Greek fire was an incendiary weapon developed by the Byzantine Empire around 672 AD. Its exact recipe was a closely-guarded state secret and still not precisely known, but most modern scholars believe it was petroleum mixed with resins — comparable in composition to modern napalm.
The weapon had many names in Byzantine sources — “sea fire,” “liquid fire,” “sticky fire,” “Roman fire” — before the Crusades popularized the term “Greek fire” in English and other languages.
Byzantine sailors would toss grenades loaded with it onto enemy ships or spray it directly from tubes resembling a flamethrower. Its defining feature was its ability to burn on water, making it devastatingly effective in naval warfare. Rival powers tried repeatedly to replicate it and failed. It was first deployed in the Siege of Constantinople (674–678 AD), where it helped the Byzantines repel Arab fleets.
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The weapon is attributed to Kallinikos, a Jewish architect from Heliopolis in Syria, who fled to the Romans as Muslim conquests swept through the region. He brought with him a formula that would give Byzantium a decisive military edge for centuries.
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The recipe died with the empire. Despite centuries of speculation pointing to saltpeter, sulfur, quicklime, or various combinations, no one has conclusively reconstructed it. Greek fire remains one of history’s most consequential lost technologies — a weapon so effective it needed no successor, and so secret it left none.
Further Reading: Royal Museums Greenwich, Wikipedia, Britannica
