Basilisk
The serpent of Cyrene in Pliny’s account
A small serpent with a white, diadem-like head marking, said to drive other serpents away and destroy living things around it, yet perish through the weasel’s odour.
Quick answer
In Pliny’s Natural History, the basilisk is a small serpent from Cyrene whose eyes, breath, and contact are associated with deadly effects. Its white head spot resembles a diadem, and its hiss scatters other serpents. Pliny says a weasel’s odour kills it, but the weasel also dies.[1]
Quick facts
| Record type | Roman natural history: reported serpent |
|---|---|
| Source marker | Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8.33; first century CE |
| Name in the translation | Basilisk |
| Source realm | The province of Cyrene in Pliny’s account |
| Reported length | No more than twelve fingers, in Bostock and Riley’s rendering |
| Head marking | A white spot resembling a diadem |
| Movement | Travels raised on the middle of its body, unlike the folding movement ascribed to other serpents |
| Reported adversary | The weasel; both animals die in the encounter |
These details record the ancient text’s claims, not verified animal observations.[1]
What Pliny reports
The opening of chapter 33 refers back to the catoblepas in chapter 32, whose eyes are said to kill anyone who beholds them. Pliny assigns that same power to the basilisk before locating it in Cyrene and describing its size, marking, hiss, and posture. Reading the two chapters together explains the reference to deadly sight; it does not transfer the catoblepas’s heavy head or other features to the serpent.[1]
The basilisk is said to destroy shrubs by contact and breath, burn up grass, and break stones through its harmful influence. Pliny then identifies as a former general belief the story that poison could pass up a spear used to kill it, killing both the mounted attacker and the horse. He gives no named rider or dated event.[1]
Pliny presents the weasel’s effectiveness more assertively, saying it has been successfully tried because kings wanted to see a dead basilisk. The weasel is thrown into the basilisk’s hole, recognised by the affected soil around it. Its odour kills the serpent, but the weasel dies too. No king or eyewitness is identified, and Pliny does not say he watched this happen.[1]
Description and reported abilities
The diadem is a comparison for a white spot, not a separate crown or an anatomical crest. Bostock and Riley give the length in “fingers”; this profile retains that translated unit without implying a precise modern measurement. Their wording describes an elevated middle-body posture, not legs. Pliny calls the animal a serpent and supplies no wings, bird’s head, or overall body colour here.[1]
The death associated with its eyes is not petrification: neither chapter says the victim turns to stone. Burning grass does not establish that the basilisk breathes flame. The passage provides no egg-hatching story or mirror defence. Its stated counteragent is the weasel’s odour, without an explanation of how that odour acts.[1]
Hollar’s much later print offers a separate visual treatment of the basilisk and weasel. Its winged form is kept in the illustration’s caption and is not used to supplement the ancient description.[2]
Source realm: Cyrene in Pliny’s account
The translation names the province of Cyrene. It also mentions the serpent’s hole and damaged surrounding soil, but supplies no exact locality or geographical range. This is the location of a Roman natural-history report, not a mapped habitat or an independently consulted local folklore collection.[1]
The archive groups it under Folklore places, alongside other historical reports tied to named geography, including Pliny’s monoceros. Its record type remains Roman natural history; the shared grouping does not make these animals part of one fantasy world.
Nature and its counteragents
Pliny explicitly treats the weasel as an example of Nature providing a counteragent to every harmful thing. His closing observation presents the animals’ mutual deaths as Nature struggling against itself. This is the author’s explanation within the passage, rather than a universal symbolic meaning assigned to the basilisk.[1]
Books and references
- 1Pliny the Elder, The Natural History of Pliny, Volume II
Ancient work: first century CE. Translated with notes by John Bostock and H. T. Riley. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855. Book 8, chapter 33, “The Serpents Called Basilisks,” p. 282; chapter 32, pp. 281–282, supplies the preceding reference to deadly eyes. Public-domain edition transcribed as Project Gutenberg ebook 60230. The profile paraphrases the main text; the translation’s appended notes are kept separate.
Read Volume II, Book 8, chapters 32–33 ↗ - 2Wenceslaus Hollar, The basilisk and the weasel, plate P427
Undated print by Hollar (1607–1677), Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto; reproduction from the university’s Wenceslaus Hollar Digital Collection, hosted on Wikimedia Commons. The file record identifies the artist, title, collection and plate, and marks the artwork and its reproduction public domain. Used as later imagery only.
Image provenance and public-domain declaration ↗
