Cleopartra did not die from a snake bite but from drinking a lethal drug cocktail, a German scientist said today.
The Queen of the Nile ended her life in 30 BC. Legend has always held that it was the bite of an asp - an Egyptian cobra - which caused her demise.
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A German scientist says it is unlikely renowned beauty Cleopatra (famously played by Elizabeth Taylor, left) committed suicide via the bite of an Egyptian cobra (right) as this would have been 'agonising and disfiguring'
He will say that the bite of an asp would have given her an agonising death over several days. Toxicologists and zoologists believe she took a drug cocktail instead.
'Queen Cleopatra was famous for her beauty and was unlikely to have subjected herself to a long and disfiguring death,' said Schaefer...
The African queen...modelled herself on the reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess during her reign.
Cleopatra followed suit, according to tradition by killing herself by means of an asp bite on August 12, 30 BC.
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'It was this aspect, her beauty which she cherished so much, which made me journey with other experts to Alexandria, Egypt, where we consulted ancient medical texts and snake experts.
'Cleopatra wanted to remain beautiful in her death to maintain her myth,' he says on the Adventure Science show screened by ZDF entitled Cleopatra‘s Death; How did the last female Pharaoh really die?
'She probably took a cocktail, which, back then was a well-known mixture that led to a painless death within just a few hours whereas the snake death could have taken days and been agonising.
'We consulted eminent zoologists and toxicologists; a snake bite would have been too uncertain and taken too long.'
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First thing's first. Cleopatra did nothing new and exciting by "modelling herself as a reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess". Plus, that's really historically inaccurate. Cleopatra, granted, was a Ptolemy, but it was the tradition of Pharaohs to regard themselves as the son (or, in some cases, daughter) of one divine being or another (usually Amun). So that's not really so unusual.
Second of all, all reports I've heard indicate that Cleopatra was *not* actually a great beauty, but was in possession of such personal charisma that it endeared her to whomever she wished--i.e Caesar or Marc Antony.
Third, how does this scientist know that she wanted to "maintain beauty in death for a myth"? She had no myth. The Egyptians were not unintelligent people; they knew what happens to bodies after death...which is how they knew how to mummify. None of them would have expected for their bodies to remain perfectly unchanged.
Fourth, regarding whether or not it was agonizing and disfiguring--no reports deal directly with Cleopatra's death, and the length it took, exist. Also, let's recall that one of Cleopatra's motivations was alleged to be to avoid captivity--a theme fairly well established in the ancient world. Let's also recall that the pagan Romans were not the most well-moraled individuals, and could not be trusted to, ahem, restrain themselves and keep from disgracing their captives. It would have been entirely possible for any given Roman to take a captive Cleopatra and do what he would; and even after death, there would still be no guarantee that Cleopatra's body in its just-dead-loveliness would remain unmolested.
I'm guessing that the state of her body postmortem was not the biggest concern Cleopatra had.
Fifth, and much more nitpickingly, Cleopatra was, as I've said before, a Ptolemy. As in, there was an extremely high chance that she was...drum roll...Greek. The Ptolemaic line was filled with naturalized Egyptians who were genetically descendants of Alexander's favorite general, whatshisname. From...Greece.
Now, that said, I think it's entirely reasonable that Cleopatra might have killed herself using poison.
I just don't think this article has very good arguments for it.
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