Barbarian warriors in Roman times used stimulants in battle

Berlin, 28 November 2024

Small, spoon-shaped objects found on the end of warriors’ belts at archaeological sites across northern Europe could have been used to dispense stimulants before battle, a new study published in De Gruyter’s Praehistorische Zeitschrift suggests.

The widespread use of narcotics, such as opium, in ancient Greece and Rome is well-documented in ancient sources and supported by archaeological finds. However, this body of evidence is missing for the barbarian peoples living outside the Roman Empire, and it is generally assumed that they made little use of drugs apart from alcohol.

Now, analyses by archaeologist Prof. Andrzej Kokowski and biologists from Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland, shed a different light on these issues.

The researchers identified and categorized 241 small, spoon-shaped objects found at 116 sites dating from the Roman period, primarily marsh sites and graves in modern-day Scandinavia, Germany and Poland. The objects have handles, mostly between 40 and 70mm long, and either a concave bowl or flat disk measuring 10 to 20mm across. They were attached to a man’s belt, but played no role in its functioning.

All of these objects were found together with items used in warfare. Stimulants may have been widely used throughout history to motivate soldiers to increase their exertion and also to reduce the stress and fear caused by warfare. The warriors could have used these objects to measure the right dose to produce the desired effects and to reduce the possibility of an overdose.

Prof. Kokowski and colleagues then surveyed which stimulants could have been available to the Germanic communities of the Roman period, either plants gathered locally or transported in dry form from further afield. They conclude that it was highly likely that Germanic peoples would have had access to a wide range of substances that could function as stimulants including poppy, hops, hemp, henbane, belladonna and various fungi. These could have been consumed either in liquid form, especially dissolved in alcohol, or in powdered form.

The researchers conclude that the use of stimulants by the Germanic peoples of Northern Europe could have been extensive during military conflicts of the Roman period. Moreover, they note that to supply the quantity and type of stimulants needed would have required considerable knowledge and organization.

They further believe that the stimulants were probably also used for purposes other than warfare, such as in medicine and rituals: “It seems that the awareness of the effects of various types of natural preparations on the human body entailed knowledge of their occurrence, methods of application and the desire to consciously use this wealth for medicinal and ritual purposes.”

The paper can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1515/pz-2024-2017