The Roman practice of exposing—also known as expositio—was the act of abandoning unwanted infants, typically in public places, where they were left to die or be taken by others. This practice was primarily motivated by social, economic, or personal reasons, such as the inability to provide for the child, the birth of an illegitimate or deformed infant, or a preference for male heirs.
Exposure was generally more common in urban areas, where the child could be easily found by others who might raise them as slaves or servants. Though the fate of exposed infants varied, many did not survive due to harsh conditions. This practice reflects the societal attitudes towards unwanted children in ancient Rome, where infanticide and abandonment were legally permissible under Roman law, unlike in many modern societies where such actions are prohibited.
In the book “Destroyer of the gods; Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World,” by Larry W. Hurtado, on pages 144-145, it states the following in the section regarding Infant Exposure:
But, all the same, it was also a time when people legally and without qualms, it appears, engaged in some practices that, hopefully, we would regard as abhorrent today. Consider, as one particularly striking example, the practice of discarding unwanted babies and the reasons they were discarded. This practice, often referred to in scholarly studies as “infant exposure,” typically involved casting the unwanted newborn baby on a trash-heap site or some abandoned place, the infant left to die or be collected by someone, usually to be reared for slavery. Although today it will be difficult to consider the practice without revulsion, in the Roman period it was apparently not a source of great moral outrage, at least not widely. As an illustration, let us note an oft-cited letter from a man named Hilarion, who was probably serving in the Roman army, to his wife, Alis, written in 1 BC. His letter reflects the apparent frequency of, and casual attitude toward, infant abandonment. Moreover, the letter shows that it was practiced by people who otherwise seem to have had recognizably humane feelings.
After greeting his wife and other relatives with her at their home, Hilarion begs her to “take care of the little one,” their child, promising to send money as soon as he is paid. Then, referring to Alis expecting another child very soon, he writes, “if it is a boy, let it be, if it is a girl, cast it out.” But then after this rather blunt order, he continues by expressing his unaltered tender affection for Alis: “How can I forget you? I beg you then not to be anxious.” Obviously, the man was not a monster and was capable of tender feelings. Nor was he unusual for the time in his attitude about infant exposure. That is precisely the point to note: the practice of discarding infants shortly after birth, and before they had been accepted by the father as family members, was so much a feature of the culture of the Roman period that many otherwise caring people seem to have felt little reluctance about it. This contrasts with Roman-era attitudes toward killing or discarding children after they had been accepted into their families. That was condemned.
Apparently, this practice was even more evil than what was depicted above, and this was made known through Justin Martyr’s First Apology Chapter 27 on the Guilt of Exposing Children. It states:
But as for us, we have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do any one an injury, and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And as the ancients are said to have reared herds of oxen, or goats, or sheep, or grazing horses, so now we see you rear children only for this shameful use; and for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm. And any one who uses such persons, besides the godless and infamous and impure intercourse, may possibly be having intercourse with his own child, or relative, or brother. And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods, and along with each of those whom you esteem gods there is painted a serpent, a great symbol and mystery. Indeed, the things which you do openly and with applause, as if the divine light were overturned and extinguished, these you lay to our charge; which, in truth, does no harm to us who shrink from doing any such things, but only to those who do them and bear false witness against us.
On page 165 of the book Destroyers of the gods, it mentions just how rampant prostitution was among Roman culture in the following passage:
I emphasize again that, more typically in the Roman era, sex with prostitutes and courtesans, and with young boys as well, was not only tolerated but even affirmed as a hedge against adultery—specifically, sex with another man’s wife or with a freeborn virgin.
It continues on pages 167-168 in the section titled “Sexual Ab/use of Children.”
We must remember, however, that in the Roman era the sexual use of children, including young adolescents and also younger children, was widely tolerated and even celebrated lyrically by some pagan writers of the day, such as Juvenal, Petronius, Horace, Strato, Lucian, and Philostratus. Indeed, there was a whole vocabulary in Greek referring to the practice, including paiderastes (a lover of boys/children), the verb paiderasteo (to engage in sex with boys/children), and paiderastia (the practice itself). Indicative of the widely shared accepance of sex with children, these words typically carried no connotation or disapproval but were simply descriptive. In an important study, however, John Martens has shown that early Christian condemnation of the practice even led to what appear to be distinctive Christian terminology coind to refer to it. It appears that Christians invented the verb paidophthoreo and the noun paidophthoros used in their condemntations of the practice, the Martens persuaisively contends that these terms should be rendered respectively as “to sexually abuse/corrupt children” and “one who sexually abuses/corrupts children.” These terms reflect an emphatic Christian rejection of “pederasty,” relabeling it as “child corrpution/abuse,” and relabeling a man who has sex with. children as not a “(sexual) lover of children” (padierastes) but “a destroyer/corrupter/seducer of children” (padiophthoros).
These earliest instances of this new verb, “to corrupt children,” are in two Christian texts of the second century— the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas—and in both texts the term appears in a list of behavioral prohibitions. In Didache 2.2, the command “you shall not corrupt [sexually] children” (Greek: ou paidophthoreseis) appears right after prohibitions against murder and adultery, and it is immediatly followed by further prohibitions against being “sexually immoral” (ou porneuseis), stealing, practicing magic and sorcery, and abortion and infanticide (infant exposure), and then by a further list of other vices to avoid (2.3-7). In the Epistle of Barnabas 19.4, the term appears in a list of prohibitions introduced as “Lord’s commandments,” the “Lord” here likely referring to Jesus, and it is part of a trio of prohbitions against various forms of sexual promiscuity (ou porneuseis) and adultery as well. Clearly, the “corrupting” of children in the word used in these early Christian texts is the sexual exploitation/abuse of them.
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