CATO, MARCUS, 46 B.C., having opposed Cæsar, unsuccessfully, retired to Utica, and feeling too proud to humiliate himself before a conqueror, stabbed himself, and died the same night, after spending his last hours in reading Plato’s Phædon, a dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul. BRUTUS, 42 B.C., Roman statesman, slew himself with his sword after defeat at the battle of Philippi. PORTIA, his wife, killed herself by swallowing red-hot coals on hearing of her husband’s death. CASSIUS, 42 B.C., Roman general, being defeated at the battle of Philippi by Antony and Octavian, threw himself on his sword. POMPONIUS ATTICUS, 33 B.C., man of letters, starved himself, because he became afflicted with some intestinal disease. MARK ANTONY, 30 B.C., Roman Consul, general, and statesman, being defeated at the battle of Actium, and deserted as he thought by Cleopatra, cut open his bowels and died in terrible agony. CLEOPATRA, 30 B.C., Queen of Egypt, the beloved of Antony, on hearing of his death, killed herself. The only mark of injury on her body was a small puncture on the arm; it is doubtful whether this was caused by the bite of an asp, or by a poisoned bodkin. COCCEIUS NERVA, A.D. 20, an eminent lawyer and favourite of the Emperor Tiberius, starved himself as a protest against the extravagance of the Court. GALLUS, A.D. 26, Roman poet, killed himself when exiled for treason: he was a friend of Virgil. ARRIA and her husband PÆTUS, A.D. 45. Pætus had revolted against the Emperor Claudius, without success. Finding his condemnation unavoidable, Arria stabbed herself, calling on her husband to imitate her, which he did. BOADICEA, A.D. 60. Queen of the Iceni in Britain, in the time of Nero, being defeated by the Roman General Suetonius, she poisoned herself. APICIUS, A.D. 64., the greatest glutton known to history, hanged himself. SENECA, A.D. 65, Rhetorician, and tutor to Nero, opened his veins and bled himself to death, when under condemnation for conspiracy. Paulina, his wife, opened her veins at the same time. LUCAN, A.D. 66, a Roman poet, being concerned in the same conspiracy as Seneca, killed himself in the same manner. NERO, A.D. 68, Emperor of Rome, was condemned for his villanies to be whipped to death; to avoid this execution he destroyed himself. OTHO, A.D. 69, Roman Emperor, after a reign of three months, was defeated by Vitellius, and then slew himself in disgust. JEWS, the, at the Siege of Jerusalem by Titus, A.D. 70. Josephus narrates that the Jewish soldiers destroyed themselves in large numbers, and endeavoured to prevail on him to do the same. SILIUS ITALICUS, A.D. 90, a Roman Consul and poet, being afflicted with an incurable disease at 75 years old, starved himself to death. PELAGIA, of Antioch, A.D. 310, cast herself off the house top to avoid the persecutions of the Pagans, and was afterwards canonised as a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church; see St. Ambrose, De Virginibus.