What do Moses, Ishmael, Romulus and Remus, Oedipus, Cyrus the Great, Sargon, Gilgamesh, and Hou Chi (a founder of the Chou Dynasty) have in common? They were all exposed as infants -- abandoned by their parents and left to the elements. The image of a helpless baby dying alone of cold, hunger, and predation is a potent tug on the heartstrings, so it is not surprising that a rise from infant exposure to dynastic greatness found its way into the mythologies of Jewish, Muslim, Roman, Greek, Persian, Akkadian, Sumerian, and Chinese civilizations. But the ubiquity of the exposure archetype is not just a lesson in what makes for a good story arc. It is also a lesson on how common infanticide was in human history. From time immemorial, parents have abandoned, smothered, strangled, beaten, drowned, or poisoned many of their newborns.

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