reforms of hadrian—punishment of fathers—valerius maximus—favourite streets in rome for leaving abandoned children—mutilating children for profit.
never, it has been said, had the human race enjoyed a state of prosperity equal to that under the reign of hadrian, the successor to trajan, and like him a philosopher among emperors. from nerva to marcus aurelius—the five emperors, nerva, trajan, hadrian, antoninus pius, and marcus aurelius—there was a reign of philosophy. indeed they may also be called the emperors of the children for the reforms they accomplished and initiated—working as they did, contrary to the entire law and tradition of their country, and without the inspiration of complete knowledge of the intellectual and spiritual conditions that were governing them.
antoninus pius, consecrator of the world’s first protective foundation benefit for girls
constantine the great, emperor-protector of the roman child
to appreciate all that hadrian did, one must remember that he had plutarch for a master, suetonius for his secretary, and phlegon, his freedman, as amanuensis to write the history of his reign. as a youth he had studied all the philosophic systems including that of epictetus, and 237showed an acquisitive spirit. had he lived in our age of private railway cars probably he would have spent little time at the capitol: in a time when travel was both disagreeable and dangerous he journeyed back and forth over his great domain, to the dissatisfaction of the romans, but to his own greater knowledge of his people and consequent greater humanitarianism.
out of that philosophy, that association, and that teaching, out of the character of hadrian—for, despite the attempts of his biographers, startianus and dion cassius, to make him a cruel and vain tyrant, his whole life shows an abhorrence of bloodshed—there was born a new rule.350
he closed the ergastula, or workhouses, where so many men, carried off by surprise, were detained and tortured; he protected slaves against the cruelty and murderous punishments of masters, prohibiting their sale to houses of prostitution or schools for gladiators, and also declaring against the indiscriminate torture of slaves whose masters had been assassinated. up to that time even those who had not been within sight or hearing of a murder were liable to punishment. a woman who had ill-treated her female slaves he sentenced to five years’ imprisonment—an unheard-of thing in those days.
once before, during the reign of tiberius, carthaginian priests had been crucified by the emperor for the sacrifice of children to their god238 moloch, but apparently the punishment had not acted as a deterrent, for we find a similar provision in the laws of hadrian.
going further and, as duruy says, “employing logic in the service of humanity,” he ruled that any woman who had been free at the time of pregnancy must naturally give birth to a free child, a ruling not important in itself but closely in touch with what we will come to see was the argument of the christian fathers in behalf of the lives of little children.
he ameliorated the condition of women, allowing them to make wills, and for the first time softened the law of the twelve tables which, according to ulpian, had given a mother no rights in the property of a son dying intestate. hadrian, however, following a senatus consultum tertullianum, gave the mother, under the jus trium liberorum, the right to inherit when she had had three sons, and, if a freed woman, when she had had four.
but the great blow hadrian struck at the theories that had hitherto held sway was the condemning to banishment a father who had killed his son. from time immemorial the boast of rome had been fathers who, in the ardour of patriotism, and sometimes in the heat of anger or resentment, had sacrificed their sons, no matter how famous or important their sons were.
the sacrificing of living infants to the god moloch
“lucius brutus,” says valerius maximus, giving suitable incidents of the father’s power, “who 239equalled romulus in honour, for he founded rome and thus the roman liberty, coming to the supreme power, and understanding that his sons endeavoured to restore tarquin, caused them to be apprehended, and to be whipped with rods before the tribuna; and, after that, caused them to be tied to a stake, and then ordered the sergeant to cut off their heads. he put off the relation of a father, that he might act like a consul; rather chose to live childless, than to be remiss in public duty.
“cassius, following his example, though his son was a tribune of the people, and was the first that had promulgated the agrarian law, and by many other popular acts had won the hearts of the people, when he had laid down his command, by advice of his kindred and friends, condemned him in his own house for affecting the kingdom; and after he was whipped, commanded him to be put to death; and consecrated his estate to ceres.
“titus manlius torquatus, famous for his many great dignities, and a person of rare experience in the civil law and the pontifical ceremonies, did not think it necessary to consult his friends in an act of the same nature. for when the macedonians had by their ambassadors complained to the senate of d. silanus, his son, who was governor of that province, he besought the senate that they would determine nothing in that affair till he had heard the difference betwixt his son and the macedonians. then, with the general240 consent of the conscript fathers, and of them that came to complain, he sat and heard the cause in his own house, wherein he spent two whole days alone, and the third day, after he had diligently examined the testimonies on both sides, he pronounced this sentence: ‘whereas it hath been proved that silanus, my son, has taken money of our allies, i think him unworthy to live either in the commonwealth, or in my house, and i command him forthwith to get out of my sight.’ silanus, struck with the sharp and cruel sentence of his father, would not endure to live any longer, but the next night hanged himself.
