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Experts ponder improbable size of Cleopatra's asp

Wouldn't fit in a basket of figs, that's for sure

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 Battle of Actium by the forces of fellow Roman Octavian, later the emperor Augustus.

Plutarch, some 130 years after the event, penned the most famous account in which he suggested the serpent was smuggled to Cleopatra hidden in a basket of figs, following her capture by Octavian. Having sunk its fangs into the queen's arm, it then made short work of her two maidservants.

No so, according to Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley and herpetologist Andrew Gray, of Manchester Museum. They say that the cobra in question would actually have been too large - a species "typically 5-6ft long and can grow to 8ft (2.5m)" - for concealment in a basket of figs.

Even sticking the cobra in a really big basket of figs doesn't lend much credibility to the tale, because "there's just a 10% chance you would die from a snake bite: most bites are dry bites that don't inject venom", according to Gray.

He elaborated: "That's not to say they aren't dangerous: the venom causes necrosis and will certainly kill you, but quite slowly. So it would be impossible to use a snake to kill two or three people one after the other.

"Snakes use venom to protect themselves and for hunting - so they conserve their venom and use it in times of need."

So, what did kill Cleopatra? Discounting possible CIA involvement, it seems likely she poisoned herself. The Greek historian Strabo, who was alive at the time of her death, fingered either an asp or a poisoned ointment.

Plutarch noted that the two puncture marks on her arm - attributed to the snake bite - could have been been caused by a hollow comb used to administer poison.

Other historians claimed a poisoned hair pin or deadly uncture applied to a self-inflicted bite wound.

Whatever the case, the Romans favoured the fig-snake version of events, involving images which may have been "deliberately calculated, given their sexual connotations and the desire to portray Cleopatra as a foreign seductress", as this examination of the historical accounts puts it. ®

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