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Poisons

The Scythians coated their arrows with a potent poison referred to in Greek as Skythikon (Σκυθικον). To prepare this poison, the Scythians captured small adders that had recently given birth, which they left to decompose, while the Scythian priests filled leather bags with human blood and buried them in dung to putrefy it, after which they mixed decomposed matter in the blood with the decomposed remains of the snakes.

In addition to the snakes' venom retaining its effect in their decomposed bodies, the human blood was propitious for the growth of bacterial populations such as tetanus- and gangrene-causing germs from the dung. Thus, if an individual initially survived being shot with a poisoned Scythian arrow, they would still experience the effects of the snake poison, including the disintegration of blood cells, shock, and respiratory paralysis, with the gangrening of the wound starting the next day, followed by tetanus after around a week.

The Skythikon was crafted to cause lasting harm, and even the most minor wounds from arrows coated with it had a high likeliness to be lethal, and the unlikely possible survivors of Skythikon poisoning would have been incapacitated for life.

The Skythikon was used only against human enemies, and was not used for hunting since the meat of animals contaminated with the toxins would not have been proper for consumption.

The stench of the Skythikon -coated arrows also functioned as stench weapons because the near-unanimous revulsion by human cultures for smell of rotting and faeces, and the belief in ancient periods that such foul miasmas caused disease.

Another poison used by the Scythians to coat their arrows was hemlock.

The shafts and foreshafts of Scythian poisoned arrows were painted with zigzag and diamond patterns emulating the scaly designs of snake skins.