Suicide in Classical Mythology: An Essay
Part I: Suicidal Females
Part II: Suicidal Males
Dr. Elise P. Garrison
e-garrison@tamu.edu
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
October 2000
Part I: Suicidal Females
Classical Mythology is a broad term that encompasses several cultures and an enormous
chronological span. 'Classical' typically refers to the Greek and Roman sources which provide
the corpus of classical mythology, yet many mythological characters hail from lands far
distant from Greece and Rome, like Colchis and Troy to name but two. Chronologically, the
sources range from prehistory to the Byzantine age, leaving would-be interpreters a plethora
of possible contexts in which to work. Were one to ignore the geographical and chronological
dimensions of myth, the interpreter is still faced with the polysemic essence<1> of myth and
its multifunctionalism, including cognitive, emotional, psychological and especially didactic
facets,<2> understanding of which becomes even more difficult given the chronological and
geographical distance of the modern reader from the ancient contexts. In addition, one must
realize that myths often set up a polarization of reality, black and white situations that give
way to the grayness of reality. Obviously, myths are 'good stories,' and in order to be a good
story, problems and their solutions are exaggerated. Yet I place myself among those who
contend that the stories, however exaggerated, encode in them something of cultural
significance, which can be uncovered through careful analysis and constant vigilance to the
multifunctionalism and the polarization of reality represented in the myths.
Equally important is the fact that many of the issues raised in myths elicit reactions so
strongly rooted in our own culture that it is sometimes nearly impossible to be flexible in our
interpretations. Issues like murder, cannibalism, matricide, patricide, fratricide, infanticide,
rape and suicide, to name only some, pervade mythology. When for example Medea murders
her children, how can modern interpreters react in any way but with repugnance? However,
when one sets aside the modern cultural bias and examines Medea in the context of the
ancient world's cultural assumptions, as Easterling and Knox<3> have so persuasively done,
then some aspect of the ancient world is revealed to us that is different from the modern world
and yet by its difference helps clarify the modern world. Suicide is a prime example of this
phenomenon.<4>
This study of suicidal females in Classical Mythology will raise several questions. Under
what circumstances is death preferable to life? When is death by one's own hand acceptable or
desirable? These questions will lead us to question the legal, economic, political, family and
religious contexts for females in the ancient world. I will organize the suicides according to
their schematic motivations and will examine the methods they use, asking whether or not the
methods chosen are predictable or prescribed according to one's status as virgin, wife, mother.
Close attention will be paid to the general character traits given to the suicidal females and the
thematic characteristics in the stories. The purpose of this article is to address these questions
systematically and, though confined to the language and symbols of mythology, to generalize
cautiously about ancient cultural attitudes toward women and self-destruction.<5>
Schema
In order to understand better the mythological suicides and their motivations, I have organized
them in the broad categories of grief, shame, madness, self-sacrifice, fear and frustration.<6>
Interestingly, anger is never a motivation to suicide among mythological females. With all
schematizations there is a tendency to over-simplify and clearly the categories are sometimes
interchangeable. However, I have attempted to group the suicides by the most powerful
motivating factor that can be gleaned from the ancient accounts of the deaths.<7>
Grief
Grief is an emotional human response of deep and painful distress to bereavement or loss.
Grief may be the response to one's feelings of loss of control over life situations and emotions
combined with loss of hope for the future. Such poignant distress often leads to a narrower
view of the world to such an extent that reality becomes distorted, and death seems the only
answer to life crises.
Loss of Kin
The primary goal in a young female's life is to marry because, in baldest terms, in ancient
society a female necessarily was predominantly in the control of a male.<8> Before marriage,
that control was held by her father, but at marriage she was physically, economically and
psychologically transferred to a new kyrios, her husband. The physical and psychological
dependence of females on males was so socially ingrained that the female personality and
social function was only complete in its relationship to the male. It logically follows, then,
that upon the loss of the male authority, females may no longer perceive a societal role, and it
is under such circumstances that suicide may occur.
