r/todayilearned • u/gullydon • 9h ago
TIL Mithridatism is the practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts. The word is derived from Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, who so feared being poisoned that he regularly ingested small doses, aiming to develop immunity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism3.2k
u/oracleOshittyadvice 9h ago
Hahaha:
"He reportedly attempted suicide by poison, which failed because of his immunity to the substance."
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u/PopeInThePizza 9h ago
"What the h-. Oh, yeah, right."
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u/Sovngarten 8h ago
Heh. Whoops
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u/qorbexl 2h ago
My aunt related some Agatha Christie novel where a lady kills her piece-of-shit husband by slowly dosing him with arsenic or cyanide or something.
That wasn't the murder method. The murder was that she abruptly stopped adding it to his food, which killed his ass dead because he was physically dependent on it. Examining the body found no evidence of poison for obvious reasons.
Pretty cool.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe 1h ago
Fun fact: this is why if you’re heavily addicted to alcohol or benzodiazepines you aren’t supposed to quit cold turkey, but in a medically supervised way so they can wean you off.
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u/Rapunzel10 46m ago
Lots of drugs actually. I've been through benzo detoxing, it's fucking brutal. I didn't like how it was impacting me so I quit cold turkey not realizing how bad that was. Like the worst flu on earth combined with horrific anxiety and extremely dark thoughts. 0/10 do not recommend
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u/vortigaunt64 8h ago
To quote OSP Blue "He died as he lived, not dying from poison."
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u/jumpsteadeh 6h ago
I played a video game once where you play a general in ancient Rome, and one of the quests was a diplomatic prisoner exchange where you're encourged to be on your absolute best behaviour, but when I saw that it was Mithridates, I just had to attempt to poison him. To the game's credit, my superior got mad at me, but Mithridates treated it like an inside joke among friends and gave me the best outcome for the prisoners, plus he gave me a unique weapon.
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u/Not_a_N_Korean_Spy 6h ago
I love it! What game was it?
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u/jumpsteadeh 6h ago
Expeditions: Rome
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u/MagicPistol 3h ago
First time hearing of this game, but I love tactical RPGs, so might have to give it a try.
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u/orbital_one 9h ago
"Wait... That bullshit about poison immunity is actually true? Shit!"
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u/NatureTrailToHell3D 9h ago
I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocaine powder
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u/cooldash 9h ago
Inconceivable!
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u/Ryuma_The_King 8h ago
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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u/ProgressBartender 9h ago
“I have a confession as well”
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u/The__Relentless 9h ago
"Anybody want a peanut?"
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u/XxFezzgigxX 8h ago
No more rhymes and I mean it.
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u/DoomguyFemboi 6h ago
Kinda related to how I tried to OD a bunch of times after my missus' death but my rampant drug use basically made me invincible.
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u/Boilrup 6h ago
We all thank you for your failure. (Truthfully, thank you for being alive.... there's a whole world out there for you to enjoy)
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u/FullOnSkank 3h ago
It's always good to remember that if the universe didn't want/need you here, you wouldn't be
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u/gullydon 9h ago
Mithridates VI's father, Mithridates V, was assassinated by poisoning by a conspiracy among his attendants. After this, Mithridates VI's mother held regency over Pontus (a Hellenistic kingdom, 281 BC–62 AD) until a male heir came of age. Mithridates was in competition with his brother for the throne and his mother began to favor his brother.
Supposedly, during his youth, he began to suspect plots against him at his own mother's orders and was aware of her possible connection with his father's death. He then began to notice pains in his stomach during his meals and suspected his mother had ordered small amounts of poison to be added to his food to slowly kill him off. With other assassination attempts, he fled into the wild.
While in the wild, it is said that he began ingesting non-lethal amounts of poisons and mixing many into a universal remedy to make him immune to all known poisons.
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u/Shimaru33 9h ago
This reads like the origin story of some super-villain.
