(Blood graphic and bull statue, both Public Domain via Pixabay)
Despite bull’s blood not
being innately poisonous—unless laden with bacteria or disease—stories of death
by bull’s blood, surprisingly, recurred in ancient sources more than you may
initially think. This bloody method of ancient suicide continues to baffle
historians to this day. Some believe “bull’s blood” may have been a nickname
for another poisonous substance. Others propose that the ancients believed the
quick coagulation and clotting of bull’s blood would be deadly if ingested
while fresh. Perhaps, it was a choking hazard, or the quick thickening of the
blood could damage a person’s innards. Still, other historians argue that the
whole bull’s blood idea was simply a legend that storytellers loved to repeat
because of its immense shock-value and vivid imagery—coagulating, metallic-smelling,
warm blood and all that…
Nevertheless, a slew of
ancient sources seemed to believe the idea that bull’s blood was deadly. Among
these were Pliny, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Plutarch and Diodorus. Two stories
come to mind about historical figures dying by bull’s blood. One is the
Athenian statesman and military leader, Themistocles—many of the aforementioned
sources claimed he committed suicide by drinking the blood of a bull after he
was exiled from Greece. The other historical figure is Psamtik III of Egypt,
who, according to Herodotus, also killed himself by drinking bull’s blood some
time after Egypt fell to Cambyses II of Persia, near the end of the 6th century
BCE.
Modern commentators, however,
all seem to agree that bull’s blood would have been largely useless and
ineffective as a poison. Yet, the bizarre idea of death by ingesting bull’s
blood continues to fill our imaginations with odd and grotesque mental imagery,
just as it must have for the many ancient sources that kept the peculiar legend
alive.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
- The Histories by Herodotus, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt and revised by John Marincola. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Psamtik-III
- http://www.ancient.eu/Themistocles/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cambyses-II
- http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/CP/27/2/Poisoning*.html
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/643228?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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