Dino Baldi. 'For the ancients, death had to teach something about how to live'

Socrates calmly drinking his cup of hemlock to the last drop. Archimedes beheaded by a soldier during the Roman siege of Syracuse, while he was tracing geometric figures in the sand. Julius Caesar fallen in front of the Theatre of Pompey, stabbed 23 times. Agrippina brutally murdered on the orders of her own son, the Emperor Nero. In The Fabulous Deaths of the Ancients (Ed. Cavalo de Ferro), Dino Baldi brings together a catalogue that is at once fascinating, terrifying and colourful of the final moments of more or less familiar figures from classical antiquity. “The ancients believed that death was part of life, that it was the last act of life”, explains the author. “Therefore it must have been imbued with meaning”.

An essayist, translator from Latin and researcher at the University of Florence, where he also teaches rhetoric and argumentation, Baldi came to Lisbon to talk about his book and to tell stories that, two thousand years or more later, are still strangely close to us.

When I saw the title of your book, I immediately thought of Diogenes Laërtius’ Lives of the Philosophers. Did you collect these stories because you thought that deaths could be as interesting as lives? I can’t compare myself to Diogenes Laërtius, but I did try to do something similar focusing on deaths. The ancients used to consider death as important as life. This was obviously much more so for important people than for poor people. So they tried to construct a good death, a death that represented them. And when they couldn’t do that, historians ‘constructed’ the appropriate death. Often in a way similar to what in Italy we call contrapasso in Dante. In the Divine Comedy, Dante placed different sinners in different places in Hell, and their punishment was linked to their way of life. The ancients did something similar. I don’t know if you’ve read the death of Heliogabalus.

Yes, terrible! Terrible. He died, we can say, literally in shit, the opposite of the richness and magnificence of his life. This serves to remind us that we can do whatever we want in life, we can even be very rich, but when we die, death will end up balancing things out.

Did people die differently in ancient times than they do today? Not necessarily. There are many beautiful deaths – if you can call them that – even today. But I think the ancients had a different mental attitude towards death. For example, my Italian publisher asked me: ‘Please don’t put the word death in the title. Death doesn’t sell’. The way we confront death we have a very different attitude, we try to hide it, hospitalise it. We saw this in the Covid period, which was the peak of this way of thinking about death. The ancients didn’t: they thought that death is part of life, it is the last act of life. Therefore it should be imbued with meaning. Another thing is that we can really ‘appreciate’ these deaths, because they are so distant from us. It’s like a corpse: a month after death it is disgusting. But after ten thousand years the skeleton can be quite beautiful. This is a kind of ‘skeleton’ of ancient stories that are quite beautiful, in my opinion.

Was the way a person died a reflection of how their life had been? In most cases, death is the perfect reflection. I mentioned the case of Heliogabalus, but there are many examples of people who died either the way they had lived or the opposite way. Above all, it had to serve as an example. This is the ancient conception: death has to be specific to that person, but it has to serve as an example, it has to teach us something about life, about how one should live. These accounts were a kind of catalogue of perfect lives to teach us something. There were many compilations like this in ancient times – Diogenes Laertius mentioned – but we also have Plutarch’s Lives or, by Valerio Massimo, the Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri [Books of memorable facts and sayings]. These authors used to classify different ways of living and dying into specific categories. I tried to imitate this form of organization: if you look at the index, you will see that there are 'Deaths of poets', 'deaths of athletes and thinkers', 'deaths of kings, military leaders, tyrants'... It is quite similar to what those compilers did. Above all, I think they are good stories, which are a pleasure to read. And they have in common the characteristic of offering us a glimpse into habits, ways of thinking – because the book is called Fabulous Deaths of the Ancients but I also mention many facts of life. Because of this idea: life and death are linked.

