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List of unusual deaths in antiquity

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Lists of unusual deaths
Antiquity
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Animal deaths

This list of unusual deaths includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout ancient history, noted as being unusual by multiple sources.

Antiquity

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Many of these stories are likely to be apocryphal.
Name of person Image Date of death Details
Sisera
 
 1200 or 1235 BC According to Judges 4–5, the commander of the Canaanite army for King Jabin of Hazor was killed in his sleep when the Kenite woman Jael stabbed him in the temple with a tent peg.[2][3]
Abimelech Ben Gideon
 
 1126 BC According to Judges 9, the king of Shechem and son of Gideon was killed in the city of Thebez by a woman who threw a millstone on his head which crushed his skull or mortally wounded him.[3][4]
Draco of Athens
 
 c. 620 BC The Athenian lawmaker was reportedly smothered to death by gifts of cloaks and hats showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre in Aegina, Greece.[5][6][7]
Duke Jing of Jin 581 BC The Chinese ruler was warned by a shaman that he would not live to see the new wheat harvest, to which he responded by executing the shaman. However, when the duke was about to eat the wheat, he felt the need to visit the bathroom, where he fell through the hole and drowned.[6][8]
Arrhichion of Phigalia
 
 564 BC The Greek pankratiast caused his own death during the Olympic finals. Held by his unidentified opponent in a stranglehold and unable to free himself, Arrhichion kicked his opponent, causing him so much pain from a foot/ankle injury that the opponent made the sign of defeat to the umpires, but at the same time Arrhichion suffered a fatally broken neck. Since the opponent had conceded defeat, Arrhichion was proclaimed the victor posthumously.[9][10]
Sisamnes
 
 525 BC The corrupt Persian judge was killed and flayed alive by Cambyses II for accepting a bribe.[11][12]
Milo of Croton
 
 6th century BC The Olympic champion wrestler's hands reportedly became trapped when he tried to split a tree apart; he was then devoured by wolves (or, in later versions, lions).[13][14][15]
Zeuxis
 
 5th century BC The Greek painter died of laughter while painting an elderly woman.[7][16]: 105 
Anacreon
 
 c. 485 BC The poet, known for works in celebration of wine, choked to death on a grape stone according to Pliny the Elder.[13][14][16]: 104  The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica suggests that "the story has an air of mythical adaptation to the poet's habits".[17]
Heraclitus of Ephesus
 
 c. 475 BC According to one account given by Diogenes Laertius, the Greek philosopher was said to have been devoured by dogs after smearing himself with cow manure in an attempt to cure his dropsy.[14][18]
Aeschylus
 
 c. 455 BC According to Valerius Maximus, the eldest of the three great Athenian tragedians was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle that had mistaken his bald head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avert a prophecy that he would be killed that day "by the fall of a house".[13][16]: 104 [19][20][21][22][23]
Empedocles of Akragas
 
 c. 430 BC According to Diogenes Laertius, the Pre-Socratic philosopher from Sicily, who, in one of his surviving poems, declared himself to have become a "divine being... no longer mortal",[24] tried to prove he was an immortal god by leaping into Mount Etna, an active volcano.[25][26] The Roman poet Horace also alludes to this legend.[27]
Sogdianus 423 BC The ruler of the Achaemenid Empire was captured by his half-brother Ochus, who had him executed by being suffocated by ash.[6][28]
Polydamas of Skotoussa
 
 5th century BC The Thessalian pankratiast, and victor in the 93rd Olympiad (408 BC), was in a cave with friends when the roof began to crumble. Believing his immense strength could prevent the cave-in, he tried to support the roof with his shoulders as the rocks crashed down around him, but was crushed to death.[13][14]
Sophocles
 
 c. 406 BC A number of "remarkable" legends concerning the death of another of the three great Athenian tragedians are recorded in the late antique Life of Sophocles. According to one legend, he choked to death on an unripe grape.[21] Another says that he died of joy after hearing that his last play had been successful.[13][21] A third account reports that he died of suffocation, after reading aloud a lengthy monologue from the end of his play Antigone, without pausing to take a breath for punctuation.[21]
Mithridates 401 BC The Persian soldier who embarrassed his king, Artaxerxes II, by boasting of killing his rival, Cyrus the Younger (who was the brother of Artaxerxes II), was executed by scaphism. The king's physician, Ctesias, reported that Mithridates survived the insect torture for 17 days.[29][30]
Anaxarchus
 
