Child Exposure

In a distressingly common practice, unwanted newborns could be exposed to the elements in isolated locations and left to die. This might have shocked the sensibilities but was not considered a crime. In some cases, this was done for a baby who was deformed or sickly. In some cases, a family was too poor to care for a child because there were already too many mouths to feed. In some cases, they got a girl when they wanted a boy. And in some cases, an attempt was made to avoid the horrible fate that was foretold if the child were allowed to grow to adulthood.
Fortunately for the children, if not for their fates, this task was often assigned to a servant or shepherd who didn't have the heart to go through with the deed. The child was either given to another family or raised by the person assigned to carry out the exposure, or sometimes was abandoned by suckled by a wild animal. Somehow, in the best known stories, the child survives.

Examples

• Perseus - Foretold to be the killer of his grandfather, who first went to drastic lengths to prevent his conception, and then locked his daughter and grandson in a wooden chest which he tossed into the sea. They were rescued by fishermen, and Perseus was raised in the fishing community.
• Atalanta - Abandoned on a mountaintop by a father who had wanted a son instead of a daughter, suckled by a she-bear until discovered and raised by hunters.
• Oedipus - Foretold to be the destruction of his family, stabbed through the feet to make sure he never had a chance, but was passed to the childless royal family of another kingdom where he grew up, ignorant of his true parentage until it was too late.
• Paris - Foretold to be the destruction of Troy, given to a huntsman, left in the wilderness but suckled by a she-bear. Subsequently rediscovered by the herdsman and raised by him.
• Ion - Abandoned by his mother, given to a priestess of Apollo, raised in Delphi until he could be adopted by a father chosen by fate.