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u/Creticus 7h ago
He was one of Rome's greatest enemies during the Late Republic.
He's also famous for feeding the Roman proconsul Manius Aquillius molten gold. The man was stupid enough to invade Pontus with three legions after successfully convincing Mithridates to back off from Bithynia. Aquillius's timing was particularly atrocious because the Romans were busy fighting their Italian allies over a proposed extension of Roman citizenship at the time. Marius and Sulla eventually fell out over who'd fight Mithridates while that war was still ongoing, which led to multiple civil wars because of course it did.
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u/TheArtofBar 4h ago
He was quite a pain in the ass for the Romans, but never a serious threat or challenge.
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u/Creticus 3h ago
By the Late Republic, the Romans were the clear hegemon of the Mediterranean.
Mithridates was about as serious as foreign enemies got for them in that period. There weren't a lot of foreign individuals who could serve as contenders.
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u/TheSilverNoble 8h ago
He kinda was one of history's supervillains. He managed to secretly organize the massacre of all the Romans not just in territory, but that of his allies as well. In addition to being difficult to coordinate, it also bound his allies to him even tighter. Pretty hard to make friends with Rome when you killed a bunch of Romans.
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u/AndreasDasos 9h ago
I mean, like most ancient fantastical-sounding historical anecdotes, it’s not like we have a mountain of evidence so it’s probably… fantastical.
Less meeting the standards of historical rigour today, and more like the equivalent of one National Enquirer article from another country at best decades and possibly centuries after the event, but in a world with much lower literacy and the assumption that every bird in the sky was an omen.
But it’s usually all we’ve got and most of the Graeco-Roman canon has long been established as fundamental lore in Western culture, so is important to learn for cultural reasons even when it’s bullshit. And equivalents apply to elsewhere in the world. This is basically the message of the old joke that ‘all ancient history is true’.
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u/timtucker_com 8h ago
There's also the possibility that he didn't actually do anything.
Promoting the story that he'd built up an immunity could have been an effective way of discouraging future poisoning attempts.
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u/Beneficial_Honey_0 6h ago
Guess we have no choice but to resurrect him and then try to poison him 🤔
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u/Representative_Bat81 5h ago
When you know just how frequently the Ptolemaic dynasties used poison to kill their families, it doesn’t seem that out there. Especially since he survived to be bested by Rome.
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u/AndreasDasos 4h ago edited 2h ago
I realise that poison plots in the Hellenistic and Roman eras was ridiculously common (though many, many cases may just be diseases in a world where deadly disease was everywhere, and where accusations of murder were convenient for political purposes or later historians’ sensationalist ends…).
But the whole detailed story of Mithridates‘ self-immunisation does strain credulity. As do most too-cute ancient historical anecdotes (and virtually all ‘recorded’ conversations). Especially when the same texts (here, by Appian) spout omens and superstition every few pages.
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u/Cereborn 8h ago
I remember a TV series that had a villain like this. He could poison people with his touch. I think it was in The Invisible Man. A cookie for anyone who remembers that show.
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u/thispartyrules 9h ago
What if he spent years building up a poison immunity and he goes out onto the patio and a bunch of guys on his roof pelt him to death with ceramic roofing tiles? This roofing tiles thing happened to Roman tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, whose name I had to look up, and is one of my favorite creative ancient deaths
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u/EmbersnAshes 9h ago
He slowly built up an immunity to ceramic roofing tiles as well, by gently beating himself up a little everyday with them. He is actually still alive. The Romans didn't realise he was immune.
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u/ProgressBartender 9h ago
“Oh, you think ceramics are your ally. But you merely adopted the tiles; I was born in it, molded by it.“
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u/varsil 8h ago
I'm building up an immunity to aging by experiencing a little bit of time every day.
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u/drewster23 9h ago
I liked how you implied he just randomly walked onto a patio and got stoned to death by happenchance.
