How The Roman Army Lost A Battle To Bees
This gives new meaning to the phrase “honey trap”
“In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte’s campaign against the Ottoman Empire was defeated by flea-borne plague, and three years later his bid to establish a stepping stone into North America was crushed by yellow fever mosquitoes in Haiti. Napoleon’s worst defeat by insects came in 1812. Rather than taking Russia, his Grande Armée lost 200,000 men to louse-borne typhus…”
- Jeffrey A. Lockwood, “Six-Legged Soldiers”
There’s an entire complex world occupied by uncountable creatures beneath your feet. This world mainly goes unnoticed during the course of your day — well, until one of these creatures scurries across your floor. At this point you call it a pest and call an exterminator or find something to smash the critter.
However, these tiny creatures are much more than pests. As mentioned in the quote above, they managed to stop one of the greatest conquerors of all time by hamstringing his armies. If history is to be believed, an insect killed the greatest conqueror of all time, Alexander the Great. In fact, these “pests” have been killing humans by the millions throughout the course of history.
Moreover, humanity has noticed the destructive power of these creatures and harnessed it. Jeffrey Lockwood…