By far the most common motivation for females to commit suicide in classical mythology is
because of the loss of a male kin, most frequently the husband. Alcyone, Cleite, Cleopatra,
Deianeira, Evadne, Hylonome, Laeodamea, Marpessa, Oenone, Polydora and Polymede are
all wives who killed themselves upon the death of their husbands. As we can deduce from the
many representations on Greek vases of women mourning that it is a female duty; committing
suicide takes that duty one further, final step. Antigone (wife of Peleus), fearing she had lost
her husband to another woman, took her own life. Stricken by grief, these women all found
death at their own hands preferable to life without their husbands.
Sally Cline<9> observes how the stigma of being a widow derives from the fact that it is a
status typically occupied by females. According to a NORC General Social Surveys report,
women are more than three times as likely as men to be widowed.<10> Though such statistics
are not available from the ancient Greek world, an examination of the Greek words for widow
and widowhood are telling. In Homer, the tragedians and orators a female who has lost her
husband is called a chera, but the masculine form, cheros, does not appear until Aristotle who
uses it in the context of birds. The Old English widewe originated in the Indo-European root
widh meaning to be empty or separated. The Sanskrit vidh means destitute or lacking. These
connotations appear in Greek as well where cheroo means to make desolate and occurs
concerning women in Homer, and the Greek chereuo means to lack or, in oratory of a woman,
to live in widowhood. These notions of being made empty or lacking imply that marriage
allows a woman to fulfill herself with, as it were, a dual personality that, at the loss of the
male, becomes half. As Joseph T. Shipley in The Dictionary of Word Origins<11> points out
'since marriage has made two of one, a widow is a woman that has been emptied of herself.'
Clearly, based on Greek vocabulary and the gender asymmetry inherent in it, these
implications are not similarly affixed to widowers.
At least from the female perspective,<12> ancient Greek society was 'couple-oriented.' In
couple-oriented, patriarchal societies, the widow is one often viewed as being unavailable,
uninteresting, and being either sexually uninviting or conversely a predator.<13> Legal
mechanisms existed in the ancient world that provided for the transfer of a widow from one
kyrios (male protector) to another. In a culture where a significant age difference between
husband and wife was the norm, we might expect the number of widows to exceed the
number of widowers (though, of course, childbirth was a dangerous period for women).
Nevertheless, mythological stories of 'wicked step-mothers'<14> remind us that the legal
mechanisms did not necessarily address the emotional and psychological displacement caused
by widowhood and remarriage. The stories from mythology provide another resource for
uncovering culturally imbedded fears and concerns. However, both legal mechanisms and
mythological tales show that there are normative patterns to widowhood (remarriage) and
behavioral expectations that if denied can lead to suicide. In a death-defying and couple-based
culture, there is a certain stigma to being widowed, which is amplified by the fact that it is a
status typically occupied by females. Few married women escape the status. In the general
pattern of older males marrying younger females, not only is greater male power in the
relationship asserted, but also it is guaranteed that generally the woman must cope with the
dying and death of the spouse. The spectrum of emotions associated with grief and the
liminality of being neither in the world of singles nor of married people leads many to suicide.
The second most common source of grief for women is the loss of their offspring. According
to Jane Littlewood,<15> 'the loss of a child is a uniquely devastating experience for the child's
parents. In contemporary Western societies such deaths are almost always viewed as untimely
because they conflict with people's taken-for-granted assumptions and life-cycle expectations.'
Thucydides expresses this same sentiment in Pericles' Funeral Speech when he laments that in
times of war parents bury their children instead of the opposite, more natural scenario in
which children bury their parents. The unnaturalness of the child predeceasing the parent is
the most disturbing aspect and, as Cline has suggested, the bereavement and expression of
grief of mothers differs from that expressed by fathers because 'the biological experience of
childbirth combined with the social role of motherhood, which in this [contemporary] society
establishes mothers as the primary parent, is what makes the difference.'<16>
In ancient Greece for at least the early years of boys' lives and throughout girls' lives mothers
were indeed the primary parent and the number of mothers who commit suicide upon the
death of their sons shows the depth of grief to which they succumb. Many bereaved mothers
may learn to restructure their lives around the loss, but many are unable to and so kill
themselves. The mythological stories of mothers who commit suicide at the loss of children
deal almost exclusively with the loss of famous (or infamous) sons, though Niobe loses sons
and daughters and sometimes the gender of the children is unspecified. Aethra, Theseus's
mother, Arethusa, Corax's mother, Perdix, mother of Talos, Anticleia, mother of Odysseus
and Althaea, mother of Meleager kill themselves. In the case of Arethusa and Perdix, we
know nothing about their husbands and the women's only significant role is that of mothers.
