3 ms·
> you’d have to question the independence The Greeks had no issue describing the bizarre Etruscan custom of no exposing “excess” female infants and treating th
by ffgjgf1 3y ago
> you’d have to question the independence
The Greeks had no issue describing the bizarre Etruscan custom of no exposing “excess” female infants and treating the more or less equally to boys.
Killing infants or even young children was really not a big deal in the ancient word. Viewing it as some act of extreme evil is mainly a Christian thing…
- rsynnott 3y agoOh, sure; I'm strictly talking sourcing independence (none of these are primary sources, and what _their_ source was is generally unclear). To be clear, I'm not saying Carthaginians didn't sacrifice kids, I'm saying that claims from Plato and Plutarch, _in themselves_, are not great evidence for this.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago> Plato and Plutarch, _in themselves_, are not great evidence for this. Why? That’s more evidence than we have for many other things we ‘know’ about the ancient world. We often have just a single source written down by somebody less reliable than Plutarch or Plato. I mean we’d find something corroborated by two ancients authors sufficient for most other events which weren’t as controversial (purely from a modern perspective)