Locusta: Ancient Assassin-for-Hire

of the heyday for poisoners. There were many poisons to choose from then, and I mean there still are today, but at that time, arsenic was the poison of choice, primarily because it was really easy to get. Plus it was tasteless and it was odorless, so it's really easy to hide as well, And these are all good things

when you're assessing poisons. Arsenic is, as we've mentioned before, naturally occurring, but in terms of human knowledge of it, it's been around since about twelve fifty, when a German scholar named Albertus Magnus is credited with discovering it, although we also probably want to air quote the word discover since arsenic was surely used before Albertas put his name on it, right, But he put his name on it first.

This was a time when there were very few rules about how one might acquire a poison, and there were even fewer rules about who might acquire a poison. And some of the world's most infamous poisoners seemed to come from the Victorian era. But let's be super clear here, poisonings were happening long before Victorian times. The very first person to commit homicide with poison lived probably at least modern scholars estimate about seventy thousand BC. Where they mail

where they female? Was this to settle a score or maybe a hungry power play, It was so long ago we can only speculate on the circumstance. Interestingly, historians recently believed that they have found more substantial evidence of a tribe using poison tipped arrowheads on the African continent, and that very likely jumped from human poisoning animal to human poisoning human. But what we do know is that humans

have been poisoning one another for a very very long time. Poisoning, too, has always been seen as a dramatic type of murder. It's been romanticized. It even makes its way into our entertainment, say, like Shakespeare, for instance, he writes several instances I believe seven actually of murder by poison in his works, and six of those poisonings, curiously are administered by a woman. In the sixteen hundreds, Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher, who followed

in Shakespeare's footsteps, described poisoning as the coward's weapon. Well, I mean, you know, you don't have to be there for it. So but if you go all the way back I'm talking like back, back, back, back, back to the ancient Sumerians, which takes us back to like, you know, you'll find evidence that they too used plant toxins such as wolf spain, which we've we've talked a lot about in our episodes this season. Um, and they used it to poison the tips of their hunting arrows, also very

likely used it to kill a person or two. Um. And when you're talking that far back in history, though, things get a little bit tangled between what was reality and what was mythology. The Sumerians, for instance, worshiped a goddess named Gula who ruled over charms and spells and also poisons. But it's the Sumerians who also may have been the first to document the effects of different poisonous substances,

so they didn't believe it was all magical. They did sort of know that it was also based in reality. They were into the science of it. If we jump forward a bit to around three thousand BC, during the time of the ancient Egyptians, there is evidence that they definitely kept records of poisonous plants and their side effects, and included pretty detailed records of how you could extract those poisons and how to distill them into poisonous substances.

The ancient Greeks are also really well known for using poisons, specifically as a capital punishment, which is a sentence that they called state poison. And if you know your history, you also know that that's how Socrates was executed and the ancient Persians, Yep, they two were poisoners. There's a story about Queen Parasites, who lived in the fifth century BC, poisoning the carving knife before she used it to serve

her daughter in law. Chinese history, India's history, there are stories spanning the globe of poisoning in almost every culture going back centuries. The earliest whispers of widespread murder by poison and by women specifically. UH dates back to about three hundred BC, and it involves a group of something like a hundred and seventy women who decided to use the plague as an alibi for poisoning a bunch of Roman men. Unfortunately for them, their rus didn't work, and

I suppose unfortunately for the Roman men as well. Um and all of the women who were involved were convicted of their crimes. I would love to see how that group came about. I know that's a pretty big group to get and everybody be cool, but here's what we're gonna do. That is a large group of people to get on board with one thing exactly and not have one person sort of like tell their cousin, who tells

their sister, you know, and then anybody's in jail. Right before the popularity of arsenic in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, the ancient Greeks and Romans were more inclined to use hemlock as their poison of choice. Hemlock, incidentally, is also part of the Parsley family. I actually thought that was really interesting, you know, like may inform your your culinary presentations going forward right, be careful of wild

carrots like it's also in the family. So regardless of whether you're talking about arsenic or you're talking about hemlock or any other poison really for that matter, one thing is really clear. Throughout human history, poison has been a potent weapon in every assassin's toolkit. It is discreet, it is quick if you want it to be um and it could make a woman a wealthy widow, and it could set in motion a change in power. And there's a reason we're setting up all of this assassination shock.

When we look at ancient women and their knowledge of poisons, there is one that stands out and one that we have in fact mentioned before. So our scene becomes ancient Rome, and our poisoner is a woman named Locusta. When we come back, we're going to dive into the life and crimes of this ancient poisoner. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's get into who Locusta was and why the Roman elite

might have been interested in her skills. Locusta was an active poisoner during the first century in the final two reigns of the Julio Claudian dynasty. During the Roman Empire. You may recognize her name from some of our previous episodes,

but she has mainly been in the shadows. As we've been talking about this season, there's a long list of women who are remembered for their poisoned fuel like a sees right, but regardless of whether or not they actually committed the deed or in some instances deeds plural u. Sometimes there was rat poison in the eggnog, which we've seen, but we've also learned that sometimes it was simply deadly gossip.

