We found her lying there with an asp clasped in her grasp

According to John Ptak, this was was "the First Image of a Suicide on a Title Page". Then there was the outcry about "sensationalism" and "exploitation", and all the apologies. But other publishers realised soon enough that the penalty subtracting from the bump in circulation was approximately zero. For the next few hundred years you couldn't look like a Stoic philosopher or a Roman heroine without finding woodcut technicians following you from tavern to tavern in the hope of capturing a spectacular cliff-dive or vein-opening.

She's looking kind of erratic, isn't she? Um, I don't know, no, look at this, she's just running, oh my, well, it looks like she's a little disoriented or something, it's always possible the gal could be on something...oh, [off screen: woah, oh my god] she's got an asp get off, get off, GET OFF IT—GET OFF IT

Does it not follow, Alcibiades, that the truest pleasure is to be had from scragging that wee gobshite painter who snuck in from the Fox Channel?

So it would seem, Socrates.



UPDATED with Bonus Suicide-by-Cop (to assuage our BLOODTHIRSTY DESENSITISED commenters who demand SENSATION and GORE)
...Also sourced from Ptak Books.



I blame the insatiable public hunger for gladiatorial spectacle that ruins it for everyone.