battle a quantity of vases of wine in which “mandragora” had been infused. The savages drank the wine, which reduced them to a condition of stupor. Then the Carthaginian hero returned and gained an easy victory over his helpless foes. Henbane seeds infused in wine made the head light, and gave the impression of having travelled through the air. Stramonium, dulcamara, hellebore, opium, Indian hemp, vervain, mezereon, and many other drugs, were in the stock-in-trade of the philtre mongers and conjurers, and the legends related by Pliny and others about the properties possessed by these herbs are sometimes nonsense, but are too often based on their real powers. There was a ranunculus which grew in Sardinia, which was credited with the power of promoting gaiety. It was called the _Herba Sardonica_. It occasioned spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the face and so simulated a laugh. Hence our expression “sardonic grin.” The employment of haschish by the Saracen warriors to make themselves fierce and reckless in battle is not a mere legend. The sect who introduced it in the armies of Islam were called hashashin, the origin of our word “assassins.” The reputation of the myrtle as an invigorator of the brain, and its consequent adoption by poets as a garland round their brows, is a sample of a more innocent tradition. Several of the Greek and Roman medical authors, Galen among others, profess a cautious reticence in regard to poisons. But there is a treatise in existence in verse, by Nicandor, which gives such toxological knowledge as was familiar to the men of science of the second century before the Christian era. Among venomous animals were included salamanders, leeches, toads, cantharides, and the sea-hare (_Lepus marinus_). The blood of bulls (probably putrefied) was a poison in use by the Athenians. The honey of Heracleus had a certain fame, for it was alleged that the soldiers of Xenophon having regaled themselves with this luxury were all so intoxicated with it that the whole army lay on the field as if they were dead. Next day all recovered. It is supposed to have been a honey extracted from narcotic flowers.