Poisoning in Rome was so common in the first century that it was often just assumed that if anyone in the Imperial court died, it was not natural causes, and women, women, well women, were considered the most notorious poisoners. At one point. As we mentioned before, the word for adulters was kind of synonymous with that of poisoner. Among the Romans, there was a pretty strong belief that Roman women poisoned for love, just romantic but not always true because they are so

poisoned for money. Yeah right, So Locusta is mentioned all over the place when you're reading about the Roman Empire, yet not a ton of information of out who she is has remained over the centuries. Other than the fact that she was a woman who poisoned for money, we do know that she came from Gaul, and sometimes she is actually referred to as Locusta of Gaul, and at the time Gall was the outer province of ancient Rome.

Today it is part of France. There is no record, though, of how she came to be in the center of Roman power. There is one super sketchy story about her being a real sketchy kidnapped. There's a lot of sketchy when it comes to her story. Yes, um, there's one sketchy story about her being kidnapped in the year fifty four and being brought to Rome to exploit her skills,

which would suggest she already had a reputation. But that story is very unlikely, mainly because she was also already allegedly in jail on a poisoning charge in Rome in the year fifty four, and that story makes more sense in her timeline. She probably was in Rome in jail awaiting a sentence the accused to herself. She actually wasn't a poisoner. She was a maker of poisons, and it's kind of smart to think of her more like a like a botanist or a chemist, and she would have

been really right at home making drugs an apothecary. But we've mentioned this man once before. He's a nineteenth century toxicology expert who was brought in several times as a court witness. His name is Dr Alfred Swain Taylor, and he once said, and we quote him, a poison in a small dose is a medicine, and a medicine and a large dose is a poison. It's a subtle difference, yeah, and probably one that Locusta was very very keen on maintaining.

I'm just making compounds, right, But being an apothecary strictly in the apothecary sense was not the path that she chose, regardless of whether it was medicines or poison. Though she was an expert in her craft. She's often called a serial killer, but Locusta could really also be called more of an assassin for hire. She provided poisons because she was hired to do so. Professor of forensic psychology Dr

Katherine Ramsland has called Locusta's business necro entrepreneur. I just I when I saw that, I was like, she's right, I think that's a great business card title. If we've learned anything this season, it's that Romans loved their poisons, and in particular, they loved mixing them into their politics. So, as you can imagine, Lokista was in great demand among them, and stories of Locusta suggests that she was also discreet. She didn't need to know why you needed poison or

who you may have hoped to kill with it. I don't want to know about your beefs. I'm just selling you some chemic goals. I just wondered if you want hemlocker, opium und okay. All she needed to know was how you might want a theoretical death to play out. For instance, were you thinking about a quick and sudden death or were you imagining more of an agonizing lye long and painful affair. Either way, poison was always the matter of the day. It was a silent killer and perfect, always

perfect for the job. She didn't just create and mix poisons. She advised others on which poisons would be best for their desired result, and she took on apprentices, which I thought was actually pretty cool. Usually if you're discreet, you don't do that um And eventually she was running a sort of training academy for poison assassins, and she encouraged and taught the poison arts too many, although to be honest, most of the poisonings that were happening at this time,

we're all happening in the Imperial court. Emperor Caligula, for instance, is said to have had a trunk filled with various poisons. Poison was serious business in politics, so no wonder she started this cottage industry, as like the University of poison,

there are there. Actually, when I was doing some research, I found that there were there were sort of three women, Locusta being one of them, and two other women who were well known for poisoning at the same time, but they had been apprentices of hers, so they really weren't necessarily part of her story. They just happened to be other poisoners, which I'm sure there were hundreds of across the city. So she, getting back to Locusta, was one of the few women we've talked about this season who

didn't rely on our favorite poison arsenic. Her poisons would have actually included mostly vegetable poisons, and and that meant that she would have relied on plants like Belladonna and deadly nightshade, mandreg hemlock opium. Those are just a few examples. H Wolf Spain was another good one that was surely part of her tool kids, and it was known as the Queen of Poisons. It said that when she formulated new poisons, she tested them at the emperor's request, on

convicted criminals and enslaved persons. And actually the reality was that she tested her poisons on anyone she wanted to test them on, because frankly, she could. It's true. One of the great Roman historians, Tastus, described her as, and we quote him, a woman lately condemned as a dealer in clandestine practices, but reserved among the instruments of state

to serve the purposes of dark ambition. So he was also known to play up the stereotype that women were much more likely to be poisoners than men were, and that stereotype has led the public to label women like the Cuesta as a witch. And we've seen it time and time again, no matter what century we've talked about. Yeah, he was not the only one to link female poisoners

