stantly object the practice of infanticide to the Romans. "You cast forth your sons," says Tertullian,' "to be picked up and nourished by the first woman "that passes." And the poor, as Ambrose remarks, would desert and expose their little ones, and if caught deny them to be theirs.2 Others adopted more decisive measures, and instead of exposing strangled them.3 Probably, moreover, it was the atrocious device of legislators to get rid of their superabundant population that gave rise to the rite of child-sacrificing known to have prevailed among the Phoenicians, who passed their children through fire to Moloch; and among their descendants the Carthaginians,* who offered up infants to their gods, as at the present day our own idolatrous subjects in the East cast forth their first-born infants on islands at the mouth of the Ganges, to be devoured by the alligators. In China Christianity has performed for infancy the same humane duty as in ancient Rome, as many of the converts made by the Jesuits consisted of foundlings whom they had picked up when cast forth by their parents to perish in the streets. 1 Apolog. c. 9. 2 Hexæm. 1. v. c. 18. 3 Arnob. cont. Gent. viii. Lactant. Instit. vi. 20. ap. Lips. Epist. ad Belg. 819. 4 Vid. Festus, v. Puelli.-In Syria children were sacrificed to the goddess, in like manner with other victims, by being tied up in a sack and then flung down from the lofty propylæa of her temple, their parents, in the mean while, overwhelming them with contumely, and protesting they were not children, but oxen.-Lucian. De Syriâ Deâ, § 58. 128 CHAPTER II. BIRTH-FEAST-NAMING THE CHILD.-NURSERY NURSERY TALES- -SPARTAN FESTIVAL. To quit, however, this melancholy topic: while the poor, as we have seen, were driven by despair to imbrue their hands in the blood of their offspring, their more wealthy neighbours celebrated the birth of a child' with a succession of banquets and rejoicings. Of these, the first was held on the fifth day from the birth, when took place the ceremony called Amphidromia, confounded by some ancient authors with the festival of the tenth day. On this occasion the accoucheuse or the nurse, to whose care the child was now definitively consigned,3 having purified her hands with water, ran naked with the infant in her arms, and accompanied by all the other females of the family, in the same state, round the hearth, which was regarded as the altar of Hestia, the Vesta of the Romans. By this ceremony the child was initiated in the rites of religion and placed under the protection of the fire goddess, probably with the same view that infants are baptized among us. 4 Meanwhile the passer-by was informed that a fifthday feast was celebrating within, by symbols suspended on the street-door, which, in case of a boy, consisted "2 in an olive crown; and of a lock of wool, alluding to her future occupations, when it was a girl.' Athenæus, apropos of cabbage, which was eaten on this occasion, as well as by ladies "in the straw,' as conducing to create milk, quotes a comic description of the Amphidromia from a drama of Ephippos, which proves they were well acquainted with the arts of joviality. "How is it No wreathed garland decks the festive door, Since 'tis a birth-feast? Custom, sooth, requires Toasted and hissing; cabbage too in oil, Fried brown and crisp, with smothered breast of lamb. Gnaw the delicious feet of polypi, And drink large draughts of scarcely mingled wine."" A sacrifice was likewise this day offered up for the life of the child, probably to the god Amphidromos, first mentioned, and therefore supposed to have been invented by Eschylus. It has moreover been imagined that the name was now imposed, and gifts were presented by the friends and household slaves." They But it was on the seventh day that the child generally received its name,' amid the festivities of another banquet; though sometimes this was deferred till the tenth.R The reason is supplied by Aristotle. delayed the naming thus long, he says, because most children that perish in extreme infancy die before the seventh day, which being passed they considered their lives more secure. The eighth day was chosen by other persons for bestowing the name, and, this con 1 Hesych. ap. Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 20. 