However, their sons were notable. Corax upon his death received the honor of having a place
named after him and Talos, talented like his uncle Daedalus, invented the saw, the potter's
wheel, the chisel and the compass, and at Daedalus' attempted murder of him was
metamorphosed into a partridge. Aethra's history is complex and important, as is her son's, but
the story of her suicide is probably a late spurious one, as perhaps is the case with the story of
Anticleia's self-hanging. Althaea's relationship to her son is complicated by her apparent
control of his fate, and the story of her sacrificing her son's life because he has taken her
brother's hints at an element in Greek culture that values natal family over conjugal family.
Here we may add Amata who hanged herself when Turnus, her would-be son-in-law was
killed.
Sometimes mothers lose multiple offspring. Niobe is the quintessential mother in Greek
mythology, so proud of her 14 offspring that she challenges the worship of Leto. After her 7
sons' and 7 daughters' deaths, she leaps to her own. Eurydice finds the death of her youngest
son, Haemon, the final pain she can bear, having previously lost her other sons. Themisto, in a
devious plot to kill her rival Ino's children, instead causes her own children to be killed and
then kills herself.
Sisters may commit suicide upon the loss of their fathers or brothers. Erigone, sister of
Orestes and Erigone, daughter of Icarius, hang themselves after the important males in their
lives die, and even a dog, Maera, can feel the loss of a master (Icarius) and commit suicide by
leaping into a well. Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, is a special case who having lost her
entire family succumbs to grief and in staying true to her convictions hangs herself.
Abandonment
A related phenomenon occurs when women are abandoned by their lovers. Not only are they
left pseudo-widowed, but they may also have to face (or believe they have to face) the censure
of their societies. Alcinoe, Ariadne, Callirrhoe, Thisbe, Scylla and Dido fall into this category
though each story deserves special attention. Alcinoe, though married with children, in a state
of madness caused by Athena fell in love with a visitor. When the Samian left, she abandoned
her home in pursuit. Coming to her senses on board, she repented and leapt to her drowning.
Ariadne, having betrayed her country to help Theseus, was subsequently left behind on
Naxos, where, according to one source, she killed herself. Callirrhoe, after having helped
Diomedes avoid being sacrificed to Ares, was abandoned by him. Fearing the possibility of
reprisal by her father, she hanged herself. Dido, abandoned by Aeneas, grieved not only for
her lost love, but also for her lost sense of honor in respect to her first husband and her city.
Thisbe, forbidden lover of Pyramus, stabbed herself after finding Pyramus dead by suicide.
Scylla, betraying her father because of her love for Minos, was rejected by Minos and threw
herself into the sea. In each of these cases, the women's betrayal of home or country and the
shame that results combines with the grief felt by abandonment.
Even immortals feel the pain of unrequited love and abandonment and we are told that
Calypso killed herself out of love for Odysseus. Another little known lover of Heracles,
Xenodoce, felt such longing and desire for him during his absence that she died. Here we may
add Polyxena, who according to one source, killed herself on the grave of her lover, Achilles,
and Phyllis who hanged herself believing she had been abandoned by her lover Demophon.
Mixed with fear
Grief mixed with fear is another incentive for seeking self-imposed death. Laodoce felt such
grief at the possibility of becoming a Trojan slave to the Greeks prayed for the earth to receive
her and the gods complied with her request. Perhaps here we can append Iliona, one of the
lesser-known daughters of Priam and Hecuba who, Hyginus tells us, killed herself on account
of the misfortunes of her parents.