 320 BC According to Diogenes Laertius, Anaxarchus gained the enmity of the tyrannical ruler of Cyprus, Nicocreon, for an inappropriate joke he made about tyrants at a banquet in 331 BC. When Anaxarchus visited Cyprus, Nicocreon ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar. During the torture Anaxarchus said to Nicocreon, "Just pound the bag of Anaxarchus, you do not pound Anaxarchus." Nicocreon then threatened to cut his tongue out; Anaxarchus bit it off and spat it at the ruler's face.[31][32]
Antiphanes c. 310 BC According to the Suda, the renowned comic poet of the Middle Attic comedy died after being struck by a pear.[7][33]
King Wu of Qin 307 BC The king and member of the Qin dynasty reportedly challenged his friend Meng Yue to a lifting contest. When Wu tried to lift a giant bronze pot believed to have been cast for Yu the Great, it crushed his leg, inflicting fatal injuries. Meng Yue and his family were sentenced to death.[6][8]
Agathocles of Syracuse
 
 289 BC The Greek tyrant of Syracuse was murdered with a poisoned toothpick.[7][16]: 104 
Pyrrhus of Epirus
 
 272 BC During the Battle of Argos, Pyrrhus was fighting a Macedonian soldier in the street when the elderly mother of the soldier dropped a roof tile onto Pyrrhus' head, breaking his spine and rendering him paralyzed. According to a soldier named Zopyrus, they then proceeded to decapitate the king.[34][35][36]
Zeno of Citium
 
 c. 262 BC The Greek philosopher from Citium, Cyprus, tripped and fell as he was leaving the school, breaking his toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe, "I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?" He died on the spot through holding his breath.[37][38]
Qin Shi Huang
 
 August 210 BC The first emperor of China, whose artifacts and treasures include the Terracotta Army, died after ingesting several pills of mercury, in the belief that it would grant him immortality.[23][39][40]
Chrysippus of Soli
 
 c. 206 BC One ancient account of the death of the third-century BC Greek Stoic philosopher tells that he died laughing at his own joke[41] after he saw a donkey eating his figs; he told a slave to give the donkey neat wine to drink with which to wash them down, and then, "...having laughed too much, he died" (Diogenes Laërtius 7.185).[22][23][42][note 1]
Eleazar Avaran
 
 c. 163 BC The brother of Judas Maccabeus; according to 1 Maccabees 6:46, during the Battle of Beth Zechariah, Eleazar spied an armored war elephant which he believed to be carrying the Seleucid emperor Antiochus V Eupator. After thrusting his spear in battle into its belly, it collapsed and fell on top of Eleazar, killing him instantly.[22][43][unreliable source?]
Quintus Lutatius Catulus 87 BC After his former comrade-in-arms Gaius Marius took control of Rome and had him prosecuted for a capital offence, the Roman Republic consul shut himself inside his house, which was heated to a high temperature and daubed with lime, thus suffocating himself.[13][44]
Cleopatra, Iras, and Charmion
 
 August 30 BC Although there exist several accounts of how the 39-year-old last queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom died, the most widespread one is that she killed herself with an asp (a viper), alongside two of her handmaidens.[6][45]
Tiberius Claudius Drusus
 
 c. 20 AD According to Suetonius, the eldest son of the future Roman emperor Claudius died while playing with a pear. Having tossed the pear high in the air, he caught it in his mouth when it came back, but he choked on it, dying of asphyxia.[14][46]
Saint Peter
 
 64–68 AD When Nero ordered his execution, the apostle of Jesus requested to be crucified upside down, as he considered himself unworthy to die in the same way Jesus had.[47][48][49][unreliable source?]
Cassian of Imola
 
 13 August 363 The pious schoolteacher was sentenced to death by Julian the Apostate and was handed over to his pupils to carry out the deed, which they did by binding him to a stake and stabbing him with their pens.[50][51]
Valentinian I
 
