Ambitiosa Mors

In this book, T.D. Hill traces the cultural logic which animated the suicides of Roman aristocrats, describing the meaning and significance of such deaths in their original cultural context. Covering the writing of most major Latin authors between Lucretius and Lucan, this book argues that the significance of the 'noble death' in Roman culture cannot be understood if the phenomenon is viewed in the context of modern ideas of the nature of the self.