back to article Experts ponder improbable size of Cleopatra's asp

A pair of expert debunkers have concluded that Cleopatra's legendary asp was too small to be a plausible killer, the BBC reports. Many historical sources agree that Cleopatra committed suicide in 30BC at the tender age of 39, by prompting a cobra to bite her. Her demise came after the defeat of her lover Mark Anthony at the …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    You know, I can live my life without the burden of not knowing how Cleopatra died.

    Thanks guys!

    1. Little Mouse

      And now that you do know, you can.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Big Brother

        Victor the Nubian Cleaner makes a house call

        And now your latent suspicion that she was actually suicided has been awakened.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Scientists

    Taking the fun out of allegorical and figurative writing since, well, forever

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Scientists

      Just maybe if people stopped taking allegorical and figurative writing seriously, scientists wouldn't have to waste time debunking it years later.

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: Scientists

        I'm not sure they have debunked it. Most snake bites would be in the calves, I would guess. And because a snake starts injecting the venom the moment it penetrates something, if you're wearing loose trousers half of it gets squirted down the inside of them rather than the inside of your leg anyway. Does that have exactly the same chance of killing you if you held the snake to your throat for example? Most snakebites are dry without venom? Presumably if you keep goading the snake and keep getting more and more bites, you'll get it to inject some venom at some point? They seem to be ignoring the circumstances that this was a deliberate suicide attempt.

        Plus we know little of what Cleopatra's state of health actually was at the time anyway. Ancient people's were ignorant of a lot of things but that's not the same as stupid. They knew a lot about the environment in which they lived and I imagine the people in Cleopatra's time knew a lot more about what as poisonous and what wasn't than laypeople today. The understood things like poison and it working its way through the bloodstream. They understood that you had veins and arteries and that a wound to one of these was a lot more dangerous than a wound to a calf or arm muscle. For example, your tongue is filled with blood vessels right near the surface. Want to commit suicide by cobra? Hold it to your mouth, stick your tongue out and keep provoking it. I don't know how likely that is to kill you but I bet it's far more likely than normal statistics on snake bites and it's hardly beyond an educated Greek or Egyptians brain power for the time period.

        1. Triggerfish

          Re: Scientists - Dry bites

          Yes eventually they do. A dive buddy (who worked in underwater videography), found a largish King Cobra wrapped around his toilet. So he tied his camera to a broomstick and decided to annoy it, first it made a threat display, then it starting dry striking the lens, after a few hits then it started using venom (you could see it on the lens), after a few more strikes it seemed to use a lot more venom.

          Snakes will dry bite as a threat, because most animals aren't stupid enough to stay around and they want to conserve the venom, but they absolutely will use it if they feel like they are in danger and their opponent isn't backing down.

          It also depends on the snake some snakes are mellower than other species, sea snakes are really chilled and yet almost all species are highly venomous I have never felt worried encountering one, I wouldn't fuck around with a black mamba though one African lady described them to me as "an extremely angry snake." *

          Also it does not need to be adult a baby snake is born fully venomed and are said to be more dangerous as they have less control over there bites.**

          *There was a beeb prog on rattlesnakes and the researches said even individuals among the same species had different temperaments.

          **Recently seen an article somewhere saying this may not be true but have not read it yet.

          1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

            Re: Scientists - Dry bites

            Also it does not need to be adult a baby snake is born fully venomed and are said to be more dangerous as they have less control over there bites

            Same control, but in the Cobra case considerably more aggressive. Most cobra bite incidents in India are from juvenile cobra, not adult.

            Also, the most "allegoric" part of history is the snake species and name. It was written a century later by a person who would not be able to tell the difference between a cobra, a sidewinder and a lebetine viper as he lived in an area where none of these are present (Rome). In addition to that Egypt in those days traded with a various states (now well forgotten) which were between Sahara and the jungle (Kush, Aksum, etc). So if she wanted to commit suicide she could have gotten her hands on the "Guaranteed Death of Sub-Saharan Norht Africa" - the Gaboon viper. That kills. Period. Regardless of the size and age of the specimen. It is also docile enough to be carried around in a fruit basket.