Did the causes of death vary according to social class? For example, did a philosopher die differently than a shoemaker? Absolutely. Although sometimes ancient sources like to create great paradoxes. For example, Sophocles, the great tragic poet, chokes to death on a grape. Cratinus, a great comedian, was a great drinker and dies when Spartan soldiers break a wine jar in front of him. The ancients loved these kinds of paradoxes. But usually the most important figures die a death that befits their status. For example, Agrippina, Nero's mother. Her death is a whole big scene. It's very powerful when you see Agrippina pointing to her belly and saying to the soldier, 'Strike me here, for this is where he was born.' You asked me about specific deaths for specific types of people. Tacitus describes Seneca's death as the typical death of a Stoic. But there's a very subtle humour, an exaggeration, in between. Tacitus wanted us to feel this ridiculousness when, for example, Seneca asks for his bath to be filled with hot water and splashes his servants and says he is making a libation to Zeus. He tries to die in every way but fails. He cuts his wrists, but as he is very old the blood has dried. So he also cuts his knees. He cuts himself all over and the blood does not drain. So he gets into the bath with hot water and ends up suffocating to death, but it takes a long time. And Paulina, his wife, who says: 'I want to die with you'. But then Nero's messengers arrive with a message: 'If you want we can spare your life'. And she immediately says yes [laughs]. It is a very theatrical scene.

Among the ancients, what was considered the most dignified and exemplary death? On the battlefield or…? The most dignified death was undoubtedly suicide. For example, the emperor was considered very humane if he allowed a person condemned to death to commit suicide. That was the perfect death. Death in combat came next. And, for some reason, the gallows was not a good death. It was considered a death for 'girls'. Crucifixion, of course, was not considered a good death either. But dying fighting for one's city, for one's state, was the greatest honor one could have.

He mentioned the death of Heliogabalus. One thing that struck me about Ancient Rome was how the most barbaric, savage behavior coexisted with the greatest refinement. On the one hand, they could be so primitive, but on the other hand, they had a highly advanced civilization. It seems like an unsolvable paradox. It seems like one, but we can't consider it a paradox. On the battlefield, for example, there were some rules of good behavior and the Romans attached great importance to this. When they started fighting the Germans, they followed all these rules. Until the Battle of Teutoburg, in 9 AD, an entire army was annihilated, almost 30,000 men were killed. And this happened because Quintilius Varus, the general, trusted Arminius [the son of a local prince], who told him: 'Come with me, and I will lead you out of this forest'. And Varus trusted him. But Arminius was lying and the Roman army was massacred. After the Teutoburg, the Romans began to behave in the same way as the barbarians. If you look at Trajan’s Column [a monument in Rome that commemorates the victory over the Dacians, who lived in present-day Romania], you see incredible things, like soldiers picking up the severed heads of their enemies. We are always surprised by the fact that the Colosseum was the scene of many horrible deaths, with Christians being attacked by wild animals, etc. For us, this is barbaric, but we have to remember that for a Roman this was not barbaric behaviour in itself – because it was aimed at destroying the barbarian.

Wipe it off the face of the earth. And to do so, you can use any means necessary. We don't know about Tacitus' book De Germania, which is a kind of ethnographic essay. When Tacitus describes the total destruction of a Germanic people, we are horrified, because he says: 'This terrible destruction happened to the joy of our eyes'. It was horrible, but it represented the destruction of the barbarians in the world. And the same goes for nature. The Romans tried to dominate and tame nature by cutting down trees and plants. In Germania, for example, they saw nature itself as an enemy. So wherever they went, they destroyed everything.

In ancient times, was it customary to record the last words of great men? Yes, when the opportunity arose, they recorded their last words. I don't have a good memory, but I remember the last words of Augustus, the great emperor: 'Have I played my part well on the stage of life?'. And then he asked to be made up. Or Agrippina, who says to the soldier who is coming to kill her: 'Aim here', pointing to her belly. There are many interesting phrases.

