[5] At Anchiale, there was a monument erected to the memory of Sardanapalus. It consisted of an image carved in stone work, and having the thumb and the finger of the right hand joined, as if making some sound or noise with them. On the monument was inscribed these words in Assyrian characters: “Sardanapalus, the son of Anacyndarax, founded Anchiale and Tyre in one day. Eat, drink, and be merry. As for the rest, it is not worth the snap of the finger.”
[6] Varro de Ling. Lat., lib. iv.
[7] 1 Samuel, xxxi.
[8] This is the only case of suicide recorded in the New Testament. Judas’s conduct is condemned in the strongest language; he is called in the Gospel of St. John (vi. 70,) “a devil, and the son of perdition;” and in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, at the 25th verse, after the account given of his violent death, he is said to have gone to his own peculiar place. (Εἰς τὸν τόπον τὸν ἴδιον)
Virgil thus alludes to the “place of punishment” allotted to those who sacrifice wantonly their own lives:—
“Proxima deinde tenent mæsti loca, qui sibi letum
Insontes peperêre manu, lucemque perosi
Projecêre animas. Quàm vellent æthere in alto
Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores!
Fas obstat. Tristique palus inamabilis undâ