The birth of a child in the house of a Greek or a Roman was not necessarily a subject for rejoicing.

If the father, when the child was first shown to him, stooped down and took it in his arms, it was received as a member of the family; if he left it unnoticed then it was doomed to death, and was exposed in some lonely or barren place to the mercy of the wild beasts, or of the first passer by.

And even if a child escaped this fate, yet for the first seven or eight years of life he was kept in the gynaeceum, or women's apartments, and rarely or never saw his father's face.

No halo of romance or poetry was shed over those early years.

Until the child was full grown the absolute power of life or death rested in his father's hands; he had no freedom, and met with little notice.