Shame
A sense of shame was a powerful motivator in the ancient world, moving people to internalize
social expectations.<17> It is also a concept connected with 'who one is' and consequently is
frequently associated with people who have strong feelings. A sense of shame can be
distinguished from feelings of guilt, i.e., a bad conscience, which are more connected with
'what one does' and which is frequently associated with strong thinking types. Though
typically and traditionally women are considered to value 'feelings' over 'thinking,' in the
ancient world shame far outweighs guilt in self-killing<18> in both male and females.
Rape
The frequency of stories of rape in classical mythology suggests an underlying ambivalence in
the ancient mind toward sexuality.<19> In a culture where female protection under a kyrios, a
male protector, signifies female qua property, one would expect rape to be a means of attack
of one male on another via his property/woman.<20> This same culture attributes greater
sexual appetites to females than males, an attribution that calls into question female virtue and
necessitates male 'protection' and regulation. Rape then becomes as Walcot argues, 'sex on
man's terms and not the terms of woman.'<21> The mythological instances of females
committing suicide either to avoid rape or, if unable to avoid rape, to manifest the resultant
repugnance and shame, interestingly invites us to consider instead the female response to such
violence.
Arsippe and Nicaea were devotees of Artemis who suffered the disgrace of rape. Arsippe
initially repulsed Tmolus, the son of Ares, but was finally caught and taken in the temple of
Artemis; thereupon she hanged herself from a beam in the temple. Nicaea, the daughter of
Sangarius, a river god, and Cybele, was so distressed by the attention of a shepherd Hymnus
that she shot him through the heart with an arrow. Eros, furious at this event, caused Dionysus
to fall in love with her, and he, after getting her drunk, impregnated her with Telete. Upon
Telete's birth, Nicaea hanged herself. These chaste attendants of Artemis who have left the
protection of their paternal households to live in the woods consequently fall victim to other
deities or semi-divine characters.<22> But the shame of being raped and the dread of
betraying Artemis create a negative emotional response that cannot even be mitigated by
motherhood.
Rape can be further complicated when the rapist is a relative. In the case of sexually abusive
incest, the victim is not merely suffering from the violation against her virtue of chastity, but
also feels the effect of an offence against the affection and reverence with which relatives
should be regarded. Pelopeia, granddaughter of Pelops, daughter of Thyestes and priestess of
Athena, became one more cog in the cursed family of Pelops. Thyestes, having learned from
an oracle that he must beget an incestuous child (Aegisthus) with his daughter in order to take
revenge on Atreus, secretly raped her while she was performing her duties as priestess. The
sword he left behind became the tool of recognition later, at which time Pelopeia used it to
stab herself. Though at first able to live with the aftermath of rape, Pelopeia could not endure
the additional shame of incest. The apparent ease with which Thyestes carried out the oracle's
command reaffirms the insignificant position of females in general and female daughters in
particular, but the suicide seems to indicate that from a female perspective there is a sense of
self-worth that motivates one to choose honorable death over living in shame.
Not only virgins suffer the humiliation of incestuous rape. Halia, together with Poseidon,
produced six sons and a daughter. The sons turned out impious and malicious, and insulted
Aphrodite. In retaliation, she caused them to go mad and gang rape their mother. Halia hurled
herself into the sea, but was subsequently worshipped by the Rhodians as Leucothea, a divine
being. Students of mythology are familiar with Aphrodite's vengeance that destroys innocents
along with the guilty–Euripides' Phaedra is a prime example of a victim of Aphrodite's anger.
This unique story of incestuous gang rape, however, gives us a glimpse into Aphrodite's very
darkest side.
Some females are fortunate enough to be able to escape rape, though the means of escape is
final indeed. Aspalis and Side are two virgins who hanged themselves before being raped.
Aspalis was one in a long line of lovely maidens who caught the eye of the tyrant Tartaros,
but hanged herself before his soldiers could seize her. Side killed herself on her mother's
grave to escape the incestuous advances of her father.
In sum, virginity is meant to be a temporary life-stage for females. As a virgin living in her
father's house she had a duty to live chastely, and if she were seduced or violated, she was
seen to have been destroyed and to have lost her right of fatherly protection.<23> All females
must experience their sexuality to become fully mature women, but that experience is
confined by certain legal limitations of marriage laws. And though adherents of Artemis may
wish to prolong the virginal life-stage, perhaps indefinitely, the fact that some females commit
suicide when they are forcibly removed from that stage shows not only the depth of shame
that can ensue, but also the real practical considerations of disinheritance.
