Note 174 — Chapter XI · SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION.

Plutarch, Solon, c. 23: compare c. 13. The statement in Sextus Empiricus (Pyrrhon. Hypot. iii, 24, 211), that Solon enacted a law permitting fathers to kill (φονεύειν) their children, cannot be true, and must be copied from some untrustworthy authority: compare Dionys. Hal. A. R. ii, 26, where he contrasts the prodigious extent of the patria potestas among the early Romans, with the restrictions which all the Greek legislators alike,—Solon, Pittakus, Charondas,—either found or introduced: he says, however, that the Athenian father was permitted to disinherit legitimate male children, which does not seem to be correct.

Meier (Der Attische Prozess, iii, 2, p. 427) rejects the above-mentioned statement of Sextus Empiricus, and farther contends that the exposure of new-born infants was not only rare, but discountenanced as well by law as by opinion; the evidence in the Latin comedies to the contrary, he considers as manifestations of Roman, and not of Athenian, manners. In this latter opinion I do not think that he is borne out, and I agree in the statement of Schömann (Ant. J. P. Græc. sect. 82), that the practice and feeling of Athens as well as of Greece generally, left it to the discretion of the father whether he would consent, or refuse, to bring up a new-born child.