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Philosophy, Cato, and Roman Suicide: I*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Miriam Griffin
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Extract

When we imagine the world of the Julio-Claudian Emperors and their Flavian and Antonine successors, it is difficult to avoid thinking of suicide as the characteristic Roman way of death. That is because of the numerous acts of suicide which are celebrated by the greatest writers of the period, Seneca, Lucan, Tacitus, and Pliny, and which even invade the pages of a minor author such as Martial. There is no reason to think in terms of an epidemic, as Y. Grisé justly remarks in her recent book on Roman suicide. But we do seem to be dealing with a fashion, one curious enough to merit investigation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , April 1986 , pp. 64 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

Notes

1. Le Suicide dans la Rome antique (Montreal–Paris, 1982)Google Scholar, the first collection of evidence devoted exclusively to Rome. The most complete collection of material on Greek and Rome suicide remains Hirzel, R., ‘Der Selbstmord’, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 11 (1908), 75–104, 243–84, 417–76Google Scholar.

2. This obituary, part of the epilogue (19–22) which was added in a second edition of the Life, contains references to Octavian as ‘Caesar’, which places its composition before the conferment of the title ‘Augustus’ in 27 B.C., thus within five years of Atticus' death.

3. Thrasea Paetus' death: Tacitus, , Ann. 16.34–35Google Scholar. For this view of Seneca's last words, see Seneca (Oxford, 1976), pp. 370–1Google Scholar.

4. Ann. 6.49: ‘Sex. Papinius consulari familia repentinum et informem exitum delegit, iacto in praeceps corpore.’

5. Tacitus underlines the conscious imitation by noting that Seneca took hemlock, of which he had secured a supply in advance (Ann. 15.64.3), and by describing it as ‘venenum quo damnati publico Atheniensium iudicio exstinguerentur’.

6. Atticus' Epicureanism: Cicero, , ad Att. 4.6.1Google Scholar; Leg. 1.21; 54; 3.1; Fin. 5.3. Nepos speaks of Atticus' knowledge of the teachings of the leading philosophers which he used as a guide for life, not for ostentation (17.3), but does not specify Epicureanism any more than he does in the case of L. Saufeius (12.3; cf. Cicero, , ad Att. 4.6.1Google Scholar; 7.1.1; 15.4.2 and 3), while Lucretius is simply described as a poet in a passing reference to him and Catullus (12.4). Nepos had no use for philosophy (Cicero, , ad Att. 16.5.5)Google Scholar, because of the hypocrisy of its adherents (Lact, . Inst. 3.15.10)Google Scholar, and perhaps disapproved of Epicureanism in particular. It is all the more striking that, as Bailey, C. pointed out (JRS 41 (1951), 164)Google Scholar, there are incidents recorded in language suggestive of the Garden: tranquillitasat 6.5; quies at 7.3, and, at 6.1 (cf. 10.5–6), in explaining Atticus' failure to enter public life, Nepos uses nautical imagery which, though in no way exclusive to the sect (cf. Cicero, , Off. 3.2)Google Scholar, is very reminiscent of Lucretius 2.1–2 and of Cicero's version of the Epicurean doctrine of abstention in Rep. 1.1; 4; 9.

7. Nepos does not, however, stress the Epicurean overtones. Instead he speaks of Atticus' constantia, a Stoic quality, while the phrase he uses to describe the impression made on Atticus' companions, ‘ut non ex vita sed ex domo in domum videretur migrare’, if it has any philosophical significance, is suggestive, not of Epicureanism, but, as Stephen Harrison points out in an unpublished paper ‘Regulus and the Philosophic Death’, of Plato's Apology and Phaedo, especially as rendered by Cicero, , Rep. 6.15Google Scholar: ‘nee iniussu eius … ex hominum vita migrandum est’ and 6.29: ‘animus velocius in hanc sedem et domum suam pervolabit’; cf. Hortensius frag. 115 Grilli. Nepos uses the image of moving house, however, to convey the idea of insouciance as inHorace, , Odes 3.5.55–56Google Scholar, a passage probably indebted to Cicero, , Fin. 2.65Google Scholar and hence having some Epicurean resonance.

8. On the flexibility of Stoicism and its importance in providing terminology and arguments, rather than definite directives, especially in political matters, see Seneca, p. 366; cf. 204–5. Shaw, B. D., Latomus 44 (1985) makes similar points on pp. 48ffGoogle Scholar.

9. The phrase ‘Stoic cult of suicide’ is found in Nock, A. D., Conversion (Oxford, 1933), p. 197Google Scholar. Fedden, H. R., Suicide, a Social and Historical Study (London, 1938), p. 85Google Scholar, speaking of Stoicism and Epicureanism, wrote ‘Physical courage and the state of society needed only the stimulus of philosophy to elevate suicide to the place and popularity which it enjoyed in the time of Seneca’.

10. ‘Yet herein are they (viz. the Stoics) in extreams that can allow a man to be his own assassine and so highly extol the end and suicide of Cato.’Daube, D. in his influential paper ‘The Linguistics of Suicide’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), 387ffGoogle Scholar. not only credits the first use of the word to Charleton, W. in The Ephesian Matron (1659)Google Scholar but suggests it was invented to avoid expressing condemnation. But Charleton probably copied the word from Browne who liked adding technical terms to the language (such as ‘electricity’ and ‘computer’) and who consistently, in this passage and elsewhere, disapproved of suicide. I owe this information to Dr Robin Robbins who also points out that Charleton makes clear his disapproval of the soldier's soliloquy in which the word is used and employs ‘self-slaughter’ in the same context.