Unrequited Love
Sometimes instead of unrequited love leading to suicide because of grief, the actions of the
females lead to a deep sense of shame that in turn precipitates their self-destruction. Phaedra,
Ochne and Sthenoboea each approach a would-be lover, are rejected, tell lies about the event
to cover their own illicit lust, and then commit suicide in shame.
Incest (non-sexually abusive)
Jocasta, Canace and Byblis react to the shame of incest and kill themselves. Jocasta
unknowingly with her son and Canace knowingly with her brother consummate the incest
with offspring, while Byblis's incestuous advances to her brother are soundly rejected.
Madness
Though there is a tendency in the modern world to link suicide with mental illness, research
suggests that people who were desperately unhappy, though not insane, for the most part
commit suicide acts.<24> The same holds for mythological characters; rarely can suicide be
attributed to madness in mythology.<25> The females who commit suicide in a state of
madness are Agraulos and Herse, daughters of Cecrops, the half-serpent man. The story goes
that when Athena gave to these girls for rearing the offspring of Hephaestus' aborted attempt
to impregnate her, she instructed them to keep the child hidden in a chest. While sister
Pandrosos obeyed, the other two girls failed to heed her warning and upon seeing the snaky
child within went mad and hurled themselves from the Acropolis. Apparently and ironically,
though the girls' own father was half-snake, the sight of such an infant drove them insane.
More likely, disobedience of Athena, not just the sight of the child, played the major role in
their madness.
Self-Sacrifice
A common motif throughout Greek mythology is the idea of patriotic concerns displacing
personal concerns, even to the point of ending one's life for the benefit of the community. The
noble suicide of these women shows the basically paradoxical relationship of the individual to
her society, for the altruistic tendencies that cause the individual to sacrifice herself for a
greater good, perceived or real, often mix disastrously with a tendency to self-reliance and a
too-severe adherence to ungrounded social demands. As in Greek tragedy, in Greek
mythology the question of self-sacrifice is complicated by lack of source clarity on whether or
not the individual physically killed herself or only volunteered to die.<26> Let it suffice to
say that in these instances where the greater good takes precedence over individual good,
actual self-killing is simply the proactive approach to giving oneself voluntarily to an
executioner.
An interesting feature of several of these patriotic self-sacrifices is the collective grouping of
the victims, a phenomenon not found in tragedy. The Leontides, the Coronides (daughters of
Orion), the Hyacinthides, Alcis and Androcleia and the Erechtheidae collectively agree to die
in compliance with an oracle so that their cities may be rescued from plague or war. In the
case of the Leontides and Hyacinthides, we do not know if they physically took their own
lives, though we do know that the Coronides smashed their brains out with their shuttles and
the daughters of Erechtheus (Otionia, Pandora and Protogenia), after Erechtheus slaughtered
the youngest, killed themselves because they had taken an oath among themselves to perish
together. Agraulos and Macaria individually sacrificed themselves to ward off war, while
Iphigenia individually sacrificed herself to precipitate war. Alcestis killed herself to prolong
her husband's life. Callirrhoe, a Calydonian maiden, rejected as a lover a priest of Dionysus
who sent a plague that could only be lifted by her self-sacrifice. Though she initially refused,
when her would-be lover killed himself she followed suit.
There are several interesting points in these stories. For example, the Hyacinthides are
daughters of Hyacinthus, a Spartan transplanted to Athens. When Athens was suffering from a
famine and plague during its war with Minos, an oracle demanded the death of the Spartan
maidens. We might well ask why Hyacinthus, a Spartan, agreed to kill his own daughters for
Athens, especially since their deaths did not end the pestilence in Athens. To confuse things
further (or perhaps to rationalize the idea of Spartans sacrificing themselves for Athenians),
Demosthenes [60.27] says that the Erechtheidae were also called the Hyacinthides.
