SOME FAMOUS SUICIDES.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 88, 14 April 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

SOME FAMOUS SUICIDES.

A HISTOBICAL RECORD. Ariatarchus starved himself to death out of weariness of life. Lucretius, the great Latin poet, stabbed himself in a fit of disgust with life. Cassius fell by his own dagger, after the battle of Philippi — the same dagger, it is said, with which he stabbed Csesar. Homer, it is said, hanged himself in extreme old age, because, after a long trial, he could not solve the " Fisherman's Puzzle." Saul, the first King of Israel, killed himself rather than be slain by the Philistines. Defeated in battle, and his kingdom gone, he had nothing to live for. Like his great guest, Hannibal, Mithridates killed himself by poison to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans. He preferred death to appearance in the triumphal procession of a Roman general. The great Zeno lived a quiet and happy life until the age of ninetyeight, when one day he accidentally stumbled and broke hia thumb. He interpreted the accident as a summons from earth, and so he forthwith hanged himself. Cato was the tj-pical Roman suicide. He killed himself with a d & gger on the approach of Ceesar's forces to Utica, knowing that the cause of liberty was lost, and being unwilling to survive the downfall of bis country. Sappho killed herself by jumping from the Lover's Leap, a Leucadian cliff. This leap was often taken by love-sick persons, who believed that if they survived the fall they would be effectually cured of a hopeless passion. The leaps were always witnessed by a crowd of spectators, and the would-be suicides were in no way interfered with by the State. Boats were in attendance below to pick up the leaperß if they came to the surface of the sea after the plunge. Sappho had a passion for a young man who did not return her love, and leaped from the cliff in order to be cured. j Marc Antony gave the world for a woman's love, but he found himself so poorly compensated by the exchange that, in desperation at the approach of Octavius, and being informed that Oieopatra was endeavouring to make terms for lierself by surrendering him he stabbed himself with his dagger. Being revived, he received the messapo sent by Cleopatra that she desired to see him. He was carried to her place of refuge. Cleopatra and her maids raised him by ropes to the window of the tower where the Queen found her last home ; he was lifted in, and died in her arms. Defeated at Zama, Hannibal fled to the Ease to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans, and found temporary security in the dominione of Mithridates. He incited this monarch to engage in a Roman war, and his advice as to its conduct being rejected, the war proved unsuccessful, and Mithridates was required, as one of the conditions of peace, to deliver up Hannibal to his enemies, the Romans. The unfortunate Carthaginian heard of his approaching fate, swallowed the poison which for years he had carried about his person, and expired just as the envoys arrived to take him in charge. Suicide was a fitting termination to the career of a monster like Nero. Deserted by every friend, and in momentary danger of falling into the hands of his enemies, he could not summon up courage to take his own life. By turns he wept, prayed to the gods, and cursed his fate. He begged some of the attendants to die first, in order to teach him fortitude. They respectfully declined. There was a knock on the door of the miserable abode. Soldiers sent by the Senate to arrest him had come. In desperation he seized a dagger, and gave himself a slight wound in the throat. But the effect would have been a failure had not his freedman lent assistance, and pushed the dagger into a vital part, He had sufficient strength left on the entry of the soldiers to mutter, "Is this your fidelity ?" and immediately expired. Even in death his oounten* ance retained its appalling ferocity.