STRATEGO WITH SNAKES

■ Introduction
In De Volkskrant (Dutch newspaper) from 27 October 1998 I found the following news:
The Iraqi daily newspaper Babil accused Israel of placing crocodile eggs in two lakes in north Iraq. According to the paper Israel had already released a large amount of cobras in the vicinity from the Iraqi troops in the north. Etc.
If the news is true - on the Israeli side this is strongly denied - then the arch-enemy from Iraq is with the strategic use of venomous snakes in keeping with century's long traditions. The army's of old had after all (planned and not planned) bother with the herpetic fauna in war zones. In the following text is a selection of similar tactical initiatives and the consequences that these could have had for those involved.


■ Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (336-323 BC) had during his conquests through 'the Indian dessert' like in the regions mentioned in Jacob van Maerlants; Spieghel Historiael, lost many soldiers from the bite of a venomous snake, long before they had contact with the enemy. I'll paraphrase a Middle Dutch passage.
When Alexander reached a place where there was freshwater, he pitched a tent that was eight miles long and eight miles wide. He lit 1500 fires because animals are afraid of fire. There were nonetheless many scorpions, the cerastes that can afflict a more painful bite and many more serpents of many different colours attracted by this. The whole area was infested. There also came serpents with crests on their heads; some serpents had two, others had three heads, their eyes shining. Alexander ordered that they must be fought: his soldiers had to, protected by their shields, to go for the vermin with sharp spears and lances. In this battle Alexander lost thirty knights and just as many soldiers. (Maerlant, I, IV, XLV, 1-22).
These unexpected and unpleasant meetings with sometimes very strange serpents had for the rest very little influence on Alexander's advance and the final result of his conquest.


■ Marcus Atilius Regulus
The Roman general Marcus Atilius Regulus had also an unpleasant meeting with an unsuspected enemy. During the first Punic war (264-241 BC) on the way to an encounter with his archenemy Carthago, that was in the vicinity of present day Tunisia. At a certain moment his army came across the Bagradas river. And when his armed to the teeth soldiers tried to cross the river with their war-machines they disturbed a giant snake. The monster did not seem to want to let Regulus's army cross to the other river bank, because when the soldiers moved away from the monster to a place where they could wade through, the monster surfaced there. The first soldiers that entered the water, were grabbed by the beast and dragged mercilessly into the depths. Regulus finally saw no other option than to fight the animal in the same way that he would a human enemy: with his Baltic weapons. The large catapults were rolled forwards and loaded with heavy boulders. A real bombardment took place, and a sharp rock finally struck the beast between the eyes causing his end. Regulus had his enemy pulled out of the water. The snake turned out to be no less than 120 ft. ( ± 36 metre) long. It was skinned and its jawbones and skin were transported to Rome and displayed in a temple on the Capitol. The temple and trophy's were destroyed during the Numancian war (Shuker 1995, 26-29).


■ Cato
When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon on the night of the tenth of January 49 BC, he started a fifty year civil war, that would be with unexpected help to his advantage resolved. His opponent was Pompous, that was supported by Cato Minor. Cato had now among other things in Africa, operated mostly in what was then called 'Libya', and in the pep talk that he gave before a march he tried to stimulated his soldiers, and it turned out that it was not always the legionnaires from Caesar that had to be feared:
We march to the barren flats and the furnace of the world, where the warmth from the Sun is excessive and where there is rarely a source of water to be found and where the scorched fields were full of venomous snakes. (…) I will be the first to enter the desert and will set my foot first upon the hot sand; let the warmth from the air strike me and let the venomous snakes stand in my way. (…) Snakes, thirst, burning sand was welcomed by the brave.
Cato had got what he asked for in abundance. Carrying his own spear, he marched before his (gasping for air and water) soldiers, through the endless Libyan flats, under the scorching sun, and during the rest pauses being the last to take a drink. He drank just one time before his men could take a drop. This happened during a journey in an region that was bordering on the limit where man could survive. The water became scarcer when they finally found the last water spring….. 'but a mass of snakes had taken possession, almost too many to fit on the ground: red hot cobra's circled the spring and thirsty dipsades could be found in the spring'. It looked like Cato's men were as good as dead. He convinced them that the water was drinkable; by telling them that on one hand that the snakes are only deadly if they bite, and on the other hand by making the exception of drinking first from the water and not dying. Cato's men must have been reassured by this last gesture. And the snakes kept on threatening the army. Many soldiers were defeated by these venomous monsters and died a cruel death. The Roman reporter from the civil war, Lucanus, can say in his summing up, that the adders fought in the place of Caesar and won for him the war (Lucanus, 9,380-404; 9, 608-610). It seems that snakes could unintentionally help to win or lose a war.


■ Hannibal
In the previously described cases the meetings with the snakes were coincidences, but there are also known cases where the strategists made a conscious use of them to have the upper hand in a battle. For such a case we need to go back once again to the Old Classics. We end up then by the Carthaginian Hannibal, that had a chronic quarrel with Rome. Around 195 BC - Hannibal was then in service from Antiochus from Syria - this quarrel ended in a sea battle. Hannibal saw the chance to win, because he used clay pots, filled with venomous snakes, that he catapulted at the enemy's ships. Of course these pots broke on the decks of the ships spreading panic amongst the shackled oarsmen from the Roman warships and the tightly packed in soldiers, and not necessarily causing death and destruction.


