In Epicurean Philosophy Is Suicide (Or voluntary death of any kind) ever warranted?

So, Diogenes Laertius says:

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Hermippus relates that he entered a bronze bath of lukewarm water and asked for unmixed wine, [16] which he swallowed, and then, having bidden his friends remember his doctrines, breathed his last.

Here is something of my own about him29 :

Farewell, my friends ; the truths I taught hold fast :

Thus Epicurus spake, and breathed his last.

He sat in a warm bath and neat wine quaff'd,

And straightway found chill death in that same draught.

Such was the life of the sage and such his end.

29 Anth. Pal. vii. 106.

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ὅτε καί φησιν Ἕρμιππος ἐμβάντα αὐτὸν εἰς πύελον χαλκῆν κεκραμένην ὕδατι θερμῷ καὶ αἰτήσαντα ἄκρατον ῥοφῆσαι:

16 [16] τοῖς τε φίλοις παραγγείλαντα τῶν δογμάτων μεμνῆσθαι, οὕτω τελευτῆσαι.

Καὶ ἔστιν ἡμῶν εἰς αὐτὸν οὕτω:

χαίρετε, καὶ μέμνησθε τὰ δόγματα: τοῦτ᾽ Ἐπίκουρος

ὕστατον εἶπε φίλοις τοὔπος ἀποφθίμενος:

θερμὴν ἐς πύελον γὰρ ἐληλύθεεν καὶ ἄκρατον ἔσπασεν, εἶτ᾽ Ἀΐδην ψυχρὸν ἐπεσπάσατο.

οὗτος μὲν ὁ βίος τἀνδρός, ἥδε <δὲ> ἡ τελευτή.

ἄκρατος pure, undiluted (strong) wine

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἄκρα_τος

I always saw this as more palliative for the pain than any hint of suicide. Ancient Greeks typically watered their wine down in a krater to drink. Drinking undiluted wine would have been noteworthy.

To me, this just points to the fact that one does everything to ease one's pain, but his drinking it and then dying seems to me that he was trying to eliminate pain from the disease/condition that was killing him and that he was on the verge of death already. I'd have to see evidence other than this text to convince me it was a suicide. And not Diogenes' poem. That was written hundreds of years after Epicurus's death.

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Hot water alleviated his severe pains and relaxed his body. The undiluted wine created mental relaxation. The undiluted wine hastened his end as it reacted on an already weakened body. In other words, Epicurus perhaps did what we call today "euthanasia in the final stages of incurable disease."

Yeah, I'm fine with all that up until the euthanasia part. I have serious doubts that they knew the wine would "hasten his end." They knew it would relieve pain. The fact that his friends were around at the end to help him is the important aspect of that story to me.

It'd be interesting to get a hold of this paper:

Epicurus’ death

Maria Bitsori & Emmanouil Galanakis

World Journal of Urology volume 22, pages466–469 (2004)

Abstract

The aim is to present how an eminent philosopher perceived, reported and faced his progressing and ultimately fatal uropathy, 23 centuries ago. All available ancient Greek sources about Epicurus’ life and death were used and urinary tract–related medical knowledge in this era was reviewed. Epicurus died at the age of 71 from urinary calculus after having bravely suffered for a long time. Although he is often cited for his teachings against the fear of pain and death, his own way to death has been overlooked. His exceptional description of his own symptoms provides an unusual insight, given that our knowledge on diseases in older times is mainly based on surviving texts written by the then medical practitioners. Epicurus reported on his terminal symptoms, being entirely aware of the fatal outcome of a disease incurable at that time. Very soon after, Ammonius the Lithotomus in Alexandria was to improve the surgical procedures for urinary calculi. In an era when urinary tract surgery was considered to be an extraordinary means of treatment, Epicurus peacefully passed away, firm to his own teachings about tolerance to disease and pain, and leaving to us both an unusual medical record and a courageous attitude towards suffering and death.

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open the vein on the inside

OUCH!

Quote from Joshua

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48. Strangury and dysuria are cured by drinking pure wine, and venesection; open the vein on the inside.

--Hippocrates; Aphorisms, Section VII; transl. Francis Adams

http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/aphorisms.7.vii.html

GREAT FIND, Joshua !!

Here's the Greek:

στραγγουρίην καὶ δυσουρίην θώρηξις καὶ φλεβοτομίη λύει: τάμνειν δὲ τὰς ἔσω.

Interestingly, Diogenes has, in his transcription of Epicurus's letter, στραγγουρία τε παρηκολουθήκει καὶ δυσεντερικὰ

"Strangury followed closely also by dysentery"

But it would make more sense if it was supposed to be dysuria "painful urination" δυσουριην since Hippocrates treats those two conditions in the same aphorism.

Those two words look similar enough and I could see someone not paying attention and confusing the two when copying a manuscript: ΔΥΣΟΥΡΙΗΝ vs ΔΥΣΕΝΤΕΡΙΚΑ

More on akratos...

ACRATUS (Akratos) - Greek God or Spirit of Unmixed Wine

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Akratos was no doubt regarded as a deity of festive excess.

Was ancient wine more alcoholic than modern wine?

This article is taken from a contribution to the website &#39;Bad Ancient&#39;. It discusses the alcoholic content of ancient wines using ancient literature,…

www.academia.edu

Interesting article on ancient wine, ABV %ages, watering down, etc.

I'm continuing to see both the undiluted wine and the warm bath as ways to ease his pain not to hasten his death.