{"id":91726,"date":"2021-04-19T13:28:52","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T11:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/?post_type=ciekawostki&p=91726"},"modified":"2021-05-08T16:22:03","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T14:22:03","slug":"infanticide-in-ancient-rome-was-accepted","status":"publish","type":"ciekawostki","link":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/infanticide-in-ancient-rome-was-accepted\/","title":{"rendered":"Infanticide in ancient Rome was accepted"},"content":{"rendered":"

In ancient Rome<\/a>, infanticide<\/a> was a common practice. A child’s first days in the world have always been uncertain; in antiquity, many children did not survive even a few days due to heavy childbirth, diseases and poor health. Hence, they waited to give a name to the child. At times, the child may have been deliberately rejected by the parents.<\/p>\n

The reasons for abandonment were various: the child’s gender, deformation, it came from an unlawful relationship or bad financial situation. Most often, a child was sentenced to death simply by abandoning it. The decision on whether to accept a child into the family was made by pater familias<\/a><\/em>, the head of the family. The law of XII tables<\/a> already regulated the issue of “getting rid of” deformed children1<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

But not always abandoning children meant death; sometimes abandoned in garbage dumps or streets, they could be taken in or simply ended up in the hands of a slave trader. In ancient Rome, children were often abandoned in a characteristic place next to a column called columna lactaria <\/em>(“milk column”).<\/p>\n

Infanticide in Roman culture was present from the very beginning. An example is the legend<\/a> of Rome’s founders – brothers Romulus and Remus<\/a>, who threatened the usurper’s rule in the city of Alba Longa. The twins were to be killed in infancy on the orders of Amulius<\/b>. However, they miraculously survived, took revenge, and Romulus<\/a> started Rome.<\/p>\n

The first explicit opponent of killing children was the philosopher Philo of Alexandria (1st BCE – 1st century CE). In 374 CE, during the reign of Emperor Valentinian, a law was adopted prohibiting infanticide under the death penalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":40045,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"kategorie_ciekawostek":[77],"class_list":["post-91726","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\/91726","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\/91726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kategorie_ciekawostek","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kategorie_ciekawostek?post=91726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}