■ Centuries later
Centuries later during one of the many crusades, it became clear after conquering a Saracens ship, that there were cages of snakes on board. They were obviously not pets and the suspicion arose amongst the crusaders that it was the intention to release these in the Christian camps. The 'Europeans' seemed to have learnt from this, because there have been records kept that there was in the 15th century, preparations made at the North French coast-town Calais, with the help from the same tactic: drums were filled to the brim with venomous snakes and other venomous animals, these would have been thrown over the towns defences to spread panic amongst the defenders. Morris supposed that this strategy was more of a psychological nature than of a physical nature (Morris 1965, 80).

Army's in the 20th century also had trouble with snakes in the war zones. For example during the Second World War, American soldiers were during a battle on the island of Okinawa and other islands in the area that were occupied with venomous snakes. These snakes, that had the native name habu - I could not find the Latin name yet - must have had many incidents to it's name. That these did not result in fatalities, was thanks to the good medical care of the victims.
The Vietnam war cost the Americans probably between the five and ten deaths per year, but these figures were never official published. There was also an assumption that the Vietcong laid living booby traps from venomous snakes along the paths and left them in the under ground bunkers, but it is not out of the question that these animals had found these places by themselves (Minton 1971, 117-122).


■ Executions and attacks
And of course venomous snakes can be used at a micro-level: for executions and murder attempts. There is the unusual roll played by a snake in the execution from a parricide (father killer). Together with the condemned parricide, there was an adder with a hen an ape and a dog sown up in a leather sack and left to the mercy of the waves (Van der Voort 1996, 134-136). It was in Egypt that a venomous snake was used to execute political prisoners. This was done with the help from Vipera lebetina. The haemotoxic venom from this animal caused after hours or days a most painful death (Zimniok 1984, 61).

Snakes are extraordinarily suited to intimidate. In the summers of 1964 and 1965 the reactionary's tried to intimidate those who propagated the civil rights in the state of Mississippi, by letting cottonmouthsand other reptiles lose in their cars. It is not known to me if there were any casualties. Glenn Summerford, a minister from a congregation of Serpent Handling Believers, attempted to get rid of his wife by forcing her to put her hand in a tub of rattle snakes. Sure enough she was bitten, but survived this murder attempt (Covington 1995). Minton argued, it must have been on many occasions quite a job to persuade a venomous snake to do what the murderer wanted. Snakes, after all are inclined to avoid people. A Californian who tried to kill his wife was also faced with this. The snake was less then helpful, so much so that he finally drowned her.


■ Suicide
By far the most famous suicide with a snake is that from Cleopatra. This 'Serpent of the Nile', such as her political ally and lover Anthony her affectionately called, had from a political point of view got himself rather in a fix. When Anthony committed suicide, his opponent Octavius wanted to ship Cleopatra as prisoner to Rome, as a special trophy together with his remaining witnesses from his victory. But he arrived too late: Cleopatra had already committed suicide with the help of a snake that is denoted in the Medieval letters with the name '(h)ipnale'. In all probability we need to look for a cobra sort, with the name Naja haje, the Egyptian cobra. Prior to letting herself get bitten, she let the snake strike her ladies-in-waiting Naera and Carmen, with deadly consequences, and then she let herself die from its bite. Besides making the choice to be bitten by a cobra because of her longing to die a 'less painful' death than with a sword or with a poisoned cup, she could have preferred a cobra for status reasons. Because of the cobra bite Cleopatra became more associated with the goddess Isis, who was dedicated to the cobra. Octavius had tried to let members of the Psylli, a group of snake charmers keep Cleopatra alive, but this was in vain. In the book from the French philologist Edith Flamarion Cleopatra, in the Netherlands published by Fibula/Unieboek, are illustrations that show that this historical happening inspired many artists. Because of the copyright on these illustrations it is not possible to include these so I have had to make do with my own photo from a statue in the garden from Versailles.


■ Literatuur / References
Covington, D., Salvation on Sand Mountain. Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia. Reading, Massachusetts enz., 1995.
Lucanus, Pharsalia. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press. London, 1988.
Maerlant, Jacob van, Spiegel Historiael. Met de fragmenten der later toegevoegde gedeelten. Bewerkt door Philip Utenbroeke en Lodewijc van Velthem. Leiden, 1861-1879. Ongewijzigde herdruk Utrecht, 1982.
Minton, S.A en Minton, M.R., Venomous reptiles. London, 1971.
Morris, R. and D., Men and snakes. London, 1968.
Voort, M. van der, 'Herpetologische Sprokkelingen deel 6, Over slangen en vadermoordenaars', in: LS 16 (1996), 134-137.
Zimniok, Kl., Die Schlange, das unbekannte Wesen. Hannover, 1984.

Translation by Marjon Jasker.