Suicide. William Wynn Westcott
Statutes were incorporated with the Statute law of the realm, thus constituting it a civil offence as well as a great moral crime.
In France, Louis IX., Saint, d. 1270, enforced the penalty of the confiscation of the property of a suicide; and by the criminal law of Louis XIV., dated 1670, the statutes relating to suicide were revised, and the body was ordered to be dragged at the cart’s tail.
It became the custom of Normandy to insist on forfeiture of estate if the suicide was committed to avoid punishment, and not otherwise.
The Parliament of Toulouse also decided in this manner.
In the 14th century Charles V. imposed this law on all the country under his dominion; and indeed it remained in force in France until 1789, when it was repealed by the National Assembly, because it impeded human liberty of action. Suicide is not a crime in the Code Napoleon.
Yet in the early Christian centuries suicide lingered on as an occasional virtue, either for the purpose of preserving the faith, or to avoid apostacy, to procure the honour of martyrdom, or to retain the crown of virginity: some eminent Christian teachers have considered such deaths desirable. The Roman Catholic Saints Pelagia and Sophronia were examples of canonised suicides; and two widows, Berenice and Prosdocea, are praised by St. Chrysostom for destroying themselves to avoid pollution.
Chapter III.
Notable Suicides.
I.─Mentioned in the Bible.
Abimelech, 1206 B.C., King of the Shechemites. Judges, cap. ix.
Samson, 1120 B.C., Judge of Israel. Judges, cap. xvi.
Saul, 1050 B.C., the first King of Israel. I. Samuel, cap. xxxi.
Saul’s Armour Bearer, an Amalekite, loc. cit.
Ahitophel, 1023 B.C., Counsellor of David. II. Samuel, cap. xvii.
Zimri, 929 B.C., King of Israel. II. Kings, cap. xvi.
Eleazar, 164 B.C., one of the Maccabees. I. Maccabees, cap. vi.
Razis, 162 B.C., a Jewish Elder. II. Maccabees, cap. xiv.
Judas Iscariot, A.D. 33, the Traitor. Acts, cap. i.
Pontius Pilate, A.D. 36, Procurator of Judaea. Josephus. Antiquities, xviii., 4, 1, 2, and also Eusebius, History, cap. ii. 7.
II.─Classical.
Sesostris, or Rameses the Great, King of Egypt, killed himself in despair at having lost his sight.
Menon, 2000 B.C., Governor of Nineveh, first husband of Semiramis, afterwards Queen of Assyria; he hung himself when Ninus the King became enamoured of his wife.
Ajax, 1184 B.C., in the Trojan War, slew himself in a frenzy of anger against Ulysses, to whom instead of to himself the armour of the dead Hector had been allotted.
Codrus, 1070 B.C., the last King of Athens; he was at war with the Heraclidæ, an oracle had foretold that the victory would fall to the nation whose king died in battle. Codrus entered the enemy’s camp in disguise, provoked a quarrel with two of the soldiers, and was killed by them.
Dido, 1000 B.C., Princess of Tyre, widow of Sichæus, having founded Carthage, stabbed herself on her funeral pile, to avoid marriage with Jarbos, she having vowed eternal fidelity to her husband’s memory.
Lycurgus, 900 B.C., Lawgiver of Sparta, prepared a code of laws for the people, bound them to observe these laws during his absence, then left the State, and destroyed himself. These laws remained in force for 700 years.
Sardanapalus, 759 B.C., King of Assyria, burned himself in his palace with his wives.
Aristodemus, 730 B. C. having killed his daughter to propitiate the oracle at Delphi, slew himself on her tomb, from remorse.
Charondas, 560 B.C., the Lawgiver of Catana, a Greek colony in Sicily, made it a law, with the penalty of death, that no man should enter the assembly armed: returning one day from pursuing some robbers beyond the city, he entered the assembly to report, without having laid aside his weapons. Being taxed with breaking his own laws, he slew himself on the spot.
Lucretia, 510 B.C., wife of Tarquinius Collatinus, stabbed herself in the presence of her husband and father as a protest against her attempted rape by Sextus, son of Tarquinius Superbus.
Artemidorus, 479 B.C., threw his life away in the battle of Platæa.
Themistocles, 449 B.C., an Athenian General, was banished, and ultimately poisoned himself.
Isocrates, 436 B.C., an Athenian orator, starved himself to death, on account of the defeat of his countrymen in the battle of Cheronæa.
Empedocles, 435 B.C., poet and philosopher, threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna.
Appius, the Decemvir, 400 B.C., killed himself in prison, where he was cast by the Tribunes after the storm of popular indignation which followed his attempted seduction of Virginia.
Decius Mus, 338 B.C., Roman Consul, threw away his life in battle against the Latins, as did his son, B.C. 296, and his grandson, B. C. 280.
Demosthenes, 325 B.C., the most celebrated orator of antiquity, poisoned himself to escape from the pursuit of the soldiers of Antipater.
Nicocles, 310 B.C., King of Paphos, in Cyprus, intrigued against Ptolemy, and destroyed himself, and his whole family did the same, to avoid being disgraced.
Brennus, 278 B.C., a Gallic general, invaded Greece, but his army being defeated, he killed himself in a fit of intoxication.
Zeno, 264 B.C., founder of the Stoic sect of philosophers, in walking in his school one day, he fell and broke a finger; this so disgusted him with life in this world, that he went straight home and strangled himself.
Regulus, 251 B.C., a Roman consul during the First Punic War, was defeated and taken prisoner to Carthage. Some years after he was allowed to go to Rome to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, having first been compelled to bind himself by an oath to return if unsuccessful. On arriving in Rome he dissuaded his countrymen from the proposed terms and then promptly returned to certain death at Carthage.
Theoxena and Her Husband threw themselves into the sea to escape capture by the soldiers of Philip of Macedon.
Cleanthes, 240 B.C., a Stoic philosopher, starved himself because he was seized with an illness, preferring death to lingering disease.
Hasdrubal, the Wife of, 216 B.C., set fire to a temple and threw herself and her two children into the flames rather than fall into the hands of Scipio the Roman general. Her husband was a Carthaginian general who fought in the Second Punic war.
Sophonisba, 203 B.C., was the daughter of Hasdrubal the Carthaginian general, married to Syphax, Prince of Numidia; but she fell a captive into the hands of Masinissa, who then took her to wife, but Scipio the Roman general having seen her, also fancied her as a wife, so she drank poison to avoid this second change.
Eratosthenes, 194 B.C., mathematician, starved himself to death because he found his sight failing him.
Hannibal, 183 B.C., a celebrated Carthaginian general, being defeated by Scipio at Zama, fled to Bithynia, but being pursued even there, killed himself by means of poison, which he always carried about him concealed in rings.
Cleombrotus, a young Greek philosopher, who after reading the Phædon of Plato, threw himself off a wall into the sea. (Ovid.)
Aristarchus, 157 B.C., grammarian and critic, starved himself to death, at Cyprus, after being banished from Alexandria.
Caius Gracchus, 121 B.C., Tribune of Rome, was killed by a slave at his