Children occupied a very insecure, uncertain, & dangerous position in the ancient Greek & Roman cultures. Children were sometimes loved if they were perceived as beneficial to the family, but they were often treated as property, discarded, or in some way exploited if they were seen as not being beneficial. For example, a letter (written on papyrus) that archaeologists found, dating back to 1 B.C., was from a man named Hilarion to his pregnant wife. He instructs her with these words: “if [the baby] was a male child let it [live]; if it was female, cast it out.” Infanticide was legal & common throughout the Roman Empire & wasn’t outlawed until A.D. 375. But, until then, Roman law gave the father absolute power over his family—which extended to life & death. That meant that a child’s life was determined by what the father determined about his particular child.
