British researcher has found evidence that the army of the Persian Sassanid Empire was first used poisonous gases during the siege of the city Dura-Europos in Eastern Syria. 256 ad victims of the first gas attack in the history of mankind began 20 Roman legionaries.

An antique city on the Euphrates Fool-Europos (Dura-Europos - "dura" in Aramaic means fortress) in Roman times, was a major trade center. 256 year he was captured by the troops of the Sassanids. Themselves the Sassanids called their power Eranshahr - "the State of Iranians (Aryans)". Persian Sassanids penetrated into Syria and Mesopotamia under king Shapur I. 260 year of Edessa his army captured the Roman Emperor Valerian and most of his army.

British archaeologist Simon James (Simon James) reconstructed the events that occurred under the walls of the Syrian fortress Fool-Europos in the third century BC the Persians built a large earthen embankment, at the same time having dug out under the walls of the underpass.

The Romans, in turn, have dug kantstrasse, but barely 20 foreign players reached the tunnel under the walls Fool-Europos as falling victims of the chemical attack. At least one of the attackers on a Roman garrison of the Persians was also killed by poisonous gases. After the city fell, he for a long time abandoned.

Perhaps the Persians heard the Romans are undermining and had time to prepare for battle. When foreigners entered the tunnel, they were enveloped in clouds of poison gas. In the coal basin Aryans threw a burning tar, bitumen and sulphur crystals and began to inflate this blacksmith's bellows, to the Roman tunnel went thick smoke from which the enemy soldiers were gasping for breath.

The corpses of the Roman legionaries folded against the wall, and their shields hung on the wall. One of the Aryans rushed in dug enemies tunnel to ignite it, but suffocated in a poisonous vapor. His skeleton is also detected. The Roman tunnel collapsed and the Persians had been able to finish their work underground. The attackers probably wanted to destroy the fortress wall and the main tower.

Although there is much evidence of such theories, said at a recent meeting in Philadelphia Simon James, he does not have full confidence that that's exactly what happened. "To kill 20 soldiers in the premises with height and width of less than 2 meters, length-11 meters, the Persians had to be super - or to invent something insidious," said James. But in favor of the latest versions say the remains of tar and sulfur, discovered by archeologists in the Roman tunnel.

Version of James realistic if for no other reason that chemical weapons have been used in ancient history. The most famous use of lethal toxic substances is Greek fire: a mixture of oil, asphalt, sulphur and other combustible materials. The classical texts of antiquity are also found, according to the archaeologist, the mention of the use of flammable substances in the tunnels during the siege.

For the Romans chemical attack under the walls Fool-Europos couldn't be a complete surprise. Foreigners have already faced the use of poisonous gases. In 190 BC, the Roman legions, laid siege to the fortified city of Ambrakia (today Art) in the West of Greece.

After their attempts to make a breach in the wall was a failure, they dug an underground tunnel. And then the defenders of the fortress drove the Romans by the smoke of burning feathers, inflating suffocating Chad with furs. The Legionnaires had to withdraw.

Igor Bucker