Vox Populi 2023

Cleopatra
Parth, Second Form
My symposium was done on Cleopatra’s
supposed suicide, and whether she did
kill herself be getting her maids to sneak
in a fig basket with a snake in. After all
Octavian, being a typical Roman emperor,
was a twisted psychopath, and if he did
want to kill Cleopatra, he’d tell everyone
it was suicide.
After all, the snake that killed her was
called an aspis, which, depending on the
language, could mean a Saharan Sand
Viper, or an Egyptian Cobra – the first has
weak venom that can’t kill you, and the
second is too big to be smuggled in in a fig
basket, and the venom is only discharged
50% of the time, and the maids committed
suicide after Cleopatra (Or did they –
maybe they were killed as witnesses)
Talking about the fig basket – the biggest
Egyptian baskets were not big enough to
hold a snake. Trust me, I spent a full hour
on the Le Louvre website trying to search
up basket before realising it was a French
website, and then I searched up French for
basket, and all it gave me was the wrong
thing. French for basket was panier!
The Psylli were a tribe – now extinct – of
nomads. The Romans claimed they can
heal snakebites. That sounds plausible,
right? The Romans also claimed they
were immune to poison. Okay, maybe it
could be true? They had no females. Still
slightly plausible? They also went extinct
600 years before Octavian lived.
Whether the Psylli existed or not, Octavian
said he marched in with the Psylli just
after Cleopatra committed suicide –
even though it would take 4-5 days to
take them there, even on horseback! Did
he know Cleopatra was going to die of
poison.
The snake was never found in the room.
Also, how did the maids catch the asp?
One major thing to consider is that
the same way we have biases around
countries, the Romans thought that Egypt
was full of snakes, the same way we
think all Italians eat pizzas (pizza is made
mainly for tourists).
Also, Egyptians think there is only
one way to commit suicide without
having yourself being eaten by Ammit
the Devourer – to jump into the river
Nile (which would turn you immortal).
Romans, however, thought that suicide
was a Roman way of death, so it would
make sense to Octavian that Cleopatra
would commit suicide, but not to the
Egyptians!
Gladiators
Will, Third Form
On the 16th of January, St Albans School
was visited by author Ben Kane. One
particularly interesting part of the
workshop was the Roman Gladiator
Fact or Myth Section where Ben Kane
myth busted common myths regarding
gladiators.
Some surprising myths came up like the
fact that all gladiators did not fight to
the death. This rattled our perception of
gladiatorial fights.
We were also informed of the fact that
gladiators were not terribly muscular.
Many TV shows and movies portray
gladiators to be muscular and fit but
Opposite: The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra - Sir
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Below: Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant - Jean Léon Gérôme
scientific evidence proves this to be false.
Ben Kane explained to us that muscular
people who got injured are more likely
to be unable to fight since their skin is
thin. More obese people could get cut
and since their skin is thick they would
not be properly injured. This led to the
conclusion that more obese people could
survive longer in gladiatorial games. This
was fascinating to understand. Ben Kane
showed us the bridge between history
and science.
Modern artwork does not accurately
depict the true nature of gladiatorial
games. One painting that the author
showed us described a naval battle taking
place in an arena. We were showed by
Ben Kane that this is actually wrong. He
explained that arenas could not hold that
much water and that many ships due to
its size.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and
hope to have many more.
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