Si pater filium ter venum duit, filius a patre liber esto—if a father sells his son three times, let the son then go free of the father. In other words, three times did the father have the right to dispose of his son as a slave; and, while a slave might purchase his freedom, by paying his master, the son of a Roman citizen did not become free until the father had abused his right and misused the potestas three times.[330]
One sees the Rome of the Republic in the plays of Terence and Plautus, and the attitude of the parents toward exposure is vividly shown in the Heautontimorumenos of the former.
Nearly always the exposed child died. Occasionally some escaped through the tenderness or cupidity of some passer-by who would pick up an exposed child either out of pity or for the material profit that came with the possession.
Sometimes mothers who were obliged to obey the orders of their husbands, arranged to have their children rescued. The comedy of Terence goes to show what the attitude of the father was under such circumstances. It is indeed, as De Gour says, “a chapter of the morals of the Greeks and Romans seen in action.”
Chremes, departing on a long voyage, orders his wife, Sostrata, who is about to have a child, to expose the child if it should turn out to be a girl. In obeying this order, she hopefully places a ring with the child.
Years later she meets the child at a bath and is given (by her own daughter) a ring to guard. Sostrata recognizes the ring and when she sees her husband the following dialogue ensues:
Sos. (turning ’round). Ha! my husband!
Chrem. Ha! my wife!
Sos. I was looking for you.
Chrem. Tell me what you want.