Spartans Did Not Throw Deformed Babies Away: Researchers

Yahoo News ^ | 12-10-2007

[marine86297]

Can we throw worthless, er, uh, I mean all DUmmies into a pit off the coast of San Francisco?

PLEASE!!!

[stuartcr]

I think people have been aborting and preventing pregnancies since they figured out where babies came from.

[GoLightly]

I have read a fair amount of military history of the ancient Greeks. I would say that was not a consideration for going to war in 5th and 4th century BC Greece.

That's not what I was talking about. Think more in terms of stuff about the "Huns" & "Nips" in WWII.

If you haven't seen the movie "300", I would recommend renting it.

The reason I went to the movie had to do with knowing the story.

[Bon mots]

I hate to say it, but some babies should be tossed.

[GeronL]

Definitely not a consideration, for a long time daughters didn't even get their own name. Their names were pretty much a female version of their fathers, and all the daughters would have the same name.

This practice lasted for some time.

[Cacique]

ping

[stripes1776]

That's not what I was talking about. Think more in terms of stuff about the "Huns" & "Nips" in WWII.

Well, you are jumping ahead quite a number of years. I am not convinced that we can project 20th century ideas back into history and claim to understand people who lived 2000 years ago. Understanding doesn't necessarily mean approving, but I have seen too much debunking of history to be fan of that approach.

But I'm still not clear about your meaning. Are you saying that Plutarch was trying to demonize the Spartans for some reason? And if so, for what purpose? There was no war against Sparta at this time.

The reason I went to the movie had to do with knowing the story.

I hope you enjoyed the movie. Of course it was a movie, not a documentary. But I think it probably introduced a lot of people to the importance of the battle of Thermopylae.

[Arthalion]

Just about all ancient peoples practiced infanticide.

Yep. The early Romans believed that babies didn't receive a soul until they were nearly a year old (a child attempting to speak was a sign that his soul had entered his body). A body without a soul was no different than an animal, and killing them was widely considered no more evil than slaughtering a cow.

Interestingly, even the ancient Romans considered animal torture to be sick. People who tortured cats and dogs for fun back then were widely regarded to be as odd and depraved as we regard them today. The need to kill animals was understood, but mindlessly making them suffer was disapproved of (except for public displays and formal entertainment, which were an odd exception to that morality). They generally extended this same perspective to newborn babies. While it was acceptable to put them to death, parents were expected to do it mercifully and painlessly. Exposure was one method common to the poorer people. If you had money, it was more common to give the child an overdose of opium and allow them to expire quietly in their home.

I've said it before...there is a good reason why the Romans chose to abandon their pagan ways and accept Christianity. The old Roman religion gave little value to the individual, while Christianity taught that we all have value...even newborns.

[GoLightly]

Well, you are jumping ahead quite a number of years. I am not convinced that we can project 20th century ideas back into history and claim to understand people who lived 2000 years ago. Understanding doesn't necessarily mean approving, but I have seen too much debunking of history to be fan of that approach.

Leaders didn't start to dehumanize opponents in the modern era. You'll find plenty of examples of it throughout history. I picked a more recent example, but I can give you older examples. Some of the "barbarians" that sacked Rome were Arians, a "heretical" spin off from Christianity. If the practice of sacking a city, the whole raping & pillaging deal made a member of an armed force into a barbarian, why weren't Romans ever called barbarians?

But I'm still not clear about your meaning. Are you saying that Plutarch was trying to demonize the Spartans for some reason?

No, history writers aren't the creators of the myths about opponents. There's no good way to know how much of "common knowledge" is true years after its become common knowledge.

I hope you enjoyed the movie. Of course it was a movie, not a documentary.

Yes, I did.

But I think it probably introduced a lot of people to the importance of the battle of Thermopylae.

I think it did too. I couldn't believe my son, a history major had never heard about that battle before I asked him to go to that movie with me.

[Sherman Logan]

for a long time daughters didn't even get their own name. Their names were pretty much a female version of their fathers, and all the daughters would have the same name.

Actually, in ancient Rome the daughters were all called by the feminine variant of the nomen, the clan or gens name. This is the origin of the modern names Julia (Julius clan) and Claudia (Claudius gens).

