Historically, snakebites were seen as a means of execution in some cultures. In medieval Europe, a form of capital punishment was to throw people into snake pits, leaving people to die from multiple venomous bites. A similar form of punishment was common in Southern Han during China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and in India. Snakebites were also used as a means of suicide, most notably by Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, who reportedly died from the bite of an asp—likely an Egyptian cobra—after hearing of Mark Antony's death.