"Antony, now dead before her, would become emperor of Rome. When Dollabella informs her that Caesar intends to march her in his triumph in Rome, she commits suicide with Charmion by asp bite, before being carried off to be buried with Antony. In cinema, the character of Cleopatra had appeared in forty-three different films by the end of the 20th century. Georges Méliès' ""Robbing Cleopatra's Tomb"" (), an 1899 French silent horror film, was the first film to depict the character of Cleopatra. Following the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912), the 1913 Italian film ""Marcantonio e Cleopatra"" by Enrico Guazzoni depicted Cleopatra"
"false report of Cleopatra killing herself. Some believe it to have been a horned viper, though in 2010, German historian Christoph Schaefer and toxicologist Dietrich Mebs, after extensive study into the event, came to the conclusion that rather than enticing a venomous animal to bite her, Cleopatra actually used a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium to end her life. Nonetheless, the image of suicide-by-asp has become inextricably connected with Cleopatra, as immortalized by William Shakespeare: With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool Be angry, and dispatch. Othello also famously compares his"
"hero used winged boots to transport her head to King Polydectes. As he was flying over Egypt, some of her blood fell to the ground which spawned asps and Amphisbaena. According to Plutarch, Cleopatra tested various deadly poisons on condemned people and concluded that the bite of the asp (from aspis—Egyptian cobra, not European asp) was the least terrible way to die; the venom brought sleepiness and heaviness without spasms of pain. The asp is perhaps most famous for its alleged role in Cleopatra's suicide after Mark Antony (her husband) killed himself by falling on his sword due to a"
"and ritual suicide (Cleopatra). In America, the snake has served as a symbol of deceptiveness, as when US President Andrew Jackson told the Creek Nation in 1829 that he spoke with a straight tongue, not a forked one. Three medical symbols involving snakes, still used today, are the Bowl of Hygieia symbolizing pharmacy, and the Caduceus and Rod of Asclepius, symbols of medicine. The ouroboros is a widely used symbol, claimed to be related to alchemy. It is depicted as a coiled snake eating its own tail, representing the cycle of life, death and rebirth. The snake is one of"
"African cobras (for example the red spitting cobra), this species does not spit venom. The Egyptian cobra was represented in Egyptian mythology by the cobra-headed goddess Meretseger. A stylised Egyptian cobra — in the form of the uraeus representing the goddess Wadjet — was the symbol of sovereignty for the Pharaohs who incorporated it into their diadem. This iconography was continued through the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization (30 BC). Most ancient sources say that Cleopatra and her two attendants committed suicide by being bitten by an aspis, which translates into English as ""asp"". The snake was reportedly smuggled"
"liberation. Virgil established the view of Cleopatra as a figure of epic melodrama and romance. The story of Cleopatra's suicide by snakebite was often depicted in Medieval and Renaissance art. The artist known as the Boucicaut Master, in a 1409 AD miniature for an illuminated manuscript of ""Des cas de nobles hommes et femmes"" by 14th-century AD poet Giovanni Boccaccio, in a Gothic-style tomb, with a snake near Cleopatra's chest and a bloody sword driven through Antony's chest. Illustrated versions of Boccaccio's written works, including images of Cleopatra and Antony committing suicide, first appeared in France during the Quattrocento (i.e."
