Marching on Opium?

[Blasphemous]

I have a vague recollection that I once learned that opium was very important to the Roman empire because it was used in the military to enable the legions to march beyond the point of exhaustion and to feel no pain. For years I have taken this for fact, although now that I think about it I can't figure out where I learned this in the first place.
Right now me and a friend are working on writing a Pen-and-Paper Role Playing Game, in which opium is supposed to have an important thematic role in the storyline and the background. Because of this I need to know for sure - did the Roman empire really use opium extensively in its conquests? Was opium ever even used in military campaigns before the modern use of opioids as painkillers?
Any information on this topic would be much appreciated.

 

[aelf]

I have a vague recollection that I once learned that opium was very important to the Roman empire because it was used in the military to enable the legions to march beyond the point of exhaustion and to feel no pain. For years I have taken this for fact, although now that I think about it I can't figure out where I learned this in the first place.

Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

I have heard that the Roman war machine was overwhelming because it had discipline, it had training and it had roads. I have never heard that it had drugs...

 

[Verbose]

Well, opiates...
I don't think they make you very prone to march anything much. Lie down and take it easy more like.

I'd rather go with Flavius Josephus that the Roman success stemmed from their excercises being bloodless battles, and their battles bloody excercises.

 

[Blasphemous]

How very embarrassing.

 

[Che Guava]

How very embarrassing.

Don't give up just yet...! Opium was definitely well-spread throughout rome and its empire, so it wouldn't be surprising at all if at least some soldiers kept a little handy to help with long marches. Someone out there must have at least proposed the theory...

 

[Ukas]

At least in WWII pervitin, a metamphetamine was given to soldiers and officers in the German army, also the Finnish army, who got it from the Germans used it. I've been kind of fascinated by the subject, so if you get more info on Romans please share it here. Metamphetamine was given also to US pilots during the Gulf War.

Drugs were and are used by the armies, even today. And if an army doesn't give drugs, many soldiers will use them especially in wartime. Drugs give a short term relief from stress, pain, homesickness or boredom - usual and negative traits in a soldier's life. People who have no real comprehension of soldier's life tend to glorify it. War is hell and soldiers would not be human if they wouldn't look for some form of momentary relief.

If opium was available for Roman soldiers, it's perfectly rational to think, that the soldiers used opiates to help enduring the strain which long marches carrying heavy stuff could cause. Could be that it was given by officers, or by medics, or then soldiers themselves acquired it.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Where exactly would/did the romans get their supplies of opiates ?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Mesopotamia I would assume. Also keep in mind that Opium of the classical era was not in the forms we see today, people didn't smoke opium until we learned the practice of smoking tobbacco from the Americas, people either chewed the seeds or more often, baked it into cakes. So as you can imagine, the effect was much less then we see with people lazing about in Opium dens.
That said, the practice of giving people drugs for warfare has a long practice; During the Russian civil war, the Cheka was given cocaine to immune themselves from the pressures of execution.

 

[Drewcifer]

Where exactly would/did the romans get their supplies of opiates ?

You can grow opium throughout most temperate climates, people grow opium poppies in their flower gardens across Europe and North America without realizing what they are. Breadseed poppies and opium poppies are the same plant.

 

[steviejay]

Drugs were and are used by the armies, even today. And if an army doesn't give drugs, many soldiers will use them especially in wartime. Drugs give a short term relief from stress, pain, homesickness or boredom - usual and negative traits in a soldier's life. People who have no real comprehension of soldier's life tend to glorify it. War is hell and soldiers would not be human if they wouldn't look for some form of momentary relief.

The British Army is currently on a crusade to weed things like that out atm after videos of Squaddies snorting coke made it onto the news......

 

[Idlenessss]

Actually i disagree. The romans didnt even apparently consider it necessary to use opium to assist in the stress of undergoing surgery (!), so why would they use it on marches? I think modern people might underestimate the relative indifference many ancient people had to pain and suffering. In fact, many seemed to get a kick out of it.
The term 'hemophiliac', actually greek for 'addicted to bleeding' or 'loving to bleed' was a rather common word in their military, as it was not uncommon for soldiers to in fact have some strange addiction to it, whereby they woudl cut themselves for pleasure.