“Raptam esse mimulam.” Quod dicitur Atinae factum a iuventute, vetere quodam in scenicos iure maximeque oppidano. O adolescentiam traductam eleganter! cui quidem cum, quod licuerit, obiiciatur, tamen id ipsum falsum reperiatur.
“A little mime-actress is said to have been raped.” It’s said that this was done at Atina by a group of youths, using a certain old custom allowed at the scenic games, especially in country towns. What an honorably-conducted young manhood! He is reproached with something he was permitted to do, and yet that very reproach is found to be baseless.
- Cicero defending a rapist’s ‘character’
While Julius Caesar would later pass a law unambiguously demanding the death penalty for all rapists of free individuals, this poor girl was about ten years too early to be served justice by the law.
TIL that rape is a “certain old custom.”
I know that Germany only made rape inside the marriage a crime in 1997. And some conservatives argued against it with your words: it is an old custom/tradition.
Oh and one of those assholes that voted against criminalizing it has good chances to be chancellor next year. Great country I’m living in.
It’s not atypical for traditional cultures to have “courtship” customs and rituals that don’t stand up to modern ideas about consent.
Well, yeah.
Droit du seigneur comes to mind.
Y’all that think 2024 is a fucked up time really should have paid attention in history class and done some of your own reading.
Reason number #476 to hate Cicero
The past might not be so rosy, but the same occurance might happen today. And I wouldn’t evem be surprised.
