An important factor in the victory of the Romans was their use of Greek fire.
His famous description of Greek fire has a most provoking mixture of circumstantial detail with absence of verifying particulars.
In subsequent receipts saltpetre and turpentine make their appearance, and the modern "carcass composition," containing sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, saltpetre and crude antimony, is a representative of the same class of mixtures, which became known to the Crusaders as Greek fire but were more usually called wildfire.
Hime, after a close examination of the available evidence, concludes that what distinguished Greek fire from the other incendiaries of the period was the presence of quicklime, which was well known to give rise to a large development of heat when brought into contact with water.
In the Michael Crichton novel Timeline, one of the main characters uses the Greek fire.
