Arve podcast listeners, be warned beforehand, this episode of Emperors of Rome describes

self-harm and suicide, and in this instance, explore sources that glorify it. If this impacts

on your mental health, please be aware and take care of yourself. Enjoy the episode.

Arvee, and welcome to Emperors of Rome, a Roman history podcast from La Trobe University.

I'm your host, Matt Smith, and with me today is Riannon Evans,

Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at La Trobe University.

This is episode CCX-VIIII.

Paitis, it does not hurt.

Aria and her daughter of the same name were celebrated in Roman literature for their virtues, piety and devotion to family.

Remembered above all for their willingness to embrace self-sacrifice,

their lives and deaths became exemplars of courage and duty,

cited by writers like Pliny and Marshall as models of Roman virtue.

Here's Rianne and Evans.

Today we're discussing two women from the same family, actually three by extension, who illustrate the idea of self-sacrifice, actually giving up one's life for one's husband and for the ideals that they stand for and dying alongside one's husband.

So men who are told that they have to kill themselves because they have

displeased the emperor whose wives, well, in one case, actually lead by example when the husband

is hesitating. So it's a difficult subject because it's about embracing suicide. We always have to remember we've discussed before that there's a very different attitude

to suicide in antiquity and for the Romans.

It is a kind of elite form of execution that you are allowed to take charge of your own

death rather than it being forced upon you by crucifixion or some other shameful way.

So this is considered something that is, you know, actually a positive in a terrible situation.

Or if you cannot bear to, say someone like, Cato the Younger, can't bear to live under the regime of Julius Caesar,

...