11. Grisé, , op. cit., pp. 23–28Google Scholar believes that the Romans shunned the neologism suicidium in order to avoid expressing condemnation of the act, just as they eschewed all terms for it suggestive of murder. In fact, the expressions se caedere and se occidere, commonly used in Latin, do not seem to differ in their moral overtones from the neologism that the genius of classical Latin rejected.

12. ‘On appelle suicide tout cas de mort qui resulte directement ou indirectement d'un acte positif ou negatif, accompli par la victime elle-meme et qu'elle savait devoir produire ce résultat.’

13. When philosophers do turn now to such questions of practical ethics, the notion of intention is inevitably complicated by the awareness of unconscious and subconscious motivation that we owe to psychological theories and research. ThusGlover, J. in Causing Death and Saving Lives (Penguin, 1977), pp. 170ffGoogle Scholar. prefers to speak of ‘suicidal and near-suicidal acts’ and to include among them, not only voluntary acceptance of a martyr's death (as Durkheim did), but volunteering for high-risk jobs where the ‘risk of death is welcomed or at least accepted with indifference’. On the other hand, Durkheim's simple conception of a suicide attempt as a suicide that is stopped before death results gives way to an awareness that some attempts are closer to real suicide in motive than others. One reason for refining our conceptions of motive here is an increasing concern with the moral problems of those in a position to prevent or not to prevent a suicidal act. They must consider not only the same factors as the suicide himself, to see if his is a rational decision, but also what he really wants to do.

14. See below, n. 21.

15. Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, Callimachus, no. 53 (= Pfeiffer23)Google Scholar

Eἴπας, “Hλιε ϰαῖρε, λεόμβροτος ὡμβρακιώτης

ἤλαϑ'ἀφ' ὑΨηλοῦ τείϰεος εἰς' Aίγην,

ἄξιον οὐδὼν ϑανάτου κακὸν ἀλλὰ Πλάτωνος

ἕν τὸ περὶ Ψυϰῆς γράμμ' ἀναλεξάμενος.

Compare Cicero, , Scaur. 4–5Google Scholar; Tusc. 1.84. It is interesting that Gellius, Aulus in N.A. 17.21.19Google Scholar, a chapter based on late Republican sources, i.e. Nepos and Varro, speaks of Socrates as ‘in carcere veneno necatus’.

16. In this obscure passage, Aristotle does not seem to be placing in the category of injuries to the state only suicides committed in anger (as Grise, , op. cit., p. 173Google Scholar thinks), but using them as an example of how a man might come to kill himself voluntarily (cf. Seneca, , Ep. 30.12)Google Scholar.

17. Josephus was able to use Plato's arguments, in his own speech, against suicide (B.J. 3.371ff.) but also, in the mouth of Eleazar, in favour of it (B. J. 7.343ff.).

18. For a discussion of Cynic views of suicide, seeRist, J. M., Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 237–8Google Scholar.

19. Grisé, , op. cit., p. 177Google Scholar interprets Epicurus' death, as described by Hermippus (D.L. 10.15), as suicide. But it is better to assume that the warm bath and wine were used to ease a natural end, in view of the general reputation of the School and the discussion in Fin. 2.95–98, where Cicero opposes to the recommendation of suicide the Epicurean formula ‘plus semper voluptas’ and then quotes Epicurus' dying claim that his pains were counterbalanced by his joy, comparing Epicurus to Epaminondas and Leonidas. In the same vein is Epicurus' dictum that the wise man will not withdraw from life even when he has become blind (D.L. 10.119).

20. The best discussions are by Bonhoeffer, A., Die Ethik des Stoikers Epictet (Stuttgart, 1894), pp. 29–39Google Scholar; Benz, E., Das Todesproblem in der Stoischen Philosophic (Tübinger Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 68 (1929)), pp. 48ffGoogle Scholar.; Rist, , op. cit., pp. 233ffGoogle Scholar. who rightly criticizes Benz's notion that suicide was seen by the early Stoics as a problem of free will. In Seneca, pp. 372ff., I have tried to show that Seneca's view of suicide was much more in accord with orthodox Stoic doctrine than Rist allows.

21. I follow Rist, , op. cit., pp. 242–5Google Scholar in thinking that Zeno was conscious of a parallel with the death of Socrates, though Plato's Phaedo is not attested in theoretical discussion of suicide before the time of Cicero. For that reason, Benz, , op. cit., pp. 71ffGoogle Scholar. suggested that the notion of a divine call came in with Panaetius and Posidonius who were sympathetic to Plato's teachings. But tradition held that Zeno had a boyhood interest in reading about Socrates (D. L. 7.31), while the Callimachus epigram (above, n. 15) shows that the connection of the Phaedo and suicide was made earlier.

22. As in Seneca, , Ep. 58.35Google Scholar: ‘at si coeperit concutere mentem … prosiliam ex aedificio putri ac ruenti’; cf. Aurelius, Marcus, Med. 3.1Google Scholar.

23. For the difficulties involved in reconciling this doctrine with the Stoic view that the intention behind an action, not its result, is what matters, see Seneca, pp. 380–1.

24. Nock, , op. cit., p. 197Google Scholar.

25. Glover, , op. cit., pp. 170ffGoogle Scholar.

26. Battin, M. Pabst, Ethical Issues in Suicide (New Jersey, 1982), pp. 146ff., discussingGoogle ScholarWilliams, B., ‘Persons, Character and Morality’, The Identities of Persons, ed. Rorty, A. (California, 1976), pp. 197ffGoogle Scholar. For the views of Panaetius, see Part II of this paper.