From Autothanasia to Suicide

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.