Ambitiosa Mors

Suicide and the Self in Roman Thought and Literature

T. D. Hill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN:
  9780415970976
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135876555
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Although the distinctive - and sometimes bizarre - means by which Roman aristocrats often chose to end their lives has attracted some scholarly attention in the past, most writers on the subject have been content to view this a s an irrational and inexplicable aspect of Roman culture. In this book, T.D. Hill traces the cultural logic which animated these suicides, describing the meaning and significance of such deaths in their original cultural context. Covering the writing of most major Latin authors between Lucretius and Lucan, this book argues that the significance of the 'noble death' in Roman culture cannot be understood if the phenomenon is viewed in the context of modern ideas of the nature of the self.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• A Note on the Translations
• Series Editors’ Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Cicero
• Chapter 3: Lucretius and Epicureanism
• Chapter 4: Eros, Self-Killing, and the Suicidal Lover in Republican Literature
• Chapter 5: Vergil
• Chapter 6: Ovid
• Chapter 7: Seneca
• Chapter 8: The Concept of Political Suicide at Rome
• Chapter 9: Lucan
• Chapter 10: Petronius
• Epilogue: Roman Suicide after Nero
• Glossary of Terms
• End Notes
• Bibliography
• Index