The Longest Ancient Snakes October 3, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient , trackback
How long were the longest ancient snakes? In 2004, Richard Stothers published a fascinating article ‘Ancient Scientific Basis of the ‘Great Serpent’ from Historical Evidence’, Isis 95, 220-238. Among many other bits of ancient flotsam and jetsom Stothers brought together a list of the longest snakes recorded in antiquity. The following snakes need to be looked at one by one in context. However, just to give some idea, here are the lengths in descending order.
500 ft. for some snakes seen by Alexander (second century AD)
210 ft. and 120 ft snakes kept as pets in India (fourth century BC)
150 ft. Diodorus Siculus described Ethiopian snakes (first century BC)
Huge snakes overturn a trireme (120 ft long) in the sea off North Africa (recorded in fourth century)
120 ft. Bagradas River snake (an event in third century BC but reported much later)
105 ft. cave snake seen by Alexander’s army (fourth century BC)
85 ft. two headed snake in Italy (first century BC)
60 ft Arabian snakes (third century BC)
45 ft. snake in Alexandria (third century BC)
45 ft. snake Philumenus (second century BC)
30 ft snake recorded in Solinus (third century BC)
24 ft. recorded by Aristobolus (fourth century BC)
22 ft. snake seen by Desert monks (fourth century AD)
22 ft. snake described in Nympthis (third century BC)
20 ft. snakes received in Alexandria (third century BC)
Now it will be remembered from a previous post on modern giant snakes that the longest snakes in the world run from 20-33 feet. All the snakes then in bold on this list are credible in terms of modern biology: though some would demand that we allow for extinct snake species or, very credibly, wider distributions of certain species than is today the case, e.g. pythons in North Africa.
The other snakes are more troubling. How, in God’s name, do you start to explain a five hundred foot snake seen by Alexander and his men? Well, very easily. It was recorded by a writer five hundred years later who seems to have misinterpreted (perhaps wilfully) a unit of measure in his source. Likewise the famous Bagradas river snake (another post another day) took place in the third century B.C. The earliest surviving writing about the snake dates to the first century A.D. (some sources seem to have had access to works written in the first century B.C.) In fact, the best answer to the question which heads this post ‘How long were the longest ancient snakes?’ is: it depends how many centuries had passed between an encounter with the snake and the historian or anomalist writing about said snake.
Other long snakes from the ancient world: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Oct 11 2015: Zenobia writes ‘In all fairness to Diodorus Siculus, he clearly doesn’t believe the story he repeats of 150 foot-long Ethiopian snakes: “when writers state that they have seen some [snakes, 150 feet] long, it may justly be assumed, not only by us, but by everybody else, that they are telling a falsehood.” But he does go on to tell a rousing tale of the capture of an Ethiopian snake 30 cubits long, so about 45 feet — which puts it above the scientific threshold (if not by much) — which might, in fact, be the same snake you mention as seen ‘in Alexandria’, for it was captured at the cost of the lives of at least two of the hunters, and sent to Ptolemy Philadelphus in Alexandria who “kept and fed the snake which had now been tamed and afforded the greatest and most astonishing sight for the foreigners who visited his kingdom.” (Diodorus S. III 36-7). In other words, it might just be on the edge of truth (depending, too, on the cubit he was using).’ Thanks!
