And the boy, when he saw that he was quite alone and in dire straits, took off the lid of the cauldron and jumped into the boiling water, thus destroying himself, and suffering a fate that was unworthy of him, but showing a spirit that was worthy of his country and of his beauty.
Edition :
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1920. 9.
Remark :
titel: Demetrius' intentions are mentioned in 24.2. perpetrator: Perpetrator and victim are the same since the violence is intrapersonal. motive: Since he was trying to save himself from a fate he deemed worse than boiling alive it is possible to say that Democles acted in self-defence here.