 17 November 375 The Roman emperor suffered a stroke which was provoked by yelling at foreign envoys in anger.[6][52]
Attila
 
 c. 453 Attila the Hun reportedly died on his wedding night by choking on his own blood, which flowed into his mouth from a nosebleed.[14][53]

Notes

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  1. ^ Valerius Maximus tells the same story about the death of the Athenian poet and playwright Philemon (d. c. 262 BC).[13]

References

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  1. ^ Hoff, Ursula (1937). "Meditation in Solitude". Journal of the Warburg Institute. 1 (44): 292–294. doi:10.2307/749994. ISSN 0959-2024. JSTOR 749994. S2CID 192234608.
  2. ^ Halpern, Baruch (October 1983). "The Resourceful Israelite Historian: The Song of Deborah and Israelite Historiography". Harvard Theological Review. 76 (4): 379–401. doi:10.1017/S0017816000014115. JSTOR 1509543. The bizarre killing in 4:21 is actually (perhaps only) explicable on the supposition that the historian misunderstood 5:26 to refer to two different hands and two different instruments.
  3. ^ a b "The Ten: Most unusual biblical deaths". Adventist Record. 25 February 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
  4. ^ Irwin, Brian P. (2012). "Not Just Any King: Abimelech, the Northern Monarchy, and the Final Form of Judges". Journal of Biblical Literature. 131 (3): 443–454. doi:10.2307/23488248. hdl:1807/77554. JSTOR 23488248. An additional connection between the Abimelech narrative and the early northern monarchy may be present also in the story of Abimelech's unusual and violent death in Thebez.
  5. ^ Felton, Bruce; Fowler, Mark (1985). "Most Unusual Death". Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst, and Most Unusual. Random House. pp. 174–175. ISBN 978-0-517-46297-3 – via Internet Archive.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Brigden, James. "8 strangest deaths of history's ancient rulers". Sky HISTORY. Hearst Networks UK. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
  7. ^ a b c d "Αυτοί είναι οι 11 πιο απίθανοι και άδοξοι θάνατοι στην ιστορία" [These are the 11 most unlikely and inglorious deaths in history]. In.gr (in Greek). 30 November 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  8. ^ a b Jiahui, Sun (1 December 2021). "The Strangest Deaths of Ancient Chinese Rulers". Ancient History. The World of Chinese. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  9. ^ Gardiner, EN (1906). "The Journal of Hellenic Studies". Nature. 124 (3117): 121. Bibcode:1929Natur.124..121.. doi:10.1038/124121a0. S2CID 4090345. Fatal accidents did occur as in the case of Arrhichion, but they were very rare...
  10. ^ Matlock, Brett; Matlock, Jesse (2011). The Salt Lake Loonie. Illustrated by Dwight Allott. University of Regina Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-88977-239-7. In one bizarre Olympic competition, a dead athlete named Arrhichion was actually declared the winner.
  11. ^ Maximus, Valerius (1678) [c. 30 AD]. "Book VI, Chapter III; Of Severity". Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri IX. Translated by Speed, Samuel. London. Retrieved 26 September 2024 – via Attalus.org. But the severity of Cambyses was more extraordinary, who caused the skin of a certain corrupt judge to be flayed from his body, and nailed upon the seat, where he commanded the man's son to take his place. However by this savage and unusual punishment of a judge, he – a king and a barbarian – ensured that no judge in future could be corrupted.
  12. ^ "Gruesome, bizarre, and some unsolved: 44 of the most unusual deaths from history". Weird. mru.ink. 30 September 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Maximus, Valerius (1678) [c. 30 AD]. "Book IX, Chapter XII; Of Unusual Deaths". Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri IX. Translated by Speed, Samuel. London. Retrieved 5 September 2024 – via Attalus.org. But not to digress any further, let us mention those who have perished by unusual deaths.
  14. ^ a b c d e f Wanley, Nathaniel; Johnston, William (1806). "Chapter XXVIII: Of the different and unusual Ways by which some Men have come to their Deaths § 7". The Wonders of the Little World; Or, A General History of Man: Displaying the Various Faculties, Capacities, Powers and Defects of the Human Body and Mind, in Many Thousand Most Interesting Relations of Persons Remarkable for Bodily Perfections or Defects; Collected from the Writings of the Most Approved Historians, Philosophers, and Physicians, of All Ages and Countries – Book I: Which treats of the Perfections, Powers, Capacities, Defects, Imperfections, and Deformities of the Body of Man. Vol. 1 (A new ed.). London. pp. 110–117. ASIN B001F3H1XA. LCCN 07003035. OCLC 847968918. OL 7188480M. Retrieved 23 July 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  15. ^ Copeland, Cody (10 February 2021). "The Bizarre Death Of Milo Of Croton". Grunge.com. Retrieved 3 January 2022. Milo of Croton's death was bizarre, but fitting
