Suicide in Ancient Roman Literature

This paper was assigned as a final paper for the course it was assigned for. In class we studied the life and death of Hannibal Barca as it was portrayed within the text The Lives of Eminent Commanders by Cornelius Nepos. Hannibal Barca committed suicide in order to avoid imprisonment and humiliation by Romans, I was interested in the characterization of his suicide and decided to make the topic of my paper how the suicide of Carthaginian figures are characterized by Roman literary sources. I compared Hannibal’s suicide with the suicide of Dido in Roman Literature, then compared both with the suicide of Roman citizens in Roman literature, such as Lucretia and Cato the younger.

This assignment, as well as the class as a whole, set me on a new path of interest in Latin literature. I became more cognizant of education in ancient languages as a useful and incredibly rewarding aspect in a Classics education. When I was finally able to apply my skills in Latin to the analysis of a subject I was interested,  I gained newfound appreciation for the Latin learning process I had undergone over the course of my Classics education.

If I could redo this assignment I would incorporate the original Latin of the texts more heavily. At the time, I was not as confident in my Latin skills and shied away from presenting personal interpretations of Latin texts. Now that I have more experience in the analysis of primary sources original Latin, I know that it’s inclusion would have strengthened my argument incredibly since the specific language used to characterize of the suicides presented in the paper is a ripe source for interpretation.