List of unusual deaths in antiquity

|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.{{cite book|last1=Felton|first1=Bruce|last2=Fowler|first2=Mark|url=https://archive.org/details/feltonfowlersbes00felt|title=Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst, and Most Unusual|publisher=Random House|year=1985|isbn=978-0-517-46297-3|pages=174–175|chapter=Most Unusual Death|via=Internet Archive|url-access=registration}}{{cite web|title=8 strangest deaths of history's ancient rulers|url=https://www.history.co.uk/articles/strangest-death-of-historys-ancient-rulers|last=Brigden|first=James|website=Sky HISTORY|publisher=Hearst Networks UK|access-date=2024-09-27}}{{Cite web|date=2022-11-30|title=Αυτοί είναι οι 11 πιο απίθανοι και άδοξοι θάνατοι στην ιστορία|trans-title=These are the 11 most unlikely and inglorious deaths in history|url=https://www.in.gr/2022/11/30/go-fun/perierga/aytoi-einai-oi-11-pio-apithanoi-kai-adoksoi-thanatoi-stin-istoria/|access-date=2024-09-26|website=In.gr|language=el}}

|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.

|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.{{cite journal|title=The Journal of Hellenic Studies|first=EN|last=Gardiner|year=1906|quote=Fatal accidents did occur as in the case of Arrhichion, but they were very rare...|bibcode= 1929Natur.124..121.|volume=124|page=121|journal=Nature|doi=10.1038/124121a0|issue=3117|s2cid=4090345}}{{Cite book|last1=Matlock|first1=Brett|title=The Salt Lake Loonie|last2=Matlock|first2=Jesse|publisher=University of Regina Press|others=Illustrated by Dwight Allott|year=2011|isbn=978-0-88977-239-7|pages=81|quote=In one bizarre Olympic competition, a dead athlete named Arrhichion was actually declared the winner.}}

|The corrupt Persian judge was flayed alive by Cambyses II for accepting a bribe.{{Cite book|last=Maximus|first=Valerius|author-link=Valerius Maximus|title=Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri IX|chapter=Book VI, Chapter III; Of Severity|orig-date={{circa|30 AD}}|publication-date=1678|access-date=2024-09-26|location=London|translator-last=Speed|translator-first=Samuel|chapter-url=https://www.attalus.org/translate/valerius6a.html#c3|quote=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.|via=Attalus.org}}{{Cite web|date=2023-09-30|title=Gruesome, bizarre, and some unsolved: 44 of the most unusual deaths from history|url=https://mru.ink/unusual-deaths-history/|website=mru.ink|department=Weird|access-date=2024-08-31}}

|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).{{Cite book|last=Maximus|first=Valerius|author-link=Valerius Maximus|title=Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri IX|chapter=Book IX, Chapter XII; Of Unusual Deaths|orig-date={{circa|30 AD}}|publication-date=1678|access-date=2024-09-05|location=London|translator-last=Speed|translator-first=Samuel|chapter-url=https://www.attalus.org/translate/valerius9b.html#c3|quote=But not to digress any further, let us mention those who have perished by unusual deaths.|via=Attalus.org}}{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/wondersoflittlew00wanluoft#page/n107|pages=110–117|volume=1|chapter=Chapter XXVIII: Of the different and unusual Ways by which some Men have come to their Deaths §{{nnbsp}}7|year=1806|first1=Nathaniel|last1=Wanley|first2=William|last2=Johnston|title=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|location=London|edition=A new|asin=B001F3H1XA|lccn=07003035|oclc=847968918|ol=7188480M|access-date=2024-07-23|via=Internet Archive}}{{cite web|last=Copeland|first=Cody|title=The Bizarre Death Of Milo Of Croton|date=2021-02-10|website=Grunge.com|url=https://www.grunge.com/331467/the-bizarre-death-of-milo-of-croton/|access-date=2022-01-03|quote=Milo of Croton's death was bizarre, but fitting}}

|The Greek painter died of laughter while painting an elderly woman.{{cite book|last=Marvin|first=Frederic Rowland|title=The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women|location=Troy, New York|publisher=C. A. Brewster & Co.|year=1900|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1TUzAQAAMAAJ|access-date=2024-11-20|via=Google Books|quote=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.}}{{Rp|105}}

|The poet, known for works in celebration of wine, choked to death on a grape stone according to Pliny the Elder.{{Rp|104}} The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica suggests that "the story has an air of mythical adaptation to the poet's habits".{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Anacreon|volume=1|pages=906-907}}

