Myth or Mistake: Rhododendrons, Honey, and Poison

"Xenophon's Anabasis viii 18-23

"All the soldiers who ate of the honeycombs lost their senses, and
were seized with vomiting and purging, none of them being able to
stand on their legs. Those who ate but a little were like men very
drunk, and those who ate much, like madmen and some like dying
persons. In this condition great numbers lay on the ground, as if
there had been a defeat, and the sorrow was general. The next day none
of them died, but recovered their senses about the same hour they were
seized. And the third day they got up as if they had taken a strong
potion."

Pliny the Elder's Natural History Book 21 xlv 77-

(My rough translation): "Another kind in this same area of the
Pontus, by the tribe of the Sanni, a honey which they call
'maenomenon' from the insanity which it produces. This is thought to
be collected from the flower of the 'rhododendron', with which the
woods abound. The tribe does not sell the honey, because it is toxic,
when they would present the wax in tribute to the Romans."

The key words are 'maenomenon', which is just Pliny's transliteration
of the Greek word, and is a participle modifying the word honey and
meaning 'making mad'. Lewis & Short, the definitive Latin
dictionary, translates 'rhododendron' as Nerium oleander, 'rosebay'
or, or possibly rhododendron or azalea. Liddell & Scott, Greek
Lexicon, translates the original Greek 'rhododendron' as the
equivalent of 'rhododaphne', the oleander --no azaleas or
rhododendrons. The word itself just means 'rose tree' or 'reddish
tree'.

So ancient botany is pretty murky and this whole discussion is a
series of interpretations of a pretty vague original Greek story from
400BC, interpreted (with who knows what other sources no longer
extant) 450 years later by a Roman, and then retold and reinterpreted
endlessly until now. Since Nerium, R. ponticum and R. luteum are all
common in the Pontus, any of them could be a source of toxic honey.
And Xenophon himself was only guessing that the honey accidentally
made his soldiers sick. Deliberate poisoning of the honey left in
quantity in the abandoned villages is quite possible, as was suspected
400 years later when Pompey's soldiers were not only poisoned but
massacred while sick. Why would the predecessors of the 'Sanni',
whoever they are, have been unaware that their honey was toxic, but
collected it for consumption anyway? Sounds like very bad beekeeping.
It seems the Sanni knew their honey was toxic, but collected it for
the beeswax only, which they paid in tribute to the Romans. Probably
their ancestors extracted the beeswax and kept the honey to refeed
their bees, as some modern beekeepers do whose bees feed on Kalmia
latifolia. Perhaps the Greeks didn't know that and got poisoned.

As evidence of toxicity of the honey of R. ponticum, these old
accounts are interesting stories but hardly conclusive evidence.
Trying to determine the identity of plants mentioned in classical
accounts is a remarkably difficult task on the whole.

Susan Clark