with witches or witchcraft, not at all. This there was this pervasive and very popular belief that has carried on through the centuries that any woman who could make and who administered poisons couldn't just have scientific knowledge, she had to be a sorceress or or that she was at least somehow involved with magic. And that is a belief that we talked about through the centuries when we talk about accused female poisoners, never science, magic. Sir, this is

going a good time for us to take a quick break. Um, when we come back, we're going to go deeper into how Locusta was influential among the Roman elite. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's now get into how Locusta's skills could make or break an emperor. So we've talked briefly, very briefly about Locusta in an episode earlier this season, very early on, when we told the story of Empress Julia Agrippina.

So Julia was said to have poisoned her husband to ensure her only son, who became Emperor Nero, would ascend to the throne. It was Locusta who provided the goods to make all of that happen. And Locusta, while she had what seemed to be a pretty steady business. She didn't work completely unscathed, though she paid prices for this line of work that she chose. She was arrested and thrown in jail several times. Twice she was bailed out

when high ranking, ambitious and impatient Roman politicians intervened. After all, you can't have your assassin sitting in jail when they are political rivals to be poisoned. Murder by poison gave an easy alibi. We've mentioned this time and time again that you probably wouldn't be around when the victor and died, so it was really important to a lot of people that her business stayed up and running. Right. It's not the same as being stabbed like you're going to be

there for that event, you know. That is that they couldn't have it. So if you recall him just a bit earlier, we mentioned that Lakista was not known just for her skills, but for her discretion, and that was surely by design. Since she didn't want to know what her client's business was regarding their plans for the various compounds she was concocting, she couldn't then share any details

with authorities. If she was caught and interrogated. That engendered a level of trust in her, which is another reason why Rome's High and Mighty would step in to help her when she got all jammed up. The third time Locusta was imprisoned, it was actually the embress herself, Julia Agrippinma, who sprung her. Of course, she had a specific purpose in mind. Well, it's Julia. Julia wanted to poison her husband,

Emperor Claudius, and Locusta was happy to oblige. It's here that we take another turn to show just how enterprising Julia Agrippina was. So instead of payment, which Locusta was very likely expecting and maybe a thank you, Julia instead turned her into the authorities and accused her of poisoning the emperor, which yes, sure technically she had provided the poison,

but it was actually Julia who did the deed. Locusta was arrested again, surely a surprise to an assassin waiting for her payment for services rendered instead of being paid with um uh, traitorous moves man, and at this point she was sentenced to death. However, not long after the sentencing, Julia's son and now Emperor Nero, freed Locusta and absolved her of all of her crimes and allegedly gave her a get out of jail free card for any future crimes.

That's a pretty sweet set up. It's a fantastic setup. When I was reading about it, actually checked it in multiple sources because I was like, I was like, he not only gave her absolutely he absolved all of her

sins for before this, but any future ones. Like wow, So Nero, Um, if it sounds like something that an emperor would do, if he said, maybe wanted to make an ally of a poisoner, it was very likely that Nero did, in fact want to be allies with a poisoner or at least have this one on speed dial. So mainly because there were political parties he wanted to get rid of, he wanted look used to out into the room, and elite poison was the obvious way to

make that all those stuffs happen. It's important to point out that Locusta was very instrumental in Nero's rise to power, not just getting him on the throne, but beyond that. She provided the murder weapon for him over and over, which he mainly used against members of his own family and those in the Imperial Court. We have no idea how many people were actually poisoned by the results of concoctions coming out of Locusta's lab, but we do know

Nero was very very busy, it wasn't he. So he then actually rewarded her for all of her great work with him with an official title. She was called the Imperial Poisoner, which I mean, that's not very subtle, but then everybody already seemed to know who she was, so subtlety was really already out the window here and her. You know, I'm picturing the cocktail parties we're taking. What do you do? I'm the Imperial Poisoner, I see, and you draw your hand away and slowly back out of

the room, back out and find somebody else to talk to. Cool. That must be very um can get dental with that. Like her career and her school for poison there's also really flourished under Nero's fourteen your rain, and she just she had a great decade. But of course, if you are close to power that was gained in troublesome ways, eventually it all falls apart. And when Nero's rain ended, so did Locusta's. Now there's something that we have to address,