  16. ^ a b c d Marvin, Frederic Rowland (1900). The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women. Troy, New York: C. A. Brewster & Co. Retrieved 20 November 2024 – via Google Books. To some of the most distinguished of our race death has come in the strangest possible way, and so grotesquely as to subtract greatly from the dignity of the sorrow it must certainly have occasioned.
  17. ^   One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Anacreon". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 906–907.
  18. ^ "Heraclitus of Ephesus". Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World. 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2024. This unusual way of dying was perhaps thought up to reflect Heraclitus' peculiar personality.
  19. ^ Pliny the Elder. "chapter 3". Naturalis Historiæ. Vol. Book X.
  20. ^ La tortue d'Eschyle et autres morts stupides de l'Histoire [Aeschylus' tortoise and other stupid deaths in history] (in French). Editions Les Arènes. 2012. ISBN 978-2352042211.
  21. ^ a b c d McKeown, J. C. (2013). A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 136–137. ISBN 978-0-19-998210-3 – via Google Books.
  22. ^ a b c Elhassan, Khalid (4 July 2018). "10 Historical Deaths Weirder Than the Movies". History Collection. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
  23. ^ a b c Steve (7 August 2019). "20 Unusual Deaths from the History Books". History Collection. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
  24. ^ Gregory, Andrew (2013). The Presocratics and the Supernatural: Magic, Philosophy and Science in Early Greece. New York City, New York and London, England: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-4725-0416-6 – via Google Books.
  25. ^ Grau, Sergei (January 2010). "How to Kill a Philosopher: The Narrating of Ancient Greek Philosophers' Deaths in Relation to their Way of Living" (PDF). Ancient Philosophy. 30 (2): 347–381. doi:10.5840/ancientphil201030233. Up to this point, then, I have analysed a series of suicides that could be considered to be special, in so far as they respond to very peculiar motives.
  26. ^ Meyer, T. H. (2016). Barefoot Through Burning Lava: On Sicily, the Island of Cain – An Esoteric Travelogue. Temple Lodge Publishing. ISBN 978-1906999940. Retrieved 11 September 2017 – via Google Books.
  27. ^ Horace. Ars Poetica. pp. 465–466 – via Perseus Digital Library.
  28. ^ Almagor, Eran (1 August 2018), "Ctesias (b)", Plutarch and the Persica, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 73–133, doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748645558.003.0003, ISBN 978-0-7486-4555-8, retrieved 3 August 2024
  29. ^ Frater, Jamie (2010). "10 truly bizarre deaths". Listverse.Com's Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists. Ulysses Press. pp. 12–14. ISBN 978-1-56975-817-5 – via Internet Archive.
  30. ^ McKeown, J. C. (2013). A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization. Oxford University Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-19-998212-7. Retrieved 18 October 2024 – via Google Books.
  31. ^ "Preface", Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Cambridge University Press, pp. ix–xii, 9 May 2013, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511843440.001, ISBN 978-0-521-88681-9, retrieved 6 July 2024
  32. ^ Fearn, Nicholas (13 July 2008). "The Book of Dead Philosophers, By Simon Critchley". Reviews. The Independent. Retrieved 18 October 2024. Nevertheless, great thinkers seem to have suffered inordinately from bizarre or ironic deaths.
  33. ^ Baldi, Dino (2010). Morti favolose degli antichi [Fabulous deaths of the ancients] (in Italian). Macerata: Quodlibet. p. 50. ISBN 978-8874623372.
  34. ^ Cartwright, Mark (15 March 2016). "Pyrrhus". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18 October 2024. ...Pyrrhus was killed in a bizarre incident in the city of Argos...
  35. ^ Chrystal, Paul (2019). Reportage from Ancient Greece and Rome. Stroud: Fonthill Media. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-78155-718-1. Retrieved 27 September 2024 – via Google Books. Plutarch reports on the unusual, almost comic, death of Pyrrhus in 272 BCE...
