Asp (reptile)

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Asp is the modern Anglicisation of the word Aspis, which in Antiquity referred to any one of several venomous snake species found in the Nile region^{[citation needed]}. It is believed that the Aspis referred to in Egyptian mythology is the modern Egyptian cobra^{[citation needed]}.

Throughout dynastic and Roman Egypt, the Asp was a symbol of royalty^{[citation needed]}. Moreover, in both Egypt and Greece, its potent venom made it useful as a means of execution for criminals who were thought deserving of a more dignified death than that of typical executions^{[citation needed]}.

According to Plutarch (quoted by Ussher), Cleopatra tested various deadly poisons on condemned persons and animals for daily entertainment and concluded that the bite of the 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 role in Cleopatra's suicide ^[1] (some^[who?] believe it to have been a horned viper, Cerastes cerastes), as immortalized by both history and legend:

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch.

—Cleopatra, Act V, scene II, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

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