|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.{{Cite web|year=2008|title=Heraclitus of Ephesus|url=http://www.ehw.gr/asiaminor/Forms/fLemmaBody.aspx?lemmaid=8380|access-date=2024-09-27|website=Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World|quote=This unusual way of dying was perhaps thought up to reflect Heraclitus' peculiar personality.}}

|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".{{Rp|104}}{{cite book|title=Naturalis Historiæ|title-link=Natural History (Pliny)|author=Pliny the Elder|volume=Book X|chapter=chapter 3|author-link=Pliny the Elder}}{{cite book|title=La tortue d'Eschyle et autres morts stupides de l'Histoire|trans-title=Aeschylus' tortoise and other stupid deaths in history|isbn=978-2352042211|publisher=Editions Les Arènes|year=2012|language=fr}}{{cite book|last=McKeown|first=J. C.|year=2013|title=A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ADJpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA136|location=Oxford, England|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=136–137|isbn=978-0-19-998210-3|via=Google Books}}{{Cite web|title=10 Historical Deaths Weirder Than the Movies|url=https://historycollection.com/10-historical-deaths-weirder-than-the-movies/|first=Khalid|last=Elhassan|date=2018-07-04|access-date=2024-09-06|website=History Collection}}{{Cite web|title=20 Unusual Deaths from the History Books|url=https://historycollection.com/20-unusual-deaths-from-the-history-books/|author=Steve|date=2019-08-07|access-date=2024-09-05|website=History Collection}}

|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",{{cite book|last=Gregory|first=Andrew|title=The Presocratics and the Supernatural: Magic, Philosophy and Science in Early Greece|year=2013|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|location=New York City, New York and London, England|isbn=978-1-4725-0416-6|page=178|via=Google Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AVMBAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA178}} tried to prove he was an immortal god by leaping into Mount Etna, an active volcano.{{Cite journal|last=Grau|first=Sergei|date=January 2010|title=How to Kill a Philosopher: The Narrating of Ancient Greek Philosophers' Deaths in Relation to their Way of Living|url=https://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/bitstream/2445/167374/1/683849.pdf|journal=Ancient Philosophy|volume=30|issue=2|pages=347–381|doi=10.5840/ancientphil201030233|quote=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.}}{{cite book|last=Meyer|first=T. H.|title=Barefoot Through Burning Lava: On Sicily, the Island of Cain – An Esoteric Travelogue|year=2016|publisher=Temple Lodge Publishing|isbn=978-1906999940|via=Google Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=osrZDAAAQBAJ&q=Empedocles+unusual+death&pg=PA16|access-date=2017-09-11}} The Roman poet Horace also alludes to this legend.{{cite book|author=Horace|author-link=Horace|title=Ars Poetica|via=Perseus Digital Library|pages=465–466|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065%3Acard%3D453}}

|The ruler of the Achaemenid Empire was captured by his half-brother Ochus, who had him executed by being suffocated by ash.{{Citation|last=Almagor|first=Eran|title=Ctesias (b)|date=2018-08-01|work=Plutarch and the Persica|pages=73–133|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748645558.003.0003|access-date=2024-08-03|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9780748645558.003.0003|isbn=978-0-7486-4555-8}}

|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.

|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. Another says that he died of joy after hearing that his last play had been successful. 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.

|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.{{cite book|chapter=10 truly bizarre deaths|title=Listverse.Com's Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists|via=Internet Archive|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/listversecomsult0000frat|chapter-url-access=registration|first=Jamie|last=Frater|publisher=Ulysses Press|year=2010|isbn=978-1-56975-817-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/listversecomsult0000frat/page/12 12–14]}}{{cite book|title=A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization|page=102|first=J. C.|last=McKeown|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2013|isbn=978-0-19-998212-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ml7RErfHNg0C&pg=PT102|access-date=2024-10-18|via=Google Books}}

|According to Diogenes Laertius, the Greek philosopher 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.{{Citation|title=Preface|date=2013-05-09|work=Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers|pages=ix–xii|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511843440.001|access-date=2024-07-06|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511843440.001|isbn=978-0-521-88681-9|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite news|last=Fearn|first=Nicholas|date=2008-07-13|department=Reviews|title=The Book of Dead Philosophers, By Simon Critchley|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-book-of-dead-philosophers-by-simon-critchley-5475888.html|access-date=2024-10-18|newspaper=The Independent|quote=Nevertheless, great thinkers seem to have suffered inordinately from bizarre or ironic deaths.}}

