Suicide has been met with approbation, criticism, horror, or distain, depending on the culture and circumstance of the act. In the Ancient Mediterranean world, elite people who were condemned to death by the state – or facing eminent death by political opponents – thought of suicide as a more honorable path. Pictured here is “Sofonisba Nuda Morente,” by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri detto il Guernico (1630). It reflects the sad story of a princess named Sophonisba who took her own life by drinking poison rather than facing capture by the Romans, who would have paraded her in humiliation down the streets of their capital before killing her as a prisoner of war. Usually ancient stories about women who committed suicide dealt with the ways their romantic relationships led them into the predicament that caused their deaths. Sophonisba had the misfortune to be a daughter of a high-ranking general of Carthage, a state on the losing end of the Punic wars against Rome. After the pro-Roman African leader named Masinissa fell in love with and wedded her, his Roman allies let him know that marriage to this Carthaganean beauty was unacceptable, and he dropped her. Sophonisba knew that the Romans were coming for her, and so took her own life first.