"he perishes. Then, with the gates breached, Cleopatra kills herself with a poisonous snake and is found sitting on her throne, dead. The closing credits list 32 actors and the names of their characters: The shoot was a difficult one due to Colbert contracting appendicitis on the set of her previous film, ""Four Frightened People"", leaving her only able to stand for a few minutes at a time. Heavy costumes complicated matters further. Due to Colbert's fear of snakes, DeMille put off her death scene for as long as possible. At the time of shooting, he walked onto the set"
"Europe, a form of capital punishment was to throw people into snake pits, leaving people to die from multiple venomous bites. A similar form of punishment was common in Southern Han during China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and in India. Snakebites were also used as a form of suicide, most notably by Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, who reportedly died from the bite of an asp—likely an Egyptian cobra—after hearing of Mark Antony's death. Snakebite as a surreptitious form of murder has been featured in stories such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ""The Adventure of the Speckled Band"", but"
"venom is only fatal if injected into a vital area of the body. Egyptologist Wilhelm Spiegelberg (1870–1930) argued that Cleopatra's choice of suicide by asp bite was one that befitted her royal status, with the asp representing the ""uraeus"", sacred serpent of the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra. However, Robert A. Gurval, Associate Professor of Classics at UCLA, points out that the Athenian ""strategos"" Demetrios of Phaleron (c. 350 – c. 280 BC), confined by Ptolemy II Philadelphus in Egypt, committed suicide by asp bite in a ""curiously similar"" manner, one that also demonstrated that it was not exclusive to"
"or the fantastic, as in the monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s. The snake or serpent has played a powerful symbolic role in different cultures. In Egyptian history, the Nile cobra adorned the crown of the pharaoh. It was worshipped as one of the gods and was also used for sinister purposes: murder of an adversary and ritual suicide (Cleopatra). In Greek mythology snakes are associated with deadly antagonists, as a chthonic symbol, roughly translated as ""earthbound"". The nine-headed Lernaean Hydra that Hercules defeated and the three Gorgon sisters are children of Gaia, the earth. Medusa was one of"
"buried next to Antony, he had his messengers rush to her. The servant broke down her door but was too late. Plutarch states that she was found with her handmaidens Iras, dying at her feet, and Charmion, adjusting Cleopatra's diadem before she herself fell. It is unclear from primary sources if their suicides took place within the palace or inside Cleopatra's tomb. Cassius Dio claims that Octavian called on trained snake charmers of the Psylli tribe of Ancient Libya to attempt an oral venom extraction and revival of Cleopatra, but their efforts failed. Although Octavian was outraged by these events"
"as an acceptable outlet for their eroticism. Cleopatra's death is featured in various works of the performing arts. In the 1607 play ""Devil's Charter"" by Barnabe Barnes, a snake handler brings two asps to Cleopatra and allows them to bite both her breasts in a racy manner. In William Shakespeare's 1609 play ""Antony and Cleopatra"" the snake represents both death as well as a lover who Cleopatra desires, yielding to his pinch. Shakespeare relied on Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch for crafting his play, which can be viewed as both a comedy and a tragedy. The play involved use"
"snake to kill herself. This brings the movie to its end before we see Cleopatra die. The movie was reportedly based on ""Cleopatra"" by H. Rider Haggard. The title was apparently adapted from Shakespeare's ""Antony and Cleopatra"", Act I, scene 5. The film had a very low budget. It was shot on the sets left over from Rita Hayworth's ""Salome"". One sequence depicts a chariot racing through the sands of Egypt towards a sand dune in the distance, behind which looms a pyramid. It is extremely obvious that this composition (like many others) is a matte shot: the pyramid in"
"Roman statue of a woman wearing a knot of Isis in the Vatican Museums portrays a snake crawling up her right breast, perhaps a depiction of Cleopatra's suicide while dressed as the Egyptian goddess Isis. A mid-1st century BC Roman wall painting from Pompeii most likely was walled off by its owner around 30 BC, perhaps in reaction to Octavian's proscription against images depicting Caesarion, the rival heir of Julius Caesar. Although statues of Mark Antony were torn down, those of Cleopatra were generally spared this program of destruction, including the one erected by Caesar in the Temple of Venus"
"in royal fashion next to Antony in her tomb. Cleopatra's physician Olympos did not explain her cause of death, although the popular belief is that she allowed an asp, or Egyptian cobra, to bite and poison her. Plutarch relates this tale, but then suggests an implement (, , 'spine, cheese-grater') was used to introduce the toxin by scratching, while Dio says that she injected the poison with a needle (, ), and Strabo argued for an ointment of some kind. No venomous snake was found with her body, but she did have tiny puncture wounds on her arm that could"
