Infanticide was so much the rule among the ancient Greeks and Romans that their families were typically small and rarely included more than one daughter. Girls were especially destined for disposal, typically by exposing them to the elements, or to wild animals, in fields, forests or dung heaps.

Plato, who believed that the ideal family consisted of one boy and one girl to maintain a stable population, favored exposing children deemed unfit because their parents were seen as inferior. Aristotle also argued to cull the population to produce superior stock. “Two sons are not uncommon, three occur now and then, but more than one daughter was practically never reared,” wrote Jack Lindsay, author of The Ancient World. “Of 600 families from second-century inscriptions at Delphi, one percent raised two daughters.”