            1. Triggerfish

              Re: Scientists - Dry bites

              Agreed I heard it refers to aspis and was a generic term for snakes, many vipers are lethal. My friends unpacking a box of non venomous snakes found a gaboon viper accidently packed in with them much swearing ensued they have enough wallop to kill a buffalo.

        2. Charles Manning

          They certainly have not debunked it

          As a yoof I kept snakes in South Africa, so I think I can contradict an over-funded boffin.

          "Most bites are dry bites" That's maybe true for accidental bites, or as an average over all bites, where you alarm a snake and it just does a showy strike to scare you off. However it you grab the snakes head and mash it against your body to force it to bite (as you would for a suicide) then it is likely the snakes is going to feel very threatened and will think it one of those times worth expending some of that valuable venom to save its life.

          "A cobra grows to 6 or 8 ft and won't fit in a fig basket". Sure, but they start off as babies of a few inches long and are venomous from the start. A 3ft cobra is surely up to the job.

          A friend of mine was bitten by a 3ft black mamba (sure, not the same species) and only lived because it was a glancing blow and had immediate medical attention including ICU for a week or so. Mambas grow to over 14 ft, so that 3 foot snake was a juvenile.

          So, on behalf of the taxpayers.... can we have the money back?

  3. smudge
    Holmes

    It's obvious!

    "Plutarch noted that the two puncture marks on her arm..."

    So it was a vampire, then.

    When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: It's obvious!

      Leave "Twilight" out of this, don't ruin everything!

      1. MyffyW Silver badge

        Re: It's obvious!

        @Destroy_All_Monsters why reach for Twilight WRT the vampire reference?

        I much prefer The Hunger (1983), if only for a roll call that includes Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon.

    2. Cameron Colley

      Re: It's obvious!

      The best vampire movie has to be Abel Ferrara's The Addiction. A modern-day vampire story with plety of darkness and no glamour.

  4. Chris Miller

    "she had an asp, clasped in her grasp."

    Carry on.

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

      A poisonous asp? I wouldn't have said so...

      Carry on.

  5. Naselus

    Man who said Rome was founded by two men raised by wolves turns out to have lied about stuff shocker.

  6. Your alien overlord - fear me

    Well, if she was such a slapper (per the Romans version of her life), she probably died from a STD rather than an ASP.

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Slapper?

      Supposedly smart rather than pretty. There is no description of her beauty AFAIK in contemporaneous sources and the coins with her head were not complementary.

      Also while she liked to big up the African and Egyptian stuff, she was ethnically Greek. See Alexander the Great and what the four generals ruled when he died.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: Slapper?

        But old Alex was Macedonian. Not the same as Greek. It's like saying a guy from Mexico is American.

        1. Tom 38

          Re: Slapper?

          Are people from the Americas not Americans?

          1. Hud Dunlap
            Boffin

            Re: Slapper? @ Tom 38

            Technically it is the United States of Mexico. It is just that no one calls it that. We are still called Americans.

            1. MattPi

              Re: Slapper? @ Tom 38

              "Technically it is the United States of Mexico. It is just that no one calls it that. We are still called Americans."

              It was until recently, but it's just Mexico now.

          2. Darryl

            Re: Slapper?

            Are people from the Americas not Americans?

            No. No we're not. People from the USA are called Americans. As well, they, and the rest of us are known as North Americans or South Americans, depending on which continent their homeland is located on.

            The standard global practice is to refer to people based on the continent they live on. People in Europe are Europeans. People in Africa are Africans. There is no continent called 'America'.

            1. Tom 38
              Headmaster

              Re: Slapper?

              For this post I use the appropriate icon. My post said:

              Are people from the Americas not Americans?

              This drew your ire:

              The standard global practice is to refer to people based on the continent they live on. People in Europe are Europeans. People in Africa are Africans. There is no continent called 'America'.

              If you're still not getting it, "The Americas" is plural.

            2. Frumious Bandersnatch
              Joke

              Re: Slapper?