"as the embodiment of the cruel Orient, a queen who had defied Rome, while the actions of her lover Antony, after his suicide, are forgiven by Octavian. In cultivating a stage persona for her character in the 1917 US film ""Cleopatra"", actress Theda Bara was seen in public petting snakes while the Fox Film Corporation posed her in front of Cleopatra's alleged mummified remains in a museum, where she announced that she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra, having received hieroglyphic tributary offerings from a reincarnated servant. Fox Studios also had Bara dress as a leader of the occult and associated"
"mimics carved letters, a method used in art since the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck at the beginning of the century; it reads: SIMONETTA IANUENSIS VESPUCCIA. The dark clouds contrast with the pure profile of the face and the clear complexion. It is traditionally identified as a portrait of Simonetta. Giorgio Vasari regarded her as portraying Cleopatra, because of the toplessness and the snake, which he identified with the asp with which, according to Plutarch, Cleopatra committed suicide. However, the art historian Norbert Schneider regards it as more likely that the iconography of the portrait derives from that in late"
"stay in Alexandria to await the end. Cleopatra fears Antony will harm her in a drunken rage, she hides in her tomb and sends word she's dead. Antony stabs himself. Cleopatra has him brought to the tomb on a litter, where he dies. Cleopatra receives Octavian in the throne room and begs him to spare her children, but he refuses. Cleopatra kills herself with an asp, as do her faithful maidservants, Charmian and Iras. The Cleopatras The Cleopatras was a 1983 BBC Television eight-part historical drama serial. Written by Philip Mackie, it is set in Ancient Egypt during the latter"
"is taken a humble slave dares to love Cleopatra. At first the whole court with the queen stand aghast and astounded at the presumption of the slave; but, swayed by a whim, yields to him for a brief and delirious hour and then kills him with a strange and terrible poison. Galveston Daily News, November 26, 1916"" Revalles made headlines in the United States in October 1916 after revealing she had adopted a cobra to help perfect her Cleopatra dance, stating “the cobra is the most graceful of all snakes.” During her stay in America Revalles appeared in two Broadway"
"to bring her back to Rome to be paraded as a prisoner in his Roman triumph, she decided to avoid this humiliation and took her own life at age 39, in August 30 BC. Plutarch elaborates how Cleopatra approached her suicide in an almost ritual process that involved bathing and then a fine meal including figs brought to her in a basket. Plutarch writes that Octavian ordered his freedman Epaphroditus to guard her and prevent her from committing suicide. Nevertheless, Cleopatra was able to deceive him and kill herself. When Octavian received a note from Cleopatra requesting that she be"
"out that Cleopatra was still alive, he insisted on being taken to the mausoleum in which she was hiding, and died in her arms. She was shortly afterwards brought to the palace and vainly attempted to move Octavian to pity. Cleopatra killed herself on 12 August 30 BC. Most accounts say she put an end to her life by the bite of an asp conveyed to her in a basket of figs. Octavian had Caesarion killed later that month, finally securing his legacy as Caesar's only 'son'. Octavian's victory at Actium gave him sole and uncontested control of ""Mare Nostrum"""
"falls on his own sword and is then brought to Cléopâtre. As she watches him die by her side, she pulls a poisonous snake from a basket of fruit and clutches it to her breast. Notes Cléopâtre Cléopâtre is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Payen. It was first performed at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 23 February 1914, nearly two years after Massenet's death. ""Cléopâtre"" is one of three operas by Massenet to be premiered posthumously; the others are ""Panurge"" (1913) and ""Amadis"" (1922). The piece has seen limited revival since"
"by maidservants with rather dark skin, a combination frequently found in modern artworks portraying the scene of Cleopatra's death. Orientalist paintings by Rixens and others influenced the hybrid Ancient-Egyptian and Middle-Eastern decor found in the J. Gordon Edwards' film ""Cleopatra"" starring Bara, seen standing on a Persian carpet but with Egyptian wall paintings in the background. Online sources Printed sources Death of Cleopatra The death of Cleopatra VII, the last reigning ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, occurred on either 10 or 12 August 30 BC in Alexandria, when she was 39 years old. According to a popular belief, Cleopatra committed suicide"
"buried in royal fashion next to Antony in her tomb. Cleopatra's physician Olympos did not give an account of the cause of her death. The popular belief is that she allowed an asp, or Egyptian cobra, to bite and poison her. Plutarch relates this tale, but then suggests an implement (""knestis"") was used to introduce the toxin by scratching. Cassius Dio says that she injected the poison with a needle (""belone""), and Strabo argued for an ointment of some kind. No venomous snake was found with her body, but she did have tiny puncture wounds on her arm that could"
