Back to On taking one's own life

Moral Letters Vol II

Seneca

§ Section 9

On taking one's own life

77:9

Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.

Book Description: The second volume of Seneca's moral letters to Lucilius. Each letter contains Seneca's advice and wisdom won from a life of Roman politics.

9.

No need had he of sword or of bloodshed; for three days he fasted and had a tent put up in his very bedroom.

Then a tub was brought in; he lay in it for a long time, and, as the hot water was continually poured over him, he gradually passed away, not without a feeling of pleasure, as he himself remarked,—such a feeling as a slow dissolution is wont to give.

Those of us who have ever fainted know from experience what this feeling is.