Has a food taster ever thwarted an assassination attempt?
Upvote:1
In general, awareness of the taster is likely to preclude the planning of an assassination in which a person would be poisoned through food.
One example of a food taster ‘doing his job’ may be seen in the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Although the two are arguably one of ancient history’s best-known lovers, it looks like they seemed to have distrusted each other. According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, during the time leading up to the fateful Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Mark Antony distrusted Cleopatra and was worried that she would poison him when she no longer had any use for him,and because of thathe had a food taster on hand all the time.
Pliny says that Cleopatra found this amusing, and decided to entertain herself at his expense. Therefore, at a banquet, she wore a circlet of flowers, of which their extremities were dipped in poison, on her head. As the party progresses, Cleopatra challenged Mark to swallow the flowers by mixing them with wine. Antony could not refuse the challenge, and nearly drank the poisoned wine when the queen herself stopped him. She then summoned his food taster, who, needless to say, dropped dead after drinking the wine. Thus, Cleopatra demonstrated to Mark Antony that the best precaution he had against being poisoned was to trust her. And that she was ruthless for letting a taster die knowing it was poisonous. A Deadly Bite: The Plight of the Ancient Food Taster
More post
- 📝 How did Nansen plan to get home from the Fram expedition?
- 📝 Why was the Roman Empire considered an empire rather than a kingdom (again)?
- 📝 Women in the Iranian revolution
- 📝 What percentage of the population in the "Old West" actually carried handguns?
- 📝 Is it true that Hitler led to the invention of the atomic bomb by the Americans?
- 📝 Are there non-Biblical references to collecting foreskins?
- 📝 What was the custom/consensus regarding irregular combatants 19th century?
- 📝 Who were the first "businessmen" to rival the kings throughout the world?
- 📝 Were Moses & Abraham historical figures?
- 📝 Did Napoleon ever visit Modern Israel?
- 📝 Why did so many rulers want to aquire more land?
- 📝 Can anyone render this passage from Lorenzo Valla's original Latin translation of Herodotus into modern text?
- 📝 Is there any footage and/or photos of Germans surrendering towns and cities in the Western Front?
- 📝 Did Serbian businessman Tadija Sondermayer serve in French Air Force Escadrille 3 during WW1?
- 📝 Why didn’t Britain use its vast navy to get past trench warfare?
- 📝 Who would have been worshipped as the god of engineering in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 What household servants would a Tudor gentleman have had?
- 📝 Do we know what the Watergate burglars were after?
- 📝 How did gold come to symbolize lower ranks than silver in the United States Air Force?
- 📝 Why were Sri Lanka and Myanmar separated from India under the British Empire?
- 📝 How was life in the Iron Age different from life in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 How did the maximum strengths of alcoholic beverages in Western Europe increase from wine which Romans watered to 80 proof to absinthe?
- 📝 What is/was the correct pronunciation of Byzantine?
- 📝 Was the Dargah Shrine at Ajmer built over a Hindu temple?
- 📝 Were there any well known royal dynasties that did not in some way cite religious mandate for their rule?
- 📝 What were the EMP effects, if any, of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 What universities existed in Dutch East Indies, and how available were they to the native population?
- 📝 Looking for a particular documentary about the history of long distance communication
- 📝 What are the historical equivalents of cooperative storytelling like modern role-playing games?
- 📝 What was the price of basic foodstuff in 1930 Poland?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Has a food taster ever thwarted an assassination attempt?
- 📝 Has there ever been any assassination so that another assassination could happen during the first one's funeral?
- 📝 Has a sovereign Communist government ever run, and conceded loss, on a fair election?
- 📝 Has there ever been a truly multi-sided war?
- 📝 Has an individual ever purchased an entire country?
- 📝 Has there ever been a non-rectangular banknote?
- 📝 Has there ever been a case when a traitorous military commander took command again for the side he betrayed?
- 📝 Has a state ever "attacked" another one by printing fake money?
- 📝 Has NATO ever started a war?
- 📝 Has anyone ever named a war after their own country or faction?
- 📝 Has there ever been an instance of an active nuclear power plant within or near a war zone?
- 📝 Has there ever been a cold war other than between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.?
- 📝 Has the United States ever had a non-Christian President?
- 📝 Has any country ever diverted an international flight in order to arrest a wanted person?
- 📝 Has an heir ever made the country believe the current ruler died in order to take over the throne?
- 📝 Has there ever been a peaceful overthrow of a dictator or monarch?
- 📝 Has there ever been a battle with only a single survivor?
- 📝 Has there been a naval battle where a boarding attempt backfired?
- 📝 Has there ever been a major migration from the New World to the Old World? If not, why?
- 📝 Has any country ever had 2 former presidents in jail simultaneously?
- 📝 Has women's suffrage ever decided an election?
- 📝 Has there ever been anything like the oil boom we see today?
- 📝 Was there an assassination attempt against Xerxes in the battle of Thermopylae?
- 📝 Has there ever been a true kidnapped princess from anywhere in the world?
- 📝 Has there ever been an archbishop or bishop younger than the 16-year-old James of Nicosia?
- 📝 Has chattel slavery ever been used as a criminal punishment in the USA since the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment?
- 📝 Has mercantilism ever been successful?
- 📝 Has there ever been a serious effort to reform the US Electoral College system?
- 📝 Has there ever been a truly bilingual country prior to the contemporary period?
- 📝 Before 1980, was there ever an attempt to evangelise for Orthodox Christianity?