"Abhijit Menon-Sen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origen
Wow. Self-castration was a capital crime under Roman law?
For reasons political, economic, moral, and religious (not necessarily in
that order). The moral/religious reasons originated with barring Roman
citizens from priesthood in the cult of Cybele (until Claudius, I believe) -
priests were all self-mutilated eunuchs. Domitian decreed castration a
capital offence ostensibly because the demand for eunuchs had grown so high
that unscrupulous slave traders were going overboard and flooding the
market. Interestingly, until this point, castration had only been a crime
under 'Jus Civile', i.e., when performed on citizens - 'foreign' castrati
were perfectly legal. Later on, Hadrian reinforced the universal ban, but
also included circumcision under the definition of castration, which
understandably stirred up issues with his Jewish subjects, and was one of
the reasons for the 'Second Jewish Revolt' under Bar-Kokhba.
In contrast, suicide was perfectly legal through Roman history until well
after the fall of the western empire.
cheers,
Divya
