Herodotus 3.15.4 - death by bull's blood

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Paul Derouda
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Herodotus 3.15.4 - death by bull's blood

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Νῦν δὲ μηχανώμενος κακὰ ὁ Ψαμμήνιτος ἔλαβε τὸν μισθόν· ἀπιστὰς γὰρ Αἰγυπτίους ἥλω· ἐπείτε δὲ ἐπάιστος ἐγένετο ὑπὸ Καμβύσεω, αἷμα ταύρου πιὼν ἀπέθανε παραχρῆμα. Οὕτω δὴ οὗτος ἐτελεύτησε.
"In this case, Psammenitos got his reward for devising evil, for he was caught tempting Egyptians to rebel. As soon as he was discovered by Cambyses, he drank bull's blood and died immediately. That's how he died."

Recently, I went through a pile of old Finnish medical journals. One of them has a "Columna latina", which is a regularly appearing column about the ancient world (both Latin and Greek, despite the name). There's rarely anything interesting there, but one article caught my attention and brought to my mind this passage in Herodotus. It suggested that the reason why bull's blood was used as a deadly poison in antiquity to kill e.g. Midas (the article had some other passage in mind than this) was because after a specific treatment, it would cause botulism. No source was sited, but it looked plausible to me: the blood is kept for some time in sheep's intestine, which contains anaerobic bacteria, including clostridium botulinum. This bacterium produces botulinum toxin, which is the most potent toxin known to mankind. Very small doses are sufficient to paralyse muscles, including muscles of breathing. (The toxin is also used medicinally in very tiny doses in injected drugs like Botox).

The commentaries are not much help here, they all basically repeat the idea that there was some sort of irrational belief that bull's blood was poisonous. To me, this looks too specific and widespread to be just a superstition. Although I'm not a microbiologist, the suggested procedure would be just the sort of situation where clostridium botulinum would thrive; the real question is whether it produces the toxin consistently enough. If there's a 10 % chance, it's enough to prevent any sane person from willingly consuming it, but it wouldn't be enough to make it an efficient poison.

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Re: Herodotus 3.15.4 - death by bull's blood

Post by Bart »

I don't know. The procedure you mention -if at all feasible with guarenteed consistency in non-labaratory conditions- would presumably work with the blood of any kind of mammal. So the question remains why specifically bull's blood is used. Since there's no conceivable rational answer to this (not one I can think of anyway), it does suggest some form of superstition to me.
Last edited by Bart on Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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jeidsath
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Re: Herodotus 3.15.4 - death by bull's blood

Post by jeidsath »

Pliny said that nitrum was a cure. And the reason that we cure meat with salt is to kill Clostridium botulinum. Perhaps Pliny's statement was what gave the columna latina author the idea.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ote-link32

Various sources suggest that bull's blood was thought to be a poison because of how fast it congealed. If there were some easy botulism preparation, it's possible that the fast congealment would have been confused with the actual means of action, and created the reputation of bull's blood.

Would adding dung to the mixture have increased the chance of botulism?
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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