|According to the Suda, the renowned comic poet of the Middle Attic comedy died after being struck by a pear.{{Cite book|title=Morti favolose degli antichi|trans-title=Fabulous deaths of the ancients|last=Baldi|first=Dino|publisher=Quodlibet|year=2010|isbn=978-8874623372|location=Macerata|page=50|language=it}}

|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.{{cite magazine|last=Jiahui|first=Sun|date=2021-12-01|title=The Strangest Deaths of Ancient Chinese Rulers|magazine=The World of Chinese|department=Ancient History|url=https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/12/the-strangest-deaths-of-ancient-chinese-rulers/|access-date=2024-08-21}}

|The Greek tyrant of Syracuse was murdered with a poisoned toothpick.{{Rp|104}}

|During the Battle of Argos, the Greek king 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.{{Cite web|last=Cartwright|first=Mark|date=2016-03-15|title=Pyrrhus|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/pyrrhus/|access-date=2024-10-18|website=World History Encyclopedia|quote=...Pyrrhus was killed in a bizarre incident in the city of Argos...}}{{Cite book|last=Chrystal|first=Paul|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ira9DwAAQBAJ|title=Reportage from Ancient Greece and Rome|publisher=Fonthill Media|year=2019|isbn=978-1-78155-718-1|location=Stroud|pages=147|quote=Plutarch reports on the unusual, almost comic, death of Pyrrhus in 272 BCE...|access-date=2024-09-27|via=Google Books}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G5rWEAAAQBAJ|title=Livy: the Fragments and Periochae|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2024|isbn=978-0-19-287123-7|editor-last=Levene|editor-first=D.S.|volume=II|pages=300|quote=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 a unique instance of its bringing down an enemy commander.|access-date=2024-09-27|via=Google Books}}

|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.{{Cite journal|last=Grau|first=Sergei|date=January 2010|title=How to Kill a Philosopher: The Narrating of Ancient Greek Philosophers' Deaths in Relation to their Way of Living|url=https://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/bitstream/2445/167374/1/683849.pdf|journal=Ancient Philosophy|volume=30|issue=2|pages=347–381|doi=10.5840/ancientphil201030233|quote=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...|access-date=2024-10-18}}{{Cite news|department=Greek News|last=Kokkinidis|first=Tasos|date=2024-03-29|title=The Bizarre Case of the Ancient Greek Philosopher who Died of Laughter|url=https://greekreporter.com/2024/03/29/ancient-greek-philosopher-died-laughter/|access-date=2024-10-18|work=Greek Reporter}}

|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.{{cite book|last=Wright|first=David Curtis|year=2001|title=The History of China|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|page=49|isbn=978-0-313-30940-3|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofchina00wrig/page/49|url-access=registration|via=Internet Archive}}{{cite magazine|url=http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/Royalty-and-their-strange-deaths|title=Royalty and their Strange Deaths|first=Nate|last=Hopper|date=2013-02-04|magazine=Esquire|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131119214553/http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/Royalty-and-their-strange-deaths|archive-date=2013-11-19}}

|One ancient account of the death of the third-century BC Greek Stoic philosopher tells that he died laughing at his own joke{{Cite web|date=2018-03-18|title=This Greek Philosopher Died Laughing At His Own Joke|url=https://theculturetrip.com/europe/greece/articles/this-greek-philosopher-died-laughing-at-his-own-joke|access-date=2024-07-09|website=Culture Trip}} 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).{{cite book|first=Diogenes|last=Laertius|title=Lives, Teachings and Sayings of the Eminent Philosophers|translator-first=R.D.|translator-last=Hicks|year=1965|publisher=Harvard University Press/W. Heinemann Ltd|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts/London}}{{refn|group="note"|Valerius Maximus tells the same story about the death of the Athenian poet and playwright Philemon (d. c. 262 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.{{cite web|url=http://visual.ly/funniest-and-weirdest-ways-people-have-actually-died|title=The Funniest And Weirdest Ways People Have Actually Died|website=visual.ly|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430104042/http://visual.ly/funniest-and-weirdest-ways-people-have-actually-died|archive-date=2017-04-30}}{{unreliable source?|date=September 2024}}

|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.{{cite book|title=Bibliotheca historica|title-link=Bibliotheca historica|chapter=Book 37|author=Diodorus Siculus|author-link=Diodorus Siculus|chapter-url=http://attalus.org/translate/diodorus38.html|quote=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.|access-date=2024-09-05|via=Attalus.org}}