In the case of the Leontides and the Erechtheidae, an oath united the girls in death, for in both
groups an agreement had been made that if one died, all would die. The tendency to conceive
of oneself only in terms of others perhaps paves the way for voluntary and altruistic death. In
several cases, the maidens were not initially asked to sacrifice themselves, but they substitute
themselves when the oracle's demands seem in danger of not being met.
Fear
In one case, fear is the overriding motivation to suicide. Hippodamia so feared her husband's
reprisal for her instigating her own sons to kill his illegitimate one that she killed herself.
Frustration
One final category seems to apply to immortals only. Both the Sirens and the Sphinx leap to
their deaths after Odysseus and Oedipus render their power benign, respectively. The paradox
of immortals dying is apparently lost on the authors who record these stories.
Methods
The methods available to mythological women for killing themselves are limited, and include
(in order of frequency) hanging, leaping into water or onto land, stabbing, leaping into fire,
drinking poison, clubbing and being swallowed by the earth. In the self-sacrifice cases we are
usually not told the specific method used, though we may safely speculate that sacrificial
knives would be at hand, and there are a several other cases where the actual means used are
unclear. Sometimes because of the variety and complexity of the sources, different methods
are attributed to individual females. The following discussion begins from van Hooff's
excellent categorization and seeks only to supplement and refine it as it relates to
mythological females.<27> Clearly, suicide is an aggressive act against oneself, but the
methods may vary in their degree of violence.
Hanging
Though in the Odyssey the idea of hanging is repugnant and considered a suitable means of
death for the disloyal female slaves (22.462), and in Euripides' Helen (298-303) Helen
describes the noose as unseemly, the frequency with which mythological females use it as a
means of suicide suggests these thoughts were not pervasive. On a realistic and practical
level, hanging might have been prevalent because it was simply possible to remove one's belt
and use it.<28> The means were ready to hand. 22 of the 72<29> female or group of female
suicides hang themselves. Of that group, 5 are maidens while the remaining 17 are either
married or sexually active. Though it has been argued that the rope is the means most suitable
for virgins while the sword is more suitable for spouses, my findings here show that that
distinction does not obtain.<30>
Leaping Onto Land Or Into The Sea
Van Hooff considers leaping a 'means for the desperate,'<31> and the examples of the 12
mythological females who leap to their deaths support this notion. 6 of these females hurl
themselves from city walls or cliffs to their death on land, while 6 throw themselves into the
sea and drown. In each case, the means are ready to hand. In the case of those who hurl
themselves from city walls or cliffs to their land deaths, the act is public with gruesome
residual effects. For those who drown not only do they lose their physical being, but their
identity is completely obliterated.
Stabbing
Swords, spears and knives are usually not in the immediate environment for women so the
women who stab themselves are either in more unusual situations than is typical or are more
resolute in their decisions to die. 10 women use the edges, 3 wives and 7 sexually active
maidens. 1 group, the Coronides, use their weaving tools to stab themselves. Deianeira
resolutely stabs herself with the sword of Heracles while Hylonome in grief at the loss of her
husband fell on the spear that had killed him. Polyxena and Thisbe use the sword to kill
themselves at the sides of their lovers who have perished before them, while Dido uses her
dead husband's sword at her abandonment by Aeneas. Amphinome, mother of Jason, stabs
herself heroically, in the words of Diodorus of Sicily. Canace and Pelopeia both use the sword
in shame at their incestuous liaisons.
Leaping Into Fire
Evadne and Laodamia each hurl themselves spectacularly onto the pyres of their husbands
and commit a sort of suttee.<32> A third woman, Oenone, hurls herself onto the funeral pyre
of Troy in regret for having failed to help Paris. These acts are public and exhibitionist and
underscore their feelings of duty to die with their husbands and their identity dependence on
them.