So bear with us. There's actually a really terrifying rumor about Locusta's death that is not and I repeat not all caps, not an ot true. But we're going to talk about it, if only to be one more voice on record saying that this did not happen. The story is terrible, so we're just gonna give you the short version. It's so gross, so gross that someone even concocted this as a fiction. Uh, it's no secret that the Romans enjoyed watching prisoners be tortured. Watching someone torn apart by

wild animals was considered pretty good fun. Is not that uncommon. And while this terrible story suggests that that happened to Locusta, that she was torn apart by wild animals, it also suggests that she was first raped by an animal, by a giraffe. It is, as I said, horrifying. So let's say this one more time. That's not a real thing. This is not how Locusta died. This is something that

someone concocted somewhere along the way. The Internet will tell you this story over and over that is not based in any kind of fact. No matter what the Internet says, do not believe it. This is not the true story. The real story is that Locusta was executed in the year sixty nine, shortly after nero suicide. So suicide was an acceptable way to end your life in Rome. So this part of his story actually was one of the

least scandalous things that he probably ever did in his life. Nero, by the way, though died by a dagger, not by poison, though Locusta had provided a pinch for him in a small gold box in case he ever needed it. Nero was succeeded by Emperor Galba, who actually only reigned quite briefly, not even two full years, but that small period of time was long enough to put to death all of Nero's favorites, and we quote the scum that had come to the surface in Nero's day, and that included Nero's

favorite poisoner Locusta. So, without Nero's protection anymore, and her skills were so well known, she was sentenced to death for her role in the murders of dozens of members of the Room and elite. She was put in chains and she was paraded through the streets of the city to her public execution. Now popular methods of execution did include wild animals sometimes, but it also very much included things like beheading, strangulation, being buried alive, drowning, and a

big favorite at the time was crucifixion. So although we don't know exactly which one of these her execution would have been, we know that it had nothing to do with a giraffe. Yeah, the story ended on a down note, It really did. Thanks a lot, Maria. Sorry, she was the coolest ascid bar higher and then I just check it to a bad place. One of the things that I really liked about her story was this idea that, especially because she was working primarily with um, you know,

vegetable based poisons and was a botanist. Really, I felt like you really sort of bonded at the idea that she was kind of a botanist chemist type, right, she's just busy figuring out what plants do. Um. So it got me thinking about fun things that I could make with plants and that might be unusual. As of late, I have been in the evenings as part of my wine down ritual, having a very milk heavy kind of like a chi that's not kelf and eated. Uh, And it just got me to thinking that something in that

space might be very, very fun. So I came up with something that I called the Botanists Latte. And this starts with two cups of almond milk. You could also use any other milk that you desire. I do usually almond or oat, a bag of earl gray tea I opted for decalf in this case, and then a quarter cup of culinary rosebuds. These are easy to find. If you just do a in a search online for food grade rosebuds or culinary rosebuds, you'll find all kinds of

sources for them. They're easy to get. Uh. And then I put all this in a saucepan and I just let it heat on medium uh until the milk got kind of steamy and just started to bubble around the edges.

You don't want it to actually boil, just get nice and nice and warm, and then you turn off the heat, give it a quick stir to make sure the rosebuds are all covered with the milk, and then you just leave that to sit for several minutes while you go put on your pajamas or whatever that got strained into a mug because you don't want to eat all those rosebuds, and then I put sweetener in mine, which, however you want to do that if you just want to do sugar,

if you have some sugar free sweetener, you can also add a little vanilla syrubber, a simple syrup, whatever your pref to the point where you like it, and then it's not a heavy hitter in terms of alcohol. You could drink it just as it is at that point. But I also added just an ounce of brandy brandy. I was waiting to see what you might add into that. So it's interesting when you mentioned that you used Earl Grey. Have you ever seen You're not really a citrus person though,

have you ever had Lady Gray? Yeah? Um, I imagine you probably like a real better than Lady, But like Lady adds this some more citrus to it, and I would probably try this with with that type because I'm I'm a citrus kind of a person. But that was immediately I was it was it's the first time that you've had a drink where I've gone, I'm going to try it, but I'm gonna swap out this ingredient like usually, I'm just gonna try it the way that it is.

I love ingredients swaps because everybody does have different tastes. UM. You could also use different food grade flowers in here if you wanted to. You could use chrysanthemums or food grade lavender if you wanted to. UM, there are all kinds of options. I really like a rose flavored things. I feel like I'm in the wrong century because nobody ever has that anymore. Well, you have to just make it yourself. I will say, this smells so beautiful, so beautiful.

It smells like soft and it smells creamy. Even though like I used almond milk, there is still the almond milk combined with the rosebuds makes this very creamy scent. It's quite pretty. Um. And then the brandy is just like a perfect little And if two cups of almond milk sounds like a lot, you lose a good bit In the steaming, it does reduce down a bit um.

And if are like me, when you try to pour it out of the saucepan through the strainer into a mug, you lose a little more because I'm a sloppy gloppy And like I said, you don't have to add the brandy. It's quite yummy just on its own. That is the botanist latte. We hope you enjoyed this particular little concoction and that it sounds like a yummy thing to try. That is it for today's Criminalia, and we will talk

to you again next week with more poison stories. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H