{"id":118123,"date":"2023-01-30T21:00:39","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/?post_type=ciekawostki&p=118123"},"modified":"2023-01-30T21:00:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T20:00:39","slug":"birth-control-under-augustus","status":"publish","type":"ciekawostki","link":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/birth-control-under-augustus\/","title":{"rendered":"Birth control under Augustus"},"content":{"rendered":"

In ancient Rome<\/a>, it was realized that a high number of births guaranteed the proper development of the state and society. During the rule of Octavian Augustus<\/a> (27 BCE – 14 CE), it was decided to outlaw abortion and contraception<\/b>. As it turns out from paleopathological studies, the most common reason for the population<\/a> decline was a low number of births, not infanticide<\/a> or high infant mortality at birth.<\/p>\n

In ancient times, there were many drugs and plants that were supposed to have an abortion effect: aristolochia, a mysterious plant of antiquity silphium<\/a><\/em> or a decoction of common rue, egg and fennel.<\/p>\n

What’s more, to encourage Romans and Roman women to have children, a law was introduced that penalized all manifestations of “avoiding” starting a family. It was the so-called lex Papia Poppaea <\/em>from 9 CE. The legislator punished couples who had no children, thus “clearly” confirming the offence.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, sometimes attempts were made to limit the birth rate – if it was too high. Already the Greek philosopher Plato advised that: “If too many children are born, there are ways to control it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":40179,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"kategorie_ciekawostek":[77],"class_list":["post-118123","ciekawostki","type-ciekawostki","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","kategorie_ciekawostek-unknown-facts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/118123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ciekawostki"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/118123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kategorie_ciekawostek","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kategorie_ciekawostek?post=118123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}