24 Conception, Birth and Infancy in 



that, soon after a child has been born, they will put it on the ground 

 or beneath the bed with the idea that this mystic act will safe- 

 guard it against having convulsions, or they will lay it upon snow 

 to preserve it from chest affections, or to make it permanently 

 fearless of cold, 109 or, if it be a boy, they may wrap him at once 

 in his father's night shirt in order to insure that he live sano e 

 robusto. 110 



Upon the arrival of a son or daughter in the Roman family, the 

 nurse in charge laid it at the feet of its father. He might acknowl- 

 edge its paternity and his desire to rear it as his own by taking it 

 into his arms, or, because of what seemed to him to be a compelling 

 reason, he might let it lie on the ground where the nurse had put it. 

 This would signify that it was to be exposed in some public place 

 to die, or, if such were its fate, to be found and reared by somebody 

 else who had desired a child, or who was too tenderhearted to let 

 it perish, or who saw a chance, especially in the case of a girl, to 

 bring it up for gain through the fees of prostitution. 



The mysteries of birth have always had a fascinating interest 

 for superstitious people. In Roman days the production of a 

 monstrosity in either the human race or in the animal world por- 

 tended something momentous for the whole community, 111 such 

 creatures as a pig with a human face, or with two heads, a colt with 

 five legs, a baby without arms or feet or one two-headed. The 

 birth of what passed for a hermaphrodite might be of national im- 

 portance: it was an awful threat. 112 Such a baby had to be kept 

 out of all contact with the earth, enclosed alive in a chest, and cast 

 outside of Roman territory into the sea. Those who look upon 

 the birth of the Dionne quintuplets as a supreme good fortune, a 

 truly "blessed event", should read what Capitolinus says in his 

 biography of Antoninus Pius: 113 "The following misfortunes and 

 prodigies occurred during his reign. . . . The Tiber overflowed its 

 banks, a comet appeared, a child was born with two heads, and a 

 woman gave birth to quintuplets." Even the birth of quadruplets 

 to a certain Fausta at Ostia in the reign of Emperor Augustus was 

 deemed to portend a famine which presently befell Rome. 114 



During the Republican period of Roman history exposure of an 

 unwanted infant was quite unusual, but its immediate death by 

 drowning was probably in all periods the approved disposal of it 

 if the infant was born either a helpless monstrosity or a hopeless 