2 Potter, ii. 322. 3 Athen. ix. 10. Cf. Ludovic. Nonn. De Pisc. Esu. c. 7. p. 28. + Cf. Aristoph. Lys. 700. cum not. et schol.-Plaut. Truc. ii. 4. 69. VOL. I. Semel. fr. 203. Well. 7 Alex. ab Alex. 99. a. 8 Harpocrat. v. 'Ebdoμ. p. 92. Cf. Lomeier, De Lustrat. Vet. Gentil. c. 27. p. 327. sqq. 9 Hist. Anim. vii. 12. Bekk. K sidered the natal day, was solemnized annually as the anniversary of its birth, on which occasion it was customary for the friends of the family to assemble together, and present gifts to the child, consisting sometimes of the polypi and cuttle-fish1 to be eaten at the feast. However the tenth day appears to have been very commonly observed. Thus Euripides :3 "Say, who delighting in a mother's claim 2 Mid tenth-day feasts bestowed the ancestral name?" Aristophanes, too, on the occasion of naming his Bird-city, which a hungry poet pretends to have long ago celebrated, introduces Peisthetæros saying, "What! have I not but now the sacrifice Of the tenth day completed and bestowed Connected with this custom, there is a very good anecdote in Polyænos, from which Meursius infers that there existed among the Greeks something like the office of sponsor. Jason, tyrant of Pheræ, most of whose stratagems were played off against members of his own family, had a brother named Meriones, extremely opulent, but to the last degree close-fisted, particularly towards him. When at length a son was born to Jason, he invited to the Nominalia many principal nobles of Thessaly, and among others his brother Meriones, who was to preside over the ceremonies. In these he was probably occupied the whole day, during which, under pretence, apparently, of providing some choice game for his guests, the tyrant went out for a few hours with his dogs and usual followers. His real object, however, soon appeared. Making direct for Pagasa, where his brother's castle stood, he stormed the place, and seizing on Meriones' treasures, to the amount of twenty talents, returned in all speed to the banquet. Here, 1 Suid. v.'Appid. t. i. p. 214. d. Isæus, Pyrrh. Hæred. § 5. Dem. Adv. Boot. §§ 6, 7. Lys. in Harpocrat. v. 'Αμφιδρομ. p. 19. 3 ' Ægei. Frag. i. 4 Aves, 922. seq. 5 Græc. Feriat. p. 22. by way of showing his fraternal consideration, he delegated to his brother the honour of pouring forth the libations, and bestowing the name, which was the father's prerogative. But Meriones receiving from one of the tyrant's attendants a hint of what had taken place, called the boy "Porthaon," or the "Plunderer."1 At Athens the feast and sacrifice took place at night, with much pomp, and all the glee which such an occasion was calculated to inspire. On the bestowing of the name Potter's information is particularly full. He is probably right, too, in his conjecture, that in most countries the principal object of calling together so great a number of friends to witness this ceremony was to prevent such controversies as might arise when the child came out into the business of the world. But at Athens the Act of Registration3 rendered such witnesses scarcely necessary. The right of imposing the name belonged, as hinted above, to the father, who likewise appears to have possessed the power afterwards to alter it if he thought proper. They were compelled to follow no exact precedent; but the general rule resembled one apparently observed by nature, which, neglecting the likeness in the first generation, sometimes reproduces it with extraordinary fidelity in the second. Thus, the grandson inheriting often the features, inherited also very generally the name of his grandfather, and precisely the same rule applied to women; the granddaughter nearly always receiving her grandmother's name. Thus, Andocides, son of Leagoras, bore the name of his grandfather; the father and son of Miltiades were named Cimon; the father and son of Hipponicos, Cleinias. The orator Lysias formed an exception to this rule, his grandfather's name having 1 Polyæn. Strat. vi. i. 6. 2 Suid. v. Δεκάτην ἑστιάσαν, t. i. p. 654. c. d. 3 Harpocrat. v. Metov, Poll. iii. 53. Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran. 810. Etym. Mag. 533. 37. Meurs. Lect. • Palmer, Exercit. p. 754. Sluiter. Lect. Andocid. c. i. 5 Isæus de Pyrrh. Hæred. § 5. 6 Aristoph. Av. 284. |