Isocrates, 436 B.C., an Athenian orator, starved himself to death, on account of the defeat of his countrymen in the battle of Cheronæa.
Empedocles, 435 B.C., poet and philosopher, threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna.
Appius, the Decemvir, 400 B.C., killed himself in prison, where he was cast by the Tribunes after the storm of popular indignation which followed his attempted seduction of Virginia.
Decius Mus, 338 B.C., Roman Consul, threw away his life in battle against the Latins, as did his son, B.C. 296, and his grandson, B. C. 280.
Demosthenes, 325 B.C., the most celebrated orator of antiquity, poisoned himself to escape from the pursuit of the soldiers of Antipater.
Nicocles, 310 B.C., King of Paphos, in Cyprus, intrigued against Ptolemy, and destroyed himself, and his whole family did the same, to avoid being disgraced.
Brennus, 278 B.C., a Gallic general, invaded Greece, but his army being defeated, he killed himself in a fit of intoxication.
Zeno, 264 B.C., founder of the Stoic sect of philosophers, in walking in his school one day, he fell and broke a finger; this so disgusted him with life in this world, that he went straight home and strangled himself.
Regulus, 251 B.C., a Roman consul during the First Punic War, was defeated and taken prisoner to Carthage. Some years after he was allowed to go to Rome to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, having first been compelled to bind himself by an oath to return if unsuccessful. On arriving in Rome he dissuaded his countrymen from the proposed terms and then promptly returned to certain death at Carthage.
Theoxena and Her Husband threw themselves into the sea to escape capture by the soldiers of Philip of Macedon.