Individual daughters were often given nicknames based on birth order: Prima, Secundia, Tertia, Major, Minor, etc.

This is the equivalent of me naming my two daughters Big Logan and Little Logan. I don't think that would fly very high with them!

[Sherman Logan]

In traditional Roman law the paterfamilias had power of life and death not only over the newborns up to a year old, but of older children, the slaves, his wife and even grown sons and their wives and children.

You could have a 60 year old man who himself had great-grandsons, and his 80 year old Dad still had complete control of his life. (In theory, anyway.)

[longtermmemmory]

actually the military used to discharge dishonorable discharge and sexual misconduct at sanfrancisco. That is why many of the homosexuals settlement there. That is where they were dumped and they had noplaces else to go.

[longtermmemmory]

Victor David Hansen was the history consultant for that movie.

[river rat]

My own mother, an arranged marriage immigrant bride from Sparta (Sparti)-— mentioned frequently the practice..

She never described the technique - but maintained that under certain circumstances it was still practiced into the 20th century...

Even in her old age — she would VERY carefully examine all the newborns to the family in an almost ghoulish manner..

We would all breath a sigh of relief when she would smile and pass the newborn back to its mother...

I this case — I’ll go with my mother’s account..

[Androcles]

They had a history consultant? An enjoyable enough movie but its accuracy was less than stellar. And fair enough. It was trying to be true to the comic it was based on not the histories.

[Arthalion]

Pater familias is a confusing concept to discuss, since the actual powers granted by it varied greatly through the centuries. For part of Roman history, the fathers right to execution was constrained to casting out or exposure. This only made it an effective form of execution for very young children. Elsewhere in Roman history, that right was absolute, but was constrained by pietas. Unless a father could show that an older child absolutely deserved to be put to death (i.e., a teenage rapist or murderer), any father killing his child beyond infancy would have been considered monstrous. Pietas created a relationship of mutual aid, respect, and affection between fathers and sons (and to a lesser extent, daughters) which Roman societiety expected a pater familias to support and enforce within his household. During periods of unlimited "pater power", a pater familias who killed his children without cause would have been seen as violating one of the three Roman virtues, and would have become a social outcast as a result.

The unquestioned killing of children was only acceptable if the child did not yet have a soul, which largely restricted it to the first year of life. Admittedly, the killing of somwhat older children was also largely overlooked if the child turned out to have some sort of developmental defect.

[Raycpa]

Would smaller boned babies be eaten or otherwise have a reason for not being preserved like full grown bodies?

[eleni121]

Μολὼν λαβέ

Most Spartans and more generally Greeks today know that this particular aspect of Spartan life - nonsense promoted by British and German archaeologists based on the agendized Plutarch - was never true. Bravo Dr. Pitsios!

[stripes1776]

If the practice of sacking a city, the whole raping & pillaging deal made a member of an armed force into a barbarian, why weren't Romans ever called barbarians?

In the case of the Greeks (which is where the word barbarian comes from), any one who didn't speek Greek was a barbarian because when a non-Greek spoke, it sounded like "bar-bar", simply nonsense. The Greeks did their share of pillaging and raping under the conquests of Alexander the Great. But that doesn't make them barbarians by this definition.

As for the Romans, I haven't studied their word for barbarian. I assume it would have to do with the political organization of the opponent. Those invading Germanic (even if Arian Christian) tribes were not a well-organized empire. But the Roman legions did their share of raping and pillaging. Look what they did to Jerusalem in the late first century AD--they leveled it to the ground. There are many other examples of Rome doing this sort of thing. In this context I don't think barbarian refers to the destructive power of an army.

I think it did too. I couldn't believe my son, a history major had never heard about that battle before I asked him to go to that movie with me.

I am not surprised. The teaching of history is much worse in the high schools. I read recently that school children in London were confused about a statue in that city to Lord Nelson. They thought it had something to do with Nelson Mandella. Those children aren't being taught much about their own history.

[stripes1776]

Victor David Hansen was the history consultant for that movie.

I didn't know that. But I have read several of his books. He has done some very original research in the methods of Greek warfare. The producers of that movie picked a very capable historian for the job.