ABSTRACT
Greek legislation exposing disabled babies In the Theaitetos, Plato compares the testing and scrutinizing of one of Theaitetos’ ideas to an examination of a new-born infant, a woman’s first child, and it being taken away from its
mother after such an examination if found ‘not worthy to be reared’ (161a; all translations are the author’s). As required by the proposed legislation of Plato’s utopia in the Republic (Politeia), babies who were born disabled (anapēron) were to be disposed of secretly, so that their fate would be unknown to others. In this way, ‘the purity (katharos) of the Guardians [who govern the state] will be preserved’ (Republic 460c). Such a law was clearly modelled on Sparta’s customs (see below), Plato’s debt to which is clear throughout the Republic and the Laws, as well as, presumably, to the customary practice of Athens. No law at Athens protected the rights of the new-born infant and no child was legitimate until the father acknowledged this in the ceremony of the household ritual of the Amphidromia. He carried the infant around the household hearth, naming it, legitimizing it and transforming it into a proto-citizen (Laes 2014: 366-9, esp. 367; Dillon 2015). Killing a baby after this ceremony would presumably be punishable by law, as a case of child-murder.
