From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-killing in Classical Antiquity

by Anton van Hooff

Using almost a thousand case studies, both real and fictional, Dr van Hooff provides us with a unique and engaging insight into self-killing in the Graeco-Roman world.
The author analyses the methods and motives which lie behind self-killing relating them to ancient popular morality as it appears in the various media and traces the development of the concept of self-murder, as opposed to the original idea of autothanasia, which lies at the root of the Christian abhorrence of suicide.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

332 pages, Hardcover

Published December 6, 1990

About the author

Antonius Jacobus Leonardus (Anton) van Hooff is a Dutch historian and author. He specializes in classical antiquity.

In 1971 Van Hooff obtained his doctorate with a dissertation "Pax romana: a study of Roman imperialism". Van Hooff worked untill 2008 as professor of ancient history at the Dutch Radboud University in Nijmegen. He regularly publishes in several newspapers and magazines. He has written, among other books Nero and Seneca, Athens and Marcus Aurelius.

From 2009 to 2015 he was chairman of a Dutch atheistic free-thinkers association "De vrije gedachte" (The Free Thought). In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Van Hooff is an outspoken republican and a member of the Dutch Republican Society.

Reviews

[l · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really what I was looking for and the emphasis on statistics seemed strange.

[Mahmoud Awad · Rating 5 out of 5]

NIHIL OBSTAT ERVMPERE ET EXIRE CVPIENT