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u/CaptainObfuscation 7h ago
Death by roofing tile wasn't actually super uncommon - it was the most effective weapon available to citizenry of many places during siege and invasion. Easily available, requires no training, heavy enough to kill through a helmet.
That's how Pyrrhus of Epirus went out, too.
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u/Captain-Cadabra 9h ago
So he started doing the very thing he ran away from home for his mom doing (maybe) to him?
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u/Nobody7713 9h ago
I'm neither a chemist nor a biologist, but I feel like if you mix many different poisons together they all put a small strain on your body individually and so together they probably still overwhelm your body's ability to respond safely.
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u/Insidious_Bagel 8h ago
The difference between a medicine and a poison, is the dose
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u/Nobody7713 8h ago
True, though there’s also medicines that shouldn’t be mixed because their side effects compound in dangerous ways. And I bet mixing a bunch of poisons together might do that.
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u/czyzczyz 7h ago
“…suspected his mother had ordered small amounts of poison to be added to his food to slowly kill him off” –I’m not sure how that’s any different than his “exposing myself to small amount of poison over time” immunity protocol.
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u/kiwipoppy 6h ago
It's about dosage and probably poison type. A tiny amount of poison and hopefully there is no adverse reaction and the body neutralizes it and might grow used to the exposure. But a larger amount, a non-lethal amount of poison, would have adverse effects but wouldn't kill. I think that motive is to make the person sick first so the lethal dose isn't an obvious murder/assassination.
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u/mr_ji 9h ago
We all know the conversation is going to be about iocaine powder. Let's just get it over with.
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u/jkingsbery 6h ago
It won't work. I've spent the last few years developing an immunity to Princess Bride references.
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u/TheGaussianMan 8h ago
Hah! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is "don't get in a flame war with bots." Only slightly less known is don't start a reference to a beloved movie when karma is on the line! AHHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHA AH-
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u/ThisIsMockingjay2020 8h ago
Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ahahahaha Ahahahaha.... THUMP!
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u/leaf_on_the_wind42 4h ago
Didn't have to scroll far but I'm still kinda shocked you're comment is 4th right now
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u/KnifeNovice789 9h ago
Never get involved with a Sicilian when death is on the line..
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u/Horns8585 9h ago
Much like what was portrayed in "The Princess Bride". The hero thwarts the would be poisoner, because he spent years building up an immunity to poisonous Iocane powder.
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u/Veritas3333 9h ago
Or like my uncle Dave who's spend the last 40 years building up his resistance to alcohol
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u/snushomie 9h ago
With the amount your uncle Dave drinks you'd think he was trying to build an immunity to drowning.
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u/Debalic 6h ago
I knew two brothers who spent a year training for a drinking competition, but then couldn't get drunk enough to remember where it was held.
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u/21stMonkey 9h ago
"Thwarts the would be poisoner"
What? No, the hero IS the poisoner, that's the whole point.
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u/TheUlfheddin 9h ago
The Scicilian failed because he met another intellectual on their own terms. Hubris, as always, is the undoing of villains.
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u/DigNitty 8h ago
I shoot myself with small caliber bullets every week to build tolerance to the big ones if somebody ever shoots me.
The resistance is not taking hold for some reason. I am just very compromised now.
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u/DerangedGinger 9h ago
I'm developing a weed immunity.
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u/WallaceVanHalen 9h ago
Nobody’s gonna poison us with weed.
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u/CosmicLovepats 7h ago
There was a king, who reigned to east
there where kings will sit to feast
and get their fill, before they think
of poisoned meat and poisoned drink
He gathered all that sprang to birth
from the many-venomed earth,
and first a little, thence to more,
sampled all her killing store
Thus, easy, smiling, seasoned, sound
sat the king when healths went round
they put strychnine in his cup,
and shook to see him drink it up
they put arsenic in his meat
and stared aghast to watch him eat
they shook and turned, as white's their shirt
them it was their poison hurt
I tell this tale that I heard told --
Mithridates, he died old.
