Is Ending a Wretched Life Pardonable? Attitudes Toward Suicide in Greek Funerary Epigrams

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present various acts of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally as presented in Greek funerary epigrams. In Greek ethics as well as in religious and philosophical thought one can easily notice a clear difference between noble and ignoble suicide. The chasm between these two kinds of self-slaughter is immense and is based on the motivation for the act. Different types of motivation are presented in the epigrams preserved in the seventh book of the Greek Anthology. In this paper I briefly analyse the literary and socio-historical backgrounds of all these epigrams, proving that all of them were never intended to be carved on stone. Moreover, I argue that although a few inscriptions indicate suicide as a cause of death, there is in fact no actual Greek epitymbion that really mentions it. By presenting some Roman examples of inscriptional epigrams praising suicides, I also show the essential difference between Greek and Roman perceptions of suicide. Assuming that a strong taboo existed in the Greek world in relation to mentioning suicide on the funerary stele, I try to trace this in the preserved literature.