2-999-741 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Suicide of Lucretia, 1600. The suicide of the Roman heroine Lucretia was related by the historian Livy (59 BCE- 17 CE). Raped by an Etruscan prince, she extracted an oath of vengeance from her father and husband and then stabbed herself. As a result, the Etruscan kings were expelled and the Roman Republic was established (late 6th century BCE). At the time (and still so around 1600), her response to being raped--suicide--was considered appropriate, even noble.