San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-03-13

ana NJ Ihe age OF 81 drowned Ia IN
self m lhe Lake of Geneva.
Homer, it is said, hanged him
self in extreme old age because,
after long trial, he cOuld not solve
IL e ''Fisherman's Pu2zle.n
Senator Lame, of Kansas. the
famous Jim Lane Of ante bellum
days, died in 1866, by his own
hand in a fit OfmeDtal alteration.
One of the most distinguished
suicides in this country was the
Hon. j Ohm Davis. Speaker of the
House of Representatives fro m
1916 to lS47.
DemOsthenes took poison which
for years he had carried about
with him Ia a pen. He was dis
gusted at the fickleness and folly
of the Athenians.
Catullus Luctatius killed him
self in peculiarly painful manner
by swallowing Goals of fire and
supplymenting them with a piece
ofred,hot iron.
Saul, the first King of Israel,
killed himself rather than be slain
by the Phiistines. Defeated in
battle and his kingdom gone, he
had nothing to live for.
Macer, Roman official of
Cicero's time, hanged himself
when Informed that the great
orator intended to appear against
him in his trial for peculation.
Ajax killed himself with his
spear; JOcasta, AntigOne, H1mOn,
Eurydice, Edipus and many other
Greek heroes and herOines died
by their own hands.
Herennius, the Sicilian, showed
signs ofmadness and was confined
| by his friends. Determined to
thwart them. he beat his brains
| out against post.
The Philosopher Cleombrotas,
after reading Plato's Phaedon,
killed himself in order that he
might at once enjoy the sweets of
the future life so wildly describ-
| ed.
Whether the death of Clement
9. Vallandigham was suicide or
an accident has never been salts
factOrily determined, though the
evidence seems to indicate self.
destruction.
Abimelech, while stOrming the
town of Thebez, was wounded in
the head by stone thrown by a
woman, and made his armOr bear
er Kill him lest it should be said a
woman slew him.
Vatel, a famous French cook,
ran himself through with sword
because the fish for a State dinner
came too late to be used, and he
could not stand the disgrace of
serving a dinner without fish.
PetrOnius Arbiter, the poet and
man of pleasure in NerO's court,
having fallen into disgrace, went
home, wrote satrical poem de-
scribing NerO's debaucheries, and
then opened his veins.
Like his great guest, Hannibal,
Mithridates killed himself by
poison to avoid falling into the
hands of the Romans. He pre-
feTred death to appearance in the
triumphal procession of a Roman
General.
| The Philosopher, Damocles,
threw himself into a chaldrOn of
boiling oil and miserably persisted.
His fate was not known until the
oil was poured out and his bones,
boiled clean, were found.
POrtis, the daughter of Cato
attempted to kill herself by drink,
ing boiling water, but, unable to
swallow it, she hastily crammed
handfuls of glowing Goals into her
throat, and died in great agony.
Empedocles, the philosopher,
threw himself into the crater of
Vesuvius. He has had a modern
imitator, an EnglishmaD, who kill.
ed himself by jumping headlong
into the crater of an iron furnace.
Terence the Roman dramatist, lost
his manuscripts; collection of Io8
PLAYS he had translated from the
Greek for nse on the Roman stage.
He was unable to endure the loss