mous mass of fruit pulp to a quantity which could be 
smeared on a feather (6). Even if he had succeeded in 
reducing the fruit pulp to a paste or powder, there would 
still have remained a considerable amount of solid mat- 
ter—certainly too much to besmear a feather with it. 
More than these technical obstacles, another fact 
argues against the possibility that colocynth could have 
been administered orally: its extraordinary bitterness. 
Although, for example in the prescriptions of Secribonius 
Largus, only comparatively small quantities of the fruit 
pulp of colocynth are used, the extreme bitterness of 
the ingredient is pointed out (cf. prescription 99). Aro- 
matics are added to mask the bitter taste of colocynth. 
For comparison: if we rate the denary weight at the 
time of Scribonius Largus at 3.4 grams (7), prescription 
99 contains about 7 grams of colocynth substance, pre- 
scription 106 about 85 grams. Nenophon would have 
had to administer 20 times or even 66 times as much. 
It seems most unlikely that Xenophon was able to ad- 
minister such an overdose of gall-bitter stuff orally with- 
out provoking noticeable disgust or even actual vomiting 
in Claudius, which in turn would have aroused more sus- 
picion, rendering the situation even more precarious and 
increasing the risk of failure. 
Also arguing against C. colocynthis is the fact that, 
according to Tacitus, Nenophon used a rapidly acting 
poison (“‘rapido veneno’’). By this, we commonly under- 
stand a poison which kills within minutes. So far as we 
can see from the literature, colocynth is not such a poison. 
It does not kill within minutes, nor even within hours. 
In fact, we could not find a single case in the sources 
proving beyond doubt that a person had ever died from 
colocynth poisoning. Even in cases of severe poisoning, 
symptoms drag on over a period of several days. Leschke 
reports the case of a young woman who tried to commit 
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