CLASSICAL CORNER

254: ASP-ERGER’S SYNDROME

OCTAVIUS: If they had swallowed poison, ‘twould appear

By external swelling…

DOLABELLA: Here, on her breast, There is a vent of blood and something blown:

The like is on her arm.

FIRST GUARD: This is an aspic’s trail: and these figleaves

Have slime upon them…

(Shakespeare, Antony & Cleopatra V. ii. 343-52)

At frequent intervals, newspapers carry the latest claim by Professor X or Herpetologist Y that Cleopatra did not die by snakebite, sempiternally headlined as a sensational new discovery. Nonsense. The manner of Cleopatra’s death was immediately