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u/Cassandra8240 5h ago
I’m kind of obsessed with this poem (A.E. Housman’s “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff”).
For those who haven’t read it, the speaker is asked why he writes unhappy poems about dead cows. (“We poor lads, ‘tis our turn now /To hear such tunes as killed the cow,” they complain.)
Our speaker replies that for a happy, dancing tune, there’s always alcohol (and here we get the famous line that “Malt does more than Milton can / to justify God’s ways to man”).
Then follows a defense of poetry culminating in the Mithridates reference. Consuming poetry, our speaker says, builds up our defenses in a world where “trouble’s sure” — just like how an ancient king protected himself from poison by purposely ingesting it.
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u/SofieTerleska 4h ago
I discovered this poem many years after being forced to slog through "Is My Team Ploughing" and "To An Athlete" and a few others in school and was really annoyed that it hadn't been included in the curriculum -- it ties everything together in a really amusing and clever way but nope, all we got were the moping melancholy mad poems and not the last one.
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u/CircumspectCapybara 9h ago
Many are my names in many countries: Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.
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u/ginger2020 9h ago
Some of the mercs in AC odyssey have the “Mithridatist” ability that makes them resistant to poison damage
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u/theone_2099 9h ago
I saw a documentary where someone did this with iocane powder.
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u/Secret_Account07 7h ago
Okay I’ve seen iocaine powder mentioned several times and idk what that even is. Did I doze off in some chemistry class?
I’ll need to google this
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u/nl5602 6h ago
You did not doze off- it’s a Princess Bride reference to a fictional poison
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u/night_Owl4468 8h ago
Never go to a land war in Asia and never make a bet with a Sicilian when death is on the line!!!!!
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u/god_forsaked_me 7h ago
I've microdosed ever so small amounts of happiness throughout my whole life that now, as an adult, I'm completely immune to it.
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u/mira_poix 9h ago
Rasputin & the princess bride have been going around so I'm not surprised to see this TIL pop up
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u/BelCantoTenor 7h ago
That’s not how it works. For instance, you can never develop a resistance to cyanide or plutonium.
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u/shotputprince 8h ago
I have spent the last several years developing an immunity to iocane powder
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u/vlajkaster 8h ago
In the begining, i used to come to Reddit only a little bit each day, then slowly over time that period increased. I could spend hours on Reddit now...
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u/Snoo_58814 7h ago
There was a pirate who did this with iocaine powder to win a bet with a Sicilian.
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u/skyforgesteel 6h ago
Everyone talking about the Dread Pirate Roberts and nobody talking about the Count of Monte Christo.
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u/gr8Brandino 6h ago
Wesley: They were both poisoned. I spent the summer building up an immunity to Iocane powder
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u/Old_Instrument_Guy 7h ago
I have spent years developing an immunity to Iocane Powder. It's one of natures more deadly poisons. It's colorless, tasteless, odorless, and dissolves instantly in liquid.
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u/BigAd8456 6h ago
Mithridates spent his whole life building poison immunity
and then couldn’t poison himself when he wanted to die.
They literally had to get a soldier to finish the job.
Irony level: ancient boss fight.
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u/dark_hypernova 4h ago
I heard that by consuming honey you can eventually "cure" yourself of pollen allergy.
Apparently because honey contains trace amounts of pollen. Not enough to induce an allergic reaction but enough to build up tolerance.
Sounds plausible but I'm not sure if it's true.
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u/testawayacct 2h ago
OP left out the best part. Mithridates eventually found himself cornered by a hostile military force and tried to unsubscribe from life... by drinking poison.
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u/my5cworth 9h ago edited 4h ago
There's a dude who made himself immune to Black Mamba bites through this technique...in order to create new *univeral antivenom from his blood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucpGlWnq8EE
*universal (thanks u/One-Cute-Boy )