              There is no continent called 'America'.

              There's a first. A geography lesson from a septic. I wonder why all the downvotes ...

        2. Kubla Cant

          Re: Slapper?

          But old Alex was Macedonian. Not the same as Greek.

          Curiously, the Greek government objects strenuously to the modern state of Macedonia on the grounds that ancient Macedonia was Greek.

          Magna Græcia included Asia Minor, Sicily, Naples, Marseilles and a few places on the East coast of Spain, so it's probably not stretching things too far to describe Alexander as Greek.

          1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
            Trollface

            Re: Slapper?

            the Greek government objects strenuously to the modern state of Macedonia on the grounds that ancient Macedonia was Greek

            Implying that modern fubar appendage of europe has anything in common with "Magna Græcia" (also, the "Magna" is there for a reason, like in "Greater Germany". One could argue that Poles build the German Empire but better not ...)

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Slapper?

          > a guy from Mexico is American

          Mexican, American, Canadian.. all the same really.

          A bit like Scots and English :-)

        4. Mage Silver badge

          Re: Slapper?

          More like saying a Texan was American.

          The Former Yugoslavian republic of Macedonia or the other bit?

          Alexander (son of Philip) was a King (Basileus) of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon.

          The Ptolemaic Kingdom (/ˌtɒləˈmeɪ.ɪk/; Ancient Greek: Πτολεμαϊκὴ βασιλεία, Ptolemaïkḕ Basileía)[3] was a Hellenistic [i.e. Greek] kingdom based in Egypt. It was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty which started with Ptolemy I Soter's accession after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and which ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC.

          In the early 5th century the royal house of Macedon, the Temenidae, was recognised as Greek by the Presidents of the Olympic Games. Their verdict was and is decisive. It is certain that the Kings considered themselves to be of Greek descent from Heracles son of Zeus.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_I_Soter

          Macedonia or Macedon (/ˈmæsɪˌdɒn/; Greek: Μακεδονία, Makedonía; Ancient: [ma͜akedoní.a͜a]) was an ancient kingdom on the northern periphery of Classical Greece and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece.

      2. Kubla Cant

        Re: Slapper?

        The picture at the top of the article looks more like Little Egypt than Cleopatra.

        "She walks, she talks, she craaawls on her belly like a reptile!"

      3. Richard Wharram

        Re: Slapper?

        Pretty / Not Pretty...

        Have you seen the Ptolemaic family-tree?

        It's a wonder she didn't have 17 fingers and one, gigantic, eye.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Strabo..

    "The Greek historian Strabo, who was alive at the time of her death, fingered either an asp or a poisoned ointment."

    And did he die after fingering the asp (they generally don't appreciate being probed by nosy greek historians?)

  8. Stevie

    Bah!

    Isn't it obvious? The treacherous "handmaidens" snuffed the prisoner while she was in custody using a cobra, then had a falling out and did each other with the usual derringer-kraits, probably carried in their garters.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you need to kill people with snake bites

    Get a mamba; they have legendarily bad tempers and are highly venomous. She could have had a black mamba imported from Ethiopea

    1. Richard Taylor 2

      Re: If you need to kill people with snake bites

      Nah sure Black Mamba was a US import - didn't come to good end though

    2. Triggerfish

      Re: If you need to kill people with snake bites

      Try a Russells Viper, almost the same LD50 as the inland Taipan (so about as venomous you are going to get) and also known to be pretty narky.

      Try this youtube link where they drop some venom in blood see how quick it causes it to coagulate

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WvnjCkLbvY

      Also they kill a lot of people especially in places like India, because mambas and cobras tend to hunt and so will get out of the way of people often. Vipers tend to rely on their camoflage which is usually exceptionally good, and so will stay still and hope you do not notice them which often means someone then steps on it and cause it to bite. Drop one in the garden and send someone out to clear the leaves.

      Although saying that, there was an incident a few years back now in Bangkok where a guy had bought a cobra (there's places in BKK you can buy them, western diamonbacks, taipans etc etc) and released it into his flat to bump off his wife.

