Amphisbaena

The amphisbaena is a venomous serpent of Greek and Roman lore with a head at each end of its body, said to live in the Libyan desert and to move in either direction.

The Story

The amphisbaena's name is Greek for "goes both ways." It was a snake with a second head where its tail should be, so it could crawl forward or backward with equal ease. Ancient writers placed it in the deserts of Libya, the home of many of the strangest serpents in Greek and Roman lore.

The Roman poet Lucan gave it a memorable origin. In Book 9 of his epic Civil War (also called the Pharsalia), Cato leads a Roman army across the Libyan desert. Lucan explains that the land swarms with deadly snakes because drops of blood fell there from the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa as Perseus flew overhead. The amphisbaena appears in his long catalog of these serpents, sliding toward both of its heads, alongside the basilisk and other monsters that go on to kill Cato's soldiers in gruesome ways.

Appearance and Powers

In ancient sources the amphisbaena is simply a snake with two heads, one at each end, and a dangerous bite. Pliny the Elder's Natural History jokes that it has two heads "as if it were not enough for poison to be poured out of one mouth." The Greek poet Nicander, in his Theriaca, a verse treatise on venomous animals from about the 2nd century BCE, describes it as sluggish and dim-eyed, with a blunt head at either end.

Medieval writers kept adding details. Isidore of Seville's Etymologies (7th century) says its eyes shine like lamps. Bestiary artists gave it bird's feet, scaly dragon wings, and sometimes a fully formed dragon head at the end of the tail. Because the sources disagree, this entry leaves wings and legs open. In heraldry the amphisbaena is drawn as a winged, two-legged serpent with a second head on its tail, close to the heraldic wyvern.

Origins and Sources

The earliest surviving mention is in Aeschylus's tragedy Agamemnon (458 BCE), where the prophetess Cassandra, searching for a word to describe the murderous queen Clytemnestra, calls her an amphisbaena. The image suggests something two-faced and treacherous. Real animals may lie behind the idea. Some snakes have blunt tails that look like heads, and many burrowing reptiles move backward easily. Modern zoologists named a whole group of legless burrowing reptiles, the worm lizards, Amphisbaenia, after the legendary serpent.

Legacy

The amphisbaena became a favorite of medieval bestiaries and Renaissance poets. Milton lists "amphisbaena dire" among the serpents in Paradise Lost when Satan's followers are transformed. Some scholars have also connected it with American folk tales of the hoop snake, which takes its tail in its mouth and rolls, though that link is loose. For other monsters from the same Libyan desert, see Pliny's dragons.

Related

• Basilisk: The basilisk is a legendary "king of serpents" from Roman natural history and medieval bestiaries, a small crowned snake so venomous that its glance, breath, or touch could kill.
• Cockatrice: The cockatrice is a medieval European monster with a rooster's head and legs, dragon wings, and a serpent's tail, said to hatch from a rooster's egg and kill with its glance.
• Ouroboros: The Ouroboros is a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, a symbol of eternity and endless cycles first found in ancient Egypt and later central to Greek alchemy and Western esoteric art.
• Lernaean Hydra: The Lernaean Hydra is a many-headed water serpent of Greek myth that grew new heads when one was cut off, killed by Heracles and Iolaus as his second labor.
• Roman Dragons
• Basilisk
• Wyverns

Sources and Further Reading

• Lucan, Civil War, trans. Susan H. Braund (Oxford World's Classics, 1992)
• Pliny the Elder, Natural History: A Selection, trans. John F. Healy (Penguin Classics, 1991)
• A. S. F. Gow and A. F. Scholfield, eds. and trans., Nicander: The Poems and Poetical Fragments (Cambridge University Press, 1953)
• Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies, trans. Stephen A. Barney et al. (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Cite this entry: “Amphisbaena,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/amphisbaena.