Here's a great way to create panic aboard a ship: Fill clay jars with poisonous snakes and throw them onto enemy ships! Who used this technique?

No, not the famous cannibal. Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca, was a Punic Carthaginian military commander and tactician who lived from 247 BC to 183 BC. He is considered to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. In 190 BC, he was placed in command of a Seleucid fleet, but was defeated in a battle off the Eurmedon River.

When a surrender was seeming inevitable, Hannibal fled to Crete before going to seek refuge with Prusias I of Bithynia, who was engaged in war with Rome’s ally, King Eumenes II of Pergamon. Hannibal then served Prusias in this war.

During one of the naval battles, Hannibal had large clay pots filled with venomous snakes and then thrown onto Eumenes’ ships. This tactic helped him to win this particular battle, and further into the war Hannibal defeated Eumenes twice more.

Later, the Romans threatened Bythinia into giving up Hannibal. Hannibal wasn’t in the mood to be given up to his enemies, though. He opted to commit suicide instead. At Libyssa, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara, he took poison, which he had allegedly carried in his ring for years.

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