Toxic Gas First Used in Syria 1,700 Years Ago

If Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has really carried out a chemical attack, it wouldn't be the first time poisonous gas brought death in the Middle East country.

Indeed, right in Syria archaeologists have found some of the oldest evidence of chemical warfare.

According to University of Leicester archaeologist Simon James, who published his findings back in 2009, poison gas was used in Syria more than 1,700 years ago when a Roman fort at Dura-Europe
became the site of a violent siege by the powerful Sassanian Persian empire.