Why Did Romans Sell and Abandon Their Children?

Why Did Romans Sell and Abandon Their Children?
   • Why Did Romans Sell and Abandon Their Chil...  
Roman law allowed parents—specifically, the pater familias—to dispose of their children through abandonment, sale, or even execution. This was commonplace, especially during times of crisis, and persisted into the Byzantine era. Justinian's 6th-century legal code even explicitly permitted the selling of one’s children in cases of extreme poverty.

In essence, children in a patriarchal Roman family had a status similar to slaves under the pater familias. A father could reject a newborn by simply not lifting them in his arms. Without this acceptance, the child had no standing in the household and couldn’t gain citizenship. In rare cases, such children were adopted; more often, they died. Later, a father had the legal right to sell his children (mancipatio) for adoption or into slavery—and could even try them in court or have them executed.

The Law of the Twelve Tables from the 5th century BC stipulated that a father could sell his son into bondage three times before losing authority over him. Children were also used to settle debts. One wine merchant, unable to repay powerful creditors, reportedly had all of his children taken as slaves.

Abandonment was another legally accepted option. “Rejected” infants were often left at public spots, notably the so-called Columna Lactaria—the “milk column.” Its purpose remains debated: it might have been a destitute mother’s charity spot, a registry for wet nurses, or even a ritual site for offerings to “sober Mercury.” Abandoned babies often perished or were enslaved and sometimes even maimed for begging.

Infants born with defects were seen as omens and condemned to death. Seneca notes that Romans drowned children born weak or deformed. Strabo observed that Egyptians, by contrast, raised even illegitimate and disabled children. Rome's earliest legislation—possibly dating to Romulus’s era—allowed infanticide of malformed children under age three if five neighbors attested to their defects. These harsh measures remained part of Roman law through Justinian’s era.

Even the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were subjects of this brutal reality. Their great-uncle Amulius, having usurped power, ordered the twins cast into the Tiber. Thanks to the river’s swollen waters, they floated to safety and were eventually found and raised.

In Imperial Rome, a "childfree" ideology was surprisingly widespread. Many Romans—especially the wealthy—viewed children as burdens that hindered the pleasures of life. Exotic animals increasingly replaced children in affluent households.

In Plautus’s comedy The Braggart Soldier, the character Periplectomenus debates this issue during a lavish feast. He insists that freedom is preferable to the responsibilities of fatherhood. He argues: “Relatives jockeying for an inheritance can be more trouble than children themselves.”
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