Suicide of Cato, senator of Rome, and Julius Caesar public enemy

[EternalSummer]

I was reading into the history of late Roman Republic period, also known as the times of Julius Ceasar and Octavian Augustus, and the character of Cato caught my attention. He was known to be incorruptable and would remain true to his ideals no matter how many powerful enemies he would create in the process. He was one of the Ceasar's greatest political opponents, and sided against him in the issuing civil war in which Ceasar emerged victorius. Many enemies of Ceasar after the war sought his pardon, which he granted to most.

But Cato would rather kill himself than side with the man he saw as responsible for the end of his beloved Roman Republic. Rather, he would stabb himself in the stomach with a dagger, causing him to suffer a slow and agonizing death, however, he was found and rescued by his family and had his injuries treated by a doctor. After regaining consciousness, he ripped out the stitches with his own nails, until he finally died.

Here's a clip from the 2005 HBO's TV show "Rome" depicting the death of Cato. In the show he is portrayed as an elderly man, although he was younger than Ceaser.

 

[Placo]

Even the story of Socrates seems a bit like suicide to me, doing everything in the trial to have the death sentence, one could even say of Jesus Christ.

Obviously in these cases not direct suicides but provoking the law to the point of receiving the death sentence.

However, ancient history is full of suicides, in the Bible there are 4 of them and the topic is treated in an aseptic way, as if to indicate it was a normal thing, no trace of condemnation, that mentality originated later.