The Dying Seneca by Paul Peter Rubens (1612/13).īecause Roman culture was fundamentally militaristic, writers and poets also glorified dying bravely in battle. Or at least this most faithfully fits the meaning of the Greek term εὐθανασία (euthanasia), which literally translates as good death ( eu: good thanatos: death). Peacefully passing away at home surrounded by family, as in the case of the emperor Augustus, was the most desirable death a Roman could have wanted. Just as one could live a virtuous life, so could one die a virtuous death, and few examples of admirable, awful, shameful and painful deaths have come down in as much detail as those of the Roman emperors. In ancient Rome, how someone shuffled off their mortal coil mattered as much as how they bore it through life.
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