Cleanthes, 240 B.C., a Stoic philosopher, starved himself because he was seized with an illness, preferring death to lingering disease.
Hasdrubal, the Wife of, 216 B.C., set fire to a temple and threw herself and her two children into the flames rather than fall into the hands of Scipio the Roman general. Her husband was a Carthaginian general who fought in the Second Punic war.
Sophonisba, 203 B.C., was the daughter of Hasdrubal the Carthaginian general, married to Syphax, Prince of Numidia; but she fell a captive into the hands of Masinissa, who then took her to wife, but Scipio the Roman general having seen her, also fancied her as a wife, so she drank poison to avoid this second change.
Eratosthenes, 194 B.C., mathematician, starved himself to death because he found his sight failing him.
Hannibal, 183 B.C., a celebrated Carthaginian general, being defeated by Scipio at Zama, fled to Bithynia, but being pursued even there, killed himself by means of poison, which he always carried about him concealed in rings.
Cleombrotus, a young Greek philosopher, who after reading the Phædon of Plato, threw himself off a wall into the sea. (Ovid.)
Aristarchus, 157 B.C., grammarian and critic, starved himself to death, at Cyprus, after being banished from Alexandria.
Caius Gracchus, 121 B.C., Tribune of Rome, was killed by a slave at his own request, after defeat by the consul Opimius.
Antiochus of Cyzicus, 95 B.C., King of Syria, killed himself when dethroned by Seleucus.
Mithridates, King of Pontus, 63 B.C., killed himself to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans, after being defeated by Pompey.