There was no idea of “equality” in that world. Things were very different for the rich and powerful — the 1 percent, as we might call them today. The 99 percent were their toys, legally speaking. The pagan world had no notion of “human rights” — no idea that a human being was a person who was somehow sacred just because he was human. So life could

Every other nation, every other empire, every other kingdom, every other people — the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Greeks, the Romans — routinely killed their young. Plato and Aristotle commended abortion and infanticide. As the philosopher Seneca said, getting rid of useless children was simply the reasonable thing to do.

abortion and even infanticide were commonplace in the culture, requiring little deliberation.

For the most part, traditional Roman religion centered on civic duty — those who participated were not held to a code of morality or required to hold certain beliefs. The priests of the Roman cults were not concerned with what you did behind closed doors, as long as you kept to a minimum level of public decorum and an acceptable level of patriotic

Why would you have “rights” just because you were born? You had rights if you were somebody important

Julius Caesar claimed to be descended from the gods, and when he died, the Roman Senate proclaimed him divine. Once he was declared to be a god, his nephew and heir, Augustus, claimed to be the son of a god. This trend continued until it came to a high point at the end of the first century with the emperor Domitian, who demanded to be called, “lord

Christians and Killing

It takes a real effort of the imagination for us to see the world the way it was in ancient Rome. We have to abandon all our notions of equal rights under the law. In that day and age, there was only a small minority who had rights — Roman citizens.

A man did not “have a child.” He “took a child.” The father “raised up” the child by picking the child up off the floor.