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Romana mors: självmord i romarnas värld

In English

Författare

  • Göran Lundström

Summary, in English

Romana mors (=Roman death) was the expression the Romans used for suicide since the Latin word suicidium didn’t exist in classical Latin and didn’t appear until the late Middle Ages. Such deaths were common among the upper classes in the 1st century B.C. and A.D., the two periods which I have drawn material from, and were considered as a noble way to end one’s life, a turning-point being Cato’s suicide and its subsequent praise by Cicero. If they were equally common among the lower classes and the slaves is unclear because there are no specific records left. This investigation is based on existing records about some well-known cases, found in the writings of Roman authors such as Livy, Vergil, Ovid, Suetone, Seneca, Tacite, Horace, and the Greek author Plutarch, and modern historians such as Adrian Goldsworthy, Theodor Birt, Robin Lane Fox among others, and my survey is concentrated on the suicides of Dido, Lucretia, Cato the younger, Mettelus Scipio, Cassius, Brutus, Marc Anthony, Cleopatra, Petronius, Seneca and Nero. The suicides of Dido and Lucretia, although they occurred much earlier, are included because Vergil and Livy wrote about them in the 1st century B.C. My aim has been to describe their lives leading up to their deaths, and try to ascertain what the reasons for their suicides were, how they were executed, what the consequences, privately and publicly, were and how these suicides were perceived by the general public. Another important point of interest has been to compare the Romans’ view on suicide with that of modern times and, if there is a difference, which seems likely, try to find an explanation for that. Both the importance of philosophical schools like epicurism and stoicism and their impact on the Romans’ perception of suicide and the role of Christianity and the Bible’s commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’, of which the latter had a major influence on many Romans from the 1st century A.D. and onwards, are closely examined.

Avdelning/ar

Publiceringsår

2019

Språk

Svenska

Dokumenttyp

Examensarbete för kandidatexamen

Ämne

  • Languages and Literatures

Handledare

  • Cajsa Sjöberg (senior lecturer)