Cleopatra: Poison Not Snake Killed Her? – We all know that Cleopatra famously died by committing suicide by the bite of an asp. Or did she? Historian Christoph Schaefer says it was poison, not a snake that killed her. Read about it below and see a picture and video of the Egyptian queen.
Anthony and Cleopatra by Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Christoph Schaefer is a German historian and professor of ancient history at Trier University. He has developed a new theory challenging the more than 2000-year-old belief that Egyptian queen Cleopatra committed suicide by allowing an asp to bite her. An asp is a small venomous snake that is also called an Egyptian cobra.
It is logical that people would believe she died from allowing a cobra to bite her paintings of her have depicted her with a cobra on her arm and her death has been depicted that way in literature. However, Schaefer says that depictions of her with a cobra were really illustrations of her acceptance into the after-life, not a story of how she died. In fact, she was not depicted with a cobra on her arm in paintings until the 15th century. It was later still before she began to be depicted with the snake at her breast. By the time Shakespeare wrote Anthony and Cleopatra, he had her dying from the bite of two asp, one to her breast and one to her arm.
In his findings that he released earlier today, Schaefer says he is certain she didn’t died from a cobra bite. He said that Cleopatra would have never chosen that method to kill herself because she was determined to commit suicide and a cobra’s bite is not always fatal. In addition, death from the venom of an asp is very prolonged and painful. He described it as a ‘horrible death’ in which the person can linger for hours and suffer paralysis to parts of the body.
Schaefer’s theories have been featured on the German channel ZDF as part of a program about Cleopatra. In the program, he noted that he has studied ancient documents and texts to determine how Cleopatra died.
Roman historian Cassius Dio wrote about her death about 200 years after she died. He wrote that she died a ‘quiet and pain-free death’. That would not be consistent with death by cobra. He also notes that the fact that her two servants died with her make it unlikely to have been a snake. What are the chances they would have all died of a snake bite or even that the snake would have bitten each of them?
Cleopatra committed suicide in August of 30 B.C. Schaefer points out that the temperatures in Egypt at that time of year would have made it even less likely for a snake to have stayed still long enough to bite.
Schaefer worked with German toxicologist Dietrich Mebs to determine what types of poisons Cleopatra might have used. Their conclusions are that she used hemlock mixed with wolfsbane and opium. The poisons would have provided her the certain death she wanted by putting her into a deep, painless, fatal sleep.
It is doubtful these new theories will change the common beliefs about the Queen of the Nile and her tragic end. When stories are told often enough, they become the truth regardless of evidence that would prove them not to be. It is also doubtful that the German historian will ever be able to conclusively prove that Cleopatra’s life was ended by poison, not a snake bite. Does he convince in his Cleopatra, poison not snake that killed her theory? He’s probably right and its interesting to know.
You can watch the National Geographic video below to learn a little bit about the real Cleopatra.
