Ancient Greece: man, society, fate, and suicide

Sivertsev Evgeniy Yurievitch

The article deals with one of the aspects of understanding suicide in ancient culture. Factors that could justify suicide and factors that could prevent suicide are considered. The main attention is focused on the correlation of social debt and individual interests of a particular person. It is shown that the mechanism of suicide prevention, triggered by social necessity, is less reliable protection against suicidal intentions than the idea of the uniqueness of the individual, which the ancient culture does not yet have in due measure.

Keywords:suicide, personality, justification of suicide, condemnation of suicide, autoaggressive behavior, policy, fate, duty.