"a. atra"" averages more. The anal scale is single. Males have 32–49 subcaudals, females 30–43. The subcaudal scales are paired. The dorsal markings vary strongly, but only rarely take the form of a clear zigzag, as in ""V. berus"". Common names of ""Vipera aspis"" include ""asp"", ""asp viper"", ""European asp"", ""aspic viper"", ""European viper"" and ""Jura viper"". The term ""asp"" has in the past been used to refer to any venomous snake. The snake which supposedly killed the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra is named by Velleius Paterculus as an asp, and by Martial as a viper. Virgil mentions two snakes but"
"as Cleopatra because of the snake bracelet on the upper left arm, which was taken for the asp by which she died, supportive narrative could easily be brought to bear: Ulisse Aldrovandi thought he detected that ""she appears to have collapsed and fainted"", and a sense of fitful uneasiness has been ascribed to her by the modern viewer Sheila McNally (below). The """"Cleopatra"""" became the main model through which a conventional pose signifying sleep, with one elbow cocked above the head, was transmitted from Antiquity to High Renaissance and later painters and sculptors. T.B.L. Webster noted the uneasy pose of"
"include the strong connection of her house with that of the Numidian royal family, Masinissa and Ptolemy VIII Physcon having been associates, and Cleopatra's own daughter marrying the Numidian prince Juba II. Sophonisba was also a more obscure figure when the painting was made, while Cleopatra's suicide was far more famous. An asp is absent from the painting, but many Romans held the view that she received poison in another manner than a venomous snakebite. A set of double doors on the rear wall of the painting, positioned very high above the people in it, suggests the described layout of"
"into her room in a basket of figs. Plutarch wrote that she performed experiments on condemned prisoners and found aspis venom to be the most painless of all fatal poisons. This ""aspis"" was likely to be ""Naja haje"" (the Egyptian cobra). However, the accounts of her apparent suicide have been questioned, since death from this snake's venom is relatively slow and it can cause damage to the tissue sometimes, and the snake is large, so it would be hard to conceal. The Egyptian cobra garnered increased attention in Canada in the fall of 2006 when a pet cobra became loose"
"are not applicable as pills. The question whether individual snakes are immune to their own venom has not yet been definitively settled, though there is a known example of a cobra which self-envenomated, resulting in a large abscess requiring surgical intervention, but showing none of the other effects that would have proven rapidly lethal in prey species or humans. Furthermore, certain harmless species, such as the North American common kingsnake (""Lampropeltis getula"") and the Central and South American mussurana (""Clelia"" spp.), are proof against the venom of the crotalines which frequent the same districts, and which they are able to"
"to Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise in Beatrix Potter's ""The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher"" and Br'er Turtle in Uncle Remus's folktales. In Stephen King's ""The Dark Tower"" series, the world was created by the turtle Maturin, one of the guardians of the tower. Snakes, too, have played a role in literature since ancient Rome, where Cadmus kills a gigantic serpent in Ovid's ""Metamorphoses"", and as prophesied is transformed into a snake. The eponymous heroine in William Shakespeare's ""Antony and Cleopatra"" kills herself with an asp viper, while John Milton's ""Paradise Lost"" describes Satan as a mighty serpent, ""Fold above fold a"
"The Crow and the Snake The Crow or Raven and the Snake or Serpent is one of Aesop's Fables and numbered 128 in the Perry Index. Alternative Greek versions exist and two of these were adopted during the European Renaissance. The fable is not to be confused with the story of this title in the ""Panchatantra"", which is completely different. In ancient times the fable is found only in Greek sources and concerns a crow in search of food that finds a snake asleep in the sun. But when the crow seizes her, the snake kills it with her sting."
"develops from a liberal, superficial outlook on life, including youthful romantical conflicts, through years of reflection and asketic devotion to duty towards a more mature standpoint, hinting at the author's own course of life. ""Das heiligste Tier"" (1919, i.e. ""The holiest animal"") was Gjellerup's last work. Having elements of self-parody, it is regarded as his only attempt at humour. It is a peculiar mythological satire in which animals arrive at their own Elysium after death. These include the snake that killed Cleopatra, Odysseus' dog Argos, Wisvamitra (the holy cow of India), the donkey of Jesus and the horses of various"
"but Ventidius refuses and kills himself. With Ventidius dead, Antony then tried and failed to commit suicide. Cleopatra then comes in and sees Antony, still living, but on the verge of death. Antony dies. Cleopatra then kills herself. Serapion delivers their eulogy and his death by a biting of snake. All for Love (play) All for Love or, the World Well Lost, is a heroic drama by John Dryden written in 1677. Today, it is Dryden's best-known and most performed play. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an attempt on Dryden's part to reinvigorate serious drama."