Greek fire

A detailed Summary of Greek fire


The original Greek fire was an invention used as a weapon of the Eastern Roman Emperors. It is also said to have been invented by a Syrian engineer, one Callinicus, a refugee from Maalbek, in the seventh century. The Byzantines of Constantinople originally used it. But they never used the term Greek fire because they claimed to be Romans, and never called themselves Greeks. It was like an insult to them because in their times to be Greek was to have a bad reputation.

The Greek fire was first time used in the war of seven years. In which the Arabs established a naval base on the peninsula of Kyzikos. This was on the second attack of a battle started by Theophanes. On the third attack of the same battle, Greek fire was used again against the Arabs.

The "liquid fire" was hurled on the ships of their enemies from siphons and burst into flames on contact. As it was reputed to be inextinguishable and burned even on water, it caused panic and dread. Its introduction into warfare of its time was comparable in its demoralizing to the introduction of nuclear weapons in our time. Both Arab and Greek s


Kedrenos reported that in his time (eleventh century) the secret of the fire was possessed by Lampros, a descendant of Kallinikos. The state chemist who had the recipe, a secret not to put into writing, no doubt took an oath not to divulge it. And the Emperor, who lent troops and engines to his allies, reserved for himself the secret of Greek fire, and sent it already made as a sort of ancient hydrogen bomb to his worthy but not wholly reliable dependants.

the history of Greek fire and Gunpowder

It was thought that the secret of Greek fire had been lost; a Dupre, born in Dauphine, claimed to have rediscovered it, and sold the recipe to Louis XV in 1756. The secret was in reality never lost, and Greek fire only slowly made way to artillery and gunpowder; in the earlier stages both Greek fire and cannon were sometimes used together.



Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 772
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History

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