In the ancient world, an extreme form of revenge is to kill your enemy’s children. It’s worse than killing your enemy, since your enemy remains alive to suffer at the loss. The story most people would be familiar with is the drama Medea, in which a foreign wife spurned kills her own children in order to strike a blow against her Greek husband, before then also killing his new bride. A more extreme version of this kind of revenge is mentioned in Herodotus and also in the Bible, where an enemy’s children (in Herodotus it’s Harpagus, a Mede) are killed, cooked, and then served up at dinner to the enemy without his or her foreknowledge.
This is a well-written recounting, and should have a wider audience. somehow....
Thanks for doing this.
What a great story! Had no idea of all that background. And justice triumphs in the end.