Poison
As Van Hooff points out,<33> 'the overall character of self-killing in antiquity requires the
use of sure and therefore hard methods.' Poison, however, can be administered incorrectly and
ineffectually and therefore is not a very common means of suicide. Only Polymede drank
bull's blood and died, and this account comes from a later Roman source, Valerius Flaccus,
and perhaps reflects Roman tendencies. And we may deduce from Euripides' description of
the death of Alcestis that she also drank poison.<34>
Clubbing And Being Swallowed By The Earth
Equally uncertain as to its efficacy is self-death by clubbing. In Ovid's version of the self-
sacrifice of the Coronides, one of them uses her shuttle to mortally wound herself. This is an
unusual concept, and one that to my knowledge has no parallels in the ancient world. Equally
unusual though perhaps akin to leaping to the ground is being swallowed by the earth, as is
Laodice.
Unclear Methods
In 26 cases we do not know how the females killed themselves. 8 wives, 3 mothers, 3 lovers
and 1 daughter who was a victim of incest kill themselves by unknown means. 11 self-
sacrifice victims voluntarily give up their lives, but we are not told how the deaths actually
come about.
Conclusions
The complexity and variety of the stories concerning mythological females who commit
suicide caution us to beware of sweeping conclusive statements. We have discovered that a
wide variety of motivations can be found as well as an interesting mix of methods, and that
neither motivations nor methods can be specifically assigned to one familial or age grouping.
We can say that in the majority of cases women define themselves and their roles in
relationship to a man or a city, whether that role be seen in a positive light (e.g., a faithful
spouse or a patriotic citizen) or a negative one (e.g., a victim of incest or rape). In all of these
cases, self-sought death is considered preferable to a life of grief or shame or perceived lack
of patriotism.
Unlike in Greek tragedy where we typically have a full context with which to work, in the
mythological stories from sources other than tragedy we are not able to specify precisely how
survivors reacted to the suicides.<35> The stories of mythology are primarily told in isolation
and the sources are so varied that any such attempt would have to begin with a discussion of
each source individually, a task beyond the scope of this article. It would also be dangerous to
speculate on the relative importance in society or the expendability of women versus men
without looking at the mythological males who commit suicide, a task also outside the scope
of this article, but which I will address in a forthcoming one.
Modern researchers look for factors that predispose women towards or inhibit them from
committing suicide. They have tentatively found that women who have been sexually abused
or subject to severe forms of male sexual violence appear to be more predisposed towards
suicide than women who have not been. On the other hand, women who have dependent
children often feel inhibited from committing suicide, as long as they do not fall into the
category of incest survivors.<36> In the ancient mythological context we have also seen both
a tendency of sexually abused females to commit suicide and mothers who have lost their
dependent children to do so. Most common in the ancient mythological world, though, is to
commit suicide upon the loss of the important male in one's life, be it husband, lover, brother
or father, reinforcing the notion that ancient women defined themselves in terms of
males.<37>
Return to the Index
Notes
See C. Sourvinou-Inwood, 'Reading' Greek Culture. Texts and Images, Rituals and Myths.
(Oxford 1991) chapter 1.
See R. Buxton, Imaginary Greece. The Contexts of Mythology. (Cambridge 1994) passim.
P. Easterling, "The Infanticide in Euripides' Medea," YCS 25 (1977) 177-91; B. Knox, "The
Medea of Euripides," YCS 25 (1977) 193-25.
On suicide in general in the ancient world, see A.J.L. van Hooff, From Autothanasia to
Suicide. Self-Killing in Classical Antiquity (Routledge 1990). For suicide in Greek tragedy,
see E.P.Garrison, Groaning Tears. Ethical and Dramatic Aspects of Suicide in Greek Tragedy
(Brill 1995). For full bibliographical references to other important works on ancient suicide,
see Garrison, p. 1, n. 1.
In subsequent articles I will treat suicidal males and male and female attempts and threats of
suicide.
Van Hooff (above note 4) chapter 3 offers additional categories but these do not apply to
mythological females.
There are 72 or 73 (depending upon how many Sirens there were--2 or 3) female suicides in
classical mythology. See my catalogue which alphabetically lists each female or group of
females, the details of her suicide and the primary sources (translated) that report it. Several
other females who attempt or threaten suicide are rescued or transformed, but I will discuss
these cases in a separate article.