We have a notion that people in Ancient Egypt were obsessed with life after death. And what about in classical antiquity? No. In ancient Greece, except for some specific religious movements, such as the Orphics or the Pythagoreans, people did not think about life after death. Or if they did, it was in a very different way. For example, if you read Homer's Odyssey, you will see that Odysseus [Ulysses] goes to 'the other world' but the people there are just soulless shadows who only think about returning to their previous life. Yes, there are legends, myths, etc., but ordinary people thought that everything ended with death. After that, there was nothing. And among the Romans even more so. They did not conceive that there could be anything after death. When the Vandals sacked Rome in 410 AD, C., Rome had not converted to Christianity for that long [Constantine legalized Christianity in 313, Theodosius declared it the official religion in 380]. And the pagans said: 'Look, as long as it was protected by our gods, Rome was safe for hundreds and hundreds of years. Now that we have your new God, it has been sacked'. And Orosius [theologian and Christian priest from Bracara Augusta] answered: 'Yes, the barbarians destroyed the earthly city. But the heavenly city remains intact'. And the people did not understand anything of that conversation. 'What the hell are you talking about?!' And he repeated: 'There is the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem. The earthly one was destroyed, but the heavenly one is safe'. And the pagans said: 'I do not understand…'

They did not have this conception, although it is very Platonic. Yes, it is true. Plato has a great responsibility for this conception. In fact, we can say that our idea of ​​the soul – something we have inside us, which is stronger and lasts much longer than the physical body – is in Plato. And so we can say that it is Plato who opens the great avenues for Christian thought. Christian thought arises from the mixture of this Platonic vision with the Jewish vision. It is very different, for example, from Aristotle.

The more I think about it, the more similarities I find between the death of Socrates and that of Jesus. Both were teachers with many followers, neither of them committed any crime and they were unjustly condemned to death. Both submitted themselves more or less voluntarily, they could have fled but they did not. And even the detail of Socrates drinking the cup of hemlock to the last drop. Jesus will also drink the cup to the end. There are strong similarities. And perhaps this is not a mere coincidence, there may have been reciprocal influences. In the case of both Christ and Socrates, I really like the simplicity of their deaths. Socrates' last words are: 'Don't forget to take a rooster to Asclepius [or Aesculapius, the god of medicine]'. In other words, he wants to thank Asclepius. This is very Christian. It is like saying: 'Death for me is a gift, because from now on I am free. Please thank Asclepius, the god of medicine, for granting me health'. And I also like the words of Plato, when he says: 'This was the best man I knew, the wisest, the most just'.

This book also tells a version of Jesus’ death that is very different from the one we are used to. [“Many at that time argued that Jesus had not actually been resurrected, but that his body had been stolen at night by his disciples, while the guards were asleep. There was even a certain Basilides, an Egyptian, who said that Jesus had not actually died, but that Simon of Cyrene had been crucified instead.”] Is this a bit of a provocation? I would like to make it clear that I am not ideological in this matter. I did not intend to be provocative. What I tried to do was put myself in the shoes of the people of antiquity. And for a person of that time – for a pagan, obviously – Jesus was just one among the hundreds of prophets who existed in Asia and the Middle East. We only have these testimonies second-hand, because the Church Fathers, and others, destroyed them all. That is why we rarely see stories about Christianity told from a pagan point of view. But there was a lot of literature against Christians. In this book there is another story, about Peregrinus Proteus, which for ancient audiences was quite similar to the story of Jesus. Peregrinus was a kind of magician who wandered around Asia and performed miracles. Jesus Christ did something quite different – ​​but for people at that time it wasn’t so different. It became different later. But I didn’t want to be provocative. I say this because at presentations of the book in Italy…

Were they mad at you? Some people were. And it's hard to explain, but I'm just trying to tell the story through the eyes of the people of that time. These are things that don't make it into the Gospels. But we all know the normal story well. And even if we're Christians, Catholics, why not know these different stories? Our faith in God isn't going to change because of that.