392 CERASTES. 



the gentlest method to free themselves from the 

 load of life now become insupportable. This, 

 however, has not always been the case with the 

 ancients. Arria, Foetus's wife, stabbed herself 

 with a dagger, to set her husband an example to 

 die, with this memorable assurance, after giving 

 herself the blow, Poet us, if is not painful ! Porcia, 

 the wife of Brutus, died by the barbarous, and not 

 obvious way of perishing, by swallowing fire ; the 

 violent agitation of spirits prevailing over the mo- 

 mentary difference in the suffering. It is not to 

 be doubted but that a woman, high-spirited like 

 Cleopatra, was also above the momentary differ- 

 ences in feeling; and had the way in which she 

 died not been ordinary and usual, she certainly 

 would not have applied herself to the invention of 

 a new one. We are therefore to look upon her 

 dying by the bite of the Cerastes as only follow- 

 ing the manner of death which she had seen 

 adopted by those who intended to die without 

 torment. Galen, speaking of the Aspic in the 

 great city of Alexandria, says, I have seen how 

 speedily they (the Aspics) occasioned death. 

 Whenever any person is condemned to die whom 

 they wish to end quickly and without torment, 

 they put the viper to his breast, and suffering 

 him there to creep a little, the man is presently 

 killed. Pausanias speaks of particular serpents 

 that were to be found in Arabia, among the bal- 

 sam-trees, several of which I procured, both alive 

 and dead, when I brought the tree from Bedcr 

 Huneiii ; but they were still the same species of 



