No death in the ancient world had more of an impact than that of Socrates. Plato’s account ensured that it had a literary circulation not matched until the development of Christian literature on the crucifixion of Jesus and martyrs’ deaths. Far from being depicted as the execution of a convicted criminal, it came to be seen as the archetypal good death: a suicide freely chosen with divine approval by someone who talked meaningfully to his friends as he slipped painlessly into oblivion. The image may owe more to Plato’s literary skill than to the realities of death by hemlock poisoning in a state prison (although his much-doubted accuracy is defended by Bloch in Brickhouse and Smith 2002), but its influence was felt among the Roman elite even into the Christian period; Greeks and Romans died at their own hands with the Phaedo next to them.
The nature of a “good death” varied according to time, place, and context. Suetonius (Aug. 99) describes how the emperor Augustus died peacefully and painlessly as he had wished: “For almost every time he heard that someone had died swiftly or with no pain, he used to pray for a similar euthanasia - for he used this word too - for himself and his family.” A cultural difference is highlighted in the fact that Augustus said his last words to his wife, while Socrates’ wife was not with him when he died - the women and children were dismissed to avoid a display of emotion. Augustus’s death, although “good,” was hardly in the heroic tradition of glorious death in battle, achieving honor for self and country, typified by the supposed regulation at Sparta (Plut. Lyc. 27) that the only people who could have their names on tombs were men who died in battle and women who died in childbirth. At Athens, death in battle was “rewarded” by a place in an annual state funeral and collective tomb, with a funeral oration spoken by a leading citizen. The Romans, however, did not normally provide honors at home for their war dead.
Death could also be represented as a test which had to be passed; hence the admiration for courage and resolution shown by gladiators in the face of death, which
A Companion to Ancient History Edited by Andrew Erskine © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-13150-6
Could be seen as an example to everyone. Philosophical advice on how to approach death could concentrate on the rational argument that there was nothing to fear and death could be a positive good in some circumstances. The Epicurean view of death as an instant return to the same state of nothingness as before one was born is paralleled in the Roman epitaphs which read: “I didn’t exist, I existed, I don’t exist, I don’t care.”
Suicide raised some ethical questions. In general, attitudes were favorable to it, especially among the Roman elite for whom it was an acceptable solution to loss of quality of life, and sometimes a dignified and legally advantageous way out of a difficult position. The story of Lucretia’s suicide after she was raped (Livy 1.57-58) was a foundation myth for the Roman republic, even if some of the issues it raised (e. g. her defiance of male authority when she killed herself) were not fully explored. A brave suicide, such as those of Cleopatra and the emperor Otho, could help to repair a damaged reputation. There are, however, hints of a different viewpoint: special places for suicides in some versions of the underworld; a cemetery from which those who hanged themselves were excluded (CIL I.2123). Method also made a difference: stabbing was particularly admired for women; opening the veins tended to be the method preferred by aristocratic Romans; hanging was disapproved for men. At Athens in the Roman period, the bodies of people who hanged themselves were thrown into a pit along with the executed. Some philosophical movements, including Platonism, rejected suicide because it meant opting out of the lifespan allotted by the gods.
For those who did not die in battle, the best end was like Augustus’s, at home, surrounded by family or friends, in possession of one’s faculties and in full control of events until the last. In 115 bc Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus “died at a very advanced age, and by a kind form of death, amid the kisses and embraces of his dearest children” (Val. Max. 7.1.1), happy in his own and his children’s good fortune. The idealized deathbed provided, among other things, the opportunity to produce some memorable last words, such as Vespasian’s “Oh dear, I think I’m becoming a god” (Suet. Vesp. 23). Practical arrangements could be made, and dependents committed to someone’s care. The reverse, dying alone and away from home, was always to be feared, both at the time of death (when there would be no one to perform the required rituals) and afterwards, when the funeral and tomb would be neglected. Rites such as closing the dying person’s eyes and mouth or catching their last breath do not seem to have been given particular significance in terms of the soul’s destiny, but were a comfort through symbolizing companionship and care (fig. 36.1). Deathbed repentance was largely a Christian innovation; pagans who believed in an afterlife did not think that it depended on one’s state of mind at the point of death.
Executions should have been the opposite of dying well, but hemlock poisoning at Athens and enforced suicide at Rome gave people the opportunity to imitate a good death. Rome reserved a deliberately bad death for those who were crucified or thrown to the wild beasts - slaves and non-citizens until the late empire. Such deaths were intended as a deterrent and an act of revenge: crucifixion of rebels led to roads lined with crosses, and executions in the arena enabled the audience to unite in a collective Roman identity from which the victims had been excluded. The traditional
Publisher's Note:
Permission to reproduce this image online was not granted by the copyright holder. Readers are kindly requested to refer to the printed version of this chapter.
36.1 Sarcophagus, c. 160/170 ad, with the death of Meleager. This mythological scene shows some of the ideals of real deathbeds, with the hero in a sleep-like pose surrounded by attendants; the mourning Atalanta is depicted on the right. (Dep. des Antiquites Grecques et Romaines, Musee du Louvre, Paris, Ma 654.) (Photo: akg-images/Erich Lessing)
Punishment for parricide (to be sewn in a sack with a snake, cock, dog and monkey and drowned in the Tiber) was supposed to be so extreme that it would never be enforced. The execution of unchaste Vestal Virgins through burial alive in a special underground chamber was intended to combine maximum publicity and horror (through a public parade) with a superstitious avoidance of directly killing someone consecrated to divine service. The first case of a dramatized execution was in the time of Augustus when the Sicilian bandit Selurus was killed by beasts on a collapsing model of Etna (Strabo 6.273); after this, real deaths in mythological re-enactments became commonplace.
Desecration of the body after death, something regularly practiced on enemies during Rome’s civil strife of the first century bc, was an exacerbation of (or substitute for) execution, and denial of burial at home (or burial of any sort) could be a punishment in itself; its tragic consequences are explored in Sophocles’ Antigone. The executed might be thrown into the Tiber, and this also happened to the corpse of the emperor Vitellius - and would have happened to Tiberius too if an element in the crowd had had its way. But if the authorities went too far and allowed the audience to sympathize with the victim of execution, as in the cases of some Christian martyrs, dying bravely earned admiration and sympathy.
World History
