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As far as I can tell, infanticide was accepted in ancient Greece and Rome at a lot of points. Ancient historians did have a habit of making assumptions that pre

by wisty 5y ago

As far as I can tell, infanticide was accepted in ancient Greece and Rome at a lot of points. Ancient historians did have a habit of making assumptions that previous societies, they might have assumed that infanticide was common in Sparta because to a later ancient Greek that would have been how they would think weeding out weakness would be done (and Spartans liked to give the impression that they have always been the toughest society ever), and the stories go that Spartans made a lot of decisions communally, so it would make sense for a council to inspect babies. The article doesn't prove exposure never happened, just that it didn't always happen. I'm guessing that it would be most likely to occur in times of famine.

kiba 5y ago
When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? Halo's Spartans make sense if you think about them as a traumatized and brutalized society.
- mannykannot 5y ago
  > When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? I am pretty sure you are right. To the ancient writers, slaves were all but invisible, except perhaps as a measure of a slave-holder's wealth, or when, like Spartacus, they upturned the 'natural order' of society, and lesser nominally-free persons were not much more thought of. A slave's child was a return on a slave-holder's investment (Thomas Jefferson wrote about his own slaves in these terms), and if they weren't useful for anything better, they could be used as beasts of burden until they died. I don't know how the Spartans are portrayed in Halo, but Brett Devereaux make an interesting case (at least AFAIK, which is not much) that the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult [1] (and he seems to accept that infanticide was part of that cult, though he does not have much to say about it.) [1] https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
  - tartoran 5y ago
    I enjoyed reading this, thanks for posting
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    > the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult "Cult" isn't the word I'd use for it. The main point of that particular post is comparing the written sources' description of Spartan agoge to modern child soldiers... and our sources' description of the Spartan agoge read rather like how someone would write about modern child soldiers if they thought it were a good thing.
    - mannykannot 5y ago
      Interesting - I have a strong recollection of someone making a comparison of the agoge to the methods of modern cults (I do not think it is something I would have come up with myself) and I thought it was somewhere in this series, but I see it is not. Maybe I heard it from Dan Carlin? Not that you have to agree with the comparison, of course!
    - dustintrex 5y ago
      By and large ancient sources seem to also have thought that the Spartans were nuts. There are virtually no sources where Spartans write about themselves though, since they were not exactly keen on intellectual pursuits.
- wisty 5y ago
  Yeah Spartans were the aristocracy, then there were peasants (free but not citizens, Perioikoi) and serfs (Helots) below them. IIRC the Spartan aristocracy were originally Doric invaders who most likely created the rigid rules because they wanted to stay seperate and in charge of the conquered Helots (in kind of a caste system).
frozenport 5y ago
Well Roman laws contained fairly severe penalties for infanticide [1], while the practice was common it was certainly frowned up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Often, you'll find that taboos or prohibitions in one society often correlate with prevalence of the practice among neighboring states. "They do that, we do not" is not uncommon even today, and during antiquity was important enough to codify into law.
- Someone 5y ago
  From that page: - “The practice was prevalent in ancient Rome, as well” - “Infanticide became a capital offense in Roman law in 374, but offenders were rarely if ever prosecuted” 374 is fairly close to the fall of Rome, which Wikipedia sets at 395-476 AD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...), so from that page, it doesn’t seem it was that severely punished during most of th years the Roman Empire existed.
  - heavenlyblue 5y ago
    /irony And now we got all the way to anti-abortionists claiming that killing the child even after any signs of pregnancy is illegal.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  Roman laws (Twelve tables from 449 BC) explicitly granted the right to infanticide - as the link states, it was banned only in 4th century (at the split of the Rome, and near the end of Western Roman Empire) but was allowed throughout all the 800+ years of the iconic "Ancient Rome".

by wisty 5y ago

kiba 5y ago

When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? Halo's Spartans make sense if you think about them as a traumatized and brutalized society.

mannykannot 5y ago
> When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? I am pretty sure you are right. To the ancient writers, slaves were all but invisible, except perhaps as a measure of a slave-holder's wealth, or when, like Spartacus, they upturned the 'natural order' of society, and lesser nominally-free persons were not much more thought of. A slave's child was a return on a slave-holder's investment (Thomas Jefferson wrote about his own slaves in these terms), and if they weren't useful for anything better, they could be used as beasts of burden until they died. I don't know how the Spartans are portrayed in Halo, but Brett Devereaux make an interesting case (at least AFAIK, which is not much) that the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult [1] (and he seems to accept that infanticide was part of that cult, though he does not have much to say about it.) [1] https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
- tartoran 5y ago
  I enjoyed reading this, thanks for posting
- jcranmer 5y ago
  > the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult "Cult" isn't the word I'd use for it. The main point of that particular post is comparing the written sources' description of Spartan agoge to modern child soldiers... and our sources' description of the Spartan agoge read rather like how someone would write about modern child soldiers if they thought it were a good thing.
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    Interesting - I have a strong recollection of someone making a comparison of the agoge to the methods of modern cults (I do not think it is something I would have come up with myself) and I thought it was somewhere in this series, but I see it is not. Maybe I heard it from Dan Carlin? Not that you have to agree with the comparison, of course!
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    By and large ancient sources seem to also have thought that the Spartans were nuts. There are virtually no sources where Spartans write about themselves though, since they were not exactly keen on intellectual pursuits.
wisty 5y ago
Yeah Spartans were the aristocracy, then there were peasants (free but not citizens, Perioikoi) and serfs (Helots) below them. IIRC the Spartan aristocracy were originally Doric invaders who most likely created the rigid rules because they wanted to stay seperate and in charge of the conquered Helots (in kind of a caste system).

frozenport 5y ago

Well Roman laws contained fairly severe penalties for infanticide [1], while the practice was common it was certainly frowned up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide

dotancohen 5y ago
Often, you'll find that taboos or prohibitions in one society often correlate with prevalence of the practice among neighboring states. "They do that, we do not" is not uncommon even today, and during antiquity was important enough to codify into law.
Someone 5y ago
From that page: - “The practice was prevalent in ancient Rome, as well” - “Infanticide became a capital offense in Roman law in 374, but offenders were rarely if ever prosecuted” 374 is fairly close to the fall of Rome, which Wikipedia sets at 395-476 AD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...), so from that page, it doesn’t seem it was that severely punished during most of th years the Roman Empire existed.
- heavenlyblue 5y ago
  /irony And now we got all the way to anti-abortionists claiming that killing the child even after any signs of pregnancy is illegal.
PeterisP 5y ago
Roman laws (Twelve tables from 449 BC) explicitly granted the right to infanticide - as the link states, it was banned only in 4th century (at the split of the Rome, and near the end of Western Roman Empire) but was allowed throughout all the 800+ years of the iconic "Ancient Rome".