The literature on 'women in antiquity' is extensive, but especially germane are R. Sealy,
Women and Law in Classical Greece (Chapel Hill and London 1990), D.M.MacDowell, The
Law in Classical Athens. Aspects of Greek and Roman Life (Ithaca 1978) and W.K.Lacey,
The Family in Classical Greece. Aspects of Greek and Roman Life (Ithaca 1968). Excellent
bibliographies specific to the different ancient historical eras can be found in Women in the
Classical World. Image and Text, edd. E. Fantham, H.P. Foley, N. Kampen, S.B. Pomeroy
and H.A. Shapiro (New York and Oxford 1994).
Lifting the Taboo: Women, Death and Dying (London 1996) 140-1.
Combined 1973-94.
(Westport, CT 1969).
Though myths of sexual repression by males and the dire consequences of that repression--
consider Hippolytus and Pentheus--may persuade us that this is true from the male perspective
as well.
Cline (above, note 9) 145.
For an interesting discussion of this phenomenon see P.A. Watson, Ancient Stepmothers.
Myth, Misogyny and Reality (Brill 1995).
Aspects of Grief: Bereavement in Adult Life (London and New York 1992) p. 122.
(Above, note 9) 164.
Garrison (above, note 4) 7-8; van Hooff (above, note 4) 107-20.
Van Hooff (above, note 4) 84-5.
Much literature on rape in antiquity exists, but see particularly Rape in Antiquity, edd S.
Deacy and K.F. Pierce (London 1997) and the bibliography cited there.
P. Walcot, "Herodotus on Rape," Arethusa 11 (1978) 139.
Ibid, 147. See also F. Zeitlin, "Configurations of Rape in Greek Myth," in Rape, edd. S.
Tomaselli and R. Porter (Oxford and New York 1986) 122-51.
S. Deacy, "The Vulnerability of Athena. Parthenoi and Rape in Greek Myth," in Rape in
Antiquity (above note 18) 43-63. Deacy only discusses maidens who are metamorphosed.
G. Sissa, Greek Virginity, tr. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge and London 1990) 88ff. discusses
the laws of Solon regarding parthenoi found to be no longer virgins.
Cline (above, note 9) 268.
Van Hooff (above, note 4) 96-9.
For a sustained discussion of the phenomenon in Greek tragedy and full bibliographical
references, see Garrison (above, note 4) 129ff and n. 1.
Van Hooff (above, note 4) chapter 2.
For women's clothing see T. Hope, Costumes of the Greeks and Romans (New York 1962)
xxxi.
This number takes into account only 2 sirens. The total number tallied in this methods
sections is 77 because some women are credited with different means of killing themselves.
N.Loraux, Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman, tr. A. Forster (Cambridge, MA 1987) 13ff.
Van Hooff (above, note 4) 73.
Garrison (above, note 4) 121ff, and Cline (above, note 9) 157-9.
Van Hooff (above, note 4) 61.
Garrison (above, note 4) 164-5.
For a discussion of the reaction of survivors in Greek tragedy, see Garrison (above note 4)
passim. Rarely is the reaction anything but sympathetic. Similarly in history: T. Harrison,
"Herodotus and the Ancient Greek Idea of Rape," in Rape in Antiquity (above note 18) 189
points out that in the story of Mycerinus' rape of his daughter and her subsequent suicide
(II.131) Herodotus "finds nothing psychologically implausible in the behaviour of Mycerinus'
wife or daughter; there is no suggestion that either of them had over-reacted" 189. See also
A.J.L. van Hooff, "Female Suicide: Between Fiction and Fact," Laverna III (1992) 142-72.
Cline (above, note 9) 273.
I wish to extend special thanks to Dr. Ross Scaife of the University of Kentucky and to the
referees for Diotima, though any omissions or errors belong to me alone. I also want to thank
Vanessa Peters and Kimberly Jones, my undergraduate research assistants at Texas A&M
University, who were invaluable in helping to create the catalogue, and to the Department of
Modern and Classical Languages for funding two Undergraduate Research Opportunity
Program grants. Finally, thanks to the Women's Studies Program at Texas A&M University
for awarding me a faculty research grant to complete this project.
Return to the Index
www.stoa.org/diotima
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/garrison_essay.shtml