  36. ^ Levene, D.S., ed. (2024). Livy: the Fragments and Periochae. Vol. II. Oxford University Press. p. 300. ISBN 978-0-19-287123-7. Retrieved 27 September 2024 – via Google Books. It is not implausible in itself—when an enemy army was inside a city or close to the walls, it was not uncommon for women to participate in the city's defense by hurling down roof tiles or other missiles—but this is an unique instance of its bringing down an enemy commander.
  37. ^ Grau, Sergei (January 2010). "How to Kill a Philosopher: The Narrating of Ancient Greek Philosophers' Deaths in Relation to their Way of Living" (PDF). Ancient Philosophy. 30 (2): 347–381. doi:10.5840/ancientphil201030233. Retrieved 18 October 2024. It is not clear whether Zeno died as a result of holding his breath, meaning he committed suicide, or whether he simply died when he ran out of breath... In any case, it is a rather ridiculous death...
  38. ^ Kokkinidis, Tasos (29 March 2024). "The Bizarre Case of the Ancient Greek Philosopher who Died of Laughter". Greek News. Greek Reporter. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
  39. ^ Wright, David Curtis (2001). The History of China. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-313-30940-3 – via Internet Archive.
  40. ^ Hopper, Nate (4 February 2013). "Royalty and their Strange Deaths". Esquire. Archived from the original on 19 November 2013.
  41. ^ "This Greek Philosopher Died Laughing At His Own Joke". Culture Trip. 18 March 2018. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
  42. ^ Laertius, Diogenes (1965). Lives, Teachings and Sayings of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Hicks, R.D. Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Harvard University Press/W. Heinemann Ltd.
  43. ^ "The Funniest And Weirdest Ways People Have Actually Died". visual.ly. Archived from the original on 30 April 2017.
  44. ^ Diodorus Siculus. "Book 37". Bibliotheca historica. Retrieved 5 September 2024 – via Attalus.org. He killed himself in a strange and unusual way; for he shut himself up in a newly plastered house, and caused a fire to be kindled, by the smoke of which, and the moist vapours from the lime, he was there stifled to death.
  45. ^ Tronson, Adrian (1998). "Vergil, the Augustans, and the Invention of Cleopatra's Suicide—One Asp or Two?". Vergilius. 44: 31–50. JSTOR 41587181. For other testimony to the bizarre practice of seeking death by snake-bite, see the sources cited in note 17 above.
  46. ^ Suetonius Tranquillus, Gaius. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
  47. ^ Elliott, J.K., ed. (1996). The Apocryphal Jesus: Legends of the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-19-826384-5. Retrieved 27 September 2024 – via Internet Archive. The inverse crucifixion is an unusual feature, but the preceding speech by the apostle is typical.
  48. ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (2006). Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-19-530013-0. Retrieved 27 September 2024 – via Internet Archive. According to this tradition Peter's death came by crucifixion, and in a rather bizarre manner: he had been crucified upside down, with his head to the ground.
  49. ^ Cossetta, Erin (12 April 2021). "Here's What An Upside Down Cross Really Means". Thought Catalog. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  50. ^ van Braght, Thieleman J. (1886) [Dutch original published in 1660]. The Bloody Theatre, or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians. Translated by Sohm, Joseph F. Elkhart: Mennonite Publishing Company – via Project Gutenberg. [Cassian] was also examined concerning his faith, and as he would not abandon it, or sacrifice to the gods, the Judges sentenced him to a very unusual death...
  51. ^ Tompkins, Ian (3 July 1994). "Review of: Roberts, Prudentius' Peristephanon". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Retrieved 28 September 2024. The most common methods of execution in the Peristephanon are with the sword or by burning, although a number, such as Quirinus who is drowned and Cassian who is stabbed by his pupils' pens, undergo more unusual fates.
  52. ^ Lenski, Noel (2014). Failure of Empire. University of California Press. p. 142.
  53. ^ "10 Historical Figures Who Died Unusual Deaths". Medieval. History Hit. 14 July 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2024.

Works cited

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