  10. Rol

    It's all lies, I tell you.

    Writing a truthful and accurate account of events was as much an act of treason back then, as it is today.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: It's all lies, I tell you.

      History is written by the winners.

      1. Grikath

        Re: It's all lies, I tell you.

        Well the term "propaganda" is proper latin, and the Romans leveraged the ...art... with great precision ( and the application of ingenious cruel-and-unusual punishments if someone dared to doubt the Official Version, large scale where needed. Because Rome! )

        Rome as an empire started to decline more or less when the ruling class started to believe their own propaganda.

        1. Richard Taylor 2

          Re: It's all lies, I tell you.

          Rome as an empire started to decline more or less when the ruling class started to believe their own propaganda.

          I think you need to use a little of your leisure time to read some history. Sorry to burst your little balloon but it was an ee bitty more complex than that and most high school/A level students with a history/latin qual could do better in one sentence.

  11. alain williams Silver badge

    I misread the title ...

    First time round I read it as:

    size of Cleopatra's legendary ass

    1. Chika

      Re: I misread the title ...

      size of Cleopatra's legendary ass

      Such a naughty donkey!

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: I misread the title ...

      As my old friend S.B. used to say: A dirty mind is like a never ending feast.

    3. Allan George Dyer

      Re: I misread the title ...

      Did you get to the bottom of it?

  12. Howard Hanek
    WTF?

    Didn't She Die of the Romans?

    She died because......she lost?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Didn't She Die of the Romans?

      GAME OF THRONES!

  13. Anonymous Custard
    Joke

    Size matters, even for basket cases...

    So one has to ask if she wondered whether her asp looked big in this?

    1. DanceMan

      Re: Size matters, even for basket cases...

      Best laugh of the day!

  14. Diodelogic

    "So it would be impossible to use a snake to kill two or three people one after the other."

    Darn it.

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Re: "So it would be impossible to use a snake to kill two or three people one after the other."

      Three snakes, or else those nasty scorpions, or the really poisonous Geography Cone Snail (which sounds like a Terry Pratchett invention, but is real). The venomous variety of cone snail fires a poisonous hollow tooth at a fish. It grows them quick enough to avoid running short of dinners.

      1. Kubla Cant

        Re: "So it would be impossible to use a snake to kill two or three people one after the other."

        the really poisonous Geography Cone Snail

        It doesn't need to be poisonous venomous. It can bore people to death by telling them the principle exports of... zzz zzz.

  15. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Huge asp?

    Cleopatra Kardashian?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Huge asp?

      Three girls, one asp!

  16. Anonymous IV

    "The biggest asp disaster in the world"

    Those with a taste for Victorian music hall or for reviews of Anthony and Cleopatra films or plays will undoubtedly be familiar with the above quotation.

  17. Graham Marsden
    Happy

    I preferred...

    ... this examination of the historical facts (which is probably about as accurate as Plutarch's version...)

  18. Old Handle

    I thought the definition of "asp" was either somewhat loose or no longer known. In other words, all we can be certain of is that it refers to a venomous snake. Perhaps it wasn't an egyption cobra, but some other slithering nasty.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder...

    when would be prison wardens started to wise up to the methods of prisoner suicide or escape. If an asp could have smuggled in then why not tools or weapons? Honestly it seems like the story, whatever it's veracity, was convenient for someone.

  20. x 7

    A viper, not a cobra

    traditionally an "asp" has always been synonymous with "viper", not "cobra", and there are plenty of venom-bearing vipers which could have done the job living within realistic distances.

    take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_viperine_species_and_subspecies

    for a list of potentials. All are toxic, some extremely so, and many fit the size criterion, Even mildly venomous species such as the adder can kill in some circumstances - many of the others are far more efficient at death

    FWIW, my understanding from school teaching, and from english-language literature was always that a viper did the job, not a cobra. It would be interesting to see what makes people think it was a cobra

  21. graeme leggett Silver badge

    not the first?

    Seems an historian considered the issue 5 years ago. And reached similar conclusion.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/30/cleopatra.suicide/

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