“but m. scaurus, the light and ornament of his country, when the roman cavalry was worsted by the cimbrians and deserting the proconsul, catullus, took their flight toward the city, sent one to tell his son, who was one of those that fled, that he had rather meet with his carcass slain in the field, than see him guilty of such a shameful flight. and therefore if there were any shame remaining in his breast, degenerate as he was, he should shun the sight of his enraged father; for by the remembrance of his youth, he was admonished what kind of son was to be owned or contemned by such a father as scaurus. which message being delivered him, the young man was forced to make a more fatal use of his sword against himself, than against his enemies.
“no less imperiously did a. fulvius, one of the senatorian order, keep back his son from going241 into the field, than scaurus chid his for running away. for he caused his son, eminent among his equals for his wit, learning, and beauty, to be put to death because he took part with catiline, being seduced by ill-counsel; having brought him back by force, as he was going to catiline’s army, and uttering these words before his death, that he ‘did not beget him to join with catiline against his country, but to serve his country against catiline.’ he might have kept him till the heat of the war had been over, but that would have been only the act of a cautious, this was the deed of a severe father.”
the father who was brought before hadrian under the old conditions would have been honoured—he had killed a son who befouled his name. nevertheless this man was ordered to be deported, “because he had killed as a thief rather than as one using the power (jure) of father; nam patria potestas in pietate debet, non atrociate consistere.”351 whatever the excuse given, he was punished. that he had not observed the forms in killing his son by calling a consultation of the members of his family, was the nominal reason for punishing him, but the unchecked power of the father over the life of his children, even when they had become adults, was ended.
modern sensibility will be shocked at the thought that there had been sufficient social “advance” for distinct places to become estab242lished for the exposure of children. but advance it was when no longer were children left in unfrequented highways, no longer were they thrown into the tiber.
there were two places where it was the custom to leave abandoned children. one was near the velabrum, a street on the western slope of the aventine hill between the vicus tuscus and the forum boarium where the oil dealers and the cheese mongers made a practice of selling their wares; and the other, in the vegetable market, where there rose a column round which the children were placed. because of this practice, according to festus, the column was called the lactaria.352 it was said that courtesans favoured the velabrum.
what happened to the children even in this “advanced” age was doubtless little different from the treatment they received when they were found on the highways. the elder seneca has given a vivid account of the practice of the day in the “thirty-third controversy,” book five, headed “debilitans expositos.”353
difficult as it is to believe that the people who eventually charged themselves with the rearing of the foundlings made a business of mutilating them, there is no doubt but that such was the case.
in the “controversy” of seneca the question is243 whether those who mutilated exposed children have done a wrong toward the state. the debate is opened by porcius latro, who asks if after having suffered the misfortune of being exposed, it is not a piece of good luck to have someone find them.
cassius severus then expresses his opinion.
“look,” he exclaims, “on the blind wandering about the streets leaning on their sticks, and on those with crushed feet, and still again look on those with broken limbs. this one is without arms, that one has had his shoulders pulled down out of shape in order that his grotesqueries may excite laughter. let us view the entire miserable family shivering, trembling, blind, mutilated, perishing from hunger—in fact, already half dead. let us go to the origin of all these ills—a laboratory for the manufacture of human wrecks—a cavern filled with the limbs torn from living children—each has a different profession, a different mutilation has given each a different occupation.”
the conclusion is that inasmuch as the exposed children are slaves, being the property of those who rear them, they have no cause for complaint against the state.
“what wrong has been done to the republic?” asks gallio in reply to severus. “on the contrary, have not these children been done a service inasmuch as their parents had cast them out?”
“many individuals,” adds f. claudius, “rid themselves of misformed children defective in some244 part of their body or because the children are born under evil auspices. someone else picks them up out of commiseration and, in order to defray the expenses of bringing the child up, cuts off one of its limbs. today, when they are demanding charity, that life that they owe to the pity of one, they are sustaining at the expense and through the pity of all.”
