suicide in ancient Rome

Phew - 'ancient Rome' spans a thousand years. What period is your WIP? It also depends on the context and the enormity of the crime.

Can you give us a bit more, angeliz? PM if you'd rather.

For all things ancient Rome, check out a website and drop a line to a friend of mine http://www.lukedevenish.com/ who recently released a novel (part of a series) dealing with events of ancient Rome. He has spent many moons researching the era.

JJ

Depends on the era, the "crime", the prominence of the individual, and the power of his family and associates.

For the past few years, I've been heavily focused on the middle Republic, when this sort of thing was usually resolved by the accused party fleeing into exile.

During the Sullan and later proscriptions (and civil wars), I know a great number of senators and the like committed suicide rather than suffer the disgrace of being captured/killed/forced to ask for clemency. But in most of those cases, property was still forfeit, and dispossessed descendants would have had to rely on their industriousness to rebuilt fortunes.

Petronius, author of the Satyricon (by most scholarly deduction), was a favorite of Nero's. This brought the envious wrath of others down upon him, and he was accused of treasonous affairs. So he slit his wrists and held a banquet--partied, held theological discussions, gave gifts to his slaves. Undoubtedly an elegant, and resilient, suicide.

Tacitus wrote about it in the Annals.

Hmm - your character's crime would come under the maiestas laws - or treason, if you prefer. Under Tiberius there were a few changes to this, and certainly in some cases, the victim's property was grabbed by the Emperor's agents whether suicide had ensued or not. In fact, forced suicide was often the preferred method of execution. One of the charges levelled at Tiberius was that he deliberately arraigned his enemies for treason just to get his hands on their wills, etc. Nero was of a similar ilk, so you may be on shaky ground here. But you could always use your storyline to show the corruption surrounding this particular era of the Principate, by having some important person close to Nero involved in saving your character's property - perhaps with hopes to hold the family in obligation to him after the 'criminal's' death.

You probably don't need to be too pedantic, Angeliz - I think even the most academic readers would forgive you for bending the truth a little during this turbulent reign. Maiestas and its consequences often rested on the whim of the particular Princeps (Emperor).