It’s mysterious, deadly, and one of the oldest ways to dispose of an enemy

Politics, the pursuit of power, requires a certain ruthlessness — but it can’t be too brazen. It has to be cloaked in duplicity; otherwise, one’s foes will always be on guard.

So it follows, then, that a favorite weapon of power brokers down through the millennia should have the same characteristics; it should be able to catch its victims unawares, and it should be absolutely deadly. This is why poisoning has such a long and sordid history.

Poisoning requires direct contact and intimate acquaintance with the victim. It almost always implies betrayal. It requires someone from the inner circle who can approach the victim without arousing suspicion and administer the fatal dose.

In Megillas Esther, guards Bigsan and Teresh planned to poison King Achashveirosh. They had access to the king’s private world, and if it weren’t for Mordechai Hatzaddik, they would have succeeded. Most leaders aren’t as lucky as Achashveirosh.

Perhaps most intriguingly, there must always remain a shroud of uncertainty. In fact, many of the cases of historical poisonings we’ll outline here have not been conclusively proven, although circumstantial evidence suggests they were not “natural deaths.” And the list of deaths caused by toxins that are completely unsuspected must surely be much longer. That is, after all, the goal of those who use poison.

Ancient Indian physicians are believed to have discovered healing herbs that could be beneficial in low doses, but deadly in high doses. However, the earliest Western records of poisoning date to around 400 BCE, and relate to the death of one of the most prominent figures in history, Alexander the Great.

Once the use of lethal agents became widespread, it depended only on the customs of the time and place. One Hellenic king, having seen his own father be poisoned, became so paranoid that he began consuming small doses of arsenic daily to build resistance. Later, it was common for a Roman emperor to have too many heirs; each of his consorts wanted her son to inherit the throne. Ending the emperor’s life at the right moment, in the right way, was often efficacious.

One clan during the Italian Renaissance came to symbolize poisoning, because they used it to gradually eliminate their various enemies, and even developed their own poison. Closer to our time, one of the great conquerors of the 19th century was believed to have died from poison, to keep him from embarking on a new wave of conquest. And even in our days, there are still iron-fisted rulers, like Vladimir Putin, who try to silence opponents, like his nemesis Alexei Navalny, with the ancient art of poisoning.

Here we present the strangest and most significant cases, to understand how humanity has adopted poison as a political weapon. Some of these victims are well known; others you will be reading about for the first time. But one thing is certain: Poisoning has left its mark on the history of humanity, whether or not it can be detected.