At Athens infanticide was especially common. Aristophanes refers to it in a way that shows it was an accepted practice. The first poet of humanity, Euripides, dwells at great length, in the story of Ion, on the exposure of an infant toward the end of the fifth century; and in “The Phœnician Maidens,” he has Jocasta tell the story of the exposure of Œdipus[293]:
Enter Jocasta.
... and when our babe was born,
Ware of his sin, remembering God’s word,
He gave the bane to herdmen to cast forth
In Hera’s Mead upon Cithæron’s ridge,
His ankles pierced clear through with iron spikes,
Whence Hellas named him Swell-foot—Œdipus.
But Polybus’ horse-tenders